Eight days a week
The other day, my friend Allison made this LinkedIn post:
I dashed off this quick reply:
I stand by the reply. But a couple of days after I posted it, I started thinking about all the time my own kids spent time at Textio when they were young.
Obligatory disclaimers
I love work and I work constantly. It is fun to make stuff and solve hard problems! AND ALSO I don't think that dragging your entire team into the office six days a week is a great way to build a company.
I love that my kids have had a front-row seat to the building of Textio. Partly as a result of that exposure, my 15yo daughter had started two businesses of her own before starting middle school. AND ALSO kids should have space to explore whatever is interesting to them, and as a parent, the time you spend fully present with them not working is gold. I am grateful for every minute of time I've spent going to my kids' athletics and performances, hiking, cooking, and playing board games together.
With all that said, as married cofounders, our kids were present in the Textio office for some big milestones, and that experience changed them.
A family business
When my daughter was five, she was there in the office eating pizza with us on the night of our first-ever commercial launch. A few years later, when she started her custom art business, she happily let me buy her art supplies as her mom, but rejected any framing of me as her investor because she "wasn't looking for VC and didn't want the dilution."
When this same daughter was eight, we ended up without childcare for a couple of days one summer. Since I had to be in the office for at least a few hours those days, she came along with me. She was delighted to be my intern, where she learned how to define an ICP and write a sales pitch. I still have some of her work (complete with doodles of the LG logo?!). It's pretty good!
Over the years, she has seen nearly all aspects of starting and running a company. She has seen us go through fundraising events and personnel challenges, product development and rebranding, and sales and marketing pivots. She has watched me brief Congress about AI and observed me struggling with the aftermath of bad leadership decisions. She could even tell you about the time we unwittingly hired a con artist.
Fast forward to today
A few months ago, we were having a conversation one night at dinner. I asked a provocative question: "If you had to support yourself today, using just the skills you already have and following the law, how would you do it?"
She didn't hesitate. "Tech sales," was her immediate reply.
"Do you want to work in tech sales?" I asked her.
"Probably not," she said. "But you said I have to use the skills I already have. I think I could get hired as an MDR, and that's probably my fastest and least painful path to make enough money to support myself if I had to do it tomorrow."
"I guess that makes sense," I commented.
"But just to be clear," she added. "That's only if I had to support myself literally tomorrow, because it seems like maybe that job won't exist in a few years."
"What would you do instead in a few years?" I asked.
"Start an AI company," she said right away. "But if you give me more time to get some more skills, I'd rather be a psychiatrist."
Our other two kids have shown less interest in business, but they connect with my work in other ways. Our 16yo, also a writer, was the first nerd processor subscriber (yes, before my husband and co-founder) and she reads this every week. Our 13yo, an artist, is reading the memoir I'm writing this year and giving me more detailed feedback along the way than any of my other early readers.
Of course, they have no idea what they will end up doing with their lives in the end, and I don't either. It's fun to watch their unique interests develop. But whatever they chase down, I believe that seeing our work up close has changed their perspective in ways that might not become evident for years to come.
Kieran
I know firsthand that it's hard to balance a family with a career you're passionate about. I regularly coach ambitious leaders on how to build the balance that's right for them. Join my 2025 coaching wait list!
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