About us

Our Story: A New Map for a New Era

For years, I built complex data intelligence systems for large corporations. I learned a powerful truth: even the biggest companies often make their most critical decisions based on traditional, incomplete pictures of the market.

When I started analyzing the US childcare industry, I saw a universal flaw. From national chains to passionate local founders, expansion decisions were being driven by a single, dangerously simplistic signal: "Let's open where the most children are."

This created brutal red oceans in the most obvious neighborhoods, while leaving vast, underserved blue oceans completely undiscovered. Multi-million dollar decisions were being made with only 50% of the necessary intelligence.

That was my "aha moment". I realized the entire industry didn't need just another data point; it needed a new, complete methodology for seeing the market.

That's why I founded ExpansionPoint.ai. Our mission is to introduce this new standard. We are the only platform that provides the missing 50%—the critical supply-side intelligence that reveals the true relationship between demand and competition. We turn a high-stakes guess into a confident, profitable decision.

preschool in class

From Data Science to Daycare. 

ExpansionPoint AI is a new, dedicated platform from the experienced data science team at AI Smarties, built exclusively for the US childcare industry.

Founder

Jie Zhang

Jie Zhang

A market research expert with a degree in GIS, Jie has been obsessed with finding signals in geographic data for over a decade. She founded Expansionpoint AI to answer one question for local entrepreneurs: 'Where, exactly, is my next best location?' By combining her unique background with a relentless focus on customer problems, Jie turns market chaos into confident business decisions.

Ready to Build Your Future?

Let us show you the data-driven path to your most confident expansion yet.