Finding More Time vs. More Energy | Immad Akhund (father of 2, co-founder and CEO, Mercury)

StartupDad_ImmadAkhund-V1

Immad: So it's very hard to take advice and apply it. Like you have to be open to it, but you're given all this responsibility of this, like infant. I think you can get yourself like overly worked up about it and like, try to like assemble all this advice and like, you know, it's not that complicated, just keep them alive and, you know, be flexible.

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 serial entrepreneur, Immad Akhund. Immad is the founder and CEO of Mercury. A business banking platform and one that I'm a happy customer of.

He has also founded two other companies, ClickPass and Hayzap, the latter of which was acquired in 2016. He's a husband and the father of two kids. In our conversation today, we spoke about he and his wife's decision to start a family at a young age, especially by San Francisco standards and how he navigated founding and running several companies, including Mercury with young children.

We talked about the differences between finding more time and finding more energy, how to think about skill building when your kids and how to deal with disagreements with a spouse. Our conversation was filled with discussions about the parallels between being a co-founder of a company and the co-founder of a family.

I hope you enjoy it.

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

Immad: Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Adam: I wanted to just jump right off and ask you about where you grew up and what life was like growing up. So tell me a little bit about your childhood and your family.

Immad: Yeah. So from the age of zero to nine, I was in Pakistan. And you know, I have three older sisters but we all within five years of each other. So a four sibling family and yeah, at the age of nine my parents decided, hey, there's more opportunities in the UK. My dad had actually studied and worked in the UK for a long time so he was, already a passport holder. And so were we. So at the age of nine, we decided to move. And that was a big jarring move for me. Just like, you know, shifting my whole life and it's different language and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, eventually I settled in you know, grew up in Northwest London.

And then I was there, I guess, until the age of 23, when I moved here for my second startup.

Adam: All right. And here is the Bay area. You live in the greater San Francisco Bay. So awesome. Where does the rest of your extended family live now? Are they in the UK? Are they all distributed all over the place?

Immad: So my immediate kind of sisters, parents, they live in the UK still. And then on my mom's side, my family's mostly still in Pakistan and my dad's side all over the world.

Adam: All right. You are the founder and CEO of Mercury, which I have happily been a customer of for many, many years. I think probably around the time we met, which was four, four or five years ago. But this is not your first stint at founding a company. Is that right?

Immad: So I have been doing startups continuously, basically since 2006. So I only really had one job pre-startups. I worked at Bloomberg for a year and then I did one startup in London and another one in the US and those were relatively short startups. Runs and then I did a startup from end of 2008 to when we sold it in 2016, which is called Hayzap.

And then straight after that, was a one year period where I worked at the company that acquired us, but then I did take a little bit of time off, had another baby and then started Mercury in 2017.

Adam: Wow. What is it about this idea of kind of starting and building a company Cause it's a grind. And you've now, I don't know if you have a pain threshold or a love of that or something, or you're a masochist, but why keep gonna going back, taking more bites out of the apple?

Immad: I'm definitely a weird person. You know, I had this like really distinct feeling when I first started my startup in 2006. And I think if I firstly describe my feeling working at a company, like the contrast of the feeling is like kind of the reason for it. You know, I would work at Bloomberg and you know, I'd go in as late as possible.

I would leave as early as possible. We would play a lot of like they had a foosball table. We would do that. And you know, they'd like hand me a task and I wouldn't be able to, there was no mode to speak to the customer. I would find the tasks like fairly easy and fairly boring and, you know, I try to knock it out but at the end of the day, I would do all of that and I would feel so tired, you know, it was weird feeling because I was like, I'm not working hard or anything, but I was just like, had no motivation at the end of the day because it's just like a very draining environment for me and, you know, maybe I was doing them wrong and all that kind of stuff, but it was just not like a fun thing at all for me.

And then I started my first startup and it was just like the complete opposite. It was like, I was the master of my own failures, right? Like it was, everything was up to me. I was working really hard. I was young, no commitments, anything. I was working like wake up at 9am or whatever.

