How Company Values Took A Preschool from Garage to Franchise

Editor’s note: In our Voice of Small Business series, we highlight a handful of the more than 19,000 business leaders that represent the best of the Vistage community.

For Guy Falzarano, inspiration for his early learning center franchise, called Lightbridge Academy, came from the most unlikely places—25 years in the phone company business, a stint at a marketing firm and his Iselin, New Jersey, garage.

“My wife said to me, ‘Why don’t we fix up our garage and run a preschool,’” he recalls.

They quickly learned that “fixing up” the garage to run a childcare center would require some heavy lifting. Although his wife had some childcare experience, Falzarano didn’t know the industry. So he hired a childcare veteran to join his growing team and tackled what he knew—marketing.

What began as a home business in 1997, has exploded into a 13-location franchise. When several parents grew interested in the business, they experimented with co-owning. But in 2011, Falzarano noticed that many parents were unhappy with the “child-onlycentric” approach many centers were taking and left “parents scrambling behind.” With his marketing instincts firing, he saw a way to take LightBridge to the next level.

His company’s future growth would hinge on “building strong relationships” with both the children and their parents.

“We also built our company with a strong foundation of core values, and we made it easy for everybody to remember,” he said. “It’s based on the word ‘children’.”

Additionally, they have stayed true to what he calls “the circle of care” philosophy, which is based on connecting his five stakeholders: the child, the parents, the employees, the franchisees and the community.

“We’re bouncing decisions off of the circle of care, and if someone ends up negatively affected, we look for another path,” Falzarano explains. “We also hire people who live by these core values.”

He ensures he’s bringing on people who fit his culture by asking them, “How do you demonstrate happiness?” An unusual job interview question, perhaps, but it has served him well.

The “happiness” question has impacted almost every aspect of his business, such as when he’s making decisions about prospective franchisees. He’s turned down offers, with money on the table, because “it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

By trusting his instincts, sticking to his company’s core values and growing a culture that lives by those values, Falzarano has achieved explosive success with his business—16 more franchises are in the works.

Learn more about Lightbridge Academy at https://lightbridgeacademy.com/

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