Scott Klipper, a 39-year-old father in New York City, created Trot My Tot after struggling to find a short-term babysitter for a half-hour school drop-off when both parents were stuck at work. The web-based platform went live after a week of early development
For one week, Scott Klipper kept running into the same problem—an empty window where a babysitter should have been.
The 39-year-old father needed to pick up his son from school and take him to an after-school program, but he and his wife were both stuck at work. He scanned local Facebook groups for a part-time babysitter, but couldn’t find anyone willing to do a half-hour drop-off or an on-demand assignment.
“I just wanted someone to walk my kid a couple of blocks,” Klipper said. “I would see all these parents posting in these Facebook groups saying, ‘I need someone just to pick up my kid.’”
So he built a solution.
Over the course of a week, Klipper created a preliminary model of Trot My Tot, a platform where parents can find short-term nannies for one-off gigs. After gathering parents’ feedback and doing a “little coding push at the very end,” the platform went live.
Trot My Tot helps families in New York City and the surrounding areas coordinate transportation and short-term care for their children through local caregivers, whom Klipper calls “trotters.” Many of the trotters are part-time nannies or college students who can accommodate a morning commitment.
Klipper. who said he is “more likely to break code” if asked by a colleague to fix it. is also one of a wider group he describes as “vibe coders”—people who create apps and websites without actually writing code themselves. He said he used tools like Lovable. Cursor. and Replit to build features and automation that make everyday tasks easier. including tools to find groceries at the store or figure out what to feed a baby.
“If you’re getting your hands on AI and understanding how it works or what’s happening in the world,” Klipper said, “you’re going to be benefiting yourself in the end, whether you’re making a tool that’s helping families or just helping yourself by making something easier in life.”
That urgency—turning a small household bottleneck into a working product—sits at the center of Klipper’s story. He said he has lived with that entrepreneurial impulse for years. In middle school, he shoveled driveways in the neighborhood. After graduating from Northeastern University in 2010, he started a small sunglasses business. He is now a managing director at a hedge fund, and he continues to ideate on side projects.
The idea took shape while he was stuck at work.
Klipper began experimenting with different prompts last fall. In his early logs. he asked Lovable to make an app that mirrors the dog-walking app Rover. including GPS tracking and detailed profiles—but for walking his child to a school program. He joked that children aren’t dogs. and he wanted the platform to feel safe and not overly transactional. centered on short-term care.
Lovable produced images of what the website might look like. From there, Klipper built a user profile page, a booking system, and a prototype of a payment system. But he hit a limitation that he said vibe coding couldn’t fully solve on its own: the pages weren’t connected. and many functions didn’t work. He said the process cost him between $25 and $50 per month in Lovable credits.
To finish the product. he had to connect Stripe to the website so trotters could receive their payment. and he said his debugging and database knowledge was enough. He required trotters to enter their Social Security number and upload photos for verification. much of that work happening after midnight.
Once he had something he considered finalized, he sent it into the real world. In September, he blasted it out to parenting groups across Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Hoboken. He also shared it in a WhatsApp group for all the first-grade parents in his son’s class.
Klipper said he personally vets everyone on the platform. Trotters are required to enter their Social Security number and photos. and they can upload a driver’s license. past experience. and CPR certification. Families can independently vet a trotter through a preliminary phone call or in-person meeting before deciding on one. Klipper also said he is working on a verified trotter program with a more intensive background check.
“We’re really a facilitator of introducing these parents to these trotters, similar to a dating site,” Klipper said. In version 2.0, he hopes to be “stricter on who we want to add.”
The numbers suggest momentum but also underline how early the platform remains. Today, there are over 600 users of the web-based application, with more parents than trotters. So far, 149 total trots have been completed.
Pricing is still being set as the company figures out how to scale. Klipper said he capped the amount a trotter can charge at $25 for now. He added a paid tier for $8 a month with unlimited messaging, while trotters can pay $4 a month to get profiled or highlighted with a search.
Users, he said, like the simplicity of the experience, the low cost compared to finding a nanny on Facebook, and the convenience.
Klipper is clear that the business is not built for profit yet. “This isn’t a money-making venture at this time,” he said. “Everything right now is a cost. It’s a cost to pay for the vibe coding credits. It’s a cost for database storage.”
He has also expanded Trot My Tot beyond childcare. Klipper said he expanded the platform to cover older people who need help grocery shopping or getting to a doctor’s appointment.
Alongside Trot My Tot, he said he vibe coded an app that scrapes the school menus off the Department of Education website and gamifies it for his children, allowing them to click on what’s for breakfast and lunch.
None of his three platforms are perfect, he said—but he argues that the alternatives have historically been far more expensive.
“Every conversation I would have in college was like, ‘I have an idea for an app that should do this or do that,’ and no one could actually do it unless they spent thousands of dollars to pay a programmer to create it,” Klipper said. “This cuts that barrier down completely.”
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