An operating system for modern childcare
I started hayway because childcare directors deserve better than faceless, corporate software that takes a cut of every payment. I built it in New Albany, Indiana, bringing my background as a process engineer and daycare parent who got tired of watching good directors fight their tools.
- Built in New Albany, Indiana
- Low 0.4% ACH platform fee
- No long-term contracts
Software built for the neighborhood, not a boardroom
I built hayway after seeing directors spend their evenings at the kitchen table wrestling with tools that nickel-and-dime every payment and answer the phone with a menu. hayway puts billing, compliance and family engagement on one platform, so the work of running a center fits back inside the workday.
- Idempotent billing so a family is never double-charged, even on a flaky connection
- Per-center Postgres row-level security and field-level encryption of child information
- An AI co-director that answers from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois and Tennessee regulations, with director-approved ratio changes
- Subsidy claims reconciled against attendance, with a voucher-risk monitor and audit-readiness scanner
- FERPA-style disclosure tracking and role-based access on every record
- Year-end tax statements generated for every family, automatically
Built by a process engineer and daycare parent
Bringing process-improvement methodology, flexibility, and transparency to your center.
Jalil Hay spent fifteen years making operations run better. As a Six Sigma and Lean process engineer at a precision electronics manufacturer, the job is root cause analysis and taking waste out of a line one step at a time. Before that he ran high-volume restaurant kitchens, where the rush never waits for you. He is also a parent who has filled out the same forms, paid the same invoices and stood at the same drop-off doors your families do.
hayway is what happens when you point that methodology at childcare. The continuous-improvement board is not a buzzword here, it is the measure, surface, act and re-measure loop he ran on a production floor, rebuilt for a center. The flexibility comes from the kitchen, where no two services are the same. And the transparency is the rule we will not bend: where the data is not there yet, hayway says so, because invented numbers are how you lose a team’s trust, and a family’s.
- Six Sigma Green Belt and structured problem solving
- Lean and 5S, root cause analysis, DOE and GR&R
- Fifteen years leading and training operations teams
- High-volume hospitality, from back-of-house trainer to sous chef
- Studying Data Science at IU Southeast
- A daycare parent on the other side of drop-off
The principles I will not trade away
A few commitments that shape every decision, from how we price payments to who picks up the phone.
A direct line to the founder
When you reach out, you reach me, the person building hayway, not an offshore queue. During the Founder’s Circle, I will sit with you, learn your center, and focus the product on the work you actually need.
No contracts, no lock-in
Software should earn your business every month. There are no long-term contracts, and your data stays yours, exportable, if you ever decide to leave.
Your margins stay intact
Many platforms bury their profit in your payment processing. ACH on hayway carries a low 0.4% platform fee (capped at $2); cards add 1.5% on top of standard processing, itemized to families. We do not skim off the top.
An engineer’s eye for waste
Billing leaks, missed subsidy dollars and last-minute coverage gaps are the same kind of waste a process engineer is trained to find and remove. I apply that methodology to your center and work closely with directors to learn the parts only an operator can teach.
Honest about being early, serious about being good
hayway is pre-launch. I am onboarding a small Founder's Circle of centers that want to help shape the platform and get my full attention while they do.
Honest about where we are
hayway is pre-launch. There are no customer logos or testimonials to show you yet, and I will not invent them. What you get is the real platform and direct access to the person building it.
Founder-led migration
Bring CSV exports for families and primary guardians, children, and staff. I’ll help you map the supported fields, fix flagged rows, and verify the results.
You shape the roadmap
Founder’s Circle centers get a direct say in what we build next. Your day-to-day workflows decide where the product goes from here.
Ready to get your time back?
Join the Founder's Circle for founder-led setup, supported roster imports, billing and compliance configuration, and a verified launch plan for your families. Built in New Albany, Indiana.