Bottle Washing Hacks, Solopreneurship and Newborn Babies | Andrew Capland (Dad of 2, Delivering Value, Postscript, Wistia)

Andrew: I always prioritize family. I've just made the mental decision that if I'm going to work for myself, I want to make sure that I have a job that I really love and that flexibility is important to me. And so I always prioritize family and I just try to let folks know anytime I bring on a new client that that could happen.

And so when it does happen, they're not surprised. They might be a little frustrated, but I try to just let everybody know. So we're on the same page.

Adam: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep in the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. In today's conversation, I sat down with Andrew Capland. Andrew is the founder of growth coaching and advisory company, Delivering Value, a company that took him on the journey to solopreneurship.

Prior to that, he was the head of growth for PostScript, Wistia, and an earlier employee at HubSpot. He's a husband and the father of two kids, including a newborn daughter. In our conversation today, we spoke about what it's like taking time off as a solopreneur. We discussed the transition from one kid to two, the decision to make that transition and the support structures necessary as you move to a second kid.

We also talked about differences in faith and navigating those differences across extended family. I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Andrew Capland.

Adam: I would like to welcome Mr. Andrew Capland to the startup dad program, Andrew, it is a pleasure having you here today. Thank you for joining me.

Andrew: Dude, thanks for having me.

Adam: So let's get started. You've got a couple young kids. We're going to get to that in a second, but before we do, can you tell me and my millions of listeners a little bit more about your professional background because you are a solopreneur, which is fun.

Andrew: Yeah. So for me. 15 years in tech, mostly in B2B SaaS. First half as a technical marketer, I worked at a big agency. That was my first job. I was part of the early HubSpot team. I worked at a video marketing company called Wistia for a long time. In the second half of my in house experience was working on or leading cross functional growth teams.

So I did that for probably 13 years of my career. In the last couple of years, I left the tech world to build my own thing. So I'm a solopreneur. My business is called Delivering Value. I thought I should give it a name that wasn't Andrew Capland solopreneur. So I could have a little bit of distance between my professional wins and failures in my personal identity.

But essentially what I do is I offer coaching and mentorship for people to have my former job. People are their leading growth team. So director of growth, head of growth, things like that. And I offer advising for product led SaaS companies that don't have someone like my former self in house. And I also have a podcast where you are one of my first six guests where I chat with people that have that former job about the hardest moments in their careers.

So that's what I'm up to.

Adam: Very cool. And I saw recently on the pod, you went like behind the scenes with a company, like a growth team. That was such a cool concept. What inspired you to do that?

Andrew: I always felt like when I was in house, I was fucking up. Like always, like even when things are going well, I was like, I know I'm missing the right thing to do. And so I would try to make time to chat with other people that were leading growth teams. And every time I did, I felt like I should do that more.

And I noticed when I had those conversations, you kind of get past the, everything's going great. And yeah, our growth team has 10 engineers and we have 2 PMs. And once you kind of get through that and you get to like the, hey, here's like the real challenge I'm facing. I'm dealing with this cultural challenge.

I have this stakeholder that's that I can't figure out how to collaborate with. Have you ever dealt with anything? I just felt like when I got to that layer of conversation, it was so valuable for me and for the other person just to normalize the challenges and adversity. And I thought, what if I made a series where I share that and I go behind the scenes with one company to share what they're working on, why they're working on it, some of the things that are going well, how they set goals, the challenges that they face and how they're thinking about navigating them and just share it so that other folks who are in similar positions could feel seen and maybe get a few ideas to problem solve and x=candidly, I thought it would be fun. And so that's what I did. I did it with the Nevada growth team, which is a relatively early stage team, but a team that I, love they've sponsored my show and I've got a deep relationship with them. And it was really cool. And I want to do it again. Like I want to do it with a later stage mature growth team and share kind of the contrasting and the different challenges that they face.

And I don't know, I geeked out over it. It was really fun. I'm hoping it's going to be something that I do a few times a year.

Adam: Cool. Well, I can't wait to watch the next one. Really excited. Okay, so this is a parenting podcast. I appreciate the work that you do, but let's talk about the real work, which is being a dad and a parent and a partner. I want to hit the time machine real quick and ask you what life was like growing up.

What was Andrew? Like as a kid and tell me about your parents and if you had any siblings?

Andrew: I was a pain in the ass man.

Adam: not much has changed.

Andrew: No, man, I was questioning stuff from day one when I was six years old. My parents said, oh, you're going to grow up and be a lawyer because I was always asking why. And I was always arguing my case and I fucking loved it. Like I love trying to get my parents in this gotcha moment.

Like what a jerk of a kid. But that's what I was like when I was younger. I live in Massachusetts. I was born in Massachusetts in Needham, Mass where I lived until I was six years old. My parents divorced. And so my my mom and what became my stepdad, we moved with my younger sister Abby out to Westford Mass, which is just another suburb in Massachusetts.

And my dad eventually married my step mom, Karen and they moved to a town next door to us. They ended up having another child. And so growing up, I kind of had this beautiful blended family. Like I have my older sister, Abby, who's a year and a half younger than me. I have my younger sister, Melissa, who's 10 years younger than me.

I have a stepmom. I have, have my stepdad and step brothers and sisters. And it was just a really cool way to grow up. I don't know if I always would have felt that way, but looking back on it, it was just super fun. Like there was always, there's always a lot of action. Like Thanksgiving at my house was this beehive of like loud activity and people buzzing around.

And I come from a Jewish family, so they interrupt when it's their turn to talk. So like never a dull second of silence in the house growing up. And I grew up playing sports, but at some point in time, I just decided I didn't want to play traditional sports anymore. And so I got really into skateboarding and really into snowboarding, eventually surfing and just trying out different things to figure out who I was.

Adam: Cool. Is that a skateboard you have over your shoulder there on the back wall next to a miniature version of big Ben or just a really cool clock?

Andrew: It's a really cool clock. Yeah, it is. So that's a custom skateboard that I had created. And I think you and I talked about this when you came on my show. What I have learned in my professional journey is that you need to put on different versions of yourself, different alter egos that you need in different moments.

