What B2B SaaS taught me about having kids
I've been a dad for 3 months now so obviously I have it all figured out and there's nothing new to learn. My theories are rock solid and definitely apply to everyone.
Here's what B2B software taught me about having kids.
To thrive you have to survive
Most startups fail for a very basic reason: The money runs out.
There's no drama or big announcements. A website that stopped updating, a storefront with a for lease sign. The business ran out of money and went quietly into the night.
Whatever you do, you gotta be making money. Without money nothing else matters.
The Lady was born with tongue tie and couldn't eat good. It took us a few days to notice that she wasn't gaining weight on schedule. This is an emergency.
We adopted a calories in babies approach. Forget the social media noise about breast is best and formula bad and this technique or that. Just get calories in babies.
I syringe fed that baby every ~90 minutes for 2 weeks until she was big enough to use the bottle. Calories in babies.
Forget the noise
When you start a business, everyone has advice. From the online influencer selling their next course and the billionaire VC who says you should burn money on growth (and become dependent on that next investment), to cousin joey who doesn't have a job but owns every latest gadget and drives a fancy car.
Your job is to take all that advice, nod and say thank you, then throw away the 99% that doesn't apply to you. Not because it's bad advice, because it's bad advice for you.
New parents are one of the most targeted demographics. You should see my partner's instagram feed holy shit the amount of fear mongering is insane. Scare scare scare delight sell. ๐คข
Listen to your gut. Pay for expert advice. Try and evaluate. Keep what's working.
Every baby is different. Even in the same household.
It's project management all the way
Running a business is overwhelming. Nobody tells you what to do, there's an infinite number of things you could do, and you have N months of runway before the money runs out.
What do you do?
You do what you can. Break projects down into smaller pieces, stack rank your priorities, and kick the can. You're not going to build the ultimate best piece of software today, just make it better and survive until the next feedback cycle.
Good enough today beats perfect tomorrow.
Babies are like that too. They fuck up your relationship, throw a bomb at your routines, and disrupt everything in your house. I didn't even know it was possible to own so many tools and appliances. There's baby bottles everywhere.
But you gotta look at the big scary job and break it down. You have two hours between feeds, what can you do? Oh wait a feed takes time, you have 30 minutes between feeds. What can you do?
Break tasks down into 30 minute chunks, split the work between available adults, and do your best. Finish chunks before taking up the next. Have a backlog that you'll never get to.
3 tasks you complete beat 10 tasks you start and don't finish.
Have regular checkins and evaluate what's working
When you run a team or work with stakeholders, there's context and alignment decay. The longer projects and teams run independently, the more they stray off course.
You set priorities but then little fires happen, shiny ideas pop up, someone makes a drive-by comment at your desk, and suddenly you've spent days and weeks working on something awesome that definitely might help the business while that million dollar deal waits on the feature you promised and never got around to. Oops.
We solve this with demos and regular checkins. Standup helps. Gives you a chance to nudge people back towards their priorities and prune the scope creep away with your manager's shears.
I don't think The Lady cares about my priorities or her daily tasks. She's a baby she poops when she wants.
But sitting down together with my partner and going "Okay what's working? Where are we feeling stressed? What's being neglected? Any important dates coming up? What's on the calendar this week? Who needs support and what kind?"
That stuff works. Keeps us sane, fed, and off each other's throats.
Brand
How people perceive your business matters. Brand sets the tone. Are you quirky and fun or stodgy and boring or building the future.
Perception defines the employees you'll attract, the customers who think of you, the sales that will be easy and those that will be hard. You can't sell enterprise safety to a startup.
If you change "ugh I have to watch the baby" to "wow I get to hang out with The Lady" it can make all the difference.
Now if you'll excuse me I have some hanging out to do.
Cheers,
~Swizec
Filed under: Personal
