Recess in the Neighborhood

We moved back to Michigan in 2024 after eight years abroad. The culture shock wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t the weather or the pace. It was how isolated everything is.

Every house in our neighborhood has its own trampoline and playground in the backyard. There are almost no shared public spaces. My wife and daughter are both really social people who need to be around others, and there was just nowhere to go. The local daycare was kind of bad. A dance class we tried had terrible communication. I’d sit on the floor playing Barbies with my daughter knowing she should be playing with other kids, my wife should have friends here, I should have friends here.

From a business angle, it was also obvious. The existing options for families are not very good, and the demand is huge. About two-thirds of parents report feeling isolated. Almost 40% spend five or more hours a week just driving kids between activities. And most enrichment programs require month-long commitments to a single activity, so kids can’t actually explore what they’re interested in.

How it started

The idea started as “Inquisikids” — after-school enrichment programming with a wide variety of activities instead of just dance or just art. Then something clicked: combine the enrichment with licensed daycare and a community space for parents. A 70,000 sq ft facility with nine categories of enrichment (art, dance, gymnastics, martial arts, music, science/tech, theater, life skills, maker), daycare for ages 0-5 with extended hours (6am-10pm), a central kitchen serving real food, co-working space, play areas, and lounge spaces where parents can actually sit down, work, or talk to another adult.

The whole system fits together because of shared infrastructure — the kitchen serves everyone, staff overlap between programs, and the facility runs different utilization patterns throughout the day. Kids get discovery-based rotational programming instead of committing to one activity for months. Parents get a place that solves childcare, enrichment, meals, and their own social needs in one location.

I changed the name to Recess in the Neighborhood once the concept grew beyond just the kids’ programming.

What I actually built

Three months of hyperfocus. Nothing else existed during that time.

I went deep on every angle using Cursor and AI tools:

• Detailed financials tracking every program, staff salary, kitchen costs, janitorial — all modeled out
• An interactive calculator to adjust assumptions on class sizes, pricing, and occupancy
• Multiple iterations of a tokenomics model for community ownership
• Competitive and regulatory research for West Michigan
• Investor materials, business plan, pitch deck, and an investor website
• Go-to-market plan: raise about $100K, do a heavy local media push, and pre-sell ownership tokens

The ownership piece mattered to me. Instead of a franchise model, each location would be locally owned through tokens. Families buy equity, not just memberships. Without local ownership, you can’t sell the business without destroying what makes it special. Each location should feel like it belongs to its neighborhood.

Why it paused

I got past the planning stage and everything after that required heavy social execution. Raising money from investors. Running a media campaign. Keeping a pre-launch community engaged. Managing a building full of employees.

The planning phase was something I could do alone, heads down, building systems. Everything after that is social dynamics, rejection, and performance. I later learned I’m autistic, which makes my discomfort with those next steps more understandable.

The pattern was pretty textbook: three months of hyperfocus where I couldn’t think about anything else, then burnout, then a recovery period where I realized I wasn’t coming back to it with the same energy. Not because I lost interest. I was overwhelmed, not uninterested.

Where it stands

I think Recess is a great project. The financials are solid, the business plan holds up, the model works. I wish it existed.

But it’s too big for one person, and especially too big for a person whose strengths are in planning and systems, not fundraising and community management. I might pick it up again someday with a co-founder who handles the people side.

The experience forced me to be more honest about what I’m actually likely to succeed at. It’s why I moved toward projects like Fantasy Joes where the work is mostly systems and code.