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CASE STUDY

How Lightbridge Academy Streamlined the Path to Better Child (And Parent) Care

Guy and his wife Julia set up Lightbridge Academy in 1997—just two decades later, the couple boasts a whopping 15 company-owned child care centers and 38 franchises across 8 states. Plus, over 80 additional Lightbridge Academy franchises have been sold and are in the process of opening. Read how LineLeader by ChildcareCRM helps Lightbridge retain families with ease.

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Lightbridge Academy
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When we started up, there was a lot of racial and social unrest going on in our community… I decided that I wanted to have a business that met two main requirements. One requirement is it was not gonna be a bureaucracy. It was going to be a happy environment. And second, we wanted it to welcome everybody. Our concept was: everybody is welcome under the rainbow.

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Guy Falzarano
CEO & Founder at Lightbridge Academy

If you’ve been in the ECE space for long, you’ve heard of Guy Falzarano. 

As one half of the powerhouse behind Lightbridge Academy, Guy is known for his business tenacity and super-human dedication to top-quality child care. 💪🏼 

Guy and his wife Julia set up Lightbridge Academy in 1997—just two decades later, the couple boasts a whopping 15 company-owned child care centers and 38 franchises across 8 states. Plus, over 80 additional Lightbridge Academy franchises have been sold and are in the process of opening.

That’s 133 centers in just 23 years. 

For Guy, Lightbridge’s success comes down to three things: 

  1. Determination 
  2. A focus on inclusion
  3. Great technology

We wanted to know more about Guy and the team’s magic ingredients, so we caught up with them to chat about all things Lightbridge, and discover exactly how they continue to grow, no matter what.

133

Center Locations

1997

Year Started

The Lightbridge Story: From one strip mall child care center to a multi-million-dollar franchise

Lightbridge’s story started with a series of silver lining events. 

After deciding he was done with the bureaucracy of working in a large corporation, Guy realized it was time to take the plunge and left a high-level job to set up his own business. 

“Fortunately or unfortunately, that crashed and burned in a year and a half. I'm gonna say, fortunately it crashed and burned because that was how we ultimately came to Lightbridge Academy,” says Guy.  “At that point we had no means of support… We were at a pretty low place. And my wife Julia says, ‘Why don't we open up a little preschool?’”

And the rest is history. 

It didn’t take long for Lightbridge to get up and running. With Guy’s marketing background, they already had the key that helped them get to 54% capacity from day one.

I go out and I start marketing, I start building relationships with local businesses—just going out and talking to them about what our concept was all about, and trying to get them to think of us when they made recommendations to people in their circles. It started to work,” explains Guy.

Guy Falzarano, CEO & President
Lightbridge Academy

With LineLeader by ChildcareCRM, Lightbridge

  • Streamlines communication with families.
  • Builds a high-quality family experience.
  • Innovates with new technology.

Guy Falzarano’s three secret ingredients for success

But for Guy, the real secret to success was to create a three-pronged pathway that would lead to a business he could be proud of. 

That meant incorporating inclusion, technology and good old fashioned determination. 

Let’s break it down: 

#1— The fence is uncomfortable, don’t sit on it

When it comes to succeeding, Guy’s always known it takes grit. 

“If you want to succeed, don't hesitate over decisions. Find out all the facts, get as much information as you possibly can, make a decision, and move on.” 

And above all, don’t sit on the fence. 

“I attribute sitting on the fence, to a very painful place to sit. Imagine a picket fence with concertina wire on the top. There you are sitting on top of that, and it's agony. Either go on one side or the other, but don't sit there,” he laughs. 

But he’s only half-kidding. Guy’s tenacity has set him a league above the rest from the beginning, so it’s no wonder determination is a key part of his pathway to success.  

“Life is a journey,” he says, “And you're on a path, and boulders are gonna be thrown in your way. You have to find a way, to get over that boulder, under it, around it, through it, whatever it takes. You have to be persistent, and you have to keep going, and never quit. And as long as you never quit, you will succeed.”

#2— Shine the spotlight on inclusion

For Guy, Lightbridge Academy’s other key ingredient has always been inclusion. 

From the beginning, he wanted to build a unique child care center—one that provided a safe space for everyone, no matter their background.  

Guy’s first step in that direction was to hire a diverse range of employees.

“I wanted our staff to be representative of the community, so we had everybody. We had African-Americans, Caucasians, Asian-Indians, Russians, everybody was represented in that staff. Because I wanted to draw everybody in the community in. And it worked,” he says.

Guy knew he needed to get everyone in the Lightbridge community on the same page, and like any good businessman, he knew that came down to their values. And that’s where their unique Circle of Carephilosophy comes in.

