Hastay's Greenhouse and Flower Shop: small business report

Hastay's Greenhouse and Flower Shop on 430 N. East Street (517-663-6161) has been growing plants in Eaton Rapids since 1954.  "Doc" Hastay started the greenhouse after mustering out of the Army where he had spent four years chasing missiles around the New Mexico desert. 

The business is now run by Barb and Roger (his kids).  "Doc" still drops in on them to help out.  Doc always has time to tell a story now that the burden of running the place is no longer on his shoulders.

Hastay's has two primary businesses.  The greenhouse side of the business is extremely "lumpy".  Its revenue peaks on Memorial Day weekend while the labor peaks from April-to-June.  Hastay's has approximately 25,000 square feet under glass.  That is a bit more than half an acre.

The Flower Shop is steady.  People keep marrying, getting born and dying.  Mother's Day and Graduation fall on the same weekend this year, so they are extremely busy this week.  Other peaks are at Valentine's day and Christmas.  You can order flowers in-person, over the phone (517)-663-6161 or by internet.

Lumpy business and fixed costs

Lumpy business brings a unique set of business challenges.  It is easy to over-invest in facilities.  "Doc" has a genius for making do.  It may have been something he picked up when he worked in New Mexico.

Examples of growing benches

Plants that are hardy enough to be outside (cabbage, pansies and such) are on benches made of old boiler pipe held up with cinder blocks.  The tarp beneath the benches keep the grass down and keep it airy and light beneath the benches.

Some nursery items are on wooden pallets.  These tend to be the larger, heavier items.  That includes raspberry and rose bushes, and individually potted rhubarb and strawberry plants.  Pallets can be had free for the picking up if you know where to look.

These benches are my favorite.  These benches started out as recycled metal roofing.  Then, after about 10 years, it started to rust through.  Fertilizer is corrosive.  Doc built wooden forms to box in the tops.  He mixed the concrete in a wheelbarrow and humped it into the greenhouse with five gallon buckets.  He filled the boxes with concrete.  After the concrete set, he pried the wooden forms away and reused them.  Concrete is inexpensive and lasts nearly forever.

Most of the benches were made this way.....about 17,000 square feet worth.

This bench is made of snow fence atop a wooden frame.  This bench is holding up alyssum which is a petite, light weight plant.

Lumpy businesses have advantages

One of the advantages of a lumpy business is that there are periods when the owner can invest sweat (and brain) equity into the business. 

The greenhouse was originally configured to support wholesale business.  In 1954, that meant very narrow aisles to maximize the bench space.  Doc built about 8 of these narrow, one wheel carts to move plants and materials in-and-out of the growing space.

Retail sales started in 1960 and they needed more carts.  During the slow time, Doc found a couple of businesses that were liquidating.  They had these very narrow shopping carts.  They are 20" wide.  He picked them up for a song.

How many plants?

That is a tough number to estimate.

Most of the plants are densely packed into "flats".  Hastay's would be able to produce 600,000 seedlings if all of their space was dedicated to flats.

These potted tomato plants are over 4' tall.

Some customers are impatient, or lack confidence or cannot protect smaller plants.

They want plants that are ready to plug-and-play.

Three pieces of advice to new business owners

Roger's three pieces of advice:

• Change your mindset away from the time-clock.  You will not have the luxury of knocking-off work at 4:30 when business is booming.
• Always tell the truth.  We cannot grow a Robert Kincaid, English cottage garden in mid-Michigan.  Our climate cannot support it.  It is better that a customer knows that before they drop $1700 in landscaping.
• Be resourceful.  You will be surprised at the number of ways you can NOT spend money after you put your mind to it (that is where the discussion of plant benches came from).

Barb's four pieces of advice:

• You better love what you are doing. 
• Be prepared to work long hours.
• Be prepared to not have much money.
• Focus on making the customer happy

Bonus advice

I asked Roger if there were any plants that he thought were "cool" but did not get much exposure.

Roger said that Cuphea was pretty cool.  Most modern flowers have been selected for "flatness".  They provide a stunning display when viewed from one direction.

Cuphea is not big or gaudy.  Cuphea is three-dimensional, almost spidery.  It is a flower that benefits from close study.

I asked Barb what her favorite kind of work was.

She said "I like doing funeral arrangements."

I asked her "Why?"

She said "Because it is my chance to give them a final tribute.  I knew most of these people and I am grateful for the chance to honor them one last time."

