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Bugs life: Doodle Bugs! looks to expand its child care and preschool programs to other markets. Jim Courtney
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Business First of Buffalo
Small Business Case Study
Caring for the class
After opening in 1992, the child care centers have grown so that they now enroll more than 1,000 kids
Thomas Hartley
Business First
Without Joey Buckley, Doodle Bugs! would be a different story than it is today.
Joey, who was 3 in 1992, is the element that owners of the then- new business say defines the point where it made the crossover from potential flop to success.
Before Joey (B.J.), there was little to show for the monetary investment and hard work that went into launching the enterprise. After Joey (A.J.), there has been nothing but blue sky.
Anthony Insinna remembers it well.
"When we opened our doors in late December 1992, we had zero kids. We toured parents around for three months but they were reluctant to drop their children off with three very young child care operators, which we were," says Insinna, who founded the venture with his sisters Anna and Clarine.
"I was 20, Clarine was 22 and Anna was 23. The business wasn't going anywhere until the day a 3-year-old boy, Joey Buckley, arrived. He was our first enrolled child. After Joey, parents came by and, seeing him, thought we must be OK. Our classroom filled up to 24, capacity at the time."
In short order, an addition was built, three more classrooms were added and enrollment rose to 57 and higher. In subsequent years, the number of Doodle Bugs! child care centers has grown from one to two, then four and finally six.
Today, Doodle Bugs! cares for more than 1,000 children from between 6 weeks to 12 years of age in the Buffalo area.
In 2006, more growth is being plotted. It even involves a franchise operation that would carry the Doodle Bugs! name away from upstate New York and into as many as eight other states.
It started with Joey Buckley.
And where is he today?
"I don't really know," Insinna says. "I saw him three years ago, but have lost track of him."
Who's who: The company is owned by a brother and two sisters - Anthony Insinna, Clarine Insinna and Anna Insinna.
Anthony is president, Clarine is vice president and director of operations, and Anna is vice president and director of education.
What's happening: The company provides child care and preschool programs and operates six early childhood centers in the Buffalo area - two in Cheektowaga and single locations in East Amherst, Williamsville, the Town of Tonawanda and West Amherst, the newest one, which opened in January 2005.
Locations vary in size and shape, but each brightly painted building sports the company's logo - the smiling, bespectacled "Mr. Doodlebug."
Company history: Doodle Bugs! was formed in 1992. Originally known as Building Blocks Daycare, the business changed its name and adopted its logo in 1996, one year after acquiring a Williamsville children's art academy called Doodle Bugs!.
The original child care center was on Transit Road, Swormville. Today, the location is being converted to Casa dei Bambini Montessori School for 48 children between 30 months and five years of age. The business continues to be owned by the Insinna family but the former Doodle Bugs! center now sports a new, toned-down brown and gold exterior. The school will open in September.
Between 1995 and 2005, the company tripled its number of child care centers from two to six. A major contributor to that growth was the acquisition of two competitors in 1997, but three centers were new buildings.
Employment: 175. Over five years, the number could rise to 500.
On the horizon: Plans are in the works to open three early childhood centers in the Buffalo and Rochester areas in 2007 and eventually in Albany. A location in Webster in suburban Rochester will be the first of five new centers planned for the Rochester market over five years when it opens in March.
Orchard Park and Lancaster centers will open next summer.
Best idea: "Our decision in 2000 to build our first large, state-of-the-art child care facility was our best idea," Insinna says. "It was a big gamble and a very costly center for us to build. It was the first of its kind in the area as far as its size and amenities were concerned. It cost us $1.5 million six years ago. Today it would cost $2.5 million."
Accomplishments: M&T Bank Small Business of The Year Award, 2004.
Short term plans/goals: Doodle Bugs! has been recommended for accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Elementary Schools and is waiting for the commission governing board to meet in November to confirm the accreditation.
"We will be the first Buffalo-area center accredited by MSCES and the first multisite child care operation in the Northeast United States to receive accreditation," Insinna says.
Long term plans/goals: "Over the next five years, we'll be building larger, 11,300-square-foot centers with capacities for 176 children and replacing our smaller, 4,000 square-foot centers that are licensed for 60 to 75 children with the bigger prototypes," he says.
In addition to more space, the new centers will have amenities such as computer labs, large play villages and gyms, and parent lounges equipped with fireplaces and video systems for monitoring the classrooms.
In another aspect of its growth strategy, the company is inviting owners of child care centers with licensed capacities of more than 60 children to discuss the possibility of selling their businesses to Doodle Bugs! or becoming franchised Doodle Bugs! centers.
The company also is seeking suitable real estate of at least one acre for expansion in the Amherst-Clarence and Lancaster areas in metro Buffalo; Manlius in the Syracuse area; and Brighton, Henrietta, Penfield and Pittsford in the Rochester area.
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