After spending years in demanding corporate roles, Tyler and Madison Wiggins found themselves longing for more time with their kids and a deeper connection to their community. Like many parents, they were juggling long workdays with hectic evenings, barely getting to enjoy time with their children during the week. That realization led them to rethink their careers and explore opportunities that would allow them to build something meaningful, not just for themselves, but for other families too.

That journey brought them to Children’s Lighthouse. The couple is now taking over two locations in Gardner and Olathe, Kansas, with the goal of creating nurturing, high-quality environments where children can grow and thrive. As parents who have relied on childcare themselves, Tyler and Madison know exactly what families are looking for: trust, transparency and a place that truly feels like a second home. Now, they’re excited to bring that vision to life with Children’s Lighthouse in the very communities they live in and love.

1851 Franchise spoke to the couple about their franchise journey and plans for the future. 

1851 Franchise: Frame your personal story for us. What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?

Tyler Wiggins: Madison and I both worked corporate jobs, and I still do. Madison was an accounting manager. Once we had our second kid, both kids were in day care. We were in this situation where it felt like every day we were getting the kids home around 5:30 or 6:00, and we had to start bedtime at 6:30.

When it comes to having kids, the whole weekend is spent recovering from the week, trying to get the house back in order, getting meals made — all that. We were in this situation where we felt like we were going to miss our kids’ childhoods, for lack of a better word.

When we had our second kid, Madison took an extended maternity leave. She was at home for five months, and over that time, we kind of learned that maybe being a stay-at-home mom isn’t necessarily the best thing for us or Madison. Some people want to be building something out there.

So we started looking for a way to give Madison a career but also be able to see our kids throughout the day, to have your cake and eat it too. We started talking with other childcare franchises and Children's Lighthouse. 

As we started talking about what our childcare facility would look like, how we would do things differently, and how we could provide a truly valuable resource to families, I think Madison and I both found that we feel pretty strongly about this. The quality of childcare a child receives is highly correlated with good outcomes later in life. The idea that getting good care is something kids are entitled to really resonated with both of us. That’s been what has been driving us since then.

1851: What was your perception of franchising prior to becoming a franchisee, and what do you want people to know about franchising now that you are in it?

Madison Wiggins: My dad has bought and sold several franchises over the last 20 years, so I’ve seen what it’s like to be a franchisee. We were really interested in having that support from a corporate entity as we started our business journey. That’s a major reason we chose Children’s Lighthouse, because of their corporate team, their franchisee team and the support they offer.

They’ve been great to work with, and it’s been reassuring over and over again that we chose the right franchise. It really comes down to the support that’s offered as you get your business off the ground. There’s expertise in every facet of the business, which has been helpful, especially because Tyler and I are parents who’ve worked in the corporate world. We like to say we are our own customer — our kids have been in day care for the last three years, so we know what it’s like. But we’ve never owned or taught in a day care, so having that operational expertise has been important as we enter this new industry.

Tyler: I agree with that. The only thing I’d add is that we’ve talked about how, to be successful owning a childcare facility, you really need three things: a heart for kids, a mind for how a business runs and knowledge of how a childcare facility operates.

A lot of people get into childcare with a huge heart for kids, but they’re missing those other two pieces, which makes things really hard. Madison and I have a heart for the kids and a good head for business, but the operations of a childcare facility are so complex — there are so many moving parts and the stakes are so high — that it’s really nice to have real support from people who know what they’re doing. They’ve done it many times and are incentivized to help you succeed. Our success is their success, we pay them based on our revenue, so we’re all working toward the same goal: getting to capacity.

1851: What made you pick this brand? What excites you most about this company?

Madison: There’s a bridge between home and school that Children’s Lighthouse really emphasizes. You’re working together with both parents and teachers to make sure that learning goes back and forth. It also helps parents feel like they have agency over what their kids are learning. They know what their kids are doing in school, so when they come home, they can ask specific questions.

We’ve experienced this many times, we’ll ask our three-year-old, “What did you learn today?” and the answer is, “Nothing.” But if you know what they’re learning, you can ask direct questions and actually connect more with your child.

Another thing is that I personally really like Montessori ideologies. Unfortunately, a lot of our public schools and school systems aren’t set up that way. Children’s Lighthouse incorporates some of those child-led learning concepts while also preparing kids for kindergarten. It’s not just play — there’s structure, there’s time for sitting and doing worksheets, and there’s something tangible for kids to show their parents at the end of the day. They play a lot, but they also learn. That balance is really important.

