[EO San Francisco] Building a Scalable Childcare Brand Through Grit and Vision With Ashley Du

Ashley Du is the Founder of Meaningful Beginnings, a premium childcare provider in San Francisco offering licensed early education for children aged 0-5. She started the business in 2013 from her home after identifying a gap in high-quality, affordable childcare options. Under her leadership, the company has expanded into multiple centers and is known for its nurturing environment and Reggio Emilia-inspired curriculum. Ashley also mentors aspiring daycare owners and leverages her real estate expertise to support their growth.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [1:56] Ashley Du shares her experience growing up in poverty with an absent, drug-addicted father
• [5:45] Why the “mom and pop” model limits business scalability and long-term growth
• [7:06] Turning child development studies into a blueprint for launching a home-based daycare
• [10:34] When Ashley gained confidence and began growing her business after landing her first client
• [14:28] Lessons learned from delegation failures, staff turnover, and rebuilding company culture
• [21:06] Why Ashley decided to quit drinking and how sobriety improved her clarity and leadership

In this episode…

Some entrepreneurs are driven by vision; others are fueled by hardship. But what happens when both collide and a business becomes more than just a business?

According to Ashley Du, a seasoned entrepreneur who transformed her side hustle into a fast-growing childcare brand, success stems from believing in yourself when no one else does. She highlights how overcoming self-doubt and a scarcity mindset was just as crucial as mastering systems and operations. That inner shift laid the groundwork for scaling effectively and sustainably. Ashley also learned, through painful setbacks like embezzlement and culture breakdowns, that smart delegation and strong leadership are non-negotiable for long-term growth. Her resilience and adaptability ultimately turned adversity into structure, vision, and impact.

In this episode, John Corcoran speaks with Ashley Du, Founder of Meaningful Beginnings, to talk about building a scalable childcare business through grit and vision. They discuss how personal hardship shaped her leadership, why systems are essential for growth, and how she navigated a crisis that nearly derailed her company. Ashley also shares what sobriety taught her about clarity and control.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• EO San Francisco
• EO Accelerator
• Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
• John Corcoran on LinkedIn
• Rise25
• Ashley Du: LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube
• Meaningful Beginnings

Quotable Moments

• “I do not want to be that key person, and I want to be the one that’s building on the business and not in the business.”
• “They just didn’t believe in me because I didn’t believe in myself.”
• “Something in me knew that I was going to make it… I was so fearless.”
• “We’re like a company with, you know, it’s like a body without bones, right?”
• “I realized that we could actually operate on much less than I thought that we needed.”

Action Steps

1. Start small and validate demand: Launching with limited resources allows you to test your concept and build confidence gradually.
2. Build systems before you scale: Establishing clear operations early prevents chaos and makes future growth smoother and more sustainable.
3. Delegate with accountability: Assigning tasks is important, but maintaining oversight protects your business from costly missteps.
4. Invest in self-belief and mindset: Confidence and clarity influence how others perceive you and impact business success.
5. Monitor cash flow relentlessly: Staying on top of your finances ensures stability and prevents avoidable setbacks during growth phases.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:03

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here I am, the co-host of this show. And if you’ve listened before, every week we talk with smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. And you can check out our archives to see some of our past episodes there.

And before we get into this, this episode is brought to you by my company, Rise25, where we help B2B businesses to get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with Done-for-you podcast and content marketing. And of course, this episode also brought to you by EO San Francisco, which is the San Francisco chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which is a global peer to peer network of more than 20,000 influential business owners across 200 chapters, 60 plus countries. And if you’re the founder, co founder, owner or controlling shareholder of a company that generates over $1 million a year in revenues, you want to connect with other like minded, successful entrepreneurs. EO is for you and you can learn more by going to EO network org slash San Francisco or email us at admin@eonetwork.org. All right. 

 My guest here today is Ashley Du. She’s the Founder and CEO of Meaningful Beginnings, which is a childcare provider in San Francisco, California. She established the company in about 2013 and has transformed it from a home based daycare into a top rated childcare center. And she also has been involved in commercial real estate as well. We’ll get into that story as well, but she has an incredible story of overcoming a traumatic childhood. 

 And I thought, Ashley, we could start there because you had a father who was a drug addict, and so you experienced a lot of trauma at a young age, and it’s just amazing that you’ve made it out of that, that background of that history. But tell us a little bit about what that upbringing was like for you.

Ashley Du: 01:56

Yeah. So first of all, thank you for having me, John. Going back into my childhood. Let’s see. So I am first generation American.

My family came here fresh off the boat from Vietnam. They ran away from the Vietnam War. And actually, I don’t know exactly how long it took them to get here, but in between, they actually gave birth to my older brother. And so one of my brothers, he’s born in Macau. And that’s a whole nother story in itself. 

