Meet Our Founders

We started our careers and vocation here in Boston from our kitchen table, at coffee shops, on the benches of indoor playgrounds, parks and libraries all with our four kids under 7 in tow.  Back in 2012, budgets were so tight! We toured daycares and didn't like what we saw to entrust our babies to. And since we weren't from Mass, we didn't have any family around so our "village" was rather small.  We'd join co-working offices with promises that our kids would be welcome, but would then soon find out they were too loud or too messy and we just couldn't get any work done. During those years, my husband and I would say, "Why is there not a co-working office that has amenities for kids, and a place where we could bring some purpose to our productivity and play?!"  We started dreaming and scheming, and put to paper what we wanted to come to life!  This is where "play on purpose" came from. The POP Center came from our great need a decade ago!
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What came first for us, though, was the development of the church we founded and pastor, our real estate business as two licensed realtors, and the two licensed childcare centers we own as well as a non-religious foundation that does benevolent work in our area. You could say we've been a little busy over the last decade!  Our real estate business led us to a childcare center that needed to be revitalized.  So in 2016, we waded into the waters of early childhood education and care and started StoryHeights Montessori Childcare Center, an EEC-licensed childcare center now with two campuses and waiting lists a mile long. Over the last six years, we have learned what makes childcare safe and secure, what makes it an expensive and challenging industry, and we have also seen the great need parents have for more quality and affordable options.  We've also learned over the last decade how FAST the years of parenting little ones go by as our little ones aren't so little anymore!
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When we saw how COVID dramatically changed the way we all were able to work, we knew it was finally time to bring our idea to the market.  We've listened to parents as they demand more flexible options, more time with their kids, a more equitable work-life balance.  We've taken the same care and precision we do at our childcare centers to ensure best-in-class care and implemented a lot of the same policies, regulations and methods into The POP Center.  We have created a model that we think you'll find more affordable and flexible than the current options out there in the market.  We think your kids will have an absolute blast in our curated spaces.  We think we have created a business model that will allow us all to do some great charity work together and bring multiple locations to life so that every parent possible will have access to this concept. And instead of owning this business personally, our church owns it as a subsidiary for-profit company so that the profits will always be stewarded to be mission-aligned.   Although we never got to use this very needed service when our kids were little, it is our greatest joy to see it available now to you!  We hope you'll come give it a try and see if it doesn't serve your family in some way.
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Sincerely,
Tyler & Crystal Tullos
Co-Founders