Diaper Changes On Investor Calls | Jordane Giuly (Dad of 2, co-founder Defacto)

Jordane: You leave early, you come back, they're always sleeping and you're like my life has no sense, right? Like I'm working hard to pay someone to take care of my kids, but I don't get to see them. What's the point, right? So I think in terms of like hard boundaries, I try to be the morning person and so we, every morning we have like a nice breakfast where I prepare the coffee for my wife and I prepare like the, I don't know, the baguettes and cheese as we mentioned you know, for, and the fruits for, for the kids.

And we have like a nice moment

Adam: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into 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 Jordane Giuly. Jordan is a three time co-founder, having started fintech unicorn Spendesk, and most recently, SMB financing company DeFacto.

In addition to being a successful entrepreneur, he's also a husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today, we spoke about the differences in parenting between France and the U S and what it's like raising young kids while starting a company. He raised his first round of financing right at the same time that his oldest daughter was born.

We talked about paternity leave for startup founders, doing diaper changes while talking to investors and watching your own parents become grandparents. I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Jordane Giuly.

Adam: I would like to welcome Jordane Giuly to the Startup Dad program. Jordan, it is a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you for joining me.

Jordane: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me, Adam.

Adam: All right. Well, in case you couldn't tell, Jordan has an accent. His name also ends in an E, which is not what we do in the United States. So he's not from here. He's from France.

So Jordane, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do in France?

Jordane: So I'm Jordane, as you mentioned. I'm French born and raised in Paris. I spent a bit of time abroad. lived in the UK and in the US as well. I've done a master degree in Stanford and hence I tasted a bit the Californian life and your famous avocado toast and lox bagels.

 that was really great times. Then came back to France a bit more than 10 years ago, and I've been working in startups since then. So I'm actually a third time co-founder. My first startup was right after school. Uh, was a complete failure but I'm still best friends with my former co founder the second startup worked better because it was Spendesk, it was one of the French unicorns and now my third attempt it's called DeFacto, and we are based in Paris, but we have like, international ambitions.

So that's very fun.

Adam: Awesome. And DeFacto is still kind of in the financial space, but different from what you did at Spenddesk.

Jordane: Yep. Yep. How you say in France, the apple does not fall too far from the tree. Right. So I actually studied financial mathematics. My parents both started a company in the financial industry and spend desk was indeed like a FinTech. It was a spend management solution for SMBs.

And I was there we were in touch with like thousands of SMEs all across Europe. And they would share basically the same needs when it comes to access to working capital financing. Hence we decided to launch DeFacto. So it's another FinTech, but we are more on the credit side of things compared to more like payment and software side of things with Spendesk. 

Adam: Tough to make payments if you don't have any capital.

Jordane: Exactly.

Adam: You're solving a problem for startups. So you mentioned coming to California for a little bit. And wonderful cuisine here, avocado toast, lox bagels. I'm gonna just go right at it. But how does the cuisine in California compare to the cuisine in France?

Jordane: It's not too bad actually.

Adam: Okay.

Jordane: It's not too bad. You have good wines you have good fruits and healthy food, but you're missing I would say some of the basics, right? The baguettes, the croissant and duck. There is a lot of duck in France and I'm a huge fan of duck.

Adam: Yes,me too. I'll have, you know, that cheese and baguettes are a staple in my household. I'm just, I don't know if that's because my family, we are Francophiles or we just love good food, but there's always a baguette in the house. So you're a three time co founder and currently founding, Defacto.

And now let's take a turn here because mostly I don't care about what you do for work. I care more about you and your family and parenting. And being a dad, and that's what we're going to spend most of our time talking about today. So tell me what life was like growing up. You mentioned your parents founded a company.

So tell me about what you were like as a kid and what growing up was like.

Jordane: Yeah. So, to be honest, I think I was an easy kid. Like, I was doing good at school no big teenager issues. And not so much of like, you know, partying when you're not supposed to. So, so I think I was like kid, right.

Not too much trouble to my parents. And yeah, I have one sibling as well. A younger sister we're both like raised in the in the Paris area public school in France, public school is is a free you can then turn to like, know, master's degree, which are free.

And so great. It's a great chance, great opportunity. And then I grew up with my parents as a role model in a sense that they they decided to launch their business in 30 years ago. They are working, they're still working together and they build a like a software for banks basically.

They fully own the company and it's how would I say? The growth of the company, I mean, we lived as a family, the growth of the company. And so it was like you know, super interesting you know, a family dinner was where board meetings, you know, actually where I hear my parents, you know, talking about the business the issues like the commercial issues, the people issues, et cetera.

And yeah, and so, so we have the whole model where. We've like a big amount of work, but like if you work a lot and you work smart, you can basically emancipate, uh, and you can reach some kind of material success. And so, yeah, I think they convey the value of freedom.

The value of putting a lot of pleasure in your work. The value of building quality stuff. Because if you emphasize on quality then you can have longer lasting customers. And also the value of equilibrium between you know, launching a business that was quite successful, but also always being present a hundred percent present as as parents.

And that's a model that I try that I get inspired with on the, on a daily basis. And I see the difficulties on how it is to find the right balance on a day to day.

Adam: Wow. You got kind of a masterclass in starting a company at the dinner table, basically. And I think you mentioned too, your sister is also a co founder of a company the whole family's entrepreneurs. This is amazing.