And so the best version of my leadership, alter ego, I call happy Bruce Wayne because Bruce Wayne is like slick. He's suave. He never questions himself. But he's a little serious. So happy Bruce is kind of the persona that I put on. And so that skateboard is of Batman, which reminds me when I enter my office one to, like, have some fun and remember what life was like when I was 14 when I skateboarded, but also to kind of blend in who I want to sit down as when I sit down at my desk.

Adam: Okay. So you grew up the product of divorced parents. You were six when that happened. But it sounds like everyone kind of got along. Which is pretty amazing. I mean, I guess that happens in a lot of cases, but in a lot of cases, it does not. And so, pretty cool that even though your parents were sort of separated and started new lives with somebody else that everybody remained cordial and friendly and like able to tolerate each other for holidays and things like that.

So that's pretty great.

Andrew: It wasn't always like that. But it became that. And now it's great. Like we're going to do Thanksgiving. We'll probably all be together for Thanksgiving, which is a little chaotic, but it is, it's really cool.

Adam: Okay. So let's talk about your family. Now you have a partner. And you have two kids. Well, you have one kid and then one what does my daughter say? Potato. You have a potato who's six weeks old. How did you and your wife meet each other?

Andrew: We met online, we met on a dating app and it was interesting. I, feel like when I was really in the thick of dating and kind of my mid twenties, all the dating apps were really popular. And so that's what I did. It was really fun. And I met now my wife and just a person I went on a random date with who grew up in the town that my dad and stepmom lived in.

Adam: Ah hah.

Andrew: So we didn't know each other. She's a year older than me in school, where her family grew up. They actually moved out of state when she went to college. And so we had all these shared experiences, even though we didn't know each other and where she grew up, like her family, high school home is like a half mile from where my dad and step mom lived. And so we just kind of hit it off. It just, when it fits, it fits. And it felt like it fit from the first second.

Adam: Awesome. What was the first date that you went on? Do you

remember?

Andrew: Yeah, we, I do. We went to Kings in Boston. Kings is like a bowling alley that has like cosmic bowling and you can drink and you can get food and it's the funnest date spot because if you go, you're going to have a good time bowling. So even if you don't have a lot to talk about, you can talk about bowling and still have a nice time.

But if you do hit it off it's not like a serious bowling alley. You can get drinks and have a nice time. So that's where we went.

Adam: It's also the ultimate in humbling experiences. I don't know about your bowling skills, but I'm not impressing anyone on the bowling alley with my spin. So.

Andrew: No, nobody's a good bowler. Spin? I go straight down the middle.

Adam: No, I mean, I try to spin and it goes right in the gutter. Let's be honest. So, and you have two kids. Tell me about how old your kids are.

Andrew: So my oldest is Cameron. He's three and a half years old and he's a fucking blast, man. He's at a really fun age. He's into all the sports. He's really into cars. So if you could see my family room right now, there's 80 cars strewn about the floor. He's just like in a really fun age, his language has really developed.

So he's really into like conversations and asking why and all kinds of fun stuff. And then we've got Mia who's six weeks old. And is in the potato stage, just started smiling, just starting to make some new noises, just starting to interact. So it's not just all pain. And so that's our family right now.

Adam: Awesome. And what is your wife? I think Lindsay is her name. What does she do for work?

Andrew: So Lindsey works as a director of content marketing for Bright Horizons, which is actually like one of the national daycare companies.

Adam: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, which is dope because we get discounted daycare as part of her working there, which is an enormous perk.

Adam: I was going to ask. It's gotta be one of the benefits of working at a daycare center. Tell me about the decision for the two of you to start a family. What was the conversation like? And then what about the decision to have a second kid?

Andrew: Originally, we were both on the same page that we wanted kids. That was something we talked about when we were dating. We both said , you know, we would like to do that at some point when the timing is right. I don't know if we ever discussed the exact number. I think we both said I'd like at least two.

I think is maybe how we would have talked about it at that point. And we got married in 2018. We had our son in November of 2020. And so we were intentional that we wanted to have some time just together as a couple. We didn't want to start a family immediately after getting married. And so we waited a little bit.

And so I don't know what changed. Maybe it was the pandemic. We were like, you know, we're home anyways. Maybe now is a great time. I don't really know. I can't remember the exact decision when we started trying. But the timing felt right. And we had our son Cameron. And then I think after he was born, we were like, there's no way we can have another.

There's no way this is chaos. How does anybody do it? And then at some point we said, you know what, it would be great for him to grow up with a sibling. There is no good time. We waited until things, I feel like the first two years are crazy. So we waited until things slowed down just a little bit. And then obviously Mia was born six weeks ago.

Adam: Yeah, I feel like there's like two schools of thought. One is just rip it off like a bandaid, just boom, have all the kids that you're going to have right away and be in the muck for like a couple of years and then come out of it. And then there's the like, wait a long time and then go back into the muck.

You sound like you weren't quite out of the muck, but you were like past the terrible twos or in, in the midst of the terrible twos, I guess when, uh

Andrew: We weren't out of the muck. The truth was we were in a really small house. So we lived just outside of Boston in the place where you would live when you live downtown, but you need just a little bit more space. And it was perfect for the three of us. And it was just too tight. And so we kind of needed to wait until we had an exit plan or sort of a next step there.

And that's part of the decision why we waited a little bit longer.

Adam: So now you have a newborn baby. I don't get a lot of dads on the show right after they have a kid. I think I've had a couple for obvious reasons. It's always a negotiation to get, you know, an hour 15 or whatever. But your kid is six weeks old, still in the potato phase. Again but you seem awake enough to do this podcast.

What is the first thing that you remember after your daughter was born about six weeks ago?

Andrew: So she was born at two in the morning. It was Memorial Day weekend, May 26th, which I think was the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend. We were supposed to go out of town. We decided we should wait and stay at our house, just in case the baby came two weeks early, which she obviously did.

Adam: You know what? Instead of going out of town, let's have a baby this weekend, how does that sound?

Andrew: We're like, we'll just wait. It's kind of a waste of a weekend. We'll stay close to the house just in case it's two and a half weeks before the due date. We're like, she's not going to come that early. And obviously she did. So what I remember is that the hospital was empty. They said, normally we do six deliveries a day at this hospital and you're the only person in delivery tonight.

