Welcome, Startup Baby Greyson Lorang

Thoughts on a great first week.

It’s Mother’s Day. Sarah is getting her nails done for a ‘newborn photo shoot’ tomorrow and our newborn son Greyson is sleeping (for now).

So I figured I’d squeeze in a blog post about his first week. It could be quite short, depending on when Greyson wakes up. Here goes:

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On Friday, May 2nd, 2014 at 3:11 PM, Greyson Michael Lorang was born in Boulder, Colorado to me and my wife Sarah.

It was a seminal moment in our lives, and we are thrilled to have him in our family. For photos available via a public iCloud stream, click here.

If you are friends with me or Sarah on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or iCloud, you have now been inundated by numerous photos every day of Baby Greyson — or “G-Lo” as I like to call him.

I know. We’ve turned into those parents, and we’re strangely at peace with it.

But about nine days in, it’s pretty clear to me that having a Baby is a LOT like running a Startup.

The metaphor goes something like this:

1. The baby is the startup itself.
2. The parents are the startup founders.
3. The grandparents are the investors and board of directors.
4. The parents / founders have initially no idea what they are doing with the baby / startup.
5. The parents / founders overcompensate by doing everything together, all the time (just like playing kids soccer — they all are crowded around the ball)
6. The parents / founders operate on very little sleep and are under emotional duress.
7. The parents / founders work extraordinarily long hours and give superhuman, insane effort.
8. The parents / founders tweet/share/like things on social media about the baby / startup at every opportunity — annoyingly so to everyone else in their lives.
9. The parents / founders constantly worry that the baby / startup is going to die.
10. The parents / founders put the baby / startup ahead of everything else in their lives, including themselves.
11. The parents / founders often grow exasperated with one another around job duties, roles and responsibilities, and effort given.
12. The grandparents / investors like to pop in for an hour or two and give tips and advice, but in the end, they (hopefully) trust the parents / founders to make the right calls (or in the worst case scenario, they lose faith in the parents / founders and take control of the baby / startup)
13. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is going to CHANGE THE WORLD.
14. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is beautiful, regardless of whatever everyone else thinks.
15. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is truly ‘special’, and the problems faced are unique to the baby / startup.
16. The parents / founders want other people to hold / test out their baby / startup. Some people are willing holders / beta testers, others are not for fear of ‘breaking’ the baby / startup (I’m looking at you, Brad Feld)
17. The parents / founders are proud of the name they’ve chosen for their baby / startup. Nobody else wants to tell them it’s a stupid name, even if it is.
18. Nobody enjoys it when the baby / startup inevitably shits the bed.
19. The startup / parent world is full of people that will give unsolicited advice — including folks that have never had a startup / baby or messed either up completely. Thanks to Dharmesh Shah for this one ;-)
20. Getting your baby into the “right” preschool is a lot like getting your startup into the right accelerator. It’s stressful, highly competitive and at the end of the day the preschool / accelerator is investing in the parents / founders. Thanks to An Bui for this one ;-)
21. As much as the parents/founders think that they can completely steer it, the baby/startup has its own unique personality and character, which will take it on a journey they cannot ultimately control. Thanks to Mark Frank for this one ;-)

That’s all folks, Greyson just woke up and sounds hungry. If you’ve got any more analogies, email me: bart@fullcontact.com