Finding Fun in the Mundane Aspects of Parenting | Ethan Austin (Father of 3, Founder, Outside VC)

Ethan: One of the more important things, and I think I knew this ahead of time of being a parent but it's becomes abundantly clear when you're a parent is that everyone in life is just winging it and it's like the President of the United States goes to that white house and they've never been the president before, and they're just probably like, what,what do I do now? You know, and you realize this as a parent, because you're just winging it.

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. And in today's episode, I sat down with Ethan Austin. Ethan is an impact investor and founder who has built and helped startups for over 15 years.

He is currently trying to help build a more equitable financial system by investing in companies focused on increasing the success of middle class households. He's a loving husband and the father of three kids. In our conversation today, we spoke at length about how to teach your kids family values by modeling them yourself, how to find fun in the often mundane parts of parenting, and how to take turns supporting your partner in what they need most.

Having lost his father as a young teenager, Ethan has a unique perspective on finding a joy in life and maximizing your time.

Adam: I would like to welcome Ethan Austin to the Startup Dad program. Ethan, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Thanks for joining me.

Ethan: Thanks for having me.

Adam: I'd like to assume that everyone on the planet knows who Ethan Austin is, but in the case that they do not, give me like 30 seconds on your professional background.

Ethan: Sure. I, I went to law school only to not practice to the chagrin of my Jewish grandmother mom went out and started a startup, did that for eight years. Got to be on the forefront of Crowdfunding, which was a really fun place to be. Did that for eight years. Eventually one of our angel investors was the guy, David Cohen, who started Techstars.

And when we were kind of done with Give Forward moved into Techstars and launched Techstars LA. And moved out to Denver to, do a FinTech tech stars. And now I'm writing a FinTech, a small VC fund called Outside VC.

Adam: All right. Love that. And now you mentioned Jewish grandmother being disappointed in you not pursuing your lawyer dreams or her lawyer

Ethan: Her lawyer dreams. Yeah. Let's be clear about that.

Adam: So let's get in the time machine and talk about Ethan as a young lad, where did you grow up and what was life like growing up?

Ethan: I grew up in Southern California in Orange County. So I did a pretty, you know, I don't want to say normal. It was a pretty great bit, you know, suburban life grew up close to the beach, so it was the eighties and nineties. So you just had a lot more freedom. We go, you know, in the summers you'd ride your bike to the beach with your buds.

You'd have to bring like three dollars and that would be enough for the day to get across on the ferry, play an arcade game and grab a slice of pizza. And you'd come back at dinnertime and that was summers. And I think about my friends today and like some of my closest friends. I'm going to see one of my high school friends today is coming in from Atlanta.

You know, I'm in a text group today with my friends that sometimes will be like a hundred texts in a day. I don't know how everyone has so much more time than I do. And like somehow makes more money than I do and has more time. I'm like, I've done something wrong in life. But like, I'm still like very, very close with the people I grew up with, which I feel very, very fortunate.

You know, to have, and stayed in the same house for all of childhood. My mom just sold that house after being there for 40 years.

Adam: Wow.

Ethan: Yeah, she's there for a long time it was a, you know, pretty great childhood. You know, no complaints really.

Adam: What did your parents do when you were growing up? What sort of work?

Ethan: My dad was a doctor, he was a psychiatrist. And my mom was a social worker but she ended up being a stay at home mom for most of my childhood.

My dad was the typical, you know, the 1980s, you know, 90s dad, you know, he worked a lot and he was a psychiatrist. Sometimes I found out later in life, he'd get up early and play a round of golf even before work while it was still dark.

And drove, commuted about an hour away. And so like, you know, you got to see him at night a little bit, but like, you know, a hundred percent there on the weekends. And you know, my mom was there all the time for us. And in a pretty typical, I think, 1990s style family.

Adam: Yeah. I think you told me, did your dad pass away when you were a kid? Is that something that, that happened? Yeah.

Ethan: Yeah, I know he did. He passed away when I was 13. He had a stage four colon cancer.

Adam: Oh, wow.

Ethan: Yeah, so it was quick. Happened within about a year which was really hard and you don't really know it's a hundred percent going on when you're a kid. I was 13 when he passed, which was you know, obviously a brutal thing.

You know, you love your dad and like the worst thing in the world to happen to you. I think there was good things that came from it. And of course I'd do anything in the world to have my dad back, but like it changed my perspective on life, I think. In a lot of ways, it shaped pretty much everything about my life and how I've lived my life and like how I've pursued things and the things I've decided to do, you know, going back to a Jewish grandma, not practicing law and doing the thing I wanted to do because I'm like, I don't know how long I'm going to have here on this planet.

Right? Like my dad died at 49. And so it just made you think about the things I think A lot of people learn later in life and they're like, oh man, I wish I'd done this differently. I regret not doing this or I regret not pursuing my dreams or, you know, just kind of living someone else's life. And I think, you know, having him die when I was a kid and seeing that early on, it's just like, you just got to be grateful for the time you have here.

I think about it as writing interesting chapters in a book. Like when your life's over, do you want to have a lot of interesting chapters and things to write about? Or is it just, I did this for, you know, 80 years.

Adam: Yeah. Or do you want to be a slave to big law for most of your life?

Ethan: I could not have been a slave to big law. I don't think so. I would have been fired so quickly. I don't think, I don't think I would have been hired in the first place, but I don't think I would, I don't think I would have lasted too long.

Adam: Tell me about your family now, cause this is a parenting podcast. So what do you got? What are you working with?

Ethan: My wife, Brittany, I got three kids. I got Everly is six. Ellis is three and Libby is three and a half months.

Adam: Wow.

Ethan: So we got a little one right now doing it all again.

Adam: Three and a half months. We're going to talk about that in a second, but how did you and your wife Brittany meet?

