The Learning Experience’s David Slavny on Scaling Up Growth

Early education is becoming an increasing focus among government agencies, and that creates opportunities for providers. As a case in point, The Learning Experience (TLE), headquartered in Deerfield Beach, FL and currently operating in 35 states, moved up 11 notches to number 32 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 for 2024 and ranked #1 overall in the childcare category.

Helping drive those enviable rankings has been a strategic approach to real estate. Connect CRE recently sounded out TLE’s SVP of development, David Slavny. Here’s what he told us:

Q: What is The Learning Experience’s growth strategy—is the company looking for new markets or greater penetration into the ones where it currently operates?

A: We are both seeking new markets as well as pushing for greater penetration in the markets where we operate currently. We are extremely careful in our expansion efforts to ensure that every new market we engage with will be able to receive the same exceptional level of direct operational support from our team that we provide to all our franchisees, and that we will be able to scale that operational support in a way that allows us to remain highly effective as we grow within the market.

Q: For opening new locations, whether infill or in new markets, what are the most important considerations?

A: In childcare, there are multiple considerations that we take into account to ensure viability and high-level success for locations, including strong demographics, cost to build, visibility of the site, ease of ingress and egress for parents, convenience and safety of location, and the existing competitive landscape.

Q: Are fast-growth markets such as Sunbelt metro areas more conducive to expansion compared to more mature markets such as the Northeast?

A: Being a company originally from New Jersey, a lot of our early stores were in the Northeast. There are still infill opportunities there, but the largest opportunity does follow the states with the most growth – including many of the Sunbelt states. Texas, Florida, California, and Georgia by nature represent a lot of the U.S. population and growth, and by nature has a lot of our interest for new locations.

Q: How does The Learning Experience’s real estate teamwork with franchisees in terms of identifying the franchisees and setting them up for success?

A: The real estate team works in connection with our franchise sales department to ensure that we are finding highly qualified and exceptional franchisee candidates that have a passion for childcare and entrepreneurship and that are able to effectively manage a location geographically. Franchisee prospects conduct a thorough due diligence process with the assistance of franchise sales, and once an agreement has been executed, they are provided with a high level of both virtual and in person classroom style as well as hands-on training. Outside of training, franchisees benefit from a robust pre and post opening direct support program from our new center openings and operations teams.