Jordane: Yea, yea yea. My sister is a, is also an engineer and she choose to like be you know, on the product manager track which I did. So, you know, give it food to engineers, to real engineers. That's how I describe my job. But more like be a real engineer.

So she codes and now she's the co-founder of an amazing startup. And she built you know, engineering teams around her. So it's very, very inspiring journeys as well.

Adam: Do you think maybe at some point you and your sister would ever start a company together?

Jordane: Yea we never know. We never know. That could be fun.

Adam: Yeah, awesome so you are as far as I know and can recall the first French person that I've ever interviewed on this show. I am horribly naive when it comes to the support.

structures that exist for parents outside of the United States. Partially, I think it's because there are so few support structures in the United States for parents. You know, you are the dad of two kids. What kind of support structures exist for new parents in France?

What is life like when you have a kid?

Jordane: I have a, like a bunch of friends still living in the U S or in the UK. So when we gather around we can compare and like to tell stories, guess the first thing is the structure around pregnancy. And I think we have like a lot of luck in France to have a good support for women while they are pregnant.

So a lot of I would say you know, recurring meetings with the doctors and stuff that are all free and fully reimbursed. Then the giving birth itself you know, you go to hospital, you can prebook your room, et cetera. And it's also free you can get access to for example, I know someone who had a bit of a complex, you know, giving birth and they had access to one of the top surgeons who invented some techniques you know, it was around and and he took care of her and all of that, you know, it's completely free.

It's an amazing system. It has some challenges right. I know if you follow the last French elections but they are like huge issues on the hospital and stuff especially in terms of funding, but I would say the promise where it's like super accessible free for everybody.

I think it's beautiful. So that's the one thing. And then once your kids, you know, are growing up then access to healthcare is also quite easy. You can have like, you know, doctors for children. I forgot the name.

Adam: Pediatrician.

Jordane: Like a five minute walk away you can book you know, appointments tomorrow.

Uh, You can go to the hospital agencies if your kids have like, you know, fever and stuff. There's a bit of waiting of course, but all of that is free. So the mental load of like, you know, everything related to health is kind of away. And then on the, I would say more taking care of the kids during daycare for example. You have tax advantages when you hire someone to help you take care of the kids. There is a lot of offers in terms of daycare places. And when I compare, you know, the price with my friends from like, in the UK or in the us it's like, quarter of the price. And there is still like subsidiaries and stuff. So it all feels that it's quite accessible. And I think it's good bet for the government to help parents take care of their kids so that they can work for the retreat system.

Right. Taxes and stuff. So. I think it's smart to invest in daycares so that the parents can bring value basically.

Adam: Yeah, wholeheartedly agree with that statement. We don't really make that investment here in the U S there's a ton of childcare startups as a result that have kind of started to help parents and probably nobody would start one of those and France because you don't need it.

Jordane: Yeah. There are some offer and then the business model then would be very, very different, I guess.

Adam: Yeah. So, when you think about right after you have a baby and especially as a. A startup founder. Do you have the same? I don't know if rights and privileges, but I guess same support structure as somebody who's working at a big company in France, you get to take the same kind of amount of time off for balance with your significant other when the baby comes?

Jordane: No, it's a good question. So I think. So, so there is this tendency, you know, to kind of, match paternity leaves with maternity leaves. Even though I think it's inherently not the same, you know, leave of absence that you need to take as a man compared to, you know, women it's good for careers, right?

I think there are some studies that shows that the. The salary gaps between men and women for the same, you know, jobs, it widens after the first maternity leave. So in the context where you want to close the gaps between a men and women, it's good to kind of, almost forced men to take like, longer paternity leave.

And in France, we we double it from two weeks to one month. And some larger companies, especially the, I don't know, for example, the Google, et cetera are granting like three to four months. Same for women. so that's in like big, big corporates.

I've never worked in big corporates, so I'm not exactly sure, you know, how it works. But in a startup, basically you can do what you want. You can take nothing you can be as flexible as you want. That's the good part of it. And then we try to support our employees, you know, as best we can.

For example, at DeFacto, we were 25 people in the team only, but we already have a few people, you know, in the maternity and paternity leave. And it's for us, it's very important to respect that because as founders we are in the same boat, if I may.

So, we know that it's super special moments. We know that it's moments where you need to, gather, you know, as a family for the parents to be together and stuff. So we try to give as much support as possible in that context.

Adam: Well, that's great. so now's probably as good a time as any to ask you a little bit about your family now. So you have a partner, you have two young kids. Tell me about your kids and how did you meet your wife?

Jordane: Yeah. Yeah. So, so my wife, Alison we've known each other for uh, Almost 15 years now. And we've been together for 10 to 11 years. I don't know. We met like, randomly, you know, friends of friends type of meeting. We were, you know, quite longer.

We didn't have like, I would say like explicit chats on like, you know, how do you see the family go, et cetera. It kind of happened quite naturally. I think we both have role models in terms of parents of like young parents. So my mom was 22 when she had me. My wife's mom was 24.

So we knew we wanted kids. We knew we wanted, you know, kids I would say quite young. The main question was how many right. So I have one sibling. So my model was like to be two. Edison is a only child. So one was good for her. And so when we had our first daughter, Roxanne uh, I was the one pushing for a second one.