Ethan: We, we met in a funny way. We met in line for tacos at this place called big and littles in Chicago. I was running this startup in Chicago at the time, but I was actually living in San Francisco. This was like a decade before remote work was a thing. And my co-founder, she was in Chicago and she was on maternity leave, actually.

So I was coming back to, to be in Chicago for three weeks. And while I was there, I was at this place, Big and Little's. I had been on diners and drive ins and dives. And so there was this long line and we got stuck in line with each other for about an hour. I like to say that I swept her off her feet with my vast knowledge of Mexican cuisine.

She rolls her eyes every time I say that. But you know, I think it's true. You know, we met then and like a year later, maybe a year and a half later, we were married. So, I was supposed to be there for two weeks. And by the third week. I think I'd moved into her apartment temporarily.

And then three months later she came out to San Francisco and we'd moved in together and it was pretty quick.

Adam: Nice, love at first barbacoa. So that's amazing. So I want to talk to you about your kids and, you know, we just talked about how losing a parent at a young age kind of, you Influenced you in a big way. And there's probably a value system that your parents instilled in you as you were growing up and then your mom, right after your dad passed away.

So I'm curious now with three kids and three pretty impressionable aged kids. Although that three month old is probably a potato at this point. So not learning much, but what kind of values do you live by? And how do you teach your young kids about that value system?

Ethan: Some of my personal values might not end up being my kids values, but like some of my values, you know, like kindness is probably paramount and adventure - two of the big ones really for me and I think of it almost like you're running a startup again, right?

And like when you're in a startup nothing matters, you're trying to build a culture, none of the things you say actually matters, it's only the things that you do. That actually matter and like modeling that behavior for the rest of your team, because they're going to do exactly what they see the founders doing.

So you can say one thing, it's not going to matter if you do another. So I, try to do the same for my kids, but I try to almost exaggerate things sometimes, like, like kindness is one of my values, like core values. But you know, we were in Shake Shack the other day and there was a homeless person in there who, you know, it was injured, just trying to use the bathroom and like, yeah, I just went out and asked him if I could buy him, you know, a meal and I probably like if my kids were not there, I probably would not have done that.

Right. Like, know, I give money to homeless people on the street all the time, but like, it's probably not something I would have done. But literally after that, you know, your daughter comes up and you're just like, that, that was a really kind thing to do. And so like, I think showing them these types of things and like, we keep, Food in our car for like when we pass homeless people just keep like beef jerky in the car and like things that allow them to see what their parents are doing without you lecturing to them.

Like, you know, we have one rule in our house to be kind that is never followed. So like telling them what to do, it just doesn't work at all. Like we have signs on the door. It says, be kind and like, screw that dad. I don't think so. I'm going to bite my brother. You know, like. So I think just showing them the things that we care about and adventure, I think, my daughter's first word was dog and her second word was hike. And I think my son's first word may have been hike, too. So like just getting them out into the world on adventures and thinking about those things and, you know, showing them what that can be. And exposing them to who knows if they're going to like hiking when they're, you know, an adult, or they're going to hate it, if they're going to like adventures, or they're going to hate it, but they're exposed to it early and just try and show them rather than…

Adam: Yeah. I was going to ask you, so modeling kindness makes a lot of sense and seems pretty straightforward. And, the example you gave, you know, I can totally understand that. And then I was wondering, you also said adventure is one of your values. So I was like, how do you model adventure for kids?

But you told me that you used to do, or you still do these sort of like adventure days with your kids. So what are adventure days? 

Ethan: Adventure days are, are marketing. You know, I guess one way to, I'll back it up one way to model adventure. And I think my daughter, my oldest daughter was four years old and she lived in LA twice. She was born in LA. Both of our first kids were born in LA.

And she lived in Denver twice by the time she was four years old. So like the idea of like being able to kind of like just go we have a, internal mantra, life goes on. Right. And like, nothing's ever as good as it seems in the moment. It's not as bad as it seems in the moment. And life's going to go on.

And like something happens, the kids say life goes on. Like they, they kind of get, they kind of get it. Like we had last mother's day. We went out to some crappy restaurant because I hadn't planned well enough for Mother's Day, me and Culpa. And we went to some crappy restaurant. Shocker, right?

This year I have three, three reservations. This year I have three reservations. And I was literally like, I was texting with a friend, a dad on the school this morning. I was like, hey, I need my backpack back. And he's like, I got to figure out Mother's Day. And I'm like, dude, I got three reservations. I'll give you one.

He's like, I'm just, I'm selling it on like the

Adam: Yeah, we have a marketplace now and that marketplace is Ethan's Mother's Day reservations. Yeah.

Ethan: But anyway, so like my kid, he was just barely two at the time, his last mother's day. And we'd eaten this meal. It wasn't great. And he'd eaten some, we got like some pie at the end.

And then at the end, my mother in law's holding him, we all had gone out together and she's holding him in his arms. He just projectile vomits. Like I'd never seen him do that before. And it got on her, it got on the car. It was just kind of like everywhere. It was just gross.

And we're all just like this. And he just looks up at us and he says, life goes on. I was like, all right that's a win. And so when I say like adventure, it's just like rolling with the punches and just being able to go with the flow. And sometimes that's hard for kids, of course, right?

Like kids, everything is so much bigger for kids. So it's not to diminish any of their feelings in the moment because. Kids are going to have big feelings all the time. But it's just to say like, everything is going to be okay. Let's take a long view on things and let's just go with it.

Adventure days were marketing. you know, I'd pick my daughter up and, you know, kid up and my son up from school. He didn't go to school till he was three. And I'd pick her up from school on Fridays. And we do the same stuff we were going to do anyway, like we're going to go to the park, we're going to go to the museum, we're going to go sometimes to just Whole Foods, right?

But you market it as adventure day, and so it just feels different, right? It feels like, oh, this thing, and you look forward to it, and every Friday is adventure day. And it's a little bit of a hack. I think it was I learned it early on from dating when dating my wife we'd go out to a restaurant and you do it on the fly and you spend the exact same amount of money as if you had planned it.