And so it was really quiet, kind of eerily quiet. But it was beautiful, man. So it's 2:30 in the morning. Our daughter was just born. She was pretty chill. Like the first six hours, like they kind of just sleep that first day. They're sort of adjusting to being out of the womb. And we just had like this beautiful moment, some skin to skin stuff.

My wife recovery, my wife had a C section. So there was like, you know, some serious recovery stuff going on with her. But I remember feeling really calm. To be honest. Our son was born in the middle of the pandemic. So it was like full masks in the hospital. It was during that weird interim period where the election was being questioned and it was unclear who was going to be our president.

And I remember holding my son at that moment and being like, man, this is a crazy time to come into the world. I'm scared. He doesn't know that he should be scared, but like there's just a scary world that he's coming into. But with my daughter, it was just a much more peaceful situation just between, no mask in the hospital, kind of knowing a little bit more what was normal and what wasn't normal for kind of the second kid coming out.

And that's what I remember.

Adam: Awesome. You're kind of still on your leave-ish. I got an out of office in our email exchange, but I know you're checking things. So tell me about the support structures that you and your wife put into place this time around with your second kid.

Andrew: Well, the ultimate hack is we had my mother in law stay with us for three and a half weeks. And that is the best support system in the universe. So that was really great. And so we had a little bit of slack in the line that we didn't have when our son came out because it was COVID and the vaccine wasn't out and we were just so nervous.

Everybody was nervous. This is my first week back. So it's Tuesday. Monday was my first official day back.

Adam: I'm honored that you're spending this time with me in your first week back. Thank you.

Andrew: And we were going to do it the other week when I was still on leave. But what my wife and I have learned is that both with parenting, our older son, as well as our new daughter, that we need time to ourselves to be ourselves. Time to pursue hobbies, time to work out, time to exercise, time to, to maintain our identity as people first, parents second.

And so that was something that was really important when our son was born, just kind of making sure that we both didn't lose the part of us that's what made us unique and made us special. And so when our daughter was born, we just decided to do that from day one. Maybe after my mother in law left, but I think I was probably the only guy in the whole world that was out golfing six days after my daughter was born.

But my wife was like, look, get out of the house. I know you need to get outside. I know you need to be in nature. Take the afternoon to yourself, but tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to do the same and we've just always done that from day one. So that's how I was able to, I was always checking things when I was out because being a business of one, somebody has got to be checking on stuff.

I mean, I have an assistant who supports me, but essentially I'm the business. So that's kind of how we do it. We make sure that each person has time to refill their cup.

Adam: That's good. And sounds like kind of good communications at the foundation of that too just having a conversation about what you need and what she needs. And,

Andrew: Yeah, we try to check in with each other. Like how you feeling today? How full is your cup? I had a great night of sleep. I'm good. Let me take the reins today. I know kind of a slow riser in the morning. I got it. Go back to bed. We just are always trying to check in.

Adam: So you kind of started talking about this, but you know, you're a solopreneur. So in my experience as a solopreneur, If I don't work, I don't get paid. And there is really no, unfortunately in the U S no real good system for people who work for themselves and want to take time off because of the birth of a child.

So if you don't work, you don't get paid. What does that mean for paternity leave as a solopreneur? 

Andrew: It means it's stressful and it means you're always a little bit half on. In Massachusetts, they have something called the paid family medical leave act, which is what you're talking about. Every person pays taxes into it. And essentially it's sort of like unemployment. assistance where if you have a leave for the birth of a child, whether it's an adopted child or a birth child or whatever it is, that there's a certain amount of money that you're eligible for through this paid family medical leave act.

So it's not as much as I made as a solopreneur, definitely not as much as I made when I was in house. But it's not zero. So there's that, which is helpful, but you're totally right. If I don't work, I don't get paid. And I had six weeks where I didn't send out any invoices. I didn't collect any checks. And that was stressful.

And so I tried to plan for it as much as I could. I tried to hit it hard in April and May and to close a bunch of new business and to line things up, but at a certain point you can only do so much. And so that influenced how long I took for break and it influenced how I approached break where I would have loved to have taken more time on leave.

But candidly, I had to get back to work. And during that leave, I needed to make sure that I was at least available via email for clients if they were to get stuck to kind of nurture those relationships and things. But it was stressful. A hundred percent.

Adam: Well, let me ask you a kind of a follow up question to that, you know, scheduling is really tough when you're a solopreneur, you're kind of at the whim of clients and you can protect time, but sometimes it doesn't kind of go according to plan. So have you ever been in a situation where, you know, you're about to get on a call, or you're about to get ready for a meeting.

And like suddenly Lindsey's yelling from the other room, like, help, I've got a exploded diaper. The kid just stuck a fork in the electrical socket or the potato fell over or something like that. And you're like I got this thing, but, but also that thing, like, how do you like manage that with your clients when something like that happens? And are people understanding of that? Do you have to kind of like tiptoe around it? Like I guess how open with your clients are you about what's going on?

Andrew: I try to let everybody know as transparently as possible what could happen. So when it does happen, I prioritize family. And there's pros and cons of doing things different ways, but that's something that's important to me. And even with our son, like we've had times when my wife will be in the office and I'll be the parent closest to daycare and we'll get an alert saying, hey, your son fell and he hit his nose and it's gushing blood and you need to come get him, or he fell down and he hit his head and we think he's okay, but he might be concussed and we think you should come take him to the doc.

I've been in the middle of a podcast and had that happen. And when it happens, I always prioritize family. I've just made the mental decision that if I'm going to work for myself, I want to make sure that I have a job that I really love and that flexibility is important to me. And so I always prioritize family and I just try to let folks know anytime I bring on a new client that that could happen.

And so when it does happen, they're not surprised. They might be a little frustrated, but I try to just let everybody know. So we're on the same page.

Adam: That's good. Good strategy. It comes back to that kind of like upfront and transparent communication. Works with your spouse works with your clients.

Andrew: Good life philosophy for me.

Adam: Yeah. So I want to ask you the question that is always on everyone's mind. People who listen to this show, oftentimes it's like, well, what's it like having one kid and how has that impacted you?