“The Circle of Care is made up of five stakeholders with the child in the center, and the four stakeholders around them being the parents, the employees, the owners or the franchisees, and the community. Every one of those stakeholders are viewed as being equally important. A lot of our competitors would look at the situation and say, the child [or the parent, or the employee] is the most important thing. I say, baloney. Because you need everybody to be treated equally,” says Guy.

When we started up, there was a lot of racial and social unrest going on in our community… I decided that I wanted to have a business that met two main requirements. One requirement is it was not gonna be a bureaucracy. It was going to be a happy environment. And second, we wanted it to welcome everybody. Our concept was: everybody is welcome under the rainbow.

Guy Falzarano, CEO & President
Lightbridge Academy 

"The place we want our employees to be is greeting parents and in the classrooms, coaching teachers and being with children. But because there were such a multitude of tech platforms, there was a lot of admin work. So, we needed something new to integrate these as much as possible, so employees could focus more time on relationship building."

Gigi Schweikert, CEO of Holdings
Lightbridge Academy 

#3— Lead the way with technology

Since the early days of Lightbridge Academy, Guy and his team have been leaders in ECE technology. 

For them, it’s all about utilizing tech to create a stellar customer experience. 

“We've been leaders in using technology to bring people together. A lot of our competitors have put in the same technology now, but they put it in to catch up. We put it in to keep parents connected, and parents love it.” 

Here’s how Lightbridge Academy uses tech to connect with parents every day: 

  • Let parents into the classroom, no matter where they are: Since 1998, Lightbridge has used a system called Parent View, which allows parents to log in and watch their children in class via a live camera. “Other ECE centers say, ‘We are transparent, you can trust us.’ But we say, ‘We are transparent, you can watch us,” says Guy.
  • Use a child care management system to connect with parents: The leading ECE franchise uses a smart child care management system to elevate their teacher-parent connections to the highest level (more on this later 😉). “Teachers have iPads, they can track developmental milestones, they send pictures to parents. That's a great way for parents to stay connected,” explains Guy.
  • Improve safety with tech-led security: Lightbridge puts parents at ease by maximizing child safety with tech. Guy tells us, “We have facial recognition door access. It releases the lock on the door and even logs people in.”

But although their commitment to tech definitely helped Lightbridge connect with parents, the team soon realized they needed to streamline their systems if they wanted to really step up and support their teachers.

Staff empowerment was a goal that Gigi Schweikert, CEO of Lightbridge Academy Holdings, was determined to reach.

Evolving the customer experience with exceptional child care management software

It was Guy’s dedication to customer experience that made him realize the need to bring all systems under one roof with an exceptional childcare experience platform. 

Enter Ben Blake, Lightbridge Academy CIO and Guy’s tech-savvy right-hand man. Ben knew he had to find the best of the best, so he began by drilling down on what they really needed from a child care management platform.

“I wanted to make sure that we picked the best solution out there, so we gathered over 110 requirements to then compare to the options,” explains Ben. 

That’s right, over 110. Ben then canvassed the market, selected a handful of vendors to present their options, and picked the two tools that stood above the rest—and the final decision came down to eight factors:

  • Business continuity
  • Overall cost
  • Ability to integrate with existing tools
  • Total process from conception to development, rollout and support
  • Ability to replace existing systems
  • Scalability and reliability
  • Data protection and security
  • Ability (and patience) to work with one of the biggest child care businesses in the US

After the rigorous selection process, Ben landed on [LineLeader] as the clear winner. 

“[LineLeader by ChildcareCRM] really shined and demonstrated their flexibility throughout the whole selection process.”

We've been leaders in technology for a long time but it came to a point where there were about seven different tools that the directors had to keep track of,” says Guy, “So, we decided to look for a tool that could bring those different systems together.

Guy Falzarano, CEO & President
Lightbridge Academy

“We’re super excited about all of our growth,” says Gigi, “Even in the pandemic, we've opened 10 centers this year and have more scheduled to open at the end of the year.”

Gigi Schweikert, CEO of Holdings
Lightbridge Academy 

The ECE leader’s magic formula for growth

The Lightbridge model is based on the formula that determination + inclusion + tech = massive business growth.

And so far, it’s working.

“The next step is to start filling out the Mid-Atlantic region,” adds Guy, “We’ll start building up more franchises in that market. So, we've got 53 open now, we'll have 56 by the end of the year. We'll be up to 70 by the end of next year. And we're already starting to work on centers that will be in development or opening up in 2022. By the end of '22, we'll be probably around the mid 80s.” 

And finally having streamlined systems, definitely played a role.

“We chose to partner because we felt we could do something exceptional in the field together. We believe in them, we believe in their company and we believe in their culture. And we think it's an excellent partnership,” says Gigi.

Whether you’re opening one new center or 70, LineLeader by ChildcareCRM can help. Our simple, powerful platform brings all your tools under one digital roof. Now you can provide your own circle of care with the tools they need to travel a smooth path towards better quality care for young children everywhere.

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