And then work through till midnight and, you know, my evening activities will go to startup events. So, yeah that's just all I did. You know, maybe I'd spend like one day of the weekend off, but it was very intense, but I felt like very energized through that intensity and I was like, wow, this is like an amazing feeling.

Like, and I felt like for the first time I like knew my purpose and knew like what the point of life was. Like before then like had this job because that's what you do. I studied computer science and you know, I kind of like coding do like coding but there wasn't like a meaning or deep purpose to it it was just like something I did because like I needed to go to college and like I just thought I would be really good at this subject and I was but like it wasn't there wasn't like a purpose really attached to it and this just feeling of like doing something and like having that idea and fun and all that stuff.

It was just so great I was just like hey I can I would be so lucky to be able to do this for the rest of my life, right? Like that was my feeling it was nothing to do with money. Really. It's just like hey if I can survive doing this, I literally was like, yeah, will someone give me money so I could like, just keep doing this.

Like that was my take. It was very much not obviously there's like illusions of like hitting, like it big and all of that stuff, but I really just found it so fun, I was willing to just do it as long as I could just pay my bills, right.

Adam: Yeah. It sounds like you've been a builder for a long time and that's kind of how you're wired. And for the last 12 years or so, you've also been building a family, which is kind of what this show's about. So you have a partner, a wife and you have two kids.

How'd you meet your partner?

Immad: Yeah. So, I actually met my partner about three weeks before I left London. I met her in London. And you know, we had like, I don't know, maybe like three or four dates. And I was like, I was young and I was like, yeah, you know, I'm just moving to the U.S. for maybe a year.

We'll see how it goes, right? Like, I didn't move going like, oh, yes, like this is where I'll spend my life or anything. And initially because of visa issues and things like that, I was back a lot so even though it was long distance And actually the funny thing with long distance, especially when you're an early entrepreneur, long distance is great because you just have this like focused eye when you're away and you could just be focused on your startup.

And then you have like, oh, a week or two off. And you spend the focus of my time with your girlfriend or whatever. And it wasn't as good for her because she was a podiatrist in the UK and she was like where the hell are you? And eventually we got married and got together

Adam: All right. And she moved to the United States.

Immad: Yes, exactly.

Adam: And now you have two kids. So tell me about your kids. How old are your kids?

Immad: Yeah, I have two girls, a 12 year old and a six year old. One's in kindergarten, the other one is in sixth grade. And yeah, I live in San Francisco proper. So, I recently moved to Cal Hollow which is, you know, where they go to school.

Adam: All right. And you became a parent at a pretty young age. If you have a sixth grade daughter, you do not strike me as a very old guy. You might even be a couple of years younger than me.

Immad: I was 27 when I became a parent.

 Adam: 27! And that is, only is that pretty young, it's pretty young by Bay Area standards. A lot of people wait for a very long time. So what was that decision like to get started? You were also building a company when your first daughter was born and when your second daughter was born. So, what was that thought process like?

Immad: There's a few factors I think this one which which might seem a little silly, is you know, my wife moved here on a it's called 03 visa. So I was 01 visa and she had an 03 visa And there's actually, this is true for a lot of spouse visas. She wasn't allowed to work. So, I think it's completely silly to like, why would you want someone in the country that's not allowed to work?

But anyway separate problem. So she wasn't allowed to work and she was doing some projects and things like that. And she's an entrepreneur too, in her own way. But it just, you know, there was that factor. And I felt like the company was doing a little well, we'd raised a 3 million dollar Series A, which, you know, and it's hard to believe you know, I guess inflation slash other factors meant that's what Series A's were like back then.

This is like 2011. So between the fact that she wasn't allowed to work and I felt like financially okay I was like, hey, we both want kids. I guess why wait was kind of a factor at that point. Like I knew eventually would get a green card and she could work at that point, but that was still like several years away.

Adam: And you mentioned that your wife is a bit of an entrepreneur, so I take it that she is not a podiatrist in the San Francisco Bay area. What does she do?