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Condottiero & Associates, Vocational Case Management (small business report)

There is no company named Condottiero & Associates.  The small business owner I interviewed requested privacy due to the sensitive nature of his work.

Mr Condottiero started Condottiero & Associates when he was fifty-one years old.  He had risen to the ranks in middle management in a firm that assisted insurance companies in "placing" people on Workman's Compensation into jobs.  He was, after 8 years, ready for a change of scenery.  He became an independent "Vocational Case Manager" (VCM).  That was in 1997.  At that time there was much VCM work in Michigan but the competition was fierce because there were more than 125 Vocational Rehabilitation companies in Michigan.

He borrowed money from a family member.  The first six months were tough due to the lag time in the reimbursement process.  Six months after that he was matching his monthly "net" as a wage earner.  He never looked back.

At that time, Vocational Case Managers were independent investigators who were paid by the insurance companies because the laws in the State of Michigan made the employer (or, by proxy, their insurance company) responsible for the rehabilitation of that worker.   The Worker's Compensation laws are very specific to the state where the triggering incident occurred.  Consequently, Mr Condottiero only worked on cases that originated in Michigan.

A case study

---Details changed to protect identities---

A carpenter in northern Michigan in his early thirties fell off the roof off of a two story building.  He was badly injured.  His bones healed.  He went to physical rehab.  His physical capabilities came back slowly, particularly his flexibility.  He continued to experience back pain that prevented him from returning to his previous employment.

Mr Condottiero scheduled an appointment for an initial interview.  That interview took place in the client's home, 115 miles from Eaton Rapids.

His client was a traditional guy.  He was ashamed that his kids came home from school and he was still on the couch just like when they left in the morning.  In fact, the client's eyes teared up.  He wanted to work.  He wanted his kids to grow up with a work ethic.  The carpenter was depressed.  He was simply incapable of looking for a job.  He was not physically capable of being a carpenter.  He could not see himself doing anything else.

Mr Condottiero contacted several businesses in the area inquiring about jobs that might be within his client's capabilities.  He did not tell them that he was attempting to place a Workman's Comp case.  One of the large, non-profit organizations agreed to find a place for him in their resale outlet store.

Mr Condottiero's client initially resented the job because he considered it demeaning.  He started as a greeter, however, quickly became bored and started doing more of the sorting, material handling and working with customers.

The store management noticed his change of attitude and were impressed by his enthusiasm.  He was offered full time employment.

The carpenter ended up as the roving maintenance guy for the non-profit.  He was responsible for several large stores in the area.  It was a major win for the carpenter since most of the work was "inside work", which is a major bonus in northern Michigan during the winter time.

Not all of Mr Condottiero's stories have such happy endings.  But enough of the stories do have happily-ever-after endings to make his work very satisfying. 

Some details about the work

The insurance company typically mailed Mr Condottiero a file with the disabled worker's history and "restrictions".

One gratifying aspect of making accommodations to put a Workman's Comp case back to work is that the accommodations generally made the job easier for everybody and reduced the likelihood of further repetitive motion injuries.

The most desirable solution was to have the disabled worker return to work with his/her original employer.  Many of these shops were small and did not have much expertise in making "accommodations".

Most Vocational Case Managers will assist in re-engineering work spaces to accommodate people with restrictions.  Mr Condottiero enjoyed more freedom working with employers as an independent agent than he did as an employee.  He is more than willing to offer his expertise in modifying the job if the employer is willing to accept that kind of help.

Examples of accommodations might include work benches that are tilted-and-railed so parts naturally slide to be closer to the worker thus minimizing reach. Accommodations might include variable height or tilting stands for stock baskets to minimize bending over and lifting.  Accommodations might include straps or loops tied to overhead tools to minimize above shoulder reaching.  Sometimes the accommodation is as simple as a carpenter's apron to carry fasteners to reduce gripping multiple fasteners (Carpal Tunnel stressor).

If it was not possible to modify existing work to be within the employee's restrictions and there were no jobs within the facility that met the employee's restrictions, the Vocational Case Manager developed lists of jobs within 30 miles that were within the employee's capability.

The VCM also arranged interviews at those jobs for the client.

The Psychology of Disability

In addition to Mr Condottiero's other qualifications, he has a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and a license to practice.  He had some interesting observations regarding the psychology of the various stakeholders.

