Dadpreneur: how I run AppSumo from 10 to 4 with two kids

I run AppSumo from 10 am to 4 pm. The rest of the day belongs to two daughters.

Right before I came upstairs to record this, my daughter was crying for me to sit with her so she could have lunch. The nanny was there, my mother-in-law was there, my wife was there. I didn’t abandon her. But I have a rule that I never lie to her, because one time I told her I was going to the bathroom and never came back. I went to work. So I told her daddy’s going to work, voy a trabajar, and I’m coming back to you. She still cried a little.

My buddy Alan is a private equity guy and a dad. There’s a park in Austin where I always see him carrying his daughter. I asked him once about being a dad and he said: my work life is intense, my home life with the kids is crazy, and my time with my kids, I want it to be a source of joy.

That line was in my head walking up the stairs. Is this Zoom meeting worth it? Is making an extra dollar worth it? Is checking stocks worth it? Is recording this worth it? I don’t monetize the podcast. It’s for me. Being a dadpreneur is tougher than I expected, and most of the tough part is guilt.

Yesterday, roughly

With my first daughter I took the whole year off. With the second, with how AppSumo has been going, I’m running the company day to day. I’m trying to find a hybrid where I work less than now and don’t feel like I’m missing out on them.

7 am, up with my daughter. I sleep with her. Parent shaming is a whole other episode: sleep train or sleep with them, everyone has watched something on Instagram that says their way is right. From 7 to 9 I play with her, take her to the park, feed her, make coffee. 9 to 10 everyone’s up and we have breakfast. Around 10 she goes with the nanny, to the library or, yesterday, to Ross. 10 to 4 is my window: AppSumo, or biking in the garage, or a lunch meeting. 4 to 8 is park, pool, playing somewhere. Yesterday my youngest got her ears pierced. Dinner, bedtime routine at 7:30, done by 9. An hour talking with my wife or an hour of work. Then I sleep with my daughter from 10 to 7 and do it all again.

The window is small, so I’m a lot more disciplined about what has to get done today. When I was at Facebook, the people with kids left at 5 and I’d be there until 11 thinking these guys are so lazy. They were finishing what they had to do so they could go home, and I probably got half as much done as they did by 11 pm.

I’m grateful I got the momentum going before I had kids. When you don’t have costs, responsibilities, or expectations, you can take a lot more risk. With a mortgage and diapers it’s much harder to say I’m going to risk my family eating for a dream. That’s why I keep telling people to get the first dollar first.

Nobody talks about the money either. Coterie diapers are $1.20 each and these kids poop and pee. Throw that money right in the fire. We went to Mexico last week and hired a nanny there for about $200 a day, maybe $1,000 for the week, and it made a huge difference. For the kids’ accounts, I sold three Rolexes I was going to give them, about $40k, which sounds fancier than it was. My wife wanted some for her own investment account, and the rest went into a Vanguard total index fund for them. Inheritance I haven’t landed on: why give them money after you’re dead instead of while you’re alive?

What I’m optimizing for

The business version of “what’s the most important thing you do as a parent” is what are you optimizing for. I want a kid who likes herself. Self-confident, independent, good habits, pretty kind. Basically my wife. So I let my wife do most of the parenting. The biggest cheat code in all of this is marrying someone whose values you want, because your wife is going to teach 90% of her values to your kids.

My part is leading by example. Hug them as often as possible. Try not to show frustration (my wife’s note: don’t, just hug her). Let her play by herself without me being so involved. Read to her: I asked a first grade teacher what separates the more developed kids in her class, and she said it’s literally whether a parent reads to the kid or not. At night, maybe once a week while she’s asleep, I tell her you’re kind, you’re brave, you’re courageous.

Lately she grabs my phone. I take a photo, say cheese, she says cheese, then “photo, photo.” I hand her the phone to look at the trees we’re picking for the front yard. Okay, love you, I’d like the phone back. No. I take it, because a two-year-old has her whole life to be on technology, and she loses it. Just cries. So I hugged her, instantly. I almost never let her see me on my phone. Same in a company. How you send messages, how you show your work, how you give feedback, all of it teaches people what culture you’re creating.

Two has been different from one. One is the bigger life change. Two is just less free time, and it feels like a lot to ask my wife when I want to go biking. First kid, about a thousand photos. Second, like 20. What I didn’t expect is how much my first daughter would notice. Who’s this intruder? The first few months, my wife and I had some hard conversations so I could do better, and I still have guilt that I should have spent more time with her.

You can always replay the movie

I have two dads, a biological one and a stepfather who raised me. My mom asks questions during movies. She doesn’t understand what’s happening, so she asks, and my stepdad would pause it every time. One day I asked him, doesn’t it bother you? He said yes. Then why do you do it? Because she’s more important than the movie, and I can always replay it.

I think about that when I’m putting my daughter to sleep and I want to go back to my computer. What’s more substantive? Sleeping my daughter. I can read it later. You can always pause it.

They’ll stop doing things and you’ll miss them. She doesn’t want the bottle as much anymore. She always wants to be held, and one day she won’t.

And judge everyone a little less. I judged parents for sleeping with their kids. Now I sleep with my daughter. You don’t know until you’re there.

I’m going downstairs now. She’s going to scream daddy, and then I’ve got to go change some poopy butts.

From episode 390 of my podcast, Noah Kagan Presents. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.