But you have the benefit of having just had a second. Candidly, what is the transition been like from one to two kids?

Andrew: Some stuff's easier, a bunch of stuff's harder. The thing that we were most nervous about, well, we were most nervous cause everybody says when you go from one to two, it's not double the work. It's maybe triple the work. And everybody said that, but I didn't know what it meant until we're here. And that is true.

Cause it's like, in addition to having your three and a half year old, which requires a lot of physical and emotional attention. Now you've got the six week old, which constantly needs to be held. You're washing bottles all the time. You're waking up in the middle of the night. It's like, you're trying to swaddle them, but then they need to get back up.

So you're picking them up or you're trying to help your three and a half year old potty train still like that is what it's like. What we were really nervous about was how our oldest would be around our youngest. We thought it would be a tough transition for him. Maybe he would be jealous. Would he be frustrated?

So we're not parent book people, but we read some articles and tried to like game plan as much as we could. And daughter was born. Our son got to meet our daughter for the first time and we're all prepped. We had a gift for him. We had a game plan. It was like, we're like, hey, Cameron, anybody who comes in your job is to tell them to wash their hands before they touch the baby.

Like we're all prepped for all this stuff. And he didn't give a fuck. He was just like, oh, this is the baby. Oh, that's cool. He was like, Mom, that was what was in your belly. Okay. And then he just kind of went back to doing his thing. And that part has been easier than expected. But I think the main differences that I've seen is that on the easier side, like the lifestyle change isn't as tough.

As it is going zero to one kid, you're kind of used to waking up early. You're used to go into the restaurants early. You're used to hanging with parents on the weekends. You already know how to change a diaper. Like all this stuff isn't quite as new. So that part's easier. But the hard stuff is really just the physical demands and the emotional demands on your time from the toddler.

And then obviously from the newborn. And then you've also maybe got this third pillar, which is just like nurturing the relationship with my wife and making sure that that stays strong. And also like taking care of the house. Like somebody has got to empty the dishwasher. Somebody still got to mow the lawn.

Somebody's got to do the laundry. Like there's just a lot of stuff we haven't figured it out. Our house is a mess. Like we're in it. Like we're really in it right now.

Adam: You just kind of get used to the mess after a while. The bar lowers, the expectations change. You're like, yeah, that laundry is piling up. Eh, it's just laundry. We'll get to it eventually. But not the bottle washing though. The bottle washing needs to happen. Must happen.

Yeah. Oh man. Bottle washing.

Andrew: It's brutal. It's brutal. And you always need them when they're in the dishwasher and you're like, fuck, do I take them out? Do I rinse them? It's awful.

Adam: Right. Right. Do you have any bottle washing hacks by the way? Have anything where you're like, yeah, this has worked. I recommend this to all new parents.

Andrew: The biggest hack that I have is get the glass ones. So you can just throw them in the dishwasher. And my wife and I got this, or my wife got, I can't take credit for it. I use it. She got this thing. It's like a little basket. Insert that goes in the dishwasher and you can put all the bottle parts in it. It's got holes in it.

So the water sprays up in there and it's got room for the nipples on the top, like little special places, like little slots for it. And that's the hack. And then you run the dishwasher minimum two times a day, and that's as good as you can hope for.

Adam: Yeah. The glass bottles. We did that with our second. Game changer. Cause yeah, you don't want to put those plastic ones in the dishwasher. You never know what could happen there.

Andrew: All the microplastics. That's not good.

Adam: Yeah, not good. when you think back to when Cameron, your oldest was born, what's the earliest memory you have after becoming a dad,

Andrew: I shared a little bit about it, but I remember being in the hospital. My wife had just had this C section. So she was like, really, you know, we were nervous. Was she going to be okay? She wasn't. She was really uncomfortable. She was in a lot of pain. She couldn't get up and walk and we weren't allowed to have anybody in the hospital because it was right in the height of covid and every time a nurse came in, which for folks who have not had kids is basically like every hour we had to put our masks on. So we're like exhausted, putting our masks on, taking them off when they leave. And we were watching the news to figure out who was going to be our president. Like, that's my first memory is walking around this hospital room with my screaming two day old, my wife stuck in bed.

Cause she's, you know, she's recovering and we're watching the news being like. Oh my God, who is going to be our president after all this? And the nurses were coming in and they, weren't allowed to watch TV, but were kind of, kind of asking like, oh, have they declared, is it one way or the other? And we're kind of looking at them trying to figure out who are they rooting for?

It was like a whole thing, man.

Adam: Oh, man, that is intense. When you think about the emotions that came up for you. You know, this is not something dads talk about that often. What are those kind of emotions that you felt with Cameron? And then how was it different the second time around in terms of what you were feeling?

Andrew: The biggest challenge I think emotionally as a dad is that at least in our family, my wife started to form a relationship with the baby when it was in her stomach you know, she could feel it moving. She would kind of talk to it sometimes, and she was really tuned in that she had a growing baby, our baby in her stomach.

And so by the time the baby came out, she had really already established this emotional bond. And as a dad, I didn't get that. I don't know if other dads get that, but you know, you can put your hand on your wife's belly and feel a little kick, but that didn't make me feel like a dad. And so leading up to our son's birth, I was nervous if I was going to be a good dad, if I was going to have the love for my kid that I hoped I would have because I just didn't feel it before then. And then you know, Cameron came out and it, like your chemistry changes and you fall in love immediately. And kind of all that feels like a distant memory, but I remember feeling it pretty strongly and being really nervous.

Like am I going to be a good dad? Am I going to love this, this child that's about to come out, I don't feel love yet and I hope that I will. And so I remember feeling just really conflicted

Adam: Yeah, a bit of anticipatory anxiety there, I guess.

Andrew: A hundred percent.

Adam:Yeah. What are some of the more surprising things that you've discovered since becoming a dad?

Andrew: Just how much love gets injected into your life. Like, yes, there's a lot of work, very tired. I'm sick of washing the bottles. I'm sick of doing the dishwasher. Like that is real, but you almost forget about it when, you know, my six week old cracks a smile or makes a fun new noise. Or, you know, my son says, I love you or does something really fun.

And. And it's that it's the love that you get outweighs any of the other stuff and kind of puts blinders on it all. And I didn't know that it would be that great. Honestly.