I had easy fun.

Adam: That's great. Tell me about your kids.

Jordane: Yes. So two girls. So I'm the king in the house. Huh? To be. Yeah.

Adam: That’s what you think.

Jordane: For now. It's very fun on a daily basis. So they are three year old and one year old. I don't know what to say. It's it's very fun and both very tiring on a daily basis. I used to love, you know, in France, in in May, you have a lot of like, bank holidays. And so that's what we call POND. So you have like three day, four days weekend, you know?

And so when you're not a parent you know, it's awesome because you get to travel, but now that we are parents it's super hard, right, because you don't have like daycare and stuff. So May is awful for us as parents. And I was like the first one to be in office on Monday morning, because it's tough during the weekend, especially with the number two.

I had the the impression that the marginal cost you know, would decrease to zero the more kids you have but it's actually a strictly increasing. It's more like a convex than concave function and maybe, you know, I thought with the second kid.

Your spare time, you know, is divided by two, but no, it just goes to zero. Right. So yeah, a bit of a surprise here and there, but overall there are more and more interactions between the two kids and it's getting super fun.

Adam: Yeah. You know, I never thought of this, but the curve of complexity sort of maps to the curve of what you want your company growth to look like, you know,

with, uh, the, the, the hockey stick curve.

Jordane: That was not my expectation and used to sell the story to my wife, but the complexity goes like this, you know, and not this but I was wrong.

Adam: So your oldest Roxanne is as old as your company Defacto. You started Roxanne at the same time that you started Defacto. What is it like trying to start a company and. Raise your first kid at the exact same time.

Jordane: Well, first of all you don't get to plan or at least I'm not that much of a planner. So, you know, life brings you good news or sometimes bad news, et cetera. And then just like, I don't know, go with it. Yeah. Roxanne was born on the, like, March 31st. And we got our first term sheet to raise proceed one at Defacto in April 15.

So, right after you know, our birth we were in full like, partner calls with so that was quite, quite intense. But also, I don't know, you feel like fully energized. You feel like you have a lot of hormones you feel like super happy and stuff, and kind of the same occurred with Anuk.

Actually second daughter like we, we announced like a big deal on TV. came from the hospital to the TV set. My wife was still at the hospital when we announced that big deal, so it was like super intense moments, but it's all like, I don't know, very, very special one.

And I feel super grateful to have the opportunity to give them right in with the whole family actually.

Adam: It sounds like, you know, every kid is sort of tied to a major event. You got to just keep having kids and then the company is going to keep raising money and closing deals and things like that.

Jordane: We, with two dots, you can draw a line. So…

Adam: Exactly. So I'm told by the person who connected us, thank you, Steph, by the way, that you have a skill of changing diapers while handling investor calls. And so is that true? Tell me the story here.

Jordane: It's not far from true. So actually when Roxanne was born, we were living in like a smaller flat, basically. And so we are kind of the living room, both a bit like you know, remote office and also like, how do I say Roxanne room. And so I was in the middle of like a partner meeting and then I hear my wife say, oh, what a big shit.

And so we're completely, you know, upset and overwhelmed by the newborn you know, making you know, stuff. You heard that obviously, but I don't know, it creates a, you know, it breaks the ice. It's it creates a bit more of humanity in the relationships. And we were still in like post COVID mode.

So it was like mid ‘21 in French, we had a second and then the third lockdown. So we were kind of in the, in the middle of that. So, you know, we were a bit like a custom of of being, I would say emerged in people's you know, private lives. And it was like a good example of that.

And then, I mean, I guess in that context, you have two, two options. Either you pretend that nothing happened and then it looks weird. Like, you're like what's this sound? Oh, I don't know. You embrace it and you go you go all in for it. Right. And so, yeah, so like, I tell the story about how we welcome Roxanne and stuff.

Adam: Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm glad first, I'm glad that you chose to embrace it. You seem like the kind of guy that would embrace that sort of a moment.

Also, that's just amazing that your office sort of doubled as the baby's room. Makes a ton of sense. If you're in a small flat, work happens everywhere.

So, that’s great.

Jordane: And like this now we have like a bigger flat, but like, only two rooms for the daughter. And now I share the room with my daughter. As you can see with many, many

toys. 

Adam: Yes. Yes. Those look like great toys too. So, so tell me a little bit about your wife. What does she do for work on a day to day basis?

Jordane: She's a head of communications in the, in a scale up based in France called Open Classrooms. And yeah, she's been working there for like, the past five years. It's a super interesting company since it's almost a 20 year old company and the mission is is quite great. It's like to make education accessible.

And so as a PR and comp person like you have a lot, a lot, to do. And she manages to get the company in front of like the equivalent of CNN in France or like the, you know, the top TV uh, channels on the top show to help the company sell their story basically.

So, I'm very inspired by what she does by her being both a top employee. And also super involved mom by, uh, having two pregnancies by giving birth to, to children. and I think, yeah, we have like a super strong uh, supporting mechanism.

 I think that's the core of it. Right. I wouldn't be able to do like a 10th of what we do at Defacto, if I was not like supported by my wife and vice versa, I guess. Yeah.

Adam: That's that's amazing. Also what a cool mission and cool story that she gets to tell to the press.

