Startup Dad

Kyle Lacy is the Chief Marketing Officer of Jellyfish—a platform that helps developers make data-backed decisions on resource investments. Across two decades he has built companies like Lessonly, Openview, Salesforce and ExactTarget. He’s also a husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today we discussed: * Managing work, life and parenting appropriately * Handling stress across the...

Kevin Hanaford is an engineering leader at popular chat application, Discord where he oversees security, safety, privacy and platform teams. His career has included companies like Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon, Salesforce, and autonomous vehicle company, Cruise. In addition to his roles at some of the most significant technology companies of the last two decades he’s also a husband and the father of t...

Martin Pannier is a French entrepreneur who started the company Primo to help small and medium-sized businesses get their IT work right for new employees. He’s worked as a product leader at iziwork, Gusto and several others. In addition to being a founder he’s also a husband and the father of one young daughter. In our conversation today we discussed: * Raising a daughter in a multicultural family...

Linda Flanagan is a freelance journalist, researcher, and former cross-country and track coach. She is the author of numerous articles on youth sports and the book Take Back The Game - How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids Sports—And Why It Matters . She is a founding board member of the NYC chapter of the Positive Coaching Alliance and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic , Runner’s World and...

Rob Schutz is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of multi-billion-dollar online health company, Ro. He has also founded the domain name service company, Snagged. He invests alongside me in the 20Growth fund. In addition to his skill as a founder he’s also a husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today we discussed: * How to set a good example for your kids in how you treat o...

Adam Nash is a long-time Silicon Valley executive, investor and advisor. He was the President and CEO of Wealthfront, a Product executive at Dropbox and LinkedIn, and teaches a course on personal finance for engineers at Stanford. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Daffy, the donor-advised fund for you and a champion of charitable giving. In addition to his long and successful career he’s a...

Andrew Capland is the founder of Growth coaching and advisory, Delivering Value. He’s also been the Head of Growth at Postscript and Wistia and was an early employee at Hubspot. He’s a loving husband and the father of two kids, including one who was 6 weeks old during our chat! In our conversation today we discussed: * Going from one kid to two and thriving with a newborn * Managing your life and...

Jordane Giuly is a 3x co-founder having started French Fintech unicorn Spendesk and most recently SMB financing company Defacto. As a French entrepreneur he brings an interesting, international perspective to parenting and company building. He’s a loving husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today we discussed: * Comparing California cuisine to French cuisine * The differences in...

Dave Boyce is a successful five-time exited founder, a GTM expert and owner of the newsletter ProductLedGTM.com. He sits on the board of Forrester and has just completed the final manuscript for his book on GTM strategy which comes out in 2025. He’s a loving husband and the father of six kids, ages 16 to 28. In our conversation today we discussed: * How to raise a family of incredibly successful k...

Darby Saxbe is a professor at USC and holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology. Her research includes studying the effects of stress hormones in couples and most importantly the changes that the male brain undergoes after becoming a parent. She has scientifically discovered slight gray matter loss in men following fatherhood and termed it Dad Brain. She is currently writing a book about her research. Sh...

Eric Bahn is the co-founder and a GP at Hustle Fund—a pre-seed venture fund that invests in very early stage founders. He has also been a founder himself as well as a product leader at companies like Intuit and Instagram. Most importantly, he’s a husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today we discussed: * What it means to feel joy in coming home to your family * His decision with...

Yousuf Bhaijee is a Growth Gdvisor and interim Head of Growth to companies like Brightwheel, HP, Evernow and Blackbird. Chris Lloyd is an engineer who most recently worked at AI company, Humane, and also Pinterest, Assembly and Opera. Yousuf is the father of three kids and Chris is the father of two. Chris and his family, Yousuf and his family and five other families live in a town-home complex th...

Scott Belsky is the Chief Strategy Officer and EVP of Design and Emerging Products at Adobe. He took on this role after being Chief Product Officer for their flagship Creative Cloud products. In 2006 Scott founded a company for creative professionals called Behance which he later sold to Adobe. He is also an active angel investor having invested in companies like Pinterest, Uber, Carta, Warby Park...