Adam: If we could get back in the time machine for a second, let's say you rewind the clock back to the time right before you had Cameron, your first kid, three and a half years ago. and you bump into Andrew. You're in the lobby of the hospital. You bump into Andrew masks on, you know, news in the background.

What advice would you give the younger version of yourself about becoming a dad?

Andrew: The main thing that I felt when our son was born is I was always pushing for the next step. It was like, you know, when he was six weeks old, I would read an article and it would say, well, it gets a lot easier at 12 weeks. And I'd be like, oh, we just got to get to 12 weeks, Lindsay. And then we'd be at 12 weeks and it would say, well, at, you know, at eight months or nine months, it gets easier.

And then when you're at nine months, it's like, well, at a year and a couple of weeks, they'll start walking. And so I was always pushing for that next step. If I could go back in time, I wish I would be more present, especially for the stage I'm at right now because with our son you know, as our first kid, we didn't know what to expect.

And it's exhausting, right? The constant holding, they won't sleep unless you're holding them. It's really easy to get frustrated by that. But the reality is in the grand scheme of being a parent, that's such a short window of time that if you can just be present and know that, hey, this is just like a very small, finite period of time, going to long for this before too long. And so if I could just slow down and try to almost watch myself from an 80 year old vision or whatever it is. And that's what I'm trying to do a little bit more with my daughter. I mean, that's aspirational, but that would be the advice I would, give myself again.

Adam: Yeah, slow down and kind of don't wish for the future because the moments are pretty fleeting.

Andrew: Especially like the snuggling stuff. Like once they start walking, at least with our son, they don't want to snuggle. They don't want to hug you anymore. They don't want to sleep on your chest. And so you really only get about a year of that.

Adam: So you have a lot of family, you know, divorced, remarried, all that sort of thing. In laws. Also you come from a Jewish family. So, you know, no shortage of opinions. I also come from a partially Jewish family. What advice did you receive that you would tell younger Andrew to ignore?

Andrew: Well, I'll tell you, I got some horrible advice from my dad last weekend. He was

Adam: It's even more recent.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Everybody's an expert, especially the dads, like, our parent generation of dads, lovely dads, but they didn't do what we're doing. At least what my friends and I were doing. Right. My dad, I think he took maybe a week off.

Then he was back at work. Whenever I tell him about some like sleep regression, he's like, oh, I don't remember you kids going through that because he wasn't waking up, you know? So anyway, so my dad who didn't have to do some of the hard stuff gave me this advice last weekend. He said, well, if Mia isn't sleeping well, why don't you just take a little bit of oatmeal and mix it in with her formula, Andrew, that'll really help. And I looked at my wife and I…

Adam: Listeners, she's six weeks old, by the way. So

Andrew: Yeah, no digestive. Yeah. No digestive tract, not recommended by any pediatrician. My wife looked at me and was like, no fucking way we're doing that. And so that is some terrible advice that I got last weekend from my father.

Adam: It's awesome. Just rub some whiskey on her gum. She'll be fine.

Andrew: Yeah. It's like that same generation of hacks.

Adam: Yeah, I love it. Oh, such a dad move. What is your favorite book to read to your kids?

Andrew: I love the Little Blue Truck books.

Adam: Oh, same.

Andrew: Did you read those?

Adam: Oh, yeah. We have many of them.

Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say there's a whole series of them. My current favorite we've been reading a lot is Little Blue Truck Makes a Friend, which is with woodchuck. And so everybody's scared of woodchuck and then they meet woodchuck and it turns out he's a really nice guy.

And it's sort of this lesson in life to make new friends and not be scared to be welcoming because other people are just as nervous and excited to meet you. And it's a really nice book.

Adam: I think that one probably came out after we had exited the Little Blue Truck phase because I had just the original Little Blue Truck. And then Little Blue Truck Goes to the City or something like that. I think that maybe there's one more we had, but I don't know about the woodchuck one.

So I got to check this out. My kids are…

Andrew: Yeah, Little Blue Truck Makes a Friend. That's the name of it.

Adam: Makes a friend. OK, cool. Well, we'll get it for our new niece, who is not too much older than your daughter. Have you developed any frameworks or guardrails for parenting?

Andrew: No, no, man we're, we're, we're in survival mode right now.

Adam: Full stop.

Andrew: Probably the one thing that my wife and I focus on. And I mean that, like, we don't have it figured out. We're in the thick of it. One step in front of the other type of thing, like the one thing that we do in addition to just communicating a lot though is we try to take turns being main parent based on our energy.

So I am grumpy in the morning and a slow riser. My wife typically will do like, hey, wake up. You know, and she'll let me sleep another 20 minutes or something like that. I am much more active and alert at night. Typically she'll go to bed half an hour before me, I'll take care of all the bottles and put the kids down and all that kind of stuff.

So that's the only framework that we have is just when you're tired, rest. And the other one luckily has got it.

Adam: Yeah. What do you do if you're both exhausted, which I guess is most of the time as a new parent, you just like Lower the expectations or, what do you do in that scenario?

Andrew: I think something must change with your chemistry when you have a newborn that allows you to just deal with crazy sleep deprivation. I'm not a watch or a Fitbit person. My wife is. And the other night she woke up in the morning and she said, my Fitbit tells me I had 19 minutes of deep sleep last night.

And I was like, well, if you got it, I did about the same cause the baby was in our room and I wasn't sleeping soundly when you were up with her or vice versa. And if you would as Andrew, five years ago that, I would tell you there's no way I could function on that amount of sleep. But something just changes and you power through.

If our son's around, that's like when we'll put on a movie or something with him to try to keep him entertained and try to sneak in some naps. I don't know. It's survival out there. It's tough.

Adam: Do whatever it takes. Love that. It might be too early to tell, but how would you say your parenting has evolved from Cameron to your youngest?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, with our son We were very by the book because he was our first and we didn't know any better. you know, there's no instruction manual when you know, when you get home from the hospital with a newborn. And so I think we took one of those courses like taking care of babies or one of those that kind of teaches you like, how do you put your kid down and what's good sleep and all that kind of stuff.