Jordane: Yea yea yeah, it's awesome.

Adam: You did mention that the main discussion point between you and your wife was not if you were going to have kids, it was a question of how many, what was the conversation like about like, how did you win? The discussion on going from one to two, especially if your wife was pretty content with one being an only child.

 Jordane:We didn't like you know, shake hands on like having two kids, like, I don't know, five years ago. So it was like you know, kind of mentioned here and then that you know, I would I would be happy with two kids, but I will still be happy with one kid, you know, et cetera.

And it's just that once Roxanne, you know, turn like when you're old, older than a half, you know, or like, It's very cute. Right? So, then I think it, the credit mostly goes to Roxanne my older kids because I don't know, it was like was so much love and like, it's very surprising.

So we thought, okay, let's let's try, right? So, that, that's how it happens, right? Yeah

Adam: What is the earliest memory that you have after becoming a dad?

Jordane: I have strong memories right before becoming a dad, actually. When your wife is on like, the bed, the right to give then you know, there is the labor that can last, I don't know, a few hours. so my wife was there, you know, like, laboring with the, anesthesia thing to prevent pain. So she was like resting. Uh, I was like next to her. And you have this beep, beep, you know, machines like you know, doing so much noise and stuff. And so, we'd like, you know, it's, it almost sounds like, I don't know, like emergency sounds, you know?

So it was like, I don't know, 4am then there's like beep, beep everywhere. So I go to the nurse room and I was like, you know, it's beeping everywhere. Oh, what can you come? Can you see? You know, they were like, please sir, cool down. We're monitoring this from our screens and stuff.

So I'm like, ah, but still, you know, it's beeping everywhere. So they come they you know, they check on my wife and on the child. And I say like, huh the heartbeat of the kid is good, but not perfect. So I'm like, what does it mean not perfect. Like, should I panic?

Yeah, I was already panicking. I was like, should I panic more? And the nurse say, you know, sir, it takes five years study to learn what's a good heartbeat, you know, is. So I won’t to answer your question now. So I'm like, so I think that to be honest the first time I first emotions when when your baby was here and that my, my wife was like, okay.

And stuff was a relief. Right. We leave that to everything happened. Nicely.

Adam: Relief is definitely, especially when you're told that is the best quote, the heartbeat, you know, it's good, but it's not perfect. What am I supposed to do with that information, nurse? Thanks. The other thing you mentioned in our prep is that you remember your kid being super hairy.

Jordane: So my experience with like giving birth was mostly, you know, like in the movies, right? You have like, doctors give me these, give me the knife, you know, so there's a lot of like agitation and then. And, you know, in the movies, like, you know, the water goes out the kids are crying and stuff.

So it's very like, noisy. It's a lot of agitation, but, in real life for my experience the both times were like super quiet. You know, it's like the labor time, you know, it's quite quiet. Then the child when they come out and they're here, they don't really scream.

So I'm like, you know, super quiet. And actually, you know, when there is noise, you know, it feels emptiness. Right. And so you're scared of emptiness. So, so I was scared. And then, so I see the kid and like, okay she looks okay. Right. Like two legs, two hand they put the kid on my wife's breast.

And I'm like, wow. Her back is like super hairy and her legs are as well, I'm like, oh man, she's weird. And so I mean, I asked the doctor like, is it normal? Like, no. It's like a normal duvet, it will go out like in a couple of days.

Adam:Yes. The baby duvet cover. That's amazing.

Jordane: Remember sharing this story with my cousin. Yeah. Yeah. And he also shared something similar. And he's like, yeah, when I saw my kid, you know, his head was like this, but then actually it gets so you have to be prepared to do this stuff.

Adam: Yeah. Got a hairy football shaped head kid.

Jordane: Exactly. And then afterwards, like it's turning.

Adam: Amazing. you think back to becoming a dad for the first time, what are some of the more surprising things that you've discovered?

Jordane: You don't know the type of parents that, that you're going to be I always thought that I would be, you know, like the super, I would say you know, anxious, you know, dad about everything, like beware, be careful, et cetera. my wife, I always thought that she would be like more you know, cool, a bit more laid back.

But that's actually the opposite. So it's very fun to discover yourself as a parent. She's more almost like a wolf type of mom, like very protective, you know, pushing away strangers and stuff very, like creating like a cocoon around the kids.

Whereas I'm more like they are getting hurt, they are getting hurt, you know, they will learn and stuff. So, that's surprise number one. And then surprise number two I think it's your parents becoming grandparents. This is also like, very, very interesting. And I take the example of like, my dad and my step mom, you know, they are like, we're very, very close to them, but they are, I don't know, like, you know, a bit it's not shy type of parents, but like, they don't show that much like signs of love.

They are pretty, I would say I don't know how to say, but they are not extravagant in a way, but with the kids, they are like they've gone crazy. So it's very funny. So when I arrived to my parents, you know, it's like, oh, Roxanne look, but we don't exist, you know, as their own children, we don't exist anymore.

We are only carriers of their grandchildren.

Adam: That's amazing. We exist as carriers of their grandchildren.

Jordane: It's quite surprising. I was not expecting this at all, but it's cute. 

