We're taking a quick break...

Hi! This is Helen Mayer, the founder and CEO of Otter.

For the past year and a half, we've been committed to providing on-demand, last-minute care that met the standards we have for our own kids. I’m proud of the care we facilitated, grateful to the families who trusted us with their care needs, and grateful to the sitters who trusted us to match them with families. Despite our efforts, we struggled to reach new families and we’ve concluded that the market opportunity for on demand childcare is too small to sustain our business so we've decided to shut down our on demand care product.

I’m a mom to twins who are now 5 years old and I started Otter during the pandemic because I wanted to help parents who were struggling to find safe, affordable childcare. Three years in, I still care deeply about building solutions that make parents’ lives easier, help kids receive great care, and help caregivers earn what they deserve. We’ve been talking to parents who use Otter and have learned a lot about their care needs beyond date nights and gap care. Many of them have asked us to build ways to find recurring care, including nannies, after school sitters, and part time sitters.

I’m excited to share that we've decided to work towards solving these needs. As we start building a new care platform, we’d really love to hear about your care experience. These conversations will help us make the next version of Otter even better. If you can spare 15 minutes, we’d love to talk to you! You can book time with us here.