And we did that. We were very rigid on that. It was like, okay, well, we're doing an app. We're going to dim the lights. We're going to put on the white noise. We're going to swaddle. We're going to you know, rock the baby just the exact way that, you know, she recommends.

And then with our daughter, you know, we got a three and a half year old in the house. So we can't do that. He's running over, he's shaking the bassinet. He's going, you know, rah rah rah at her face. And so we've kind of just said, we don't want to be quite so rigid this time. We're just going to kind of go with it.

And until that stops working, that's what we're gonna do because we're gonna drive ourselves crazy if we try to parent her the same way that we did our son.

Adam: That makes a ton of sense. You know, a lot of people talk about getting more relaxed when they have their second kid. And it's almost like you have to, because you've got this, you know, three and a half year old, who's just like a bundle of energy, like doing cartwheels through the house.

And there's no other way to live other than just like, ah, we got to be relaxed about this. So, cause he's just being a three and a half year old,

Andrew: Yeah, he's just a wild dude. The other thing that I've noticed has changed a lot is we're more likely to let other people hold our daughter. You know, when our son was born again, it was COVID. So it was a little bit different, but I think that there was a little bit of new parent pride. Like, oh no, no, I don't need a break.

I'm good. I can hold her another hour. No problem. And now we're like, hey, here, you know, grandma, take her, you know, granddad, take her. Like, please, anybody come on over. You can hold her. Did you wash your hands? It doesn't matter.

Adam: You're giving her to strangers in restaurants. Yeah. You seem fine. Here you go. Like

take, take her.

Andrew: Close enough, yea.

Adam: That's amazing. So I found that partnership is really important when you have kids, but also. It's hard to agree all the time, especially when you're tired. Sounds like you and your wife have a good line of communication going, but you know, what's something that you and your wife don't necessarily agree on all the time,

Andrew: Things are easy-ish right now on this topic because the stakes are low. There's no real tough situations that we've had to navigate as a unit. But probably the one that comes to mind for me is probably the amount of sweets that our son has. So, our three and a half year old, like many, only wants to eat junk food.

He wants to eat ice cream seven nights of the week. And I am very rigid and I'm like, no, we're not doing that. You haven't had your dinner. You're not getting, it's a treat. It's a special occasion. And my wife's kind of like, look, dude, let's let him eat something. He hasn't had his chicken nuggets. He hasn't had pasta in three weeks.

I don't know what else he's going to eat. Let him eat ice cream. He'll be full and he'll sleep better, just like be cool. And and that's not like a disagreement, but that's just something that we've had to navigate a little bit that's I know the stakes are low for right now, but that's the thing for us.

Adam: My son often has as a an amuse-bouche an ice cream sandwich before his actual meal.

Andrew: Oh, a little appetizer.

Adam: yeah, a little appetizer, which I and there might be something to it, you know, I don't know. Why not have your dessert first when you're less full?

Andrew: I do notice if he has ice cream, he will loop back around right before bedtime and scarf down those chicken nuggets. So maybe that's, maybe that's the framework.

Adam: Yeah. One other thing I noticed I know that you brought up is and you said you were raised in a Jewish family. And I understand that your wife is not Jewish which, you know, religious differences definitely happen amongst couples. So you're Jewish, your wife isn't.

How is that impacted things like family identity and decision making around how you raise your kids, you know, does Cameron, do you go to temple? Does Cameron have a bar mitzvah? Like, do you rate, like, how do you think about how, who, whose faith kind of wins the day or does it at all?

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it's, we're like right in the middle of making some of these decisions right now and my wife and I, thankfully, have had some time as a couple before we had kids to kind of figure this out a little bit and where we landed, like, so some stuff Is harder, obviously especially coming from a Jewish family, being Jewish is still a minority.

My parents especially are like, hey, are they going to go to Temple? Are they going to have a bar mitzvah? They're asking us these things. And where both my wife and I land is that we are culturally interested in a lot of the religious traditions, meaning celebrating Passover and doing the Seder is a blast lighting the candles at Hanukkah is really fun is something that we want to continue doing for my wife going Easter egg picking at Easter is something that's really fun. Having a big dinner at Christmas. Those are the things that are important to us. And so what we've done is blended. And in some ways it's easier coming from two different, you know, my wife is a Catholic and I'm Jewish. And so it's easier in some ways because our families don't fight over whose Christmas it is.

It's like, well, my family's going to get Chinese food. So like, it's your family every year for Christmas. And Hanukkah is, you know, Hanukkah sometimes overlaps with Christmas, but for the most part, we find ways to make it work. And so we say we celebrate the holidays. We celebrate multiple holidays.

We tell our son that, that we celebrate multiple holidays and we try to keep the cultural traditions. We have not figured out exactly what we're going to do. If our son's going to have a bar mitzvah or anything like that, but I think we're going to give him probably the choice as he gets older, as he learns more about the cultures.

If that's something he would like to do, we will encourage him and support him. And if it's not something we're not going to force him. And that's kind of where we've landed.

Adam: Yeah. That one's really interesting because I, you know, I have some friends whose kids have recently done a Bar, a Bat Mitzvah and like, there's a decent amount of prep involved in that process. Like there's Hebrew school and there's like a training for it and all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, man, that sounds like a lot of work.

Andrew: Sweet sixteen sounds way better, doesn't it?

Adam: Can we just throw a party and move on?

Andrew: Yeah. Just a big party.

Adam: Yeah. So you've spent an entire career in technology HubSpot and working for yourself, kind of advising technology companies. What's the relationship that you want your kids to have with technology as they start to grow up?

Andrew: There's obviously good and bad applications for tech. I would love and will support our kids bettering themselves with technology, access to information, education, maybe reaching others and impacting others in a positive way, like that's something that my wife and I are on the same page, we're very supportive of, but I think we're also aware of the dangers as well, especially with social media.

As our kids get older, we haven't had to navigate that yet. But that's something that we know is looming and probably is going to happen at a much younger age than we're ready for. And I think what we're going to try to do is to encourage our kids to use technology in the positive ways that I outlined and have to live with probably some some sacrifice, I think on the other side, like there's some amount of social media that kids need to be culturally members of their own communities, right.