Immad: When I first met her, she was also doing kind of a business on the side. It was a dating website and a few other things. And when she moved here, she wasn't allowed to continue to be a podiatrist. She would have to like retrain, I think it's like five years or something ridiculous.

 So she wasn't interested in that. She's done a few things recently. She started a fashion design label, but that's what she's working on.

Adam: You have started multiple companies since becoming a father, you founded Mercury, as close as I can tell when your oldest was around five years old or so, and your youngest wasn't even born yet.

Immad: I founded this in August 2017. She was born in April 2017.

Adam: Okay. Okay. So close. So very, very close to it. So I already mentioned, you probably have a very high tolerance for pain given your serial founding situation, but I think a lot of dads, especially some folks who listen to this show, and I get a lot of questions about this. People would look at that and say, why? How can you build a company and have a newborn, for example, or have multiple kids under a certain age?

And so I'm going to ask you the exact same question, which is. Why did it feel like the right time? And then how did you make it work when you're starting a company and you have a four month old that's kind of a lot. And I know you mentioned that, your wife was able to stay home cause she couldn't work, but still, you don't get a lot of sleep.

Anyone in the household doesn't get a lot of sleep. So, so I'm curious about that.

Immad: There's a few factors here. Number one you know, I decided I was going to do startups forever. So, I don't think you can just be like life doesn't go on. Right. Like, I'm like, not a fan of people. Like, sometimes I talk to people that like, hey, I'm not dating anyone because like, I'm doing a startup or like, I'm not doing exercise.

I'm like, yeah, that's just like startups are long process. Right? Like no one will tell you it's not going to take 10 years, even for a successful startup. So, you can't just pause life. And I've never been. I mean, maybe I actually, when I first started doing startups in 2006, that was maybe like, hey, I'm going to pause.

Like, this is like, I'm all in, et cetera. But a few years in, I was like, okay, you know, life has to continue. And one of the things that taught me that was actually, you know, my initial set was like very like Y combinator startups, right? Like it's like early stage people. And. Back then, especially my first startup was 2007.

You know, these were very young, straight out of college people. And there was this mindset that like everything that's not startups is like a distraction, right? Like, but then I, my fund company was seed funded by Union Square Ventures. And you know, they're New York based VC and I guess every VC is like this, but yeah, I went to a bunch of their events.

Yeah. The founders are a little older. They tended to have kids often, especially the successful ones. And I could be like, hey, you know, one of the good things about this podcast is we're creating role models for other entrepreneurs, but it was nice to see that role model, right? Like it was a different shape of a startup entrepreneur that was still doing very successful startups, right?

Like the average Union Square Ventures company is more successful than the tiny yc companies and they were doing with kids and you know, there was lots of kind of open conversation about how to do that so that was one factor. I think the second thing for me was you know once you have a company and it's a little more established, let's say you have 10 employees and you've done a round and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, some companies manage it, but like, I've never been of the type of person to say like, hey, you're working at a startup. You're going to be working until like, you know, 9pm and you're going to be working weekends. I'm like, my take has always been to at least employees that like, hey, do your best work while you're there and, you know, I don't think an incremental one hour of work into the evening is like that healthy and it's going to get you that much further. And and frankly, you know, most people just don't do that anyway. So like, you'd have to be like, really like pushing that kind of narrative. But anyway, when I looked at it, I was like, okay, you know, they're working five days a week, 10 hours a day.

Is me working, five days a week, 11 hours a day, really going to make that much of a difference to the company, right? Like I'm only 10 percent of the company. If I'm working 10 percent more, that's only 1 percent extra work hours. But on top of that, like, I don't think my 11th hour of the day is as productive.

Right. Like I think productivity falls quite a lot. So at some point I was just like, okay, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to be destroying the rest of my life in order to get like this incremental 1 percent work

Adam: Yeah.

Immad: And it's not the best work anyway. And I think over time, you know, so I didn't have a kid until 2011.

By that time I'd already been doing startups for five years. Right. So like over time it was obvious to me, like, you know, my early days where I was working till midnight. Like I was messing around, right? Like I was procrastinating on Hacker News. There was a lot of that time where I was pretending to work.

