What parenting taught me about starting up
Sep 2, 2018 · 4 min read
Startups have been synonymous with youth, brashness and high risk. Parenting on the other hand has been about stability, ‘settled down’ and the 30s/40s. Its now been 4 months since I jumped into the startup world full time after sitting on the fence and dabbling from the outside for some time. It wasn’t an obvious decision for me in many ways and while I fretted about it for a while, once I jumped on the ship I have been calmer.
Now that the ‘maternity leave’ period of this startup is almost over (well depends on what country you are in), I wanted to reflect on how the 2 experiences compare:

- ‘Longest shortest time’: one of my favorite parenting podcasts captures the oxymoronic nature of this phase well with that title. The day your baby refuses to stop crying or the day your first hire doesn’t show up can seem long (and dark). Eventually your baby outgrows the colic phase and while hiring is always tough you only face the ‘first rejection’ once.
- Nature versus nurture: I take a lot of consolation from the fact that siblings are different = nature is key to how we turn out = my responsibility as a parent is reduced = Phew! When it comes to startups, how do you resolve that debate? Your initial team is the DNA=nature of the startup. When we were hiring, we applied this as an important filter — would you want this person to be part of the nucleus. Personalities, work ethics, motivations of this nucleus will have a disproportionate impact on the shape the company will take.
- Gender equality: I was lucky to have a partner who did more than his share of diapering duties. Parenting can be lonely, and even more so if your partner doesn’t pull his(or her) weight. In the startup world this has been much harder to come by. Gender ratios in both the investing and startup world have been highly skewed. Part of what inspired me to write this was an article I read about F3 — Female Founder Fund. Most of my previous experiences in the academic and corporate world have given me a lot of exposure to situations of being a gender minority. It didn’t matter to me, and if anything it firmed my resolve to be a worthy specimen of my gender. However, over the years I have started to look at it a bit differently. In the corporate world you don’t write an exam that is judged through anonymous answer scripts. Hence, the gender skew compounds — your ‘judges’ view you through a gender lens + women have a stronger ‘impostor syndrome’ + women‘s communication style is often understated + lack of positive role models, it all adds to self doubts. This is one place where perhaps startups and parenting differ the most — a good partner alone can’t help you overcome the gender bias and a lot needs be done about it systemically. Sequoia recently organized an event for Women Founders — I was initially indignant about the need for such an event, but hearing the conversation from different women founders I realized that it was a deep need for the ecosystem not just for the women.
- Its hardest before bedtime: You have had an exhausting day and then there is yet another tantrum — parenting can be great for ‘character building’. However, what you learn is to not take it personally — not to get emotional about each tantrum — you set the rules, the expectations and then you just let the meltdowns happen without getting worked up. This can be an important lesson in the startup world — don’t take your failures personally. To be able to learn from them it is important to have a process driven approach for each function — something that allows you to treat each outcome as a function of the version of the process/product i.e. v1.1 failed, how do I make v1.2 more successful?
- We will figure it out: In the parenting world you pretty much don’t have a choice about it. Hence, if something doesn’t go your way today you explore and identify new options and then try a different approach tomorrow. If you approach startups with the same ‘it can’t fail’ mindset you will be more resilient.
- Lose the battle, to win the war: In the parenting world we pick our battles judiciously — ”you can wear those pants but you have to eat your papaya”. I would love to hear your example for this one in the startup world…