The claimants cover the enter range of human integrity.  Some are scammers and are simply out to defraud the system.  Most claimants are not scammers.  They want to go back to work but they are scared.   They fear re-injury.  They know they have lost "work hardening", the physical conditioning that results from the physical demands of doing the job five days a week.  They may also be apprehensive about how their bosses and coworkers will receive them.

An additional concern of the claimants is that they will be "...stuck flipping burgers for minimum wage."  Mr Condottiero assures them that getting a good job is like getting a good girlfriend.  It is much easier to get a girlfriend if you are already dating another girl.  There is the presumption of  "there must be something wrong with him" if you are not already seeing someone.   Mr Condottiero assures his clients that good things will happen after they accept the "burger flipping job" and create evidence that they want to work.

Fraud

During the process of writing this essay, I contacted two business bloggers whose work I deeply admire:  Coyote Blog and Of Two Minds.  I asked if there were any questions they would like me to address.  Both bloggers requested that I ask about disability fraud.

Unfortunately, there are people who are successful at defrauding the system.  Figures are not available for Workman's Compensation but there are statistics available for Social Security Disability.  The number of people with active cases has gone up, but so has the percentage of applications that are rejected.

As a frame of reference, there are approximately 110,000,000 households in the United States.  So approximately one in every twelve households has a person receiving Social Security Disability payments.  (This line is too smooth!  It gives the appearance of quotas or targets.---ERJ observation)  Data from Social Security Administration.

The rejection rate for applications steadily rose from 50% in 2000 to more than 67% in 2014.  That is, two out of every three applications for Social Security Disability is rejected.  Data from Social Security Administration.

Increasingly sophisticated medical imaging and standardized evaluation protocols help winnow out many of the fraudulent claims.  Example of a standardized evaluation protocol.  Picture from HERE.

 

If you suspect fraud

You can report Social Security Disability fraud through this website:  https://www.socialsecurity.gov/fraudreport/oig/public_fraud_reporting/form.htm. Confidentiality is one of the options available.

The appropriate venue for reporting Workman's Comp fraud can be quickly found by performing a search with the following keywords "(your state), workers compensation fraud inspector general".  Hint:  It is easy to copy-and-paste the words from this essay into the key-word window of your favorite search engine.

Summary

• It is possible to start a professional services business even if your service is "thinly traded"
• The upside of "thinly traded" is that you are competing against a shallow talent pool.
• Be prepared to travel if your service is thinly traded
• Have a reliable vehicle and a good mechanic
• Charge enough for your services.  Bill for all work done...every phone call, every mile traveled.
• Either hire or start-up support people in their own businesses.  Mr Condottiero hires out accounting, job development and typing.  Mr Condottiero mentored five other people in starting their own businesses as he "spilled" work.  He kept the parts that he enjoyed doing and hires out the parts other people can do better.
• Be flexible.  The Workman's Comp work dried up after some changes in Michigan laws.  He was able to migrate to Social Security Disability consulting because of the thin talent pool for that kind of work.
• Get professional insurance for protection from law suites.
• Most compensation is tied to case load.  Get smart about delegating work.  That allows you to handle a higher case load.  For example, Workman's Comp cases used to net in the neighborhood of $1500-to-$3000 per case.  A Vocational Case Manager could plod along, doing everything they way they always had done things and handle a typical case load of 20-25 cases per year.  Or the VCM could get smart about delegating and handle 60 or more cases per year.

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Bach Steel (small business report)

This week's small business report is on Bach Steel, a small, specialty steel company in Holt, Michigan.  Bach Steel (517-455-4443) was started in 1997 by Nels Raynor after working several years as a steelworker.  Nels knew he was a "hands" guy from a young age because he would spend his entire weekend helping his dad in the ceramics studio.

Due to customer demand, Bach Steel now specializes in the restoration and moving of historic steel bridges and ornamental, wrought iron work.

Ornamental work

A closer look at the detail

Ornamental work is not the largest part of Bach Steel's operation but it has to be one of the most satisfying.

Steel table made with copper rivets.  How do you say Steam-punk cool?

Damascus hearts, just in time for Valentine's day.

Bridge work

Nels will tell you that Bach Steel does restoration.  Their restoration work does not change the visual impact of the bridge in any significant way.  There will not be a bunch of welded on, historically incorrect cross bracing.  But the bridges will be safer and, in many cases, moved to new locations and "repurposed".

Nearly all of these photos are from the Bach Steel website, with Nels Raynor's permission.