Sometimes you're like, we had this great meal. This was a great restaurant. And like, I, you know, I spent a lot of money and you don't get credit for the date because you just did it spontaneously. So like if you plan ahead, it just feels different. And so it would become adventure day and we'd go out and do adventures and sometimes they were, you know, pretty normal, basic adventures, but it just became a day that was special.

Adam: You mentioned it's marketing and then I was thinking I've been doing a lot of research lately about consumer products that have added an enterprise version of themselves and often that is also just marketing, it's the same exact product and they've got like one feature and they're like, Hey, guess what?

It's our enterprise one pay five times as much per person. So yeah, love that.

Ethan: Amazing what a little storytelling and branding can do for some same old content that we're delivering.

Adam: Underrated, especially with young children and spouses. Speaking of spouse tell me about what your wife does. What does she do for work?

Ethan: My wife is a social worker. And she's all sorts of things. So she was like trained as like a therapist and she did therapy for victims of torture for awhile, like immigrants and refugees. She worked in a couple of startups. She's working on a startup for addiction recovery.

She's worked at a nonprofit that was working in human trafficking and now she's at another startup that's working with kids and young populations with severe mental illnesses. So she always picks heavy stuff. She doesn't take the light stuff to work on.

Adam: I imagine that that's really hard to compartmentalize. So when she brings that stuff home from work, like how do you all navigate that as a family and as a husband, I would just tell you, I would be pretty bad at that.

Ethan: Some of them are easier than others. Now it's a little easier than the past. She doesn't have the same level of direct contact. There was, you know, when you're working with victims of torture and you're just, and you're doing therapy or you're working on a human trafficking hotline there is a lot of like transfer trauma, right?

And it is hard. It's heavy, and there's times it was challenging because there's just like a lot to offload and like, and you're not really supposed to talk about this stuff either. There's confidentiality and it's just you know, it was hard and I think there's a real reason there's burnout and people need to take breaks from those types of professions.

And it's just there's just a lot of trauma involved in it in a day to day basis. You know, now it's a little bit easier. You're a level or two removed. it's a bit easier. There's different work stresses just like any other workplace, but it's more work is startups are hard type stuff rather than, you know, this person is going through something no one should go through and I'm witnessing that.

Adam: Well, I wanted to change it on a more positive note. Tell me about the decision the two of you made to start a family.

Ethan: so we waited a while. We waited four and a half years. My wife was still in grad school and I was finishing up my startup and. And we had decided we were going to travel through South America. It was something that, again, going to adventure something that we would not be able to do in the same way with kids. And we took this big trip. I was interviewing this opportunity to be like the first product manager at like Facebook. They're starting an impact team I came from impact. And so like someone who came from impact and getting to have impact over like 2 billion people and help build out those products would have been such a cool opportunity.

It would be, you know, a lot wealthier than I am today. And like, if you care about helping people, there's probably nowhere that where there's greater scale. And instead we're like, no, you know, that they'd offered to do like, hey we'll let you start and then take some, you know, leave right away and take a sabbatical right away and then come back and.

And we decided not to do that and just go for it. And pass that thing up, even though it was such a cool opportunity and like travel. And I've never once in my life regretted that decision. It was just like, we went all through South America and just. You know, did these things together, like we climbed mountains and we went hiking and we saw beautiful places and ate great food and just took weird, crazy buses and just went on so many adventures together, like read so much.

And like, it was just this great time that we had. Traveling with kids is not the same. Right. And we can do that when we're retired, but we won't have the same physical abilities to do the things that we did. So we waited a long time before we decided to have kids. And then we moved to LA, we both got new jobs, we bought a house, we got a dog, and had a kid in the same year.

And we're just like, well, if we don't get divorced this year we're doing it, we're doing all the things. And so, so,

Adam: Yeah.

Ethan: You know, we went for it.

Adam: Ripped it off like a bandaid. All the things.

Ethan: All the things.

Adam: And now you have three kids. You just had a new kid. And three months old, three and a half months old. Congratulations. And also I'm sorry. Um, and I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about your parental leave. Cause I, you know, usually a lot of it, I don't get the chance to talk to a lot of dads who are recently fathers because frankly they're tired.

And so I get it. But tell me about what you did and what you prioritized for kind of family leave.

Ethan: So the family leave. So this is, you know, I was working for myself the first time I've been working for myself while having kids when I was running a startup before I had no kids. And so I took, I don't know, I’m the boss, took a three, almost three and a half month parental leave. So the time was so much greater than I've ever had in the past. And yet at the same time, you have three kids and life doesn't stop, right? And so it was not three months completely checked out because you still have these two other kids to take care of. And then you're taking care of them full time, a hundred percent on your own pretty much because your spouse is taking care of baby pretty much full time, a hundred percent.

Right. And so it's a bit of a divide and conquer. And then, you know, I'm running this solo GP for, I got ahead of, you know, pacing in front in like in December, so I did a bunch of deals. I'm, I'll be good. I'm not gonna do any deals. And then things kind of fall in your lap and you end up doing more work than you expect during leave, which is disappointing.

It's not like you're completely checked out, you know, so I think there's benefits of get a longer leave and you get to control it. And being a your own boss or in being the only person in a firm, you're never fully a hundred percent gone, which is regretful, right? It'd be nice to be fully present, but there's a lot going on in life is what I would say, both from a parenting, the other kids perspective and uh, you know, keeping the lights on perspective.

Adam: You also mentioned that you had a different experience with your third kid.

I, I think because you have other kids around slightly older. Like, tell me about that and how the experience of your third was different than the first two.

Ethan: Yeah. I think when you're, when you have a third kid with the first kid, it's just like you're in this little cocoon. It's just you and the kid and it's, you know, just remember being like everything was so goofy here. The leave is like you and your wife are walking around in bathrobes and like everything's just, you know, you're in Gaga land with this little baby and like the world has stopped.