 But coming here, they had little resources, did not have a lot. They we have a big family. So they ended up having five kids, including myself. I have four older brothers. I’m the youngest and the only girl in the family. 

 We were raised off of government subsidies in a tiny, tiny apartment. There was only one bathroom for all seven of us.

John Corcoran: 02:45

Wow.

Ashley Du: 02:45

And yeah, growing up, I just saw how strong my mom was because she had to work three jobs to support all five of us. My dad was not around because he struggled with drug addiction. Action. And while I was younger, I just there was never any stability. I never knew if I was going to go to school the next day, because I don’t know if there were there was going to be an argument or if there were going to be police that showed up at my house or, you know, just lots of trauma and lots of things that I guess, children at a young age should not see.

And so that was pretty much my upbringing there.

John Corcoran: 03:22

That’s such a tough upbringing. And and I believe there was a story around your father would sometimes come to your school.

Ashley Du: 03:30

Yeah. There was a time when I was nine years old that I vividly remember. My teacher pulled me out of the classroom because my dad was outside, and when I saw my dad, he was like, hey, you know, do you have any money? And I’m like, no, dad, I don’t have any money. I’m only nine years old.

And he’s like, no, I know you have money. You, you you definitely have money somewhere. Where is it? At home. Tell me where. 

 I’ll go find it. And I just thought, I’m like, no, dad, I don’t have any money. And during that time, I think my teacher overheard it. And so at some point down the line, they called the principal and some other people, and they had to escort my dad out of the school. And when I actually got home that day, I went into my room and my room was flipped upside down, turned around, and there was, you know, and I think he basically went into my room, just bombarded everything and tried to look for money, and there wasn’t any. 

 And he needed it to support his habits.

John Corcoran: 04:24

How did that experience affect your relationship with money? Sometimes I’ve interviewed people that grow up in that kind of environment and they don’t have money, so they really want it, and that drives them to go into business for themselves. Did that did you have that experience?

Ashley Du: 04:42

Definitely. And I’m still working through it today. It’s that scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset. For me, yes, definitely. And because we grew up poor, I was always told that, you can’t afford that or we don’t have enough for that and all of that.

So that really goes into your core personality. Like kind of like it becomes a part of you. And that’s something that I’m working on overcoming. I’ve I’ve done a lot now. I’ve done a lot of self-work and a lot of things. 

 I read a lot of books and try to get myself out of it. But it’s the ongoing battles, though, right?

John Corcoran: 05:18

Right. It’s hard for those lessons that are kind of baked in at a young age to rewire yourself. In a sense. Yeah. Now you.

So you didn’t experience entrepreneurship when you were growing up. You said your mother worked three different jobs, but you experienced entrepreneurship through a family business, your ex-husband’s family business, which you got involved in a construction company and then a restaurant company. Talk a little bit about that experience.

Ashley Du: 05:45

Yeah. So when I was married, he was in construction, but he let go of that company and they started their restaurants, and through that experience, I just watching how they were as entrepreneurs. I learned what I did not want to do in my own business when I worked, but when I decided I wanted to open my own business so I learned what I was not going to do. I also learned that you can only scale so far as a mom and pop business, and I learned that I did not want to have a business that was going to be Mom and Pop. I wanted to go corporate.

I knew I wanted structure, I wanted systems because in the restaurant business it was small. And whenever our cook called out sick or our busboy called out sick, guess who was the cook? Who was the busboy? I was the one washing the dishes. I would be the busboy, or I would be the bartender, the host, whatever. 

 Like, anytime we were short staffed, I was the one doing every single role in the restaurant. And that taught me what I did not want in my company. Like, I do not want to be that key person, and I want to be the one that’s building on the business and not in the business.

John Corcoran: 06:53

And so you’re you end up starting a child care center after your first child was born. Talk a little bit about the inspiration behind that, like how you decided to make it into a business.

Ashley Du: 07:06

Yeah. So I was studying child development while I was pregnant because I am the youngest in my family and I never held a baby before. So I’m like, okay, why don’t I go to school to learn a bit about child development? And one of the classes in particular sparked interest in my mind like, hey, I think this is something that every child needs. I don’t think it’s just for my own child.

And so I decided so when our tenants moved out in the downstairs of our home, all of these things I learned child development came out. And I’m like, why don’t I just start a in-home daycare? And so I literally googled like how to start an in-home daycare. And I started calling people like, you know, the state government, whatever, all different people. I found out like little things here and there through online. 

