Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jermani Lynn Coughran. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Jermani Lynn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
Owning and operating a child centered business is a dream I have had since the age of 17. At the time, I was concerned that this pathway would not be lucrative unless I pursued it on a large, commercial scale. So I sought a degree in pediatric nursing. I believed it would provide a steady stream of income while still allowing me to care for children. Then, after working in that field for about ten years, I imagined I could fund my dream and finally become a childcare CEO.
After graduating in 2020 with my nursing prerequisites, I began my career in childcare as an educational caregiver to infants and toddlers. I had no children at the time, so I felt this was the best way to gain experience caring for children before trusting myself to care for them in compromised health states.
Little did I know this would ignite my love for teaching, and three years later, I opened my in home preschool program, which served 12 children over the course of two years.
In December 2022, I was blessed to carry a beautiful baby girl. While planning her arrival, I was confident we would be comfortable in the large, commercial childcare center where I worked. But at 20 weeks pregnant, when I was told her arrival might be premature, I no longer had the desire to be separated from her postpartum, even if it was just by a classroom.
By the grace of God, she made it a full 40 plus weeks. But the fire to ensure she received the best care possible had already been ignited in me, and no one could convince me that she would receive better care anywhere other than at home with me, and with a few friends who could also benefit from a smaller, more intimate learning environment. So I talked with my husband, Connor Coughran, about starting my dream career early, and without hesitation, he planned to take a semester off from pursuing his biochemistry degree to be the sole provider for our family while I cared for our baby full time. In between breastfeeding and meal prepping for my husband, I built a childcare model that would be accessible to families wanting a close knit, low ratio setting that catered to their child’s development.
Many things were not perfect during this building phase. To save money for this dream, we forfeited our apartment and lived with my parents, Angie and Jermaine Ezell. They reconstructed their home to give us space to live and work. Upstairs, by night, my husband, our daughter, and I slept in a one bedroom space. Downstairs, by day, I operated my first childcare business in my parents’ dining room. I named this beautiful program The Learning House (Murfreesboro, TN)!
After a few months of running my program, and even with my husband returning to being a full time college student, we were able to afford a place big enough for the three of us and our preschool friends. It was an older home, cut in half and split into two units. There was a big backyard, and I quickly advanced my childcare model to serve my preschool friends not just as a teacher but also as a caregiver and nanny. We took field trips, visited family members, and ran daily errands to explore learning through real life experiences. We fell in love with this routine, and this was home for about one year.
The following year, we found a beautiful three bedroom, three bathroom townhome that was a brand new build, with a park across the street and enough space to expand the preschool by a couple more friends. This home served the children well and brought in enough funding to allow me to pay for our field trips, school photos, and holiday parties at no extra cost to parents. This showed me just how lucrative, financially and spiritually, this path I had chosen could be, even if I could only serve a few beautiful souls at a time.
In June 2025, I closed my childcare doors to overcome a multiyear battle with Endometriosis. This condition causes tissue from the uterus to grow in other areas of the body, resulting in debilitating pain, chronic fatigue, digestive distress, and inflammation that can affect fertility and daily functioning. The surgery I needed would be my second in two years, and it would be much more complicated than the first. The battle itself had unknowingly begun around age 18, but a diagnosis did not come until after my baby’s birth at age 23, five years of unanswered pain.
Then I was told that the answer was a painful illness I would be forced to manage and monitor forever, unless I opted for the final surgery, a full hysterectomy. But I am only 25, and though my doors for childcare may not always be open, having more children of my own is simply not a door I am ready to close. So for the next year and a half after my diagnosis, I fought to keep the illness at bay and to keep the children who were already blessing my life at the forefront.
When my surgery in September 2025 was complete, I immediately began planning to reopen my home. It was only a few days after the operation when my husband received a promotion that would relocate us within one month. Bittersweet does not do justice to the mix of excitement I felt for my family and the heartache I felt for the children I had grown to love as my own. I often try not to feel guilty about our time being cut short by my illness, and although the fight to be present with them while a war was raging inside my body was a daily challenge, I would not change that time for anything, because otherwise I would not have the memories of my preschool friends joining me in my home every day. My illness made me weak, but they lit up every ounce of my heart, and I think of them every day.
During the time my doors were closed in June 2025, I also stepped into a new season of creating marketing content for brands, airbnbs, hotels, and businesses mainly in the Nashville area. In childcare we create all throughout the day through imagination and play, and social media marketing allowed me to do this without the physical demand of a full time preschool to operate. The jump from full time preschool operations manager to no work at all left me feeling more mentally stumped than the illness, but I made the best of it and I believe that because I kept my approach genuine and truly grateful, it excelled in a lot of different ways in a short amount of time. I used social platforms to advertise my services for childcare, and when I transitioned into marketing, those same platforms helped open doors for my daughter to film commercials and for me to meet amazing entrepreneurs in the creative and corporate world. So as I continue my career with childcare, social media marketing will always have a place in my life, not only as an extension of my creativity but also as a way to build financial stability and community from home since becoming a monetized stay at home mom through social media marketing has become one of the biggest unexpected blessings in this journey.
Today, I am in a city that has shown me my childcare operations and my social media marketing will both be in full bloom come 2026! Multiple streams of childcare are in the works and the marketing campaigns that will follow all have me very excited for the families and friends they will bless!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am an Afro American, 25 years old, Christian woman. Born in Chicago, IL raised in Murfreesboro, TN.