This photo came from a gallery that has many pictures of the rigging used to move bridges.

This is not an office job.  Picture from this gallery.  This bridge is in Portland, Michigan.

Eyebars are one of the most critical components of "structurally determinant" truss bridges.  The lower ends tend to have more corrosion due to poultice accumulation and they stay wet longer.  This end has been bead blasted and rough ground to open up areas of crevice corrosion.  This will be filled with weld metal and ground flush.

Different part, same bridge showing how weld metal is used to build the section back up.  This picture and the picture shown above are from this gallery.

Sometimes the eyebars are too far gone to save.  No problem.  He will just forge new ones.  This is from a bridge that was restored in Robertson County, Texas.  Gallery here.

Bach Steel does penetrant testing for cracks.  Most of the bridges he restores were built between 1870 and 1900.  They used hand forged, wrought iron eyebars.  Those weld seams show up as a crack on ultra sound testing or magnafluxing because of the silicon inclusions in the joint. It takes experience to know if an anomaly is a fatigue crack or an artifact of the production technology.

Mr Raynor estimates that restoring a bridge adds another 50 years to the bridge's functional life.  There nothing wrong with the design of these bridges.  After all, the youngest bridges Bach Steel restores are 115 years old.  All they need is some tender, loving care.

One point that Mr Raynor is passionate about is the use of wrought iron in some of the critical applications.  Wrought iron is very high in elemental silicon.  Modern steels use oxygen to burn off the carbon and silicon...then alloying agents are added back in.  With the exception of a few grades of tool steel (O6 and S5, for example) modern steels have very little silicon in them.

Silicon modifies the oxide coating on the steel.  The oxide does not become rust, but rather, clings to the base metal in a dense coating that resists further corrosion and pitting.  In a sense, wrought iron is a dark form of stainless steel.

As a steelworker who specializes in historic bridge restoration, he is very conscious of just how good wrought iron is for exposed, structural applications.  115 years of corrosion leaves a mark.  You can see what lasts and what does not.  He also knows that there are not that may people out there who are comfortable working with wrought iron or have the expertise to hand-forge custom hardware.

A critical part of bridge restoration involves rebuilding the roller nest.  A hundred foot span of bridge will change in length by 1.5" between winter and summer.  Depending on the arch of the road, loads can also cause the length of the bridge to change.  Note that this shoe and roller nest were constructed with vintage correct hot rivets.  Photo from this gallery.

The other end of the bridge rests on something that looks like this.  Note, this photo is not from Bach Steel.

Bridge Reuse

The greenest way to recycle something is to reuse it in its original application with minimal "reprocessing".  There are many, perhaps hundreds, of historic bridges that are available for repurposing.  In some cases they were too narrow to meet increasing traffic.  In others, there were concerns about the pounding they would receive from commercial trucking.  They are still more than sufficient for pedestrian, passenger vehicle and light truck use.

WAY cooler than pink flamingos!  Yes.  You could have one of these in your yard.

Bach Steel (517-455-4443) provides an excellent essay HERE on how to get your very own historic bridge.

If the science of structural failures interests the reader, Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail is a very good read of real-life failures in the field.

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Barriers to Entry and Natural Monopolies

One way to assess a business opportunity is to weigh the market's barriers-to-entry and any natural monopolies the new business might enjoy.

Barriers-to-entry

Barriers-to-entry make it difficult for new players to enter a market.  They allow the businesses that are already serving the market to charge higher prices than might otherwise be the case.

Most businesses require some degree of investment to enter a market.  Sometimes those investments are purely financial.  Other times those investments include sweat equity like getting a medical degree of some other form of certification.  Sometimes it is a matter of physical gifts like beauty or being physically fit.

Some of those investments can be recovered when the participant leaves the market.  You might be able to recover ninety cents on the dollar for certain types of equipment like injection molding machines.  It would be even smarter, of course, to lease that kind of equipment.  Recoverable investments are porous barriers to business entry provided credit is available and accountants can perform simple math.

Other investments are lost.  A medical degree loses much of its value if the degree holder enters a businesses outside of medicine.  Sports apparel branded with the losing Superbowl contestant has little value.  Investments that cannot be recovered are barriers that are supremely effective at limiting the entry of new supplies into a market.