And with third kid, the world obviously doesn't stop in the same way it does for mom a little bit, but doesn't quite as much for dad is still dealing with these other things. And one of the beautiful things I think of, a second or third kid, or just, you know, multiple kids is getting to see the world through your kid's eyes as they experience their sibling and that's pretty beautiful thing to witness and they're just so sweet with our youngest live with Libby and it's just like it's cool to watch and cool to see them experience you know, I think of the first time Libby smiled and the first time she giggled It was like I you know, I cried the first time she did both those things And then getting to watch your daughter and your son do the same thing and have that experience themselves is that's pretty magical.

So I think that's one of the big differences. And then obviously just the, you know, the first kid is like you have, you know, bubble wrap for everything and everything is, all the toys are made from wood and they're from Sweden and the third times it's like, what is this plastic shit here?

You can have it. It's a, from a Happy Meal. Great. That's your baby shower toy. Enjoy.

Adam: Here's a plastic soda bottle. It's empty. Enjoy it. 

Ethan: Although I will say. You plan it, like, it's like kids presents. I remember like my daughter I don't remember how old she is. Their oldest one, you get all these presents for Hanukkah and Christmas. And then we gave her like a half open bag of M and M's and that was by far her favorite thing.

She's like, M and M's you're giving me candy or like, you know, like, it's like, what are we doing? It was like, man, we just got to give the kid M and M's. But with the third kid, man, I remember coming home from the hospital. And so she came a week late. She was due on January 12th, and our son, his birthday is January 20th, and it's just like, what is going on?

It's like, girl, you can't come on his birthday. Like, that's not cool. And she didn't. She came on the 19th, a day early, and then it's such like, it's so crazy. Like, you rush home, you know, we canceled his little mini party that he was gonna have, And like, we just did a family thing, but like you get home on the 20th, I'm running around getting presents out, like trying to like make this a thing for him.

You know, he's three, so he's not going to really remember this, but you still want to do a thing for him. And I remember just handing my baby off to my six year old and like literally run through the door, hand her off. I look back for a second. I'm like she's got this. And then I'm just running around.

And it was like, it's just such a wild thing. The difference between being a first parent, you have no idea what you're doing to the third parent, where you're just like, here kid, just take the kid. And like, I'm going to go set this party up now. And, you know, it was just wildly different in that way.

Adam: When you're a parent of three kids. You know, there's a lot of mundane. So what do you do to find the fun in the mundane? What does that mean for you?

Ethan: Joy is one of my core values to say, like, I like having fun. And I think that kids are this beautiful enabler of fun because. Kids whole life is fun. That's what do you kids do? Oh, do they play that's like literally like they do all day.

It's like they're having fun. They laugh a hundred times more than we laugh and like they giggle and they're crazy and they do fun stuff. And I think allowing yourself to be a kid and just kind of like opening yourself up to that is something that if I didn't do that, I feel like, man, I would have really regretted that, I would have missed out.

And like, I have this opportunity and you know, most of the time you're, yelling at your Scott, come on, stop, move, stop dawdling. Stop doing this. But like, you know, if you pause for a second and and sometimes you're like, all right, well, if I don't have a reason to say no, say yes. Right?

Like, why don't I say yes to this thing? The kid wants to do it. It's like, you're so reflexively. No, like maybe it's a yes. And like, let's see where they go with this thing. And that will be fun, or, I honestly think like my kids favorite things to do. And Nana came to visit and we did all the things with the zoo and the museum and all these different places.

At the end of it, I said, what was your favorite thing? And she's like, going to REI. And like, when we go to REI, we play hide and seek always, but always play hide and seek in REI and it gets ridiculous and it's so fun. And like we have the store associates helping us, like giving clues, like kids over there, or your kid's lost, you should really find your kid, you know, like, you know, like we just have fun in the REI.

Right. And we do no shopping. We don't buy stuff from REI. We just play, we go there exclusively to play hide and seek or, you know, even when you are doing stuff, like one of my favorite things was taking my son, it would be everything flips and nothing lasts forever, but like for a long time, every Sunday I'd be taking him whole foods to go shopping and we would just have the best time, push him around in the cart.

You know, at the end we'd, we kind of ride the cart, like I'm sledding around, I'd jump in the parking lot and we'd all ride the cart. Or just, we'd be singing and dancing and he'd be throwing stuff up on the conveyor belt to put it up there. And we'd just be goofing around and like, it never occurred to me until multiple people would always be like, you guys look like you're having a lot of fun.

And I think, doing the normal things, cause you don't have time as a parent to plan out the fun activities always. It's just like, you gotta get by or just, you know, we're just trying to stay above water, you know? And so like finding the fun in the mundane, I think is necessary because you don't always have time to create the fun or plan out the fun. It's just, that's far and few between when you can do that. You're just trying to not drown in everyday life.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. So you just got to work it in to the day to day. I love that.

Ethan: I think you're being intentional about it. I think it's easy to just not do the fun stuff. I think to pause and think like, let's do the fun stuff. Why not?

Adam: What is it about sporting goods stores like REI that kids just like love so much? I mean, my kids are the same way. Like, it's wild. It's like, oh hey, look, there's a bunch of tents set up over here. You wanna go crawl around in some tents for a while?

Ethan: A hundred percent. And it's like, they actually have a real playground there. And the kids are like, nah, I'm good. Let's go, hide in the sleeping bags. You know, totally. And it's funny when I play hide and seek too, cause I had the best hiding spot recently as.

I was wearing some green like Patagonia jacket. And then I found a hanger full, you know, of like green Patagonia jackets. And I put it, I hid in there and just have my arm out like this and the kids pass me multiple times and I'm giggling to myself. And I see people walk by and people give you the weirdest looks. Like what are you doing?

Adam: Sure. Yeah.