And like, I was serious about working, but that's just like, it was limited how much work you could do for 13 hours a day or 14 hours a day. Whereas like later on, I think you could become like a little more self introspective and go actually like, this is my productive time. And this is how much time I was just kind of messing around.

So I think those two were like big factors for me. I think the second thing which I would like, push back on a little bit is like, sometimes people look at like time as like a resource. It's like, oh, I only have so much time in the day and all that stuff.

But actually like the thing that's more of a resource is energy. And you know, if you're doing something that energizes you, you're willing to give it time, right? Generally speaking, you can do the things that give you energy and you can do more of them.

Whereas like things that are draining and there's lots of things in the startup world or the baby rearing world that are very draining those things take away time, but yeah. Overall, I would say like, there was definitely hard bits especially the first three months of having a baby, but overall I would say I always came out with net energy from my kids.

I'm not saying I would like net more sleep or something like that, but I, you know, it's fun interacting with kids. I think there's such a joy to be around kids and like see them grow and or even take them places, right? Like I like to be involved in my kids like extracurricular activities and like, you know I took my six year old swimming on sunday and it's just nice like she has so much fun and yeah, I feel like that kind of purpose and meaning is like yes I get that from the startup, but I also get it from my kids and like I think that grows your time which is like a hard concept. But yeah, and you know, all these things that people like yeah, but sometimes people complain about like sleep or changing diapers or whatever.

And I'm like, you know, that's just not that big a factor, right? It's like, it's annoying at the time, but it passes and it's not a defining characteristic. No one's like, my parents aren't saying like, oh my God, like Immad, your sleep at the age of two months was so annoying. Like they don't care.

Like, that's just not a defining factor for like having kids. It's just like a very small kind of aspect of it. 

Adam: Yeah, its sort of like building a company in a way in that if you think about it in the long term, right, like any moment that you're in, in your company or any moment that you're in, With your kids is kind of a fleeting moment. Like it's going to change. Your company is going to change.

Your kids are going to change. So if you're like not sleeping and not, you know, and changing a million diapers and stuff like that now, it's not going to be that way five years from now. Well for most people, right, so I think that's a really good point. And I also really liked the point that you made there about, it's less about time and more about energy.

You can do a lot. And you can sustain yourself for a long period of time. If you have energy from your family, if you have energy from your company it kind of makes it worth it to keep grinding. So what's the earliest memory that you have of becoming a dad?

Immad: One of the weirdest things is like, you know, it's like day two and you're ejected out of the hospital. You walk home and there's nothing, they're like, here's a baby.

And you're like, what the hell? I remember that being such a distinct memory. Like, what am I supposed to do? You know, I mean, you figure it out, but it's so jarring because like, you know, a lot of life there's like a process, right? It's like here's school even startup, right? Like I did Y Combinator.

It's like here's a program It's three months long and now you're like in charge of this like life that you have to like make sure you support and I was you know, I'm and I'm a bit of an overachiever at times so I'd read all these books and like, you know we've done this course and all this stuff and I was like, you know, it's almost useless compared to like actually doing it, right?

like it's like, and like half the stuff you find on the internet is contradictory, right? Like there's like should you sleep during them or not? You know all this stuff. I mean by the time I had my second child I knew what I was doing. But the first child I remember is like pretty crazy And like, you know, we live far away from our parents as well.

So that made it like probably extra hard in its own way. I remember that was a very distinct memory. I don't think it was the earliest memory the earliest was just like Yeah, I was there when the birth was happening. I have a, I also have like a pretty, pretty strong memory of like every step of that way.

But thankfully we didn't have any complications or anything.

Adam: Not a lot of people have mentioned that memory of this idea of like, they just kind of give you the baby and they're like, good luck, you're out. Yeah, I had someone on the podcast who was like, the only thing you need to do to be able to take your kid home from the hospital is show them that you have a car seat. That’s it.

Immad: That's it. And we didn't even have a car seat, actually.

