“New Mom School” Motherhood-Focused Education Franchise Addresses The Rising Need For Postnatal Care — While Offering Ownership Tracks To Passionate Franchisees

Now more than ever, women everywhere are sharing their motherhood stories online, at work, at home, and in public. Experts say it is a long-overdue moment of reckoning with a system that has failed mothers in need, a result of repeated neglect that is decidedly unacceptable. This lack of care is exactly Alexandra Spitz founded the first New Mom School in 2015, and has since felt the momentum and interest in post-natal care enough to begin franchising in 2023, offering the model to entrepreneurs who wanted to open their own New Mom Schools.

“It's clear our healthcare system has a gap once the baby is born. What we provide fills that gap,” Spitz said. “A mom has all this care during pregnancy, and the child has all this care from the pediatrician after, but no one has the mom.”

Working as a mom-focused education and community brick-and-mortar meeting location, New Mom School was developed to address the lack of mom-focused care and community. With 26 stores open, two more opening within the next two months, 16 in development and 42 licenses, New Mom School is a fast-growing opportunity with 28,748 moms in attendance.

“We're on a march to a million moms by 2032,” said Spitz.

Across the country, hundreds of ‘mommy and me’ classes meet at churches, backyards, parks and community centers, but the curriculum is spontaneously curated, unfocused and simply not robust enough to answer the call on a large scale. New Mom School offers face-to-face classes with experts who answer questions in real time. Its main staple—an eight-week class where each week is devoted to presentations on baby sleep, feeding and nutrition, and other topics on development and milestones—is particularly popular. In addition, New Mom School offers programming throughout the first 12 months after birth.

“Within our walls, [new moms] get proprietary curriculum that I created over the years with doctors, licensed professionals, and certified therapists,” Spitz said. “It's not just an unstructured support group; it is highly structured and organized.”

Through careful tinkering, Spitz has developed a proprietary curriculum, demonstrated through her attendance the real need being addressed, and crafted a model where the build-out and overhead are reasonable for entrepreneurs to join her mission to make an impact on their communities. Right now, finding willing partners is not the focus, as the interest is there. What the higher priority now is finding supportive ways for these locations to fill their classes. One of the most impactful elements of their franchisee support systems is how New Mom School has built robust initial screenings before a new owner is even signed, where additional key positions like project managers or marketing professionals that will be needed to support the new owner can be identified.

"We have a great screening process that we've implemented to determine how a person is hardwired and what their natural skill sets are," Spitz said. "Through the discovery process, we talk to them about how they're naturally hardwired and what right-hand person they need to complement those skills."

Spitz joined 1851 Franchise Publisher Nick Powills on a recent episode of the “Meet the Franchise” podcast where they discussed how New Mom School has grown in the past decade and what support for new owners looks like. A transcript of his interview with Powills has been provided below. It has been edited for brevity, clarity and style.

Nick Powills: How's business going? Give me the update.

Alexandra Spitz: Business is amazing. I always go by the number of moms that we're reaching and the number of moms that we've had in class. We just had our monthly glow-up with all of our franchisees, and we're on a march. We're on a march to a million moms by 2032. We are at 28,748 as of today, and I pinch myself that that's the number, because that's my "why," and the business aspect comes with it. We have locations opening at break-even or above at this point.

Powills: You're in business, and clearly what you've done corporately has been great. When you go into franchising, it twists a little bit. Obviously, the purpose doesn't change for a franchisee; they can see the mission. Sometimes they have to balance how much money they want to make with how much impact they can have. Is that a challenge for you?

Spitz: It can be. We have a unique business model. The build-out and overhead at the studio location is very reasonable. We have about 1,000 square feet at each location. There's really no build-out other than an interior office space, an area rug that we call the Golden Circle, and some floor chairs, and that's kind of it. Because the overhead is so low, we always recommend focusing on the number of moms, because the number of moms that you can get through those doors impacts how your numbers are going to look.

It's fairly... I don't like to say easy, because it's a lot of work, but the work itself takes time. It's time that the owners, operators, and program managers are spending reaching out to interested moms, which is endless. It's such a market fit. We're not even touching a huge percentage of total available moms having babies in each community. But 100% of our franchisees are completely behind the mission, want to make an impact in their communities, and the ability to be profitable is absolutely there.