 And somehow, some way I ended up opening my in-home daycare, and I also got all my toys and things like that through Craigslist. I did not have a lot of capital at that time, so I had to find all the free toys there were and all the discounted toys, and whenever I found anything, I would just bring it into the home. And that’s how that daycare opened. And originally when I opened it, it was just to pay the mortgage. It was like a side hustle. 

 It was not going to become a business. I love babies, don’t get me wrong, you know? But that was not the intention behind it. But eventually we got busy and it just grew. And then from there I was like, okay, this is something that we could really support and create for the community. 

 And I want to create a really safe space for children looking to thrive and grow. And, you know, because I have my own kids, I know exactly what it is that I look for. And so I would hope that I’m able to bring the same to all the other parents out there.

John Corcoran: 08:47

So you you you said yourself you haven’t hadn’t held a baby before when you started. You’re pregnant. Why? Why do you think that it was successful in those early days?

Ashley Du: 08:59

Okay, well, I need to go back into that. It was not successful when I first opened, though.

John Corcoran: 09:03

Okay.

Ashley Du: 09:04

I was only 20 years old, and I.

John Corcoran: 09:07

Assuming it was just you and a handful of babies in the beginning.

Ashley Du: 09:12

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so for the first six months, nobody signed up with me, and it was all because of my mentality. I think I just I did not have the confidence at that time. And so I had a bunch of tours.

People would come through the door and they’re like, I love the space. It’s beautiful. But they wouldn’t sign up. And I think it’s because they just didn’t believe in me, because I didn’t believe in myself. And so it was like a self-esteem issue. 

 But finally, a family gave me a shot and that family really believed in me. And from that point on, I just just shot up and I became like, so good at selling my school, basically. And everybody signed up after that. But in the beginning, I was the one that did everything, though. Like, I was the cook. 

 I was the cleaner. Customer service enrollment specialist, the manager. Like everything you can think of, I did everything in the business. And they eventually hired my first assistant. I learned how to delegate, and then that led into more growth.

John Corcoran: 10:08

So similar types of lessons that you got from the restaurant business, the mom and pop model that you kind of figured out that, you know, you don’t want to be the one who’s doing everything.

Ashley Du: 10:21

Yeah, exactly.

John Corcoran: 10:22

Yeah. And so you actually ended up hiring people. You ended up opening another location. Was that a big leap for you, opening another location?

Ashley Du: 10:34

There’s a lot of backstory into it, but I’ll save that for another day. But basically, we grew, we got very busy, and that was also in the middle of me transitioning out of a divorce and the home was inside. The daycare was inside our home. So it’s just everything happens for a reason. And so I decided, okay, I need to move my daycare.

I can’t have it inside the home anymore. And originally I was looking for another home. But then I decided, like, why don’t I just take this leap of faith and go into a commercial center instead? I can have X amount of kids because in in-home daycare you can only have Max like 12 kids if you have a large center. And so I mean, sorry, a large in-home daycare. 

 Whereas if you have a center you can have like 50, 100, 200. It depends on the square footage. And so yeah, I mean it was definitely a leap of faith, but something in me knew that I was going to make it. Like I just knew it for some reason. Like I was so fearless and I was like, you know what? 

 I just know that I’m going to make it. And no matter what comes my way, I’m going to do it. And so I did it. And it was scary. Like construction took double the time, the amount of money and capital that I thought it would take was actually also double the amount.

John Corcoran: 11:42

And and did you have to like, retrofit build like small, you know, the mini sized toilets and stuff like that? Like, was it a major remodel?

Ashley Du: 11:51

No, with my first one, no, it was not a major remodel, but it was still a remodel and it was my first time doing anything like that. But the hardest part was really like the regulations, because from an in-home daycare to a commercial center is completely different. You’re basically going from mom and pop to corporate. So all the regulations are different. And yeah, I mean, that was a huge learning experience.

John Corcoran: 12:13

Yeah. So you do that and then so the other second so is that that’s your primary location. Then you opened another location after that. So yeah. So that seems like a big leap because then okay, you’ve got one commercial center and you can be there, you have your team, but then opening a whole nother center seems like a big leap.

Ashley Du: 12:31

Yeah. So 2019 was when we officially opened our first commercial location. It started doing well. We got very busy and during Covid. Oh man.

So there’s another story, right? Because it was 2019 when we open. Then Covid happened and we’re like, okay, what is going on? Right? And we were not sure how it was going to impact us, but it was actually a blessing in disguise for us because majority of the daycares closed. 

 So it was 98% of daycares in the Bay area closed down. Wow. And so there were only 11 know. And so we only closed for two months because we served a lot of essential workers and employees. So a lot of our yeah, our clients and our families, they were doctors, nurses and people in the medical field.