Ethan: You know they don’t know you're playing hide and go seek with your kid. They just think you're hiding in a bunch of green Patagonia jackets.

Adam: Yeah, those people clearly do not have children. Otherwise they would immediately know what you're doing.

Ethan: Totally. So we have fun with it.

Adam: What are the most surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

Ethan: one of the more important things, and I think I knew this ahead of time of being a parent but it's becomes abundantly clear when you're a parent is that everyone in life is just winging it and it's like the President of the United States goes to that white house and they've never been the president before, and they're just probably like, what, what do I do now? You know, and you realize this as a parent, because you're just winging it. And as a kid, you look up to your parents. You look up to them and like, they knew so much. They knew everything. You know, you, your kids ask you stuff as if you know everything and, you know, you either tell them you do or you go to chatGPT or you Google it, or you know, ask Siri or Alexa, but your kids think you know everything.

And then you become a parent and you realize your parents were completely winging it. They had no idea what they were doing either. And it just becomes very obvious that everyone in the world, parents, work, everyone's just kind of trying to get by. No one really has a clue what they're doing.

Don't take anyone too seriously. I think other things, you know, you realize very quickly, you have no control, right? Like you can't control the situation. Your kids are going to, your kids are going to kid, right? Like they're going to be kids and some days you have a good morning and you're like, oh, I was a great parent this morning. I did all the things right. And you're like, no, it's just that your kid didn't react poorly to the thing that could trigger them in one scenario or another, they just didn't react badly that morning. And it's like, there's nothing that you did. It's like, your kid's going to be a kid.

And so letting go of control. You know, and then like kids are different too. And I don't know why that one's surprising. Like we all have siblings and like, I know my sister is nothing like me. And yet we're still surprised when our kids are, are very different. You're like, wow, they're so different. And you're like, well, yeah, your sister's different, you know, makes sense.

But we're always so surprised at like how different the kids are. It shouldn't be surprising, but it is.

Adam: They'd be surprising to a lot of people. Those are good surprises, even if they seem obvious in hindsight, right?

Ethan: Yeah, sure.

Adam: Speaking of in hindsight, if you could rewind the clock to the time right before you had your first kid or your second kid, or three and a half months before the third kid, What advice would you tell yourself to ignore that was dispensed or thrown at you?

Ethan: I appreciate this one person at our baby shower and she told us don't listen to any of the advice.

Adam: So all of it. Ignore all of it.

Ethan: Ignore all of it. I think think more so moms than dads, you know, you get beat up as a mom. Like, there's this idea of like being this perfect mom and dads are kind of just like, I don't know.

I think I'm doing a good job, you know, I'm like, get, I'm doing good. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm doing, and like, moms get the brunt of this, I think more so than dad's, but just this idea of like being perfect in all fronts and like, it's just so much and there's so much advice, and there's so much judgment, and it's just like, just ignore it.

I mean, I think you give zero Fs, and like, the sooner you do that, and you realize everyone's winging it, you're doing your best, everyone's just trying to do their best, there's no right or wrong way to do this. Then just ignore all that noise. I think that's the best advice. We were in this baby class when we first had our first daughter and the teacher, it was like a parent and me class, and the teacher said the best baby book that has ever been written.

It was an anthropology book and it just showed how all these kids in all these different cultures and all these different countries and far flung continents these parents had wildly different ways of raising their kids. And all the kids turned out okay.

And so like the dogma that you need to raise your kid this way, or you need to do X, Y, or Z is just such BS.

It's easy to get caught up in that. And I think it's more important to ignore it.

Adam: So your mantra the person told you was don't listen to other people's advice, but now you've gone through this for six years and you've probably developed your own points of view and principles and things like that. If you could now turn around, and even to the younger you who was told, ignore all the advice.

If you had one thing that you would tell yourself from six years ago, what would that thing be?

Ethan: I think it's just, everything is a phase. You're going to go through these things that feel like they're going to last forever. And your kid is going to be terrible. Or that you are never going to sleep again. Or that they're always going to call for you 36 times after bedtime, you know, I lived that last night. Totally.

My, my kid, one time it was so funny, I was getting frustrated. He was, doing the thing that kids do. Like they figure out stalling and I was just like, it'd been a week or two of it. And I'm like, dude, no more stalling. Come on. And I talked to him like an adult, which he's three, which I'm like, you know, I'm like, no, no more of the stalling.

I know what you're doing. No stalling. I'm like, I'm not coming back up. And then, you know, five minutes later. Dad, you know, I go up there. I'm like, yes, yes. What is it? I'm like, this better be important. You better not be stalling. Right. He's like, I'm not stalling. I'm like, what is it?

And he's like, I want to tell you a knock knock joke. Oh my God. You know, he's like, you can't help but laugh in those moments. You're just like, okay, tell me the knock knock joke.

Adam: Tell me the joke.

Ethan: You're a thousand percent stalling, but I love you so much. Um, I think that's it. I think is that everything is a phase when everything feels.

Oof, like it's going to last forever. It's going to shift.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. It's almost instead of, you know, you're not dispensing advice like, oh, you should do this differently. You're helping people understand a perspective which is like a life philosophy about it being a phase.

Ethan: It feels like you're in it a lot as a parent.

like like it's like, man I try and remind myself that I'm like, this is going to end this hard thing that's happening. Cause there's always a hard thing. It's going to end at some point and life will ease up and then the next hard thing will happen.

Adam: Sure. Yeah. I've picked up a couple of kind of frameworks or guardrails that you've mentioned here around parenting, this idea of showing versus telling and demonstrating the values. You talked about kindness, joy. Adventure. And then your story about life goes on, like they're having this mantra of life goes on.

And I love that mother's day story, especially because we're recording this just before mother's day, with your three reservations, we're going to, it's going to be a successful one. There will be hopefully no puke. What other frameworks or guardrails or principles we call them, whatever you want, do you have for parenting?

