Sitter City Sample Press Kit

SITTERCITY PRESS KIT facts • story • press • bio • awards SITTERCI TY P R E SS K IT FACT SHEET FOUNDER AND CEO ESTABLISHED HEADQUARTERS Genevieve Thiers 2001 213 West Institute Place Suite 504 Chicago, IL 60610 888.SIT.CITY www.sittercity.com info@sittercity.com www.sittercity.com/press.html Hundreds of thousands of sitters & half a million users nationwide Companies such as FOX Networks, Monster Worldwide, Avon, MasterCard and more. Nationwide PHONE SITE EMAIL MEDIA RESOURCES USERS CORPORATE USERS MARKETS SERVICES Sittercity.com provides parents and sitters with a central location to find each other quickly, safely and easily. Both parents and sitters create detailed online profiles and can search the site for matches using more than 40 search criteria. Parents can also post unlimited jobs for sitters, obtain references from sitter profiles and follow our four-step screening process to hire a quality caregiver. Both sitters and parents may request background checks, read and post reviews for each other, and use tools like our interactive Rate Calculator to determine fair pay and our Interactive Babysitter Cheat Sheet to prepare their babysitter. CARE TYPES Babysitters, nannies, petsitters, housesitters, senior care providers and tutors. COST Sitter registration is FREE. For parents, there are two billing options: $39.99 for the first month and $9.99/month thereafter, or $7.99/month billed in the one-time annual sum ($95.88). THE SITTERCITY STORY SITTERCITY P R E SS K IT For decades, parents across America have been turning down invitations left and right for the same reason: "I can't find a sitter." These hardworking, once-independent adults have declined dinner parties with friends, work parties to impress the boss – even dates with each other, slashing all hopes of rekindling the romance that got them to be parents in the first place. In 2001, parents began to get their lives back when Genevieve Thiers launched Sittercity.com, connecting parents with countless sitters in their local areas. THE IDEA IS BORN As a college student in Boston, Thiers worked her way through school babysitting for more than 30 families. One fateful day, Thiers saw a pregnant woman slowing climbing the hundreds of steps to Boston College's upper campus to post flyers for a babysitting job. Horrified, Thiers asked the mother-to-be for the flyers, sent her home and posted them herself. While papering the university, Thiers had an epiphany. What if there was one central place where parents could meet all of the sitters and nannies in that city? And with this, Sittercity was born. BUILDING SITTERCITY Modeling Sittercity.com after online dating websites, Thiers enthusiastically took her idea to investors in 2000. Finding no interested partners, she bought the Sittercity.com domain herself and hired two friends to create the website. To attract babysitters, Thiers printed 20,000 flyers and covered the city of Boston on foot. Not only did she get one too many blisters, she also gained 600 sitters before the site's launch! THE LAUNCH In September 2001, Thiers put the 30 families she sat for in college onto Sittercity.com. On the very first day of the launch, Sittercity received its first outside parent registration – and things exploded from there. Within that first week, gifts of cookies and cakes from thrilled Boston-area parents flooded the Sittercity office, in appreciation for the much-needed service. WORD-OF-MOUTH GROWTH Six months after the launch, Thiers realized the database had spread beyond Boston to Cleveland and New York City. As simple word of mouth was responsible for 76% of its new users, Sittercity watched as word spread throughout the nation. City after city was added to the database, threatening parents nationwide with the loss of their main excuse for missing social outings. BEYOND BABYSITTERS Today, Sittercity serves more than half a million users nationwide in cities all across the country. In addition to babysitters and nannies, Sittercity has expanded the scope of its caregiving services to also feature petsitters, senior caregivers, tutors and housesitters, and also extended its user base to corporations such as FOX Network, Monster Worldwide and more. Sittercity continues to be fueled by its mission to help parents and ther adults get their lives back by banishing “I can't find a sitter” from their vocabularies. SITTERCITY P R E SS K IT SITTERCITY TV PRINT National ABC Bloomberg CBS CNBC CNN E! Fox News NBC PRESS HIGHLIGHTS Regional CN8 - New England KARE - Minneapolis KCPQ - Seattle KDFW - Dallas KDPX - Palm Desert KDVR - Denver KETV - Omaha KING - Seattle KNTV - San Francisco KRIV - Houston KSMQ - Rochester KTVI - St. Louis KWGN - Denver NECN - New England NYI - New York WABC - New York WBBM - Chicago WBNS - Columbus WBZ - Boston WCAU - Philadelphia WCBS - New York WCVB - Boston WDAF - Kansas City WFHM - Cleveland WFLD - Chicago WGN - Chicago WHDH - Boston WKYC - Cleveland WLS - Chicago WMAQ - Chicago WNAC - Providence WNBC - Augusta WNBC - Hartford WNBC - New York WNYW - New York WOFL - Orlando WPIX - New York WTAE - Pittsburgh WTFC - Twin Cities WTIC - Hartford WTMJ - Milwaukee WTTG - Washington D.C. WTTW - Chicago WTVR - Richmond WTVT - Tampa WXIN - Indianapolis Aiken Standard BabyTalk Baltimore Sun Bay State Parent Beacon Journal Better Homes and Gardens Big Apple Parent Magazine Boston College Magazine Boston Globe