Often, barriers-to-entry are a legacy of the guild system which sought to integrate an orderly supply of well trained artisans, the needs of the market, maintain institutional knowledge and the desire to maintain a fee structure.  A mathematical modeler would call this a damped response, much like the shock absorbers on your truck.  Damping a response reduces or eliminates overshoot at the cost of a slower response time.  The elimination of supply overshoot helps avoid price wars and the resulting business death spirals.

For reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay, local and Federal government agencies run in parallel with the guild system (now called "Unions").  That results in the business person attempting to serve multiple masters:  The customer, the guild and the government.  It is a case of the proverbial "One foot on the dock and the other foot planted in the canoe."  It is not a comfortable place to be.

One ramification of this triad of masters is that the lack of coherence between them makes it impossible to perform meaningful business planning.  Perhaps even more toxic to business formation is lack of coherence within a cluster of masters.  Consider a business regulator who sends different inspectors to a work site.  They will tie the business owner into knots if they cite the owner for wildly differing infractions.

Another risk that is inherent in external regulation is the gravitational pull for governmental agencies to become "activist".  It is an inflationary mindset.  You are falling behind if you are not moving forward.

Natural Monopolies

A natural monopoly is a specific type of barrier-to-entry.  Natural monopolies allow businesses to charge higher prices than would otherwise be the case.

Rail map, mid-West.  Image from HERE

Natural monopolies come in a wide range of flavors.  Many are geographic.  Some areas are blessed with hydroelectric potential, other places can grow lemons,  still other places are blessed with good harbors, navigable rivers and others (like Chicago) are located where natural features funnel traffic.

Some natural monopolies are created by the nature of the product.  Some products are very perishable.  Raspberries are fragile.  The root-balls of large shade trees are both heavy and fragile.    Iron ore, coal and limestone are heavy and bulky. Children don't always transport well.

Consequently, fertile soil near sophisticated populations are wonderful places for growing tender, gourmet foods.  Tracts of land that will be subdivided in 8-to-15 years are wonderful places to establish nurseries for shade trees.  Pittsburgh was a great place to smelt iron.  And there is a need for daycares near employers, schools and in bedroom communities to minimize incremental travel with the wee-ones on board.

Image from HERE

Another form of natural monopoly involves intellectual property.  The bronze casting guild had the institutional knowledge of how to mix clay, sand and flour to make the molds.  They knew how to bake the mold to drive out moisture before pouring the molten metal.  They knew how to mix different base metals to produce alloys with the desired characteristics.  It was simply more efficient to go to the bronze caster for your belt buckles and spear points than to try to reinvent that knowledge on your own.  This is less of a factor than it used to be as we have a much better understanding of the science of reverse-engineering.

A third form of natural monopoly occurs when a single business is able to saturate the market.  A town may be large enough to support one florist.  A second florist would cause both to fail unless the second florist was subsidized by outside resources.

Image from HERE

For reasons that are difficult to understand, bars and churches seem to be immune to the saturation effect.  It may be that sinners find solace in the fact that we are sharing the same laundry basket with the same kind of dirty laundry.

Image from HERE

A fourth kind of monopoly involves breaking into a family business. One might think one could marry into "family".  However, it did not do Carlo Rizzi or Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law any good.

Jean's Tot Spot (small business report)

Jean's Tot Spot (517-663-6959) is a registered, home based daycare in Eaton Rapids.  Jean's Tot Spot has been in business since 1993 but this is not Jean's first business.  Her first "daycare" involved watching the children of her fellow members in the First United Methodist Women's Choir.

She worked in two different daycare facilities while taking Early Childhood Development classes.  She struck off on her own shortly after she had her first child.  Tuition at the daycare where she worked would have left her with $80 a week with just one child enrolled.

Jean is a woman of steadfast loyalty.  She still sings in the First Methodist Women's Choir and she still watches children in Eaton Rapids.  She took those Early Childhood classes to heart.  She runs an activity-based.  The children learn and are socialized by performing activities together.

All pictures shown with parents' permission.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  Kinetic memory and these kids have the book memorized speedy-quick.  It is cute watching the littlest ones puzzle out which black squiggles go to the words in their heads.

I see a Beagle, a Turtle and a swimming pool.  What do you see?  They learn sharing and cooperation because there are a limited number of large-format pieces of chalk.

Move over Todd Rundgren.  That musical-choir thing carried over to daycare.  The percussion instruments are mounted at all different heights so even the "little" kids can get into the act.