Ethan: I guess I'd say one piece of advice that I actually thought was valuable. When I was a founder we brought in this guy, Chad, and he'd been the CTO at Grubhub and he joined our team and he was maybe 10 years older. He had kids. I called him Chad, the rad dad. He was so involved with his kids.

He was always doing Boy Scouts and, you know, doing stuff with his daughters and like taking them to their farm and like just doing stuff, like just very, very involved. And it's just like, it's just like, you know, good model of like how to be involved.

Adam: Yeah.

Ethan: And I didn't have kids at the time, but it stuck with me.And he's like, look, everyone Fs up their kids. You just try and F them up as little as possible and let them know all the time that you love them. and that's like 80 percent of it. And I tell my kids and like, I think about my own dad, I don't know. It's not something I think I said as a kid, like, I love you.

Like, you know, it's just not something I think that was like part of, you know, my vernacular in a sense of like, when I was 13, like being effusive about that. And like, I tell my kids, I love you like 50 million times a day and just let them know, that all the time, because you're going to yell at them and you're going to, you're going to make them feel bad about stuff.

And like, I think if they're showered with love all the time, that they know in those moments when you come down on them for something or you're frustrated or you lose your cool and you're not, you know, you're not your best moment that they're still loved and they're safe and they, you know, you're cared for.

And I think, that was really good advice.

Adam: Yeah, Chad, the rad dad dispensing the amazing advice. By the way, I love that nickname.

Ethan: I still call him to this day,

Adam: That's so good. We'll probably have to link to him, his profile in the show notes and people will be hiring him for parenting advice. So what does it mean for you? And in your household for partners to take turns, supporting one another.

This is a thing you mentioned in our prep for the show.

Ethan: I think one of the like the keys to like our partnership and like, you know, we're both. Yeah, fairly adventurous is like giving each other the opportunity to live their dreams or whatever that might be and so like multiple times, you know, I passed up on that big opportunity at Facebook to travel. That was something that she wanted to do.

I loved it, was like the best experience of my life, you know And then like she moved to Colorado for me for like a work opportunity she moved back to LA for me for work opportunity. And then we moved back to Colorado and like, we've done these things.

And like, then when I started this business and I'm not making, you know, a lot of money on this tiny, tiny little fund. And she was, she took long maternity leave. It was like year and a half. And at some point I was like, babe, you need to get a job, like, you know, and and it can't work at a nonprofit.

And so like, she just stepped up and like took this role you know, and she makes more money than me now and it's just cool to see, like, she's such a smart, beautiful, incredible, talented human. It's nice to see her in this role as like breadwinner, which is like, I don't think either of us ever necessarily anticipated.

But like you step up for each other in the moments when you need someone, you have this partner. And I think that's true of, work and life and of kids and like our roles shift all the time with parenting of like responsibilities and who's doing what, and you just have this flow back and forth that you always know you're going to have this partner who's supporting you.

And I think that's just really important because parenting, because life is hard. Parenting is hard. Life is hard. It's good to know you have someone who's in the moments you need them, we're gonna have your back.

Adam: Sounds like you got a great partnership with your wife.

I would like to hear what is something the two of you don't agree on when it comes to parenting?

Ethan: There's a number of things. We tend to agree on most things. We tend to get to the same conclusion which has been really nice, but there are certain things where we're polar opposites and one of them is naps. Our son still naps. He takes monster naps.

He's three. Pretty normal. Our daughter napped all the way up until she was like six, which I don't know anyone whose kids are napping that way. And she was, you know, she was fighting it at the end. And I was the one having to put her down because my wife was pregnant. So I was putting her down and like dealing with all the naps and it was just, it was always kind of a struggle.

So I was ready to end it. And it also, you know, it's nice to have more of your day free too, but the naps, I mean, the naps were great for a long time and I would say like these naps are not, you know, my wife was pushing the naps. It's like, I was like, these aren't for, these aren't for Everly.

These are for you. And my wife was like, I need this, you know, like, do not take away the naps. Like, and so, so, you know, we had a different perspective on those, but for the most part, we agree on, I

Adam: All right. Naps. You know, I could use a nap right now, actually. So.

Ethan: Totally. Ithink we all could.

Adam: We all, we all could. So I've been asking folks lately, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, your take on this, you started a company, you invest in companies in the world of technology, you built an entire career in technology.

When you think about the relationship that you want your kids to have with technology, especially as they get older. What is that relationship?

Ethan: Man, I want them to be hermits on a mountain somewhere. you know, I think of myself and like, I don't have many vices. I went to my 42 year old checkup, annual checkup you know, and he, doctors, what do you smoke, drink? I was like, not really, not on any of these things really. This thing though, is just like a bad habit.

You know, and that thing is addictive. It's like, I hope that my kids are not addicted to technology and their phone in the same way that I am. I don't know how to solve for that, honestly. It was like, I love the advice from other parents as who figured that piece out. You know, our kids are still young and so we don't have to face that question for another handful of years, but we've, you know, we don't do, we don't really do iPads and all those things are, they're typically, they're not for the kid, they're for the parent, they're the equivalent of the naps, right?

And you stick your kid on the iPad for a couple hours and that's great.

I think we're trying to hold off as, as long as we can. Because I, I don't think it's good for me. I'm constantly distracted beyond like my normal ADHD.

and it's not great to live a life, you know, where you're not focused on the thing in front of you.

And so hope as much as possible that we can, you know, shed these things a little bit and they're not so tied to them in the future, but if it's up to me, I'd rather than not, you know, be tethered to technology.

Adam: You talk a lot about modeling behavior you ever have your kids tell you like, hey dad, you're on your phone, get off your phone. I mean, certainly not the three and a half month old.