Boston Herald Chicago Magazine Chicago Parent Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Tribune Child Christian Science Monitor Cleveland Plain Dealer Contra Coasta Times CNBC’s MarketWatch.com Crain’s Chicago Business Daily Herald Des Moines Register Diversity Plus Magazine Divine Caroline Figure First For Women Fit Pregnancy Forbes.com Herald Tribune In-store Marketing Institute Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Ladies Home Journal Minneapolis Star Tribune Modern Bride My City Eats New York Daily News New York Post New York Times Newsday Northwest Daily News Northwestern University Magazine NY Post-Star Parent Planner Parenting Parents Parents and Kids of Eastern MA Philadelphia Inquirer Pink Magazine Pittsburgh Tribune Review Potentials Magazine Pregnancy Magazine Real Simple Redbook San Antonio Express Skirt Magazine Splash Magazine St. Petersburg Times Sun-Sentinel The Index Journal The Journal News The Monitor TIME (50 Coolest Websites) TimeOut NY Kids Today’s Chicago Woman Wall Street Journal Washington Post Working Mother TALK SHOWS CBS Early Show CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch Ellen DeGeneres Show Good Morning America In the Loop with iVillage Life & Style TODAY SHOW RADIO Dava Moms Radio KBKS - Seattle KERA - Dallas KFAI - Minneapolis KSTP - Minneapolis Manic Mommies Radio Martha Stewart Live Mom Talk Radio NPR - The Splendid Table WBBM - Chicago WBIX - Framingham WGN - Chicago WXLO - Worcester SITTERCITY P R E SS K IT GENEVIEVE THIERS What do you get when you cross a former babysitter and a former Big Bird with a professional opera singer, an award-winning entrepreneur and an iVillage babysitting expert? You get Sittercity founder and CEO, Genevieve Thiers, of course. As the oldest of seven children, including two sets of twins, babysitting is in Thiers' blood. While pursuing her undergraduate degree at Boston College, she worked her way through school by babysitting for more than 30 families. Endless diaper changes and bedtime stories later, Thiers pitched the idea for Sittercity.com to Boston investors in 2001. Their response? "We don't fund babysitting clubs." Undaunted, Thiers turned to another "investor," her dad, and begged for $120 to buy the domain name for Sittercity.com. Using part of her salary from her job at IBM, Thiers hired two friends to design the Sittercity website. While they put their technical design skills to use, Thiers spent her days at IBM, her nights singing and getting her master's degree in opera, and all of her free time distributing 20,000 babysitter recruitment flyers across Boston on foot, including 20 local colleges. Years later, Thiers' blisters from those recruitment days have healed and Sittercity, now based in Chicago, has more than half a million users nationwide. This babysitter-turned-entrepreneur has also brought her babysitting expertise to the national media, having appeared as a care expert in multiple television, radio and print outlets including the Today Show (where she even serenaded Mike Leonard!), The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The View, Good Morning America, The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch, the CBS Early Show, CNN, In the Loop with iVillage, Martha Stewart Living Radio, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Redbook, Parents, Parenting, Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens, and Working Mother. In addition to appearing in the national media for her expertise on caregiving, Thiers has also been recognized for her innovative vision and unique business-savvy with several awards. In 2007, Thiers was listed as Forbes Junior Power League and as Crain's 40 under 40 for 2007, recognized by President Bush at the White House as the Small Business Administration Young Entrepreneur Champion of the Year for 2006 and won the Women's Business Development Center Rising Star Award for 2005. Noted for her babysitting expertise and business acumen, Genevieve has spoken at hundreds of entrepreneurial forums, young executive forums, mothers' forums, colleges and conventions across America, and she is a popular keynote speaker. She currently serves as the iVillage babysitting expert, and her first book, Love at First Sit, will appear on shelves in April 2008. She was a featured speaker at Kellogg School of Management in 2007 and has taught classes at Babson College, Boston College, Columbia College Chicago, University of Illinois and has advised various political figures on small business issues, from Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson to Head of SBA Steven Preston to Hillary Clinton. To learn more about Genevieve Thiers and her expert appearances nationwide, please visit www.sittercity.com/press.html. Questions? Contact: Bethany Sirt - 312.324.0752 bethany@sittercity.com SITTERCITY P R E SS K IT SITTERCITY 2007 YOUNG EXECUTIVES CLUB OF CHICAGO YOUNG LEADER AWARD AWARDS/HONORS 2005 WEBBY WORTHY AWARD 2007 UPS “OUT OF THE BOX” FIRST PLACE WINNER 2005 GOLDEN TRUMPET AWARD 2007 FORBES JUNIOR POWER LEAGUE 2005 ENTREPRENEURIAL WOMAN OF THE YEAR RISING STAR AWARD 2007 CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40 2005 STEVIE AWARD: COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR 2007 INTERNATIONAL DAVEY AWARD 2004 TIME’S COOLEST WEBSITES 2006 SBA YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AWARD 2006 FEMTOR EMERGING LEADER FINALIST