John Corcoran: 13:16

Was that just a coincidence or were you located near hospitals or what? Why was that?

Ashley Du: 13:21

Well, I had this partnership. Well, not partnership, but someone from UCSF, they used to send a lot of students to us. And so that was just something that kind of naturally happened. And. Yeah.

John Corcoran: 13:32

Wow. So it ended up kind of probably saving you.

Ashley Du: 13:34

Yeah it did. And we that was our best year. Well during that time of course now we kept growing. But during that time, yeah we had our highest net profit margin, all that stuff. And I was like, yeah, that saved us.

And then in 2022, we opened our second location. And that’s a whole nother animal itself, because now I have to make sure that both locations are cookie cutter and that our systems are streamlined and operations are clean and. Yeah. And so here we are now, and we are securing our third location now. And the plan is to continue growing more locations.

John Corcoran: 14:07

And now along the way you had a bit of a setback. You had a person who you say that you delegated too much to that person, and that person ended up, I guess, bad mouthing the center. And you ended up having a lot of turnover, staff turnover and then family turnover. Talk about that challenging period.

Ashley Du: 14:28

I’ll start with going back to mistakes that I’ve done. So when I first incorporated, I thought that the key is to delegate. And yes, it is to delegate, but I think I delegate it ineffectively. And I basically gave too much power to my leadership team. And specifically with my first center, I gave too much power to one person and they ended up embezzling money.

So that’s a lesson that I learned. And we had to cut that, those ties. But then because that happened, I learned how to create a strong system. So now I have our own fractional CFO team. But if that had not happened, I wouldn’t have done that right. 

 Because then I realized, oh, I need someone else to manage the money. So that’s one part. Then my second mistake that I did was, again, I did not give her too much power, but I was not involved enough. I delegate it, but I was not involved. I basically let it go and assumed that they were going to be able to take care of things that I needed, and that was my fault, because I just let go of too much control again. 

 And yeah, basically things and also the issues that I was not the one that hired them. And that’s what I’ve learned. If I’m not the one that hired them, I never built rapport with them. There’s no relationship. So why? 

 Why do they have any reason to try to say anything good about us? Because I’ve never built this culture with them. And I didn’t know that I ran the company very like vertical. I did not run it like a web style, you know, it was like a hierarchy type of system. And that was something that I learned. 

 And yeah, this key employee basically left, went to a birthday party, said a bunch of stuff about us. Then we had five team members quit in one classroom, and then we had a bunch of families leave. So over a course of 2 or 3 months, we lost 40% of revenue. Wow. And for 8 to 9 months we were consistently negative. 

 And I’m not talking about negative small numbers. It was large, like five digit numbers. Wow. And yeah, you can imagine the stress that I went through there. And I’ve never gone through such a down before. 

 In my whole ten years of being open, I’ve never once had a negative time. Like, you know, we’re a service business. We’re we’re high profit margins. So I’ve never really experienced that type of thing. And when I did, I was like, okay, what are we going to do? 

 I even thought, am I going to sell the school? Am I going to let go of this one? Like, what should we do now because we’re running out of money? And how long can I keep going for? Right. 

 Like, how long can I keep feeding this beast that is just taking up so much of our capital and everything that we’ve made basically went into this lost time. And so it was really challenging, like my mental health was not there. There were days I did not want to wake up. I was just yeah, in a really dark time.

John Corcoran: 17:11

What did you do in order to right the ship.

Ashley Du: 17:16

You know. And during that time, I drank a lot. And I do not recommend doing that. And that only made my anxiety a lot worse. And I just kept putting off my problems, like, I just I was procrastinating.

But really, what helped me was finding faith in myself and just believing that everything happens for a reason and that it will get better. I just kept thinking something within my voice, something of little voice within myself, was like, this too shall pass, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. And so I just kept building. I dug into the business. I went into the business because I was not in the business before. 

 So I went into the business and I just dissected everything and looked at what is going on. Right. Because the company started growing and it became messy and I just let it do its own thing. I did not go in to fix the systems. We’re like a company with, you know, it’s like a body without bones, right? 

 It was just so messy in the back end. So I went in and I cleaned up everything, streamlined everything, and just gave everybody very specific roles. And also like my key people that had too many roles. I took that away and I gave it. I uploaded it to virtual assistants, and that just changed everything. 

 And now and then we became super streamlined, super efficient. And yeah, and then after nine months, we became profitable again. And now we’re back on that trajectory. And that’s why now we’re both we’re back in growth mode. And yeah, I mean, it’s something that I wish that people don’t ever go through, but I feel like you do have to go through it to really learn. 

 Yeah, yeah.

John Corcoran: 18:48

To learn the.

Ashley Du: 18:48

Lessons.

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