And to be, you know, one of their friends can't be the only friend that's not on social media and things like that. And so we'll have to make some concessions there, but we haven't had to navigate them yet.

Adam: Well, and you've still got some time. But we'll circle back in like, I don't know, seven years

Andrew: Are your kids there?

Adam: They are, not the social media so much for my younger one, who's nine. That's more of the Fortnite and the gaming and stuff. But definitely with my daughter, who's 11, the phone discussions, the social media.

And I'm in this sort of same camp as you, which is like, It's a tool. I want them to use technology as builders and creators and to advance their education. I don't want them to be passive consumers just mindless consumers of stuff, but it's a battle all the time. So I don't think we figured it out either, but you will eventually.

Andrew: I would say the one hack is on the consumer side. If you have toddlers or other young kids, give them that tablet on the plane, he doesn't know we have a tablet except when we're on the airplane, it just magically appears, and that is the only way to travel with young kids. At least in our family.

Adam: I love it. I love it. Yeah. Hey, every time we get an airplane, this tablet miraculously appears from the backpack.How does that happen?

Andrew: It's from the flight attendant. The flight gave it to us.

Adam: Yeah, yeah, flight attendant. Yes, that's even better. What is something that you've had to give up to become a dad?

Andrew: I mean, we talked about maintaining personal identity as being something that's important to both my wife and I and some of the sacrifices I've made there from a personal perspective are I'm big into snowboarding. You know, I used to go out west every year, either with my family or with my friends.

And that gets much, much harder, at least when you have young kids to do, both to ask from Lindsay, my wife, to take care of the kids for a long time, as well as just hard to be away. So that's been something. And then one of my other big life passions is woodworking. And working with wood and power tools and saws and things like that just don't jive very well with our current situation.

So those are two, selfish hobbies of mine that are on hiatus for right now.

Adam: You know what's interesting about that woodworking one is you know, kids can participate in that stuff at a pretty young age. So they can learn how to use power tools, safety with saws and stuff like that. And I think my kids love doing that in preschool and I was terrified. I'm like, they brought out the drill, like what's, what are you doing?

But no one ever lost a finger.

Andrew: Yeah, I hope we're just entering it. Like Home Depot near us does like Saturday morning workshops and you can make a bird house and things. And he's been too young, but maybe in the next year or so that's a good reminder.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, it also depends on your kid too, right? And where they are developmentally. So, but that's a good one. And the Home Depot Saturday morning, build a birdhouse stuff. Like that's pretty uh, clutch.

Andrew: Yeah. That'll be cool to do.

Adam: What are some ways that you recharge your batteries or center yourself when you need a break?

Andrew: I mean, the biggest one for me is exercising and trying to get out in nature. So, I mean, I talked about golfing is probably one of the things that I do now, which is both of those things. I'll play walking nine holes, I'll get outside, I'll be walking, my blood will be moving, I'll be in nature and that's something that I do because I have the privilege of being self employed.

I don't work Fridays and I'll often fill that Friday with things to refill my cup mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, whatever it is. And so that's one of the activities. And then every day I try to go to the gym. So my morning routine, even today is I drop off my three and a half year old at daycare and in September probably I'll drop off Mia as well. However old she'll be in a few months and I go straight to the gym and then I come back here and then I sit down and start my day. And so I just have found if I get my blood moving and I get a little bit of a sweat on, I can kind of sweat out whatever baggage I have from the previous night's sleep or whatever it is.

And recharge a little bit. 

Adam: Awesome. What is a mistake that you've made as a dad?

Andrew: I think just being too prescriptive. About the right way to do things and not just letting my kids be kids. The example that comes to mind, my three and a half year old is getting into golf a little bit, as much as three and a half year old can be. And so we go to the driving range and he's got little clubs, like little metal clubs that are hand me downs from a friend of ours, and he loves it and we go to the range and he likes playing with a golf ball as much as he likes hitting it, but he does. Do you golf?

Adam: I've dabbled. I would not consider myself a golfer.

Andrew: Okay. So he does, you don't need to be for what I'm about to share, but I'll give an answer for someone who doesn't golf as much as I do. So he does the reverse grip basically, instead of having your right hand lower on the handle, he puts his left hand and he kind of does like a slap shot, like in hockey.

And so I've tried to tell him like, hey, just switch your hands. You'll be able to swing it a little bit more. It'll go farther. You'll have more fun. And he gives the very typical three year old, like mehhhh. Kind of response when I do that. And I've just decided that we will go to the driving range more and have more fun if I just let him do his thing.

So I've just given up on that. And there's a million other examples like that, where I've just tried to push him to do something the way that I think he should do it versus you know, figuring it out himself

Adam: Yeah. My guess is by the time he's, you know, 25, he's gonna have figured out to reverse his hands if he wants to be good at golf.

Andrew: Again, I'm just pushing that next step too quickly.

Adam: All right. Well, last question for you before we get into my famed rapid fire round, how can people. Follow along with your journey or be helpful to you?

Andrew: I create content on LinkedIn. So if anyone is interested in learning more about me or myself or what I do, I share typically about the challenges that people have leading or working on cross functional growth teams, and sometimes give out some product led growth tips as well. So they can follow me on LinkedIn.

It's just @Andrewcapland spelled with a C or you can follow along. I've got a podcast again, where I talk to folks who are. Kind of sharing some of the challenge and adversity that they've had in their own career journeys. It's just @deliveringvalue anywhere where you listen or consume content on YouTube Spotify or anywhere else.

And if anyone is interested in getting support from someone like me, maybe you're going through a big transition, you're hitting some challenges, or you just want to level up a little bit reach out about coaching or mentorship.

Adam: Awesome. We will link to all of those places in the show notes. And if you go back in the archives, you can see my conversation with Andrew too.

Andrew: I think you were episode six and you shared some good shit. You shared some good stuff. I remember you shared about some of the challenges that you had encountered with the leadership when you were new at Lyft and all kinds of things that were new and interesting and, very popular with my audience.

Adam: Glad to hear it. All right. Are you ready for rapid fire?

Andrew: Hit me.

Adam: Simple rules. I ask you a question, you answer it as quickly as possible and we move on. No judgment. Judgment free zone. We're in the trust tree.

Are you ready?