Ethan: I think they've said stuff once or twice and it hits hard when your kid says something like that, you know, and I would say that's the area like I, you know, the worst thing I've modeled for the kids, right? It's just like constantly being on the phone constantly. I think that happens to if it would have happened whether I worked in an office or worked at home, but like know,  you work for yourself and your, you know, life and your work kind of just blends into one thing.

There's not a lot of boundaries. I'm not great at setting boundaries. I'd say that's the thing I, I wish, you know, I would do differently. I wish I was more disciplined around just putting that thing away and being present with your kids. I spend so much time with my kids. you know, it's kind of like what I was saying with leave.

I had this luxury of spending so much time with my newborn, but like you have other kids and you still have some work stuff. You're not always fully in it. And I think that would be my biggest regret. I spend so much time with my kids. I work from home four or five hours a day with them, but not all of it's like quality.

And, you know, you're trying to get them out the door, you're distracted, you're looking at an email. It's just like, it's time. It's not always quality time. And I think if I could do one thing differently, that's what it would be.

Adam: Speaking of quality time, you know, you don't get a lot of it for yourself these days with three kids, you're outnumbered in your own house and you get two working parents. So what do you do to recharge your batteries or restore yourself?

Ethan: I'm happiest out in nature. So I try and go for hikes and I feel like that's where I have clarity and make good decisions and can have like deep thinking and, and less so even about work. You know, I don't go for the work purposes, although I think there's benefits to that. It's you go, cause it, it's where I'm happy.

And so I try to go hiking pretty frequently and trying to go once a week. I can get to great hikes within like 40 minutes of my house. So I try to get out there and then incorporate, you know, any type of founders in town, I'll take them hiking.

Which is great. And like, you have like much better conversations over a three hour hike than you do over a zoom.

Like you get to know people at a deeper level. It also makes me feel I'm 42. They're usually like 25, 30. It also makes me feel superior to them because they're coming to Denver and I'm acclimated and I'm there, you know, they're huffing and puffing and I'm like, Whoa, what? You can't, know, what's, you can't hang and like any other thing, any other environment, they'd be crushing me, but you know, it's the one chance I get to feel superior.

And, you know, I'm trying to keep this power dynamic, this VC founder, power dynamic in my favor, you know.

Adam: Yeah. You're like, hey, we're not at sea level anymore. I've been training at elevation for years.

Ethan: Totally, yeah, yeah. Look at these calves.

Adam: Um, uh, I actually wanted to ask you one more thing about hiking, which is, you know, not everybody's into hiking. But I think a lot of people do want to figure out how to do that with their kids.

And, you know, getting a young kid to like accompany, you on a hike. They can't go very far. They like to whine and complain. How have you like flip the script on your kids and gotten them to be into it?

Ethan: So let's say you could get two miles out of them, but you want to get an extra mile. we'll do scavenger hunts. And so like, know, you don't spend that last mile hiking alongside your kid. You spend it going 50 yards ahead of them finding, you know, I'll take like veggie straws and then I'll put the veggie straw on like stems and twigs and plants and they have to find the veggie.

And so it becomes a game. And it's like, again, like injecting fun into the thing when they're tired and whining and all of a sudden they're distracted and we're playing a game. And so that's been a good trick. In the past we'll do a lot of like climbing and so like, we'll get to a place where they'll just like find rocks and just climb and like, they love that and they'll just go off adventuring and that's fun.

So like, anytime they get a chance to like climb in there. Okay. And then you just accept that's the hike. It's not going to be the hike that you thought it was going to be. And you did this other fun thing and they were having a blast. And so it's part of the thing you want to do and part of the thing they want to do.

And like you climb up rocks with them, which is what's more fun than that anyway. And so, you know, I think there's a couple of tricks in there. And then, you know, we went on a five mile hike with my daughter last summer in Croatia and she just, I don't know what the trick was cause I don't remember. She just committed. She's like, I think I was telling her, I'm like, hey, you're doing a lot of and she's like, okay, I'm going to. I want to do the rest of this without it. And she just did, you know, and it's like, and you just show them that they're capable of these things. And then they can, they do them.

and then of course, snacks and treats and all the, all those things, you keep them well sugared up and well fed, then there's motivation there. I'm not above bribery at all. I would say that my two most common parenting tactics are bribery and empty threats. So I'm not above any of that.

Adam: Guilty as charged. All right. Well, before we get to our rapid fire round, one more question for you, which is how can people follow along or be helpful to you?

Ethan: I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. If you want to connect on LinkedIn or. You know, hit me up in the DMs there. I'm pretty active there. Just Ethan Austin should be pretty easy to find.

Adam: Okay. Slide into Ethan's DMS on LinkedIn. That's what I heard. So, all right. Are you ready for rapid fire? Ethan

 Here we go. Most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased?

Ethan: Not an actual parenting product, but we got our kids email addresses and I'll send them and my wife will send them a couple of letters a year that we're going to share with them when they're 15, 16, 18 at some point that I think will be meaningful. But that's been a fun one.

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

Ethan: First kid, we bought a snot sucker, which was literally a straw, which I think if parents have seen these things,

Adam: Yeah. Like the Nose Frida. 

Ethan: A nose Frida. We bought a nose Frida and we never used it. We looked at it. We're like, what is, this is disgusting. What, why would, what is this thing? And it's just like, man, Instagram ads get you.

Adam:Yeah. Well, you know, it shows you just how different parents can be because somebody else on the pod said it was the greatest purchase they ever made.

Ethan: Amazing. Maybe they had a particularly mucousy kid.

Adam: It could be, or just love the taste of boogers. I think I know the answer to this one, but finish this sentence. The ideal day with my kids involves this one activity.

Ethan: It's hiking or adventures. Yeah.

Adam: Which one of your kids is your favorite?

Ethan: Felix.

Adam: Who is Felix?

Ethan: The dog.

Adam: I was like, I don't remember Felix being in the name of the three children.

Ethan: He's our first born. No, I love them all. What are you trying to get me fired from being a dad and what kind of question is that?