Adam: Right. Cause you walked, yeah, there's,

Immad: We had to go get it because our first child was three weeks early, so I hadn't bought the car seat yet.

Adam: One of the things that happens when you become a parent is you get a lot of advice about what to do.

And you mentioned you read a lot of books, you're looking on the internet and stuff like that. When you think about the younger version of a Immad, what is like the one piece of advice that if you could go back in time that you would tell yourself, this is something you really should pay attention to.

And then the opposite side, what's something that you would say, 100 percent ignore, do not pay attention to this piece of advice.

Immad: So it's very hard to take advice and apply it. Like you have to be open to it, but you're given all this responsibility of this, like infant I think you can get yourself like overly worked up about it and like, try to like assemble all this advice and like, you know, it's not that complicated, just keep them alive and, you know, be flexible.

And I think that actually takes you a long way. I think, I guess the other thing that's related to that is like, you kind of have to like understand, like, you know, what you're going to do, what your partner is going to do and have like really strong lines of communication that are like always open and be able to understand each other's needs.

Right? Like, one thing that quickly happened is like, I'm always a morning person and she's always been a nighttime person. So like she would go until 4am and I would wake up at 4am and do the rest. And like, we will find a rhythm, but like, you know, those types of things, like understanding what each person's needs are and things like that and adapting to that are really important.

I think this advice is probably for like slightly later, like when they're not babies, but. You know, I had this impression as a pre dad, I had this impression that like, this is what I'm going to be like with my kids, right? I was like, I'm going to do these things. I'm not going to swear. I'm going to be like this, like role model of XYZ, et cetera.

But then you know, when I had kids, I realized like, I'm just going to spend all my time with them, right? Like it's not like you spend half an hour with them a day or spending like all the time with them. So like in order to do anything with them and to be a role model of sometime, like you basically have to change yourself to be that, like, it can't just be like something you project for your children, like, if you want to be like a hardworking person and have them aspire to that, like you have to be a hardworking person, or if you want to be fit, then like, you know, like all of these things, you just have to change yourself to be. And I actually think like, in some ways it makes you a better person because you're like, you know, you look at your kids and go like this, you know, if I want them to aspire to, to do something, I have to then do it myself.

And yeah, you have to kind of actually live that. So that is like an interesting aspect that no one had like, kind of told me before.

Adam: Yeah.

Immad: I think the other thing that I try to do is I do think the most important thing you can do, I mean, beyond like basic needs or whatever is to give your kids love. I think like make them feel secure.

And I mean, it's good for you as well. Like, I think it's fun to have a loving environment, but I think everything else is like kind of a secondary. And people should probably like focus a little bit more on like giving their kids like a happy, healthy kind of environment.

Adam: That point just before this one where you said, you know, if you want to be, if you want to model or if you want to sort of project a certain thing for your kids, you have to actually change and evolve to be that way. You can't really like put on a show, right?

Because you're with them all the time. What's something for you that you really kind of worked on after having kids that became really important for you in order to, you know, demonstrate something to them?

Immad: I don't know if I just did it for them beyond like, you know, I'm also like someone who wants to learn and grow myself. So, you know, I've been trying to like go through a fitness kick recently. And I think it is important for the kids to see both me and my wife being fit and doing exercise and all these things.

So that's one thing. Reading is very important to me, but I would say I've got a lot more into reading in the last like six years. And I guess part of it is probably modeling it for the kids and like saying, hey, you should be reading more. And now I'm reading more as well.

So it's that kind of thing.

Adam: Yeah. My son still really loves to have me read to him. He's nine. So kind of in between your kids, but one of the things that we've started doing is like, I'll read him a chapter from a book and then he'll read a chapter and I'll get my own book and just sit in his room and we'll read kind of together.

So we're like trying to model that behavior, which I've actually found really enjoyable. It also helps me read more.

Immad: Yeah. That’s true.

Adam: Cause a lot of times after he goes to sleep, I'm not in the mood to read. I'm ready to go to sleep myself. So now I get some chapters in while he's doing his stuff. So I love that.