Powills: One thing that I love about your business is that very few businesses in franchising really understand the customer. The one that comes to top of mind is always Wild Birds Unlimited. You clearly have to be a bird person; it's a very easy target. If you love birds, you're a customer; if you hate birds, you're not. Here, it's very simple who the customer is. There's not a lot of risk that comes from marketing or where you're going to plant your energy in a community. Now that you've stripped that all out and you're building a curriculum based on problem-solving, it's so easy to understand the difference of why you would franchise this business. Does that make it easier to sell this, or is it still challenging?

Spitz: We don't have an issue with interest. As with any franchise, the question is whether there is that entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to execute on local marketing. It's all brick-and-mortar, so the time necessary to spend in the community with pediatricians, OB-GYNs, and key partners for that referral source is where the effort goes. If that effort is being made, we see a lot of success.

Again, there is no lack of commitment to the mission and the impact. It's not challenging to sell; you just need the right people who have that passion and the desire to make moms' lives better, usually because they didn't have a good experience themselves. After 14 years of teaching moms, every single room is exactly the same except for different moms, backgrounds, upbringings, politics, or religions. We don't care. They register, they show up, we know their baby's birth date, and that's it.

Powills: In the senior care industry, 99% of people took care of an aging parent, saw a gap in care, and wanted to be in business for themselves. That business involves high volume and high emotional distress because you're dealing with end-of-life scenarios, but it drives the right person.

In yours, financially it's fine, and they have a personal experience. But then comes that next level. It's probably hard for you to say no to some of these people coming in with deeply personal stories. You ask, "Are you going to go shake hands and kiss babies?" and you see hesitation. Or you ask, "Are you going to offset that by hiring someone?" and there's hesitation, so you have to say no. That's probably the hard part, right?

Spitz: It is. We have a great screening process that we've implemented to determine how a person is hardwired and what their natural skill sets are. Through the discovery process, we talk to them about how they're naturally hardwired and what right-hand person they need to complement those skills. You don't want two of the same skill sets; you want one that complements the other.

We've gotten to a point where we almost have it down to a science to know whether a candidate will be able to collaborate as a partner. In every franchise system, there are relationships that can be adversarial. We're looking for a level of trust between corporate and the franchisee. Once we identify how they're hardwired, we can tell if they'll be a great candidate or if they won't be successful. It's a "hate us now, thank us later" situation. A mentor once told me, "Know what you know."

Powills: Yeah.

Spitz: We know what we know.

Powills: My perception is that you're muscling through this franchise stuff, trying to figure out how you personally can carry the same passion to the franchise side as you do on the mom side. When I asked how business was going, you lit up talking about hitting a million moms. Then we started talking about franchising, and it's like you're trying to crack the code on how to build a community of entrepreneurs who light up the same way. That's probably your biggest tug-and-pull in running this business.

Spitz: I got to a point where I realized I wouldn't hire myself to run my franchise system without prior experience running one. The team members I've been bringing on have the experience and background to run a franchise system successfully. I'm very aware of my skill sets, and I'm very aware that I am not strong in other areas.

When I look at the 30,000-foot view and my "why," that's what is great about it. Just like I want my franchisees to hire people who complement their skill sets, I walk the walk. I don't have a filter a lot of the time, which can get me in trouble, but it also means I take risks that other people won't.

It's clear our healthcare system has a gap once the baby is born. What we provide fills that gap. A mom has all this care during pregnancy, and the child has all this care from the pediatrician after, but no one has the mom.

Powills: Tell me, what does the company do?

Spitz: We are fundamentally changing the way new moms are cared for in this country. We are providing the necessary community that decades of research show is needed for postpartum moms and families.

On a business front, we are allowing women entrepreneurs to have a meaningful, family-friendly business. Hundreds or thousands of women want to leave corporate life because it lacks flexibility. Parents want to pick their kids up from school and take them to activities instead of sending them to aftercare. It's a full-time commitment, but it doesn't have to happen between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. We provide flexibility for women and moms who want better relationships with their children, changing things generationally.