My parents moved 5 children across state lines in an attempt to give us a better life in a city not riddled with violence. A homeless shelter at the age of 1 was my first place of residence in TN. Today I am an entrepreneur who has found ways to monetize stay at home motherhood. I am 4 years married with a 3 year old daughter and I have battled with endometriosis since age 18. A proper diagnosis did not come until age 23 so I suffered 5 years no answers. Now I stand 1 successful birth and 2 surgeries later, still fighting and working to build community, advocacy, and wealth.
I got into the operations portion of childcare through working in commercial facilities and I never threw away any onboarding or training packets. I studied them, not just as a teacher, but as a future owner in this field. This was me knowing who I was before the title came.
I got into the social media marketing industry by simply showing up, recording, and providing a story through my content that not only looks good, but relates. I went to the influencer meetups, networked with people who have already achieved what I am aiming for, and was not afraid to share my story and listen to theirs.
When it comes to the discipline of an entrepreneur, time exists and it also does not. “Work hours” are 24/7. But deadlines are deadlines. As a creative you cannot expect the same things to formulate with the same passion twice. So when you get an itch for a new idea, get it out. Write it, plan it, complete it. Don’t let it pass you by, because it may not come back with the same angst it gave you the first time. It can be so easy to be lazy with your intuition. “I’ve got a hunch to do this now, but I’ll do it later” will kill so many opportunities. If you can be disciplined in this area, you will never run out of genuine things to create and you will never pour an idea into your business that feels empty.
For childcare, I have provided full time in home preschool services with additional nanny services for multiple families. Since relocating, I am currently branching into childcare for not only full time needs, but also for the stay at home moms who need a few hours alone, for the parents who want a date night without having to leave the baby home, and for special occasions where the adults could flow much better if the children had a space to themselves.
What currently makes me unique is for every family that trusts me, their child gains an automatic connection with an advanced toddler, my three year old daughter who is so articulate and intelligent she is now reading and doing addition. Aside from her intellect, she loves every friend we encounter and takes pride in being able to be hospitable to them whether it be with keeping them company or actually preparing the meals with me, she is a true giver and I believe it is because she has watched me give continuously to her and her preschool friends even when I was unwell.
What makes me unique in marketing is that I have multiple audiences I am aware of how to tap into through not selling, but through relating and problem solving. Moms, wives, chronic illness warriors, female entrepreneurs, Christian women. We are all connected, and when my content resonates with or answers something they have been struggling with, I don’t see them as a sale or a customer I see them as my community.
For childcare, my main goal has always been to provide an environment that a parent can trust and a child can thrive in. For me that looks like:
having the opportunity to learn in the same environment but at a different pace than their friend without it deeming them less than,
having opportunities to advance their independence with 1 on 1 coaching, not coddling. They do a task and I watch and explain step by step how to complete it by themselves. Only intervening if the child is unsafe, emotionally overwhelmed, or integrity is being compromised. Intervening is not taking over the task and completing it for them, it is resetting the situation back to one where the child can thrive. Learning through real experiences is so necessary especially for ages 1-5. So yes I will teach them to cook that meal, or to say that word in a different language, because the ages people think “don’t matter they won’t remember” are actually the years that can shape your babies brain for life.
For marketing, my favorite thing to produce is a short compilation of videos or images telling a story with only visuals. It can be a trip I took or an afternoon spent caring for children. But the best part is seeing other people relate to or find solution in what I am sharing. Some problems you may see me solve via marketing is promoting my childcare services for parents in my area, or promoting a product that has helped me manage endometriosis. These have separate target audiences. Knowing how to optimize my post so that it reaches my target audience is something I have practiced and has helped me, help my clients, which helps the clients target audience by providing them with a direct link to the answer to their problem.
For both my childcare operations and my marketing strategies I am very proud of the people it continues to bring into my life. Both of these have played big parts in getting me out my comfort zones with socializing and networking. I am used to being reserved and not the first to speak in a room, but these are opening me up to feel like I am in a room because I deserve to be there. I have a story and I want to hear other people’s story about how you ended up in the same room as me and what we have in common and how we can help each other accelerate in our goals. My battle with Endometriosis put a big strain on my physical and mental health. When your body is trying to ignore debilitating pain, you have little room for extra stimulation. When I had gotten to the point of surgery my social life was very limited. So while I continue to manage what I know could flare up at any time, it has taught me to enjoy the moments where I am not fighting. So I enjoy them and enjoy others!
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
In person connections. I used to rely on raking in clients via social media only. But I’ve learned that is just one avenue of a first impression. Branching out to your local events, showing up in your community, letting people experience your genuine love for what you do, I almost always walk away with a new contact in my phone for the purpose of them being interested in my services.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Asking for permission before I executed an idea. Some may out of genuine desire to please the audience, I did it out of procrastination. “If someone finds a flaw in this pitch it needs more work. Not ready to launch. Not enough this. Need more time for that”. This kind of thing can lead to never launching out of fear it isn’t perfected or will be rejected. I had to learn the only person who truly knows it will be successful is me because it is mine and I have vision that the next person cannot see. If you taint your creative vision with someone else’s blindspot you will never create to the extent you know you can and it will always feel like duty and not delight.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/Jermanilynn
- Instagram: @Jermanilynn
- Facebook: Jermani Lynn Coughran
- Other: Threads: Jermanilynn
TikTok: Jermaniilynn
Image Credits
Jermani Coughran
Supermvn