Adam: What is your go to dad wardrobe?

Ethan: I've worn it for the last seven years. A yellow hat that I get multiple yellow hats, this green jacket, the one I mentioned earlier, and these gray Levi jeans. I look at photos of me. Sometimes. And I'm like, at least 60 to 70 percent of them are in there. And I sometimes think if I died and my kids didn't have like real built in memories of me, and they're looking through photos, are they just going to think like, is dad real or is he a cartoon? He’s like, wearing the same uniform all the time. And so who knows.

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

Ethan: Maybe three?

Adam: How many parenting books have you read cover to cover?

Ethan: Zero. Zero. Although Happy Sleeper is a good one. I do like that one

Adam:Happy sleeper. Okay. We'll link to that in the show notes. What is the least favorite age for your kids?

Ethan: I think babies. I, like, I feel like someone once described it as being an intern where like, you're not real, like, I was like, oh yeah, like mom is really needed for breastfeeding for all these things. And you're just like, what can I do for your mom? Like, can I do this? And you know, you kind of get promoted to middle management when you have two kids and CEO, when you have three kids, it's probably more like interim CEO, you realize later on, but you're temporary CEO, but it's not great being the intern and they don't interact all that much with you.

And I would say that I, it's a weird thing to say, but like, I love my kids a lot more when they start being interactive and less of like a meatloaf.

Adam: Yeah. Siqi Chen described it as a potato that eats, sleeps and poops.

Ethan:Uh, totally. Yeah.That's kind right.

Adam:  I love that meatloaf is another one. We're getting all these good analogies for kids. What is the most embarrassing thing that you've ever done in front of your kids?

Ethan: When my daughter was two and a half, I showed up to her preschool wearing a taco costume to pick her up and acted as if it was normal. And even at two and a half, you could tell she was like, what the shit dad?

Like, what are you doing? And just rolled into preschool and you know, played it straight. And I don't know if she appreciated that or not, who knows.

Adam: Channeling the memories of how you met your wife by showing up in a taco costume. Yeah. Have you ever secretly thrown away a piece of your kids' artwork?

Ethan: Frequently. I think the secret is lifting up the trash and putting it down below so that they don't see it. Cause that all hell breaks loose if they do.

Adam: Yep. What is the most absurd thing your kid or one of your kids has ever asked you to buy for them? 

Ethan: Sibling.

Adam: Check. Check that box. it. 

Ethan:We did it.

Adam:I know you don't do a lot of TV in your house, but have you ever had to sit through a very painful children's television program?

Ethan: We do TV. We do it on the weekends. Yeah. Paw patrol. That was going back to everything's a phase. That was a phase. I don't want to go back

Adam: okay. No paw patrol for you. Have you ever finished off your kid's homework? have,

Ethan: Every night. Wait, homework or half eaten quesadillas every night, homework, they don't have a homework yet. But yeah every night, you know, that's how you get a dead bod, the half eaten quesadillas, all the beige food.

Adam: That's awesome. What is the worst or best experience that you have ever had assembling a children's toy or a piece of furniture?

Ethan: So my daughter was pretty happy in a crib for a long time. So we didn't move her out of a crib. I don't know. She was either four or five. It was a long time. Maybe I can't remember. And it transformed into a toddler bed and she was old enough by the time that we were disassembling it, that she was helping with it.

So it was, she was like unscrewing stuff, which was kind of a funny experience. I'd say that was a good experience. You know, the best one

Adam: Yeah, awesome. Have you ever accidentally mixed up your kids' names?

Ethan: All the time, usually with Felix though. It's usually Ellis and Felix. And now that we have Libby and Everly, I'll mix them up too. But typically it was the dog.

Adam: That's awesome. In the Austin household, how long can a piece of food sit on the floor and you will still eat it?

Ethan: I've eaten car seat dried mango that was, had an indefinite expiration date. I don't know how long, I don't know how long it had been sitting there. I've eaten some M& M's. I call butt M& M's because I found them in a car seat and I ate that too. I'm not proud of this, 

Adam: Desperate times.

Ethan: Neither the age of it or where it had been sitting.

Adam: I ask the situation that you were in that caused you to need to eat a car seat, mango and or M&M mango. I mean, M&M, I understand, I think there's an exterior candy shell, you know, but what was the frame of mind that you were in when you were like, hey. Ooh, here's a piece of indeterminate aged amount of food.

I should eat this right now.

Ethan: I dont know. Maybe I live in a world of scarcity. Maybe it's like I got to talk to my therapist about this, you know, it's inherited from my grandmother during the depression. And like, you know, my Jewish grandmother, you got to eat this stuff. I don't really know. But it was something. Yeah, it was something that even in the moment, I was like, why did I do that? But I just did.

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

Ethan: Scarface.

Adam: They're going to have to be a lot older for that one, I think.

Ethan: Yeah, a lot of therapy sessions.

Adam: And finally. You have three children and a dog and a spouse. What is your take on minivans?

Ethan: Oh, sexy.

Adam: Do you own a minivan?

Ethan: No we contemplated it. My, my mother in law owns a minivan. She lives 10 minutes away and she's the reason we have three kids. Honestly, she's, I call her St. Mimi. And the moment we had, we said we were pregnant with our third, she ditched her car. And I think her dream for years has been a minivan.

It's like, she just showed up at our house with a minivan. And so we get vicarious minivan.

Adam: Oh, love it. Love it. You get all the benefits of minivan without the embarrassment of owning one. Okay. Well, Ethan, it was wonderful to have you on startup dad. Thank you so much for joining me today. This was a lot of fun and I really appreciate it.

Ethan: I had a lot of fun too. Thanks for having me on.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Ethan Austin. 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 from Tommy Heron. You can join a community of over 10,000 subscribers and stay up to date on my thoughts on growth, innovation, and innovation. product and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com.

Thanks for listening. See you next week.