Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Cooley and Kaley Eads. ... Read more

Let’s face it—finding a new babysitter is tough. Finding a new babysitter in the midst of a pandemic? Even tougher. That’s where Sitting Made Simple® (SMS) comes in.... Read more

Babysitting is big business; just ask any parent who doles out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each month for childcare. You can also ask Amanda Knapp, founder of Sitting Made Simple (SMS), a Columbus-based babysitting service that is opening new locations nationwide as a franchisor.... Read more

A few weeks ago I was invited to the Sitting Made Simple Headquarters in Merion Village to learn about the Sitting Made Simple journey from CEO Amanda Knapp, current staff/past sitters, and families who are currently using the babysitting service.... Read more

There are times you need a sitter in a pinch, but all of your regular babysitters aren’t available. So what do you do on short notice? It all depends on the amount of time you have to make something happen.... Read more

Franchising is a pathway to rapid growth for easily replicated unique businesses. Amanda Knapp had never thought about franchising her business, Sitting Made Simple, which provides professional child care services. But former employees and moms, who had used her services but no longer lived in her service area, wanted to replicate her business.... Read more

Any parent knows how difficult it can be to find a good sitter, but Sitting Made Simple is making it, well, simple. The service has been matching families and sitters in Columbus since 2008, and with a client list of 1,300 families and a finely-tuned process, is ready to take its sitter solution to other cities.... Read more

Sitting Made Simple opens its first franchise this January in Nashville, Tennessee, seven years after Amanda Knapp founded the service that combines the convenience of online scheduling with an agency's rigorous background checks for sitters.... Read more

Nothing helps working parents more than reliable child care, available quickly and on demand. Amanda Knapp recognized that largely unmet need while working as a part-time nanny in the Columbus area.... Read more

Amanda Knapp is molding young lives in more ways than one. She has spent all her adult life trying to make it a little simpler for parents to find reliable childcare. Now she is CEO of the successful, and growing, Sitting Made Simple, an online childcare service currently working with more than 1,200 families in central Ohio.... Read more

Stay-at-home mom Courtney Kelly remembers the worry she felt in trying to find a dependable baby sitter.  "You hear stories," said Kelly, 40, a New Albany resident. "And I didn't really feel comfortable until my daughter could speak and give me feedback about someone who was in our home."  The first sitter she hired - on the recommendation of a friend - didn't work out, she said.  "I had some issues with her (about) lack of care, lack of common sense, things like that."  Eventually, some friends suggested that she try Sitting Made Simple, a baby-sitting-placement service owned by fellow New Albany resident Amanda Knapp.... Read more

Just as Cinderella's Fairy Godmother gave her the right dress for the prince's ball, Fairy Goodmothers has provided central Ohio girls with the right prom dresses the past 10 years. "Last year we provided dresses for just shy of 900 girls and our goal this year is to serve 1,500 girls," said Angela Thompson, a Fairy Goodmothers board member. Fairy Goodmothers was founded to provide prom dresses for girls who can't afford to purchase a dress. The organization raises money to purchase dresses and accepts gently used dresses and accessories each year, Thompson said. About 800 of the dresses that will be given out this year came from Sitting Made Simple, a New Albany-based business that provides baby-sitting and nanny services.... Read more

Four years ago, Amanda Knapp tried to find a part-time job through a babysitting service in Columbus, Ohio, to pay her way through college, but she never heard back from the agency. That led her husband to ask, “Why don’t you start your own service?” and two months later, she did just that, launching Sitting Made Simple in 2008. But that simple idea became so much more. Knapp received a call from the crying mother of a child at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, who needed a sitter to come to the hospital to spend time with her sick daughter, a new idea was born: Simply Friends Forever.... Read more