Adam: You mentioned that your parents had you when they were pretty young or your mom had you when she was 22 and Roxanne was born when her mom was 24. The grandparents, your parents must still be pretty young. Which must be nice. Cause they can like run around and chase after kids and

Jordane: Yeah, exactly. They can take care of them and we can leverage them taking care of the kids to do something else, right?

Adam: That's awesome. That's awesome.

Jordane: And we are living, you know, close together in like a Paris area. So that's a good set.

Adam: Great. So if you had a time machine, and you could go back in time to before Roxanne was born, so right before you had your first kid, and then you bumped into Jordane from three years ago, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

Jordane: So I wouldn't say the classic, like, sleep before you're not going to be you're going to be sleep deprived. You're going to be sleep deprived anyway.

So like, it

Adam: Right?

Jordane: What was a bit counterintuitive to me when Roxanne was born was like, I used to be in a role where, you know, I wanted to take care of the logistics around my wife and Roxanne so that they can, you know, be in their bubble.

So, you know, you go I don't know, buy the groceries organize stuff, et cetera. So try to be like more on the logistics side of things. But actually what's important is that as a, I mean, it's obvious, right? But as a husband to first be there for for your wife and that was a bit counterintuitive to me. As I'm more into like a serving type of person trying to solve, you know, logistic stuff. But then this can create, I would say a bit of loneliness to, to your wife. So if I were to do it again and I've had the opportunity to do it again since we had a second daughter, I was more focused on taking care of my wife and less on the logistic side of things.

Adam: Yeah, that makes sense. And so I guess the advice there would be do a little bit less. Focus more inwardly on the family and your wife and a little less on the, all the other stuff that needs to get done. So let's take the other side of this. If you could go back in time and you bumped into Jordane three, three and a half years ago, what advice would you tell yourself to ignore?

Jordane: There's so much like, people giving opinions on that, Hey, you should put socks. Hey, what type of milk do you give? Hey you're doing this, you're doing this and stuff. So, you know, at first you're like you know, you're taking all these signals and take the advice.

Then you get bored of getting advice. Then you get frustrated and you feel angry of taking too many advice. Yeah, and I would say again, just you know, be more cool about it.

Adam: Yeah.

Jordane: People are going to advice anyway, so

Adam: Yeah,

Jordane: It's not that you can control that. So the only thing that you can do is just more like.

Accept that it's like it's for the good. Right.

Adam: Yeah. It's kind of like starting a company. I'm sure you got a lot of advice about how to build a company. 

Jordane: Yeah, it's true. Then it's it's a lot of like, ups and downs, a lot of like, you think you've gotten something right, but then you got another advice and then you think you're getting it wrong and stuff. So it's always to find the balance between, you know, like getting signals and information and and following your own path.

So yeah, a bit like that.

Adam: So, this next question, I love to ask, and you know, predominantly I ask this of guests who are in the United States, and so I'm curious about what the answer is for somebody who lives in France. Maybe it's the same thing, but what's your favorite book to read to your kids?

Jordane: We managed to buy those small books that you don't really read, but that play some music. And so I love to with my wife we buy a lot of these. And so we bought you know, like, discover Mozart, discover the Vivaldi. So we had our like, classical music phase, and then we turned to Ali, Daft Punk and Queen more recently.

And I love seeing those songs. So it's not weird per se, but it's super fun to see them, you know, dance on the musics that you dance on. Right?

Adam: Yeah, I think a three year old singing and dancing to Queen would be amazing.

Jordane: it's very, very fun yeah,

yeah, well, when you were in the car and that you, you hear the song on the radio and they're like, Hey, it's very fun.

Adam: Oh yeah. My kids mostly just roll their eyes when I put on that kind of music. Now they want to listen to something very, you know, tween or teen music, so. That's awesome. You know, we in my household, we have a fair number of French children's books because my wife speaks some French.

I can't read them to the kids, but I can kind of turn the pages or I could when they were younger and stumble through it. So yeah, we have a French version of where the wild things are, which is a great great book. And then I don't know a whole bunch of other ones. So I wanted to ask, have you developed any particular frameworks or guardrails for parenting that are really important for you?

Jordane: So I thought I would be the kind of guy of like, geeking like a lot of stuff on parenting it comes out that I'm not I haven't read a lot of books on like, you know, education when I discuss about this with some friends I'm like, look at our parents, you know, they had us like so young, and it turned out to be, you know, we are okay.

We are okay, right? We normal. And then I got feedback that, okay, but we can try to improve generations that our generation. So that, that, that's fair. But I mean, it's, I thought I would be the kind of guy to kind of, you know, enjoy to read like, I don't know, stuff on like education, sleep and stuff.

But I'm not, so I'm like, I don't force myself on that and I don't like blame myself on not doing this. It's always very tough. So if you blame yourself on top of everything, then what's left? There were some phases with the, with like the launch of Defacto where, I got back home like, too late to see the kids.

And so you leave early, you come back they're always sleeping and you're like My life has no sense, right? Like I'm working hard to pay someone to take care of my kids, but I don't get to see them. What's the point, right? So I think in terms of like hard boundaries. I try to be the morning person and so we, every morning we have like a nice breakfast where I prepare the coffee for my wife and I prepare like the, I don't know, the baguettes and cheese as we mentioned you know, for, and the fruits for, for the kids.