Andrew: Let's go.

Adam: Okay. What is the most indispensable parenting product you have ever purchased?

Andrew: iPad airplane or airplane iPad.

Adam: What is the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?

Andrew: That backpack, MiniMeis backpack.

Adam: Finish this sentence. The ideal day with me. One or both of my kids involves this one activity.

Andrew: Going to the driving range.

Adam: What is the best piece of parenting advice that you've ever received?

Andrew: Sleep when your kids are sleeping.

Adam: What is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

Andrew: Diaper blowouts. When you're, when you're in public.

Adam: Yes. What is your go to dad wardrobe?

Andrew: T shirt, shorts, sandals.

Adam: Okay. With or without socks?

Andrew: No, no. I go without socks.

Adam: I had to ask.

Andrew: Do you go socks?

Adam: uh, no, but somebody I talked to recently was all about the socks.

Andrew: Well it's a judgment free zone, but

Adam: It's no socks for you. Okay. How many parenting books do you have in your house?

Andrew: zero.

Adam: Okay, that answers my next question which is, how many of you read cover to cover?

Andrew: I've read one cover to cover, before our first was born and I gave it to someone else. I'll keep it short, but yeah, I had one.

Adam: Okay, what do you recall? What was that one book? 

Andrew: It's like, if you look it up on Amazon, it's like in the top three books, it has kind of a lumberjack style cover, like a guy wearing a flannel and it's very how to actionable, how to change a diaper, how to give a bath, how to, you know, that type of stuff.

 It's the instruction manual for new dads.

Andrew: Every, yeah, every new dad it's on Amazon. It's like top three books.

Adam: We will find this. We will link to it. I promise. What is the favorite age for your kids?

Andrew: I think the one and a half to two and a half range is really fun when they're like little minions and everything is new and exciting and they kind of just follow you around and they go like, whoa, at every common day thing that they happen to pass.

Adam: What is the least favorite age?

Andrew: Well, somewhere around that stage, our son went through a running away phase that lasted like a long time.

And I forget what age it was, but that was horrible. That's the least favorite age. It's really stressful.

Adam: Yeah, were you like borderline I'm gonna buy the leash?

Andrew: Yes, we should have gotten the leash. Like we, we are the poster family for the leash and we just decided we weren't going to do it. And we just. Brute forced through it.

Adam: Awesome. And you survived the running does slow down at some point. Or at least the running away, running doesn't really change, but the running away. 

Andrew:No, he loves to run still.

Adam:Cool. What was the most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

Andrew: So my little guy watches YouTube and on YouTube there is some first person point of view videos with Adult hands dipping cars into like bodies of water, like at the pool and going down slides and then picking the cars up out of the water and then doing it again. And that's what we're into. And it's brutal.

Adam: Kind of makes you wonder who are the adults who make these videos?

Andrew: And there's millions of views.

Adam: I know, I was going to say that video has made them a lot of money. Have you ever used your kids as an excuse to get out of social events?

Andrew: All the time.

Adam: What is your favorite kids movie?

Andrew: So we just watched Toy Story, the original one with our son last weekend, and that was awesome. And he loved it. And we loved it. And that was really cool.

Adam: What is the worst experience that you've ever had assembling a kid's toy or a piece of furniture?

Andrew: So I'm going to pull the reverse on this one. I kind of love it. I'm a woodworker. It's not so bad. Like I just, I, I kind of love it. That's the honest answer.

Adam: Okay. What is your favorite experience then assembling a kid's toy or a piece of furniture?

Andrew: We've got some construction vehicles that required some power tools to assemble and a whole bunch of instructions are like kind of larger construction trucks, like some cranes and bulldozers and things. And those are really cool.

Adam: I would be out in the garage cursing and sweating trying to do that. I am not particularly handy.

Andrew: I think you either love it or you don't. It's a polarizing reaction.

Adam: That's true. Probably hasn't happened yet, but have you ever accidentally mixed up your kids names?

Andrew: I've mixed up my kids names with other people's kids. Especially with my daughter Mia. She's, you know, she's only six weeks old. I haven't said her name too many times. And we go out with friends of ours that have a daughter around the same age named Evie. And I've called our daughter Evie by accident and then been like, oh my gosh.

Adam: Plus they all kind of look the same at that age. They're all potatoes, you know? How long can a piece of food sit on your floor and you will still eat it?

Andrew: I would say three and a half hours.

Adam: Okay. That's very precise.

Andrew: Well, I'm just thinking if it's meat, you know, it's like, you don't want to let that sit for too long. And, you know, if it's a sandwich, it gets a little crusty after a couple hours. So that’s my take, three and a half.

Adam: Okay. What nostalgic movie can you not wait to force your kids to watch with you?

Andrew: I think it's Jaws.

Adam: Oh, that's a good one.

Andrew: And we're from New England. We go to Cape Cod. Like we just have a lot of connections to that.

Adam: We once watched Jaws. While we were staying on Nantucket, which is where it took place. So I don't recommend that if your kids are old enough to understand that going in the ocean means sharks maybe when they're older enough to understand that they can be safe.

Andrew: That's cool though. That's a cool experience.

Adam: But Jaws is a good one. Yeah. Okay. Last question for you. It's a favorite of mine. What is your take on minivans?

Andrew: Well, we grew up with a minivan, so I'm partial to it. But I have a Telluride, like a Kia Telluride SUV. So. I'm more of a tell you ride dad. I thought it was a unique thing. I thought I was like a cool guy for getting to telluride. And then you look at all the commercials and they're all like the cool dad persona.

And then that's me. So I'm, I'm in it. Maybe we'll get a minivan. I'm not against it, but until then, I'm a telluride dad,

Adam: Yeah. Kia really knows its audience with the Tellurides. Like they have nailed the marketing and the ICP

Andrew: It's like sporty outside dad.

Adam: Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, on that note, sporty outside dad, Thank you very much, Andrew, for joining me today. It was lovely hearing about your transition from one to two kids and welcome back from your paternity leave.

Andrew: Thank you, sir.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Andrew Capland. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review on Apple or Spotify.

It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support. You can join a community of nearly 11,000 subscribers and stay up to date on my thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com.

Thanks for listening, and see you next week.