Jean's philosophy is to give the kids what the parents wish they had the time, energy and facilities to give them.  Jean configured her home and yard to be very easy to clean.  The kids are kept busy.  They get sweaty, grimy...and they get quite a workout.  Like their parents, they are ready for some downtime like watching TV (which is a rare activity at Jean's Tot Spot) when they get home.  No clamoring, needy kids yanking on their exhausted parents after they come home from Jean's!

Going to the zoo-zoo-zoo.  How about you-you-you?  Did you know giraffes have tongues that are 20 inches long?  They are very popular in certain circles.

Competition

Jean welcomes competition.  Actually, there is not enough daycare capacity in most communities.

Civilian Labor Force Participation by Women.  The US economic miracle rode on the backs of working women.   In many cases, large mortgages and broken families made working mandatory.

While there are few barriers to entering the "watching kids" industry, there are also few barriers to leaving it.

Jean mentors daycare start-ups.  She tells the prospective business women (so far, always women) what they are getting into.  The kids will throw up on them, poop on them, wipe their noses on them.  The kids will bring in head-lice and every virus wafting through town.  The business owner will get sick a lot for the first couple of years but then have the immune system of a sewer rat.

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning.

Paperwork.  Get good at paperwork.  You cannot avoid it so become efficient.  Regulatory paperwork.  Tax paperwork.  Jean is willing to share her "system" with start-ups so they don't have to invent one from scratch.

Planning activities.  Kids have shorter attention spans than adults.  An adult might be content to have two activities to amuse themselves over eight hours, kids want eight or eighteen activities.  This is where it is advantageous to be an old-timer.  Jean has shelves and shelves of games, toys, puzzles etc. at kid height.

Hint:  Jean takes the kids to garage and yard sales with her.  It is a very enriching activity for the kids and they see each sale as a separate "activity".  Jean pays attention to what is grabbing each child's interest.  It is a fabulous way to pick up games/toys/puzzles at a reasonable cost.  They get cleaned before they are put on the shelf.

Low pay.  Don't expect to get rich. At least not with money.  You will grow some wonderful relationships with the kids and their families.

A little bit of downtime.  Reading to the dogs.  Peanut the Jack Russel is "meshmerized" by Spiderman.  Fermata the Beagle is a tougher critic...if it isn't Peter Rabbit or Velveteen Rabbit it is not literature.

"Jean.  I said I wanted a G-T-O, not a goat."  Jean is very involved in 4-H.  Many of her kids go on to show animals at the county fair. 

Vacations are a challenge.  Jean informs her "parents" of her vacation plans a year in advance.

Jean also has a three back-ups for things like jury duty and family emergencies.  One of those back-ups is her mother.  The other two back-ups are non-family.

Jean loves County Fairs.  And so do the kids. 

That only looks like a table cloth.  It is really a birthday card.  A BIG birthday card.

You don't have to attend a University to study Physics and Keynesian Economics.

 

Security

Jean is not oblivious to security measures.  Anybody who works with kids must be sensitive to potential custody issues and the fact that there are two legged predators who prey on kids.  She shared some of her security measures with me to share with readers.

Her facility has double doors, "air lock" style, keyless lock entry.

She has dogs.  She loves animals and has always had dogs (plural) around.

She has closed circuit TV.  She originally got the system so she could see parents as they showed up to pick up their children.  She could start getting them bundled up as the parents pulled in the drive.

Jean does not need a fancy sign.  Most of Jean's business finds her by word-of-mouth.  She is full until June when she will have two "graduates".  She is more than happy to make referrals to like-minded daycare providers in the Eaton Rapids area.  Jean's Tot Spot, 517-663-6959

The typical person driving by her house at 45 mph cannot tell it is a daycare.

Her signage is very low key. 

The backyard has privacy fencing.  People driving by cannot see the play equipment, nor can they tell if any kids are outside at any given time.

She has an emergency scanner.  Her husband is a fire fighter and the scanner is something they both listen to.  She also carries her cell phone on her person.  She is three minutes from the police station  and four minutes from the hospital.  Both time estimates comprehending warp-factor speed.

Summary

Daycare needs in most communities is under-served.

Providing daycare is a relentless task if you do not love the company of kids.  Most people who go into daycare with the expectation that it is "easy money" leave it within a few years.  

There are good daycares out there with openings but they are typically new providers breaking into the business.

Many experienced providers are willing to share the names of newer providers who provide a similar style of daycare care.  A few even provide "mentoring" to new start-ups.

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