And we have like a nice moment and then at evening, I try to come home before they sleep. Otherwise you know, you feel, you feel empty. And then during the weekends, we try to get some help, like at least a few hours during the weekend to be together with my wife so that we can, I don't know,  recharge as a couple.

We think it's super important. And as I mentioned, we have like quite busy lives on the work side of things. So we need each other and support and patience and energy and stuff. So we need these recharge moments.

Adam: That makes a ton of sense. Do you tend to leverage the grandparents in those situations or do you have other forms of childcare? Yeah, grandparents. another thing I wanted to ask you is, you've two kids now and they're still young. but how have you noticed your parenting style has changed from Roxanne to your youngest or has it?

Jordane: So I think with the second kids you're a bit more like, you know, cool with everything. Right. So I don't know. With Roxanne, we were like, you know, the milk has to be like 37 degrees. Like, you know, the bath has to be 37 degrees. I don't know how much it is in Fahrenheit.

It's like, woo, this weird scale that you have. We were like super precise on like, you know, everything like she has to nap at this time. Like we cannot miss any nap and stuff. And with the second kid, I don't know if it's like for the best for her or not, but we are not like, you know, if it's not exactly how to, it's okay if if we have lunch with some friends and and we miss a nap, it's okay if so it's a bit more, I would say like, less rigid.

So that's cool. And then I guess you have two very different ages. Right. Like one year old and three years and three year old. So you can have, I would say two you know, parenting styles with the two kids with the babies, like a lot of like, I don't know give love and like, I would say help them discover stuff.

And with the older one, it's more like, returning to education mode. Like, teach how to count to read to I don't know to cut stuff et cetera. And one thing I like to do is that we cook together with with Roxanne. When I come back home you know, she's trying to peel the cucumbers and the potatoes while I prepare some other stuff.

And it's it's very fun moments. The kitchen is like a full mess after that. So we need to be patient. It's it's very cute.

Adam: Yeah. The three year old has learned how to cook, but not yet clean up. So.

Jordane: Exactly. They like to clean up. It's interesting. They'll give me the stick and the I don't know, and the vacuum cleaner. But they clean where it's already clean. So I'm like, it's not very productive.

Adam: That's okay. She has a whole rest of her life to learn. This must be why the French cooking is so good because you get them started at a really young age,

Jordane: Yeah, with the wine. So

Adam: Yeah.

Jordane: Now we go to the coffee, to the bistro during the weekends. So she's the star of the bistro. You know, we take the small espresso on like the counter. She likes to deep like a cake in the coffee. You know, people around me are like, you know, judging like coffee to your kid.

Who are you? What kind of dad are you? Yeah. Well, no, we share this moment.

Adam: It sounds great to me. There's nothing wrong with that. Three year olds are already hyper and crazy enough. A little bit of espresso is not going to kill them. The other thing I wanted to ask you is have you noticed, so between your first couple of companies that you started and then Defacto, you started a family.

Have you noticed that having a family has changed how you, lead a company or run a company?

Jordane: Yeah, I think that to, for example, at spend desk I was a dad, you can brainstorm like a lot of time on useless stuff. And you know, I used to be like super picky on random stuff that turned out to be useless. And with like, you know, being a parent, since you have those, I would say boundaries in terms of you know, I need to be home, like, you know, not too late in the evening and stuff, I think it forces you to prioritize and to yeah, to prioritize basically, and to be a bit more efficient, to cut the crap. And I think it's easy to get burdened by crap. And since you want to prioritize, you know, we only have like one to two hour family life, right. During the day. So you don't want crap to take a 50 percent of that.

Adam: Sounds like your kids have forced you to be much more efficient and productive and make real choices about how you're spending your time.

Jordane: Make choices. Yes. Productive. Not so sure because we were always like exhausted with like half nights. I think the second point is that I'm much more empathetic than before. Like when you don't have kids for you, it's out of your mind that someone can be late that someone can not be a hundred percent.

And when you have kids, you see that the overall unexpected stuff that can happen. Right. And so you're much more, I would say you understand much more of this. It's very hard to, I believe, to, to project yourself as a non parent. Right. And once you're a parent, you say, ah, now I get it.

Adam: Yeah.

Jordane: I understand why this person was like in a bad mood that day.

Adam: Yeah, I think since having kids, I haven't been on time to anything in the last 11 years, so.

Jordane: Yeah, and it's ok.

Adam: It's okay.

Jordane: But people who have no kids, they have no excuse for being late.

Adam: No, none, none. You only have to take care of yourself. So I have found that partnership is really important when you have kids. And you mentioned prioritizing time on the weekends to recharge with your wife.

The other thing that I've noticed too, is it's hard to agree all the time with your spouse. So I'm always curious to hear from people. What is something that you and your wife don't agree on when it comes to parenting?

Jordane: They are the small things, like the day to day stuff, like, should you I don't know, like, be unhappy with your kids when they are doing this and like how hard, like, when they are like I don't know when they make like a mistake on purpose this kind of things, like how bad do you want them to feel do you put them in the rooms, you know, and stuff? So they're like the small, I would say, like, how to react overall to kids and to kids education. So that small step that, that can you know, create a bit of tension, right? If one consider that the other is too loose or on the contrary, too you know, strict you know, so we need to converge on that.