We have a severe mental health crisis in this country. If you look at adolescents, teenagers, and people in their early 20s, their moms often lacked community and support during the postpartum period. No spouse or partner can give that to a woman. A whole web of support happens within our walls. It's not just, "You're going to make money and leave your corporate job."

Powills: How does a franchisee make money? What does a customer pay for?

Spitz: They pay for the education happening within our four walls. Throughout eight weeks, visiting experts present on their topics. Our instructors aren't experts in everything, but we have a strong training system for them that I'm super proud of. We spent the good amount of the first two years perfecting it because moms must have a great experience.

Moms get face-to-face time with experts who answer questions in real time. It is detrimental for a new mom to go down a Google or ChatGPT rabbit hole, which can give harmful information or wrong medication dosages. Within our walls, they get proprietary curriculum that I created over the years with doctors, licensed professionals, and certified therapists. It's not just an unstructured support group; it is highly structured and organized. We don't let conversations devolve into complaining about spouses.

Powills: Do any of these customers stay on beyond eight weeks?

Spitz: Yes. We have programming through the first 12 months after birth. A mom goes through our newborn class, our infant class, and then two cycles of our rising toddler class for babies 6 to 12 months old.

I see a world where programming extends beyond that, but until there is a standard for postpartum care in the first year, I can't touch that yet. There is no other program like us across the country. There are fragmented "mommy and me" classes at churches, backyards, or parks, and I tell moms to find support wherever they can. But if you have a New Mom School in your community, come get the education. How do we have so much support during pregnancy and zero after? Make it make sense, Nick.

Powills: You just described what the business is and how franchisees can thrive. You have built a doctor-backed curriculum, and that is the IP.

Give me your vision and playbook for the next year. What do you hope happens?

Spitz: I hope to partner with healthcare systems and consumer product companies to show actual data that there is a path to well-being. It's an actual village, not just New Mom School on its own. My vision is to continuously bring on franchise owners who want a better experience for their own lives and more flexibility.

If you look at the number of births in a community and hit 2% of that, there's a huge market opportunity. A year from now, I want to show increased percentages in each community and work with healthcare systems to show this is a viable offering. It helps doctors too because moms aren't calling their offices for non-medical help, allowing doctors to focus on expectant parents or the child.

I see dozens more locations opening. We have 16 in development, 42 licenses, and 26 open, with two more opening in the next two months.

Powills: I have two ideas. First, regarding family practices or OB-GYN offices: we had a client that transformed underused rooms in underprivileged school districts to bring in remote teachers. Why wouldn't medical practices buy into this as an immediate seed into the healthcare system?

Second, consider children's education franchises with giant, multi-million-dollar footprints. They want to capture the child at birth and keep them until school age, but their spaces are underutilized outside normal hours. Why not use that space for this community?

Spitz: I'll push back a little. A new mom doesn't want to go into a kids' space full of primary colors; it's not the right experience for her. Our program is for the mom, not the child. Could it live next door? Absolutely, that would be brilliant. But you want to do one thing and do it well, without blurring the line between the mom's space and the kids' space.

As for doctors, I have had that vision, but doctors are overworked, underpaid, and don't have a second to think outside of patient care. Until this is proven to make a difference, doctors have to see it as a total value-add. We are seeing a big shift into concierge practices because insurance companies aren't supporting doctors anymore. As that shift happens, this can absolutely live within concierge practices and hospitals.

Powills: You are in the infancy of your business. The runway is long, and as long as you stick to the mission of impacting a million moms, people will keep talking about it and it will spread.

Spitz: I'm with you. I can brainstorm all day long, that's my skill set. Meanwhile, my teammate takes those ideas, puts the details together, and pumps out the SOPs. I say, "Thank God for you," because if you put me in front of a computer, I want to run away, unless I'm talking to you.

Powills: Alex, this was wonderful. I love watching your progress and look forward to seeing where the story goes. Thanks for doing this.

Spitz: Thanks for doing what you do.

Watch the full episode above or on YouTube.