Patrick Thompson is a three-time founder, starting a company right after college and then founding and selling his second company, Iteratively, to Amplitude in 2019. He stayed on as a Director of Product until leaving recently to co-found his third company, Clarify, a next generation CRM platform. He’s a loving husband and the father of one kid. In today's conversation we discussed: * How to manag...

Ethan Austin is the founder of OutsideVC, where he invests in founders building a more equitable and just financial system. He was the Chief Strategy Officer of Gig Wag, Managing Director of Techstars Denver, and was co-founder and president of GiveForward which was acquired by GoFundMe. He’s a loving husband and the father of three kids. In today's conversation we discussed: * The time he picked...

Lane Shackleton is the Chief Product Officer of Coda, where he has worked for over 8 years. Prior to that he had a 9+ year career at Google and Youtube as a product manager and leader. He’s a loving husband and the father of three kids. In today's conversation we discussed: * How to motivate and teach lessons to your kids through “quests” * Lowering the pressure on high-stakes parenting * Two acti...

David Haddad is a health-tech founder and product manager turned creator. He's now on a mission to teach Dads how to cook with his new company Mister Branzino and the Meal Machine operating system. He runs a newsletter and the Dad Cook Crew community. He's a loving husband and the father of 1 son. In today's conversation we discussed: * How David developed his passion for cooking * Why Dads often...

Matt Wensing is the founder and CEO of Summit, a no-code platform for building tools and workflow automation. For nearly 20 years he has been a founder and CEO--starting with a company called Riskpulse which became Everstream Analytics and was acquired in January 2020. He is a loving husband and the father of four teenagers! In today's conversation we discussed: * Getting married and having kids i...

Linus Ekenstam is a designer and serial entrepreneur who has founded and sold several companies. He has also been a design leader at Typeform, Bamboo Blockchain and Flodesk. He's currently building an AI-powered children's story generator at BedtimeStory.ai and a platform to track and improve mental health called Sensive. He is a partner and the father of two daughters. In today's conversation we...

Siqi Chen is co-founder and CEO of Runway, the finance platform you don't hate. He was also the president, chief product officer and CEO of Sandbox VR, the VP of Growth at Postmates and he sold his first company to Zynga in 2010. He is an angel investor who has invested in companies like Touch of Modern, Amplitude, Italic, and Clubhouse. He is a husband and the father of two daughters. In today's...

Luke Millar is the SVP of product and engineering at Medium, where you can discover stories, thinking and expertise from writers on just about any topic. He joined there after the company he co-founded was acquired by them in 2021. He has been a technology leader at Shift, Twitter and Microsoft. He is a husband and the father of five kids. In today's conversation we discussed: * How to structure a...

Nir Eyal writes, consults and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology and business. He is the best-selling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life . Earlier in his career he co-founded and sold two tech companies. In addition to his books and his blog his writing has been featured in The New York...

Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a business banking platform that has raised over $160M in funding and has over 100,000 customers. He has also founded two other companies – Clickpass and Heyzap; the latter of which was acquired in 2016. Immad is a husband and the father of two kids. In today's conversation we discussed:  * Starting a family at a very young age (by San Francisco s...

David Lat is a lawyer turned legal writer who created Above The Law and his current, legal newsletter and podcast Original Jurisdiction, which is now his full-time job. Prior to writing he was a practicing attorney and worked as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice under Chris Christie. David is a husband and the father of two kids. In today's conversation we discussed:  * The transit...

Tod Francis is the founder of the world-renowned investment firm Shasta Ventures. He has made early investments in companies like Canva, Tonal, ClassDojo, LiquidSpace, Task Rabbit, Mint and more. About 15 years ago Tod started on a journey to understand why and how great memories and connections are formed between kids and their parents. He surveyed over one thousand young adults, analyzed that da...