Or maybe there are two, two styles, right? Or at least accept that the other may have a different style and then you are two parents. And so one parent can be more cool and the other can be more strict potentially, like, it's okay. And then there are more, I would say the foundational stuff like in terms of education in terms of where we want to live in terms of religion potentially and for example, on education for my wife, it's very important that our kids go to, bilingual schools. My wife went to bilingual school from like a three year old to 18. Whereas I did not. As you can tell and I was more part of the public school system. So I'm a believer in the public school system in France. Whereas my wife wants to prioritize you know, a bilingual education.

And so how do you yeah, how do you mix the two? So it's not like a strong disagreement because at the end of the day, she decides but I try to influence.

Adam: I was going to say, who is going to win that battle, but I already know the answer. Now, you're a three time founder. You've built an entire career focused on technology.

When you think about the future for your kids, what's the relationship that you want them to have with technology as they get older?

Jordane: I don't think I'm going to be the type of dad who say like, you know, I'm a doctor. I want you to be a doctor. So I'm like a tech guy or like, you know, startup guy. If you want you have to work in tech and stuff. I'd like to think that if my kids, you know, they want to have, I don't know, like careers in like more artistic fields I would be happy with that. So hopefully it's going to be the case, but on the technology side of things, I still think that you need to be aware of those things, like, it moves so fast can create like so much gaps, like everywhere that I think the good thing we would like to have like this kind of, geeky attitude right.

I would love them to you know, try to, I don't know, learn how to code or learn how to, I don’t know, fix things and stuff. But more on the like, from their ear, from their impulse. So not necessarily like, influence a career. But be geeky, be curious, be aware of this stuff.

Adam: Yeah, I love that. When you think about the hard work of building a company, raising two young kids, you know, you need to recharge your batteries from time to time. you need to get a break or give yourself some energy. What is your go to method for recharging yourself and kind of getting your energy back?

Jordane: I used to play music and guitar quite a lot, but with the kids, now you need to go out of your house, right? Otherwise it's really not recharge. So now I try to run I used to hate running. I'm like, it's the most boring thing on earth. But now, I don't know, I got accustomed to it.

It's it's very efficient. You only need a pair of shoes. You can go around the street and then you can, I don't know, like, go in the, in red mode or just like have an easy run and like for, I don't know, 20 minutes to two hours, you know, it works.

 Nowadays this is my go to thing, I would say.

Adam: Will you be running through the streets of Paris during the Olympics or will you be hiding in your house with your head buried under a pillow?

Jordane: That's a good question. So I think I'm part of the optimist uh, people that that are saying that it may be cool if they are like, I don't know, like a lot of the strangers in the bars and stuff. So I think he can like there's a chance that it's complete chaos

Adam: Yeah.

Jordane: and like awful to commute and stuff, but it's also a chance that there's a good energy in the streets.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. have they found a way to clean up the Seine? There have been all these articles about the swimming in the, in the river and. Yeah,

Jordane:We still have two weeks.

Adam:  I love the optimism. I love the optimism.

Jordane: Still a lot of time to do a lot of stuff.

Adam: That's great. Last couple questions for you. What is a mistake that you've made as a dad?

Jordane: Maybe sometimes it's like underestimating how your kids can be like sponges of emotions. When you are a bit tired and stuff I can get like, you know, frustrated easily and like, when I accidentally pass, you know, this frustration to the kids you know, I'm like you know, they're going to I don't know, get it and then think about something else.

But when I realize you get frustrated in the morning and then at night when you put the kids to bed and they say, ah, dad, why did you say this morning? I'm like, they must have been, you know, thinking about this all day long. And this is not good.

Adam: Yeah, yeah,

Jordane: So, so more patience.

Adam: Yeah. And just remember that your kids are sponges. Emotion sponges. Yeah, that's a good descriptive visual. I'm thinking of SpongeBob SquarePants, the cartoon character.

What is something that you've had to give up when you became a dad?

Jordane: to be frank, uh, reading,

Adam: Yeah,

Jordane: Like I used to read quite a lot like, business books newsletters, all this kind of stuff to try to be better in my job. And now it's it's getting tougher.

Adam: I try to read and I usually fall asleep about one half of a page into the book. So,

Jordane: It's very, very tough.

Adam: All right, last question before our rapid fire round, how can people follow along with your journey or be helpful to you? What's the best place to connect?

Jordane: I'm a LinkedIn person.

Adam: Okay.

Jordane: I try to post news with like, always a few like, hints or traps in my posts.

Adam: Yep.

Jordane: Yeah. I guess, I guess that's a good place to

Adam: LinkedIn. All right. We will link to that in the show notes. So expect it just a million connection requests. It's coming.

Jordane: Billions.

Adam: Billions. That's the kind of audience and reach that I have with this podcast. Just get ready for it. All right. Are you ready for our rapid fire round?

Jordane: Yeah. Let's fire up.

Adam: Okay. Rapid fire is very simple. I ask you a question. You say the first thing that comes to mind and then we move on. Sometimes we laugh about it, but this is a judgment free zone. So there's no judgment. Here we go. What is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased?

Jordane: uh, it's those smaller, you know, stick that are making musics and lights uh, it's good to have the kids, you know, fall asleep. 

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

Jordane: I have so many, I don't know, probably this thing, it's not very useful.