Tyler: Madison pretty much captured everything I like about how Children’s Lighthouse operates. One other thing that stood out to us was that we didn’t consider going outside of the big four premium childcare brands. But if we were to own, say, a Goddard School or a Kiddie Academy or a Primrose in the Kansas City area, we would just be another one of those brands in a very saturated space.

Children’s Lighthouse is smaller, they’re roughly a quarter or a fifth the size of those other brands, which allows us to define what Children’s Lighthouse is in the Kansas City market. As we grow this brand locally, the market will be ours. We're not necessarily tethered to what another franchisee does in another market. The hope is that five years from now, we’ve established something meaningful here.

1851: What do you hope to achieve with your business? What are your plans for growth? 

Tyler: What we hope to achieve with the business is pretty simple. We want to be viewed by our community, our families and our staff as the benchmark for what premium childcare should be. That’s the goal. It’s not a complicated idea, but it is a hard one to execute.

Our immediate goals are more practical — we need to reach our break-even point, get to that 80% capacity mark and start paying down some of the bills.

Growth-wise, we’re taking it one school at a time, though right now, we’re doing two at a time. We already know we want at least one more. I don’t have any reason to believe we’ll stop at three, four or even five. I think we’ll continue to grow until we find a balance between financial and professional freedom, and the ability to spend time with our family, which ultimately is the reason we started doing this in the first place.

1851: Is there anything else about your story you want us to know?

Madison: I think something that always interests people is that Tyler and I are high school sweethearts. We’ve been through a lot of different stages of life together, and now, as business partners, it’s been really rewarding to work toward a common goal. Like Tyler said, the goal is to spend more time with our family, but also to provide a safe, loving place for everyone’s kids. It’s meaningful to know that our kids are learning alongside the children in our community.

We want families to feel comfortable. Like I said before, we are our own customer. We’ve both been in corporate America — I’ve stepped away from that now, but Tyler is still in it — so we can really relate to the parents who walk through our doors. We want the same things for our kids that every parent wants.

Tyler: I would agree with all of that. One of the underrated elements of childcare is the family dynamic behind the facility. We’re a family-owned setup, and we’ve found that our community and our staff really like that. One concern Madison and I had going into this was whether the stress of running a business would put a strain on our relationship or our family. But what we’ve found is almost the opposite. This experience has shown us how to lean on each other. It’s made us more solid as a family unit. That’s been really cool — I’m glad that wasn’t a sacrifice we had to make to do this.

1851: What advice do you have for other people thinking about becoming franchise owners?

Tyler: Coming into this, I sort of assumed all franchises were created equally. Knowing what I know now, I feel like we got really lucky choosing Children’s Lighthouse versus some of the other competitors. I’d also say: Don’t assume that just because something is in your FDD [Franchise Disclosure Document] or because your potential franchisor tells you something that it’s gospel. Understand that they have an agenda. Ideally, their best interests are aligned with yours, but that balance can vary depending on the franchisor.

Before we looked into childcare, I had explored a few other franchisors in different industries. Thankfully, Madison’s dad is kind of a serial franchisee, so I was able to go to him and ask for advice. He would straight-up tell me if something was insane. Some of the offers I got — he couldn’t believe anyone was trying to sell me on them.

So my biggest piece of advice: Find someone who’s done it before, preferably someone who’s done it multiple times. Talk to them. Make sure they feel some ownership over your experience and understand how much you’re relying on their input.

Madison: I think you also need to find a franchise that aligns with your mission and values. It’s a lot easier to work with a franchisor when you’re on the same page. That alignment has been a big game changer for us. If we weren’t aligned with the brand, it would be a lot harder.

So, if you're considering becoming a franchisee, make sure you're 100% aligned with the franchisor. That makes it a lot easier to move forward and work together effectively.

About Children’s Lighthouse

The Children’s Lighthouse brand was established in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1997. The Children’s Lighthouse Early Learning Schools® brand promise to create a safe, fun, and happy place that gives children confidence, a sense of comfort today, and a lifelong love of learning, friendship, and community. Children’s Lighthouse focuses on age-appropriate and values based curriculums that focus on kindergarten readiness and creating lifelong learners. In 2025, Children's Lighthouse was ranked on the Entrepreneur 500 and as a Top Franchise for 2025 by Franchise Business Review. In 2024, Children's Lighthouse was featured on the Franchise Times Top 400.