Adam: Is that a watering can?

Jordane: Yeah, it's to help me, you know, water the plants, but it's not very efficient.

Adam: Turns out you have to fill it up a lot. All right. Miniature watering can. You're you're the room that you're in is probably filled with those things.

Jordane: Yeah quite, quite some examples

Adam: Yeah, Okay. Finish this sentence. The ideal day with my kids involves this one activity.

Jordane: uh, a good breakfast.

Adam: Okay, very French of you to say, uh, what is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

Jordane: Oh, it's you know, at nights when there is a relay between the two. Like the first one is sick, you take one hour to get her to sleep, and then one hour later, the second one. That that, that. Ah.

Adam: Oh, yes. What is your go to dad wardrobe?

Jordane: Ah, it's Birkenstock, you know, the shoes, but with socks.

Adam: Okay.

Jordane: Yeah, they are there. I'm getting hurt. Very thin, very sensitive feet.

Adam: Yeah. You can't have the straps rubbing into the edges of your feet. Gotta wear the socks with the Birkenstocks.

Jordane: Exactly. It's very German somehow. But yeah, and I'm not German at all, but you know,

Adam: Okay. Okay. How many parenting books do you have in your house?

Jordane: One at most that I have not read.

Adam: That answers my second question, which was, how many of them have you read cover to cover? And that would be zero.

Jordane: Zero. Honestly. I'm not proud of that. Zero, but

Adam: It's okay. You're in good company. Most of the dads answer the same way. So, even the American ones.

Jordane: Okay.

Adam: What is the favorite ages for your kids so far?

Jordane: Honestly, it's going to sound a bit cheesy but my wife often quotes me saying that I love all the ages. Like, I don't know from two months to six months, you know, they start, I don't know, being aware of stuff. Then from six months to what, to one year old you know, they get teeth, they eat, they start to move and then they develop, you know, character and stuff.

So I really think it's all the ages have their, I don't know, have their goods, I would say.

Adam: Okay. Do you have, so far, a least favorite age?

Jordane: Yeah. Zero to two months.

Adam: Zero to two months. I noticed, actually, you left that out in the favorite age part. So,

Jordane: It's too fragile. It's too it's too much of a tube. Right.

Adam: Yes. Have you ever pretended to be asleep in the middle of the night to avoid getting woken up?

Jordane: Who has not? Of course.

Adam: Excellent. Have you ever secretly thrown away a piece of your kid's artwork?

Jordane: Yes. That too. Yeah. But not so secretly anymore.

Adam: I love that. Kid, I'm throwing this out. This is going right in the recycling bin. Or the trash. Now I know your kids are still young, so they're probably not asking for a ton of things, but what is the most absurd thing that your kid, probably Roxanne, because she's older, has ever asked you to buy for her?

Jordane: Yeah. Oat milk.

Adam: Oat milk.

Jordane: No, I'm kidding. Uh, No, sorry. I tried to test different type of milk you know, and I started with like, you know, soy milk, oat milk and stuff. She doesn't like any of those. So we are now getting back to cow milk like, old fashioned guys.

Adam: That's great. I was going to say, it's very not French of you to introduce other types of milk.

Jordane: Yeah. I don't know. I tend to be, to be in my time, right?

Adam: Yeah. Maybe she'll like goat milk. That's a possibility Oh, I haven't tried.

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

Jordane: Honestly, there is this like, I don't know, like stupid rabbit shit. I forgot the name, but it's like, all is, everything is wrong. Like the voices the, it's all wrong.

Adam: Is this a French show or is this a,

Jordane: I don't even know. I mean, it's it's in French though. It's on Netflix, so maybe it's maybe it's a, I don't know, global thing.

Adam: I'm going to have to look this up. Stupid rabbit show. I'm going to search for that on Netflix and see what comes up. Have you ever used your daughters as an excuse to get out of social events?

Jordane: uh, Yeah, all the time.

Adam: Okay.

Jordane: It's good.

Adam: Wait, yes.

Jordane: And the opposite is true.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Jordane: I get social events to go out from my daughter,

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

Jordane: Every time it's a bad experience. And it's getting worse because you know, the Oxen wants to participate. So she's like, you know, I give her the screw thing. I don't know what you call it. She tries to, you know, help me. So it's it's getting longer and longer, but it's very fun.

Adam: That's great. How long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?

Jordane: Yes so, so you get surprised by the fact that I can eat everything that comes out from my kid's mouth. I don't know why I don't like to throw you know, food away. So whenever there is something that they don't finish like I finish it.

Adam: Okay. All right. Is there a particular nostalgic movie that you just cannot wait to force your daughters to watch with you?

Jordane: Yeah, probably Star Wars. 

Adam: Star Wars. Okay.

Jordane: It’s going to be so bad. I think.

Adam: Probably by the time that they're old enough

And finally, what is your take on minivans?

Jordane: I'm not opposed to them. I respect these.

Adam: Respect the minivan, not opposed to it. But I'm assuming you don't own one. That seems like a bit much for Paris.

Yeah. All right. Well, Jordane, that does it for today's episode of Startup Dad. Thank you so much for teaching me all about French culture and what it's like to raise kids in France and start companies.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Jordane Giuly. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review.

It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Harron. 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.