I wanted to ask too, because you know, I want to talk with you about skill building, because that was the thing that you brought up in our prep for this. And I'm curious about a couple of things. One is, you know, you're a serial entrepreneur and the most recent company, Mercury is a banking and FinTech company.

Have you taught your kids much in the way about finance do you talk to your kids about what you do? And, what are those conversations like?

Immad: Yeah, obviously it depends on which age and with my older kid, like, I set up like a stock portfolio for her and I was like, hey, which things do you like? And she's like, I like Spotify. And, and, Disney and that kind of thing and I bought some and then like every now and then we check it and like we we see how that's doing.

So I think that's been nice. And Yeah, we've always historically had like pocket money and then she's you know tracked that and she has to pay for certain things more recently I've like removed pocket money and now she has to babysit or do other chores to make money now that she's a little older. So I think those kind of in terms of financial stuff like that I can talk about it all day, but like doing these kind of practical things is like a good way to get her you know, I have spent many times trying to explain like compound interest to her and I think she kind of gets it but I don't think she really gets it but i'm sure like when she sees money growing and not growing like she'll get more of a sense of it And I try to make it so like, you know, we walk to school not every day, but it's like a you know, 15 ish minute walk.

So I try to like talk about something interesting and new a lot of the times when we're walking, either, you know, something that they bring up or current affairs, or I'm just like, hey, you know, like, like recently we talked about like the Neuralink chess playing thing that was announced and I showed them the video.

And, you know, I think like those kinds of things, like, a lot of teaching from my perspective is like talking about different, interesting things and like, you know, showing them how I think about it so that they can like see that. But doing that like on a relatively sustained basis for like years and years kind of builds up knowledge.

That's how I've been kind of working at it.

Adam: And I think I saw pretty recently that you were thinking about teaching one of your kids, how to code or teaching one of your kids, how to build a website or something like that. So how's that project been going?

Immad: Yeah, my older daughter has been doing the service. It's called Juni learning or something, which I recommend. Actually, they teach them scratch and then they do Python. So she's been doing that for a few years and now we've been doing like various projects together.

So she has a Apple watch and we did like a watch app that like says a joke when you click on it, it changes it. So more recently she was like, oh, I want to make like a web app. And like, she just kind of wants to make like silly apps. So I tweeted about it to see like what people thought I should make it in. I know React, so I'm kind of tempted to just teach a React, but it is now that I think about trying to teach that, it seems like quite a complicated platform. So, so I thought I'd ask about it, but yeah, it's nice to like have some projects that we work on together.

Adam: That's awesome. And anything that you're working on with your younger daughter or kind of skills that you're trying to build with her and just so everybody remembers she's, six years old, right?

Yeah.

Immad: I mean, practically speaking, you know, anything on a computer or things like that. She's just like a little young for like, she can, she can't even read it. But she's really into sports. So, swimming, soccer, and basketball.

She's been doing and some gymnastics and then. B, we just like, I have like, literally right outside on this corridor, there's like six balls. So I try to make it so there's always like balls around so we could just like kick a ball back and forth and things like that. And she can also kind of do that for herself.

But yeah, it's mostly been around that and just like talking to her. You know, my wife is working on her on like reading and things like that, but I haven't been doing it too actively.

Adam: So your kids are six years apart, which is a pretty good spread of a of age, at least in the United States, you usually get a lot of people like two and a half or three years spaced out. Has your parenting style evolved in between your oldest daughter and your youngest daughter, you kind of mentioned this a little bit.

Immad: I think the biggest change between the older one and the younger one is like how I behaved in the first two years. I think in the first two years there's a lot more like you know, stress, I guess. Oh, you can get very stressed about having a kid. Like it's like, yeah, you end up going to the hospital for every little thing.

There's sleep. There's like a lot of transitions that happened in the first two years and potty training and all that stuff. So I just feel like with the first one, I was just like, yeah, every step was like new and it was changing and I felt like it was always hard to keep up with it I just remember being like very worked up about every step and like trying to be like useful and on top of it and like learn about it and do all this stuff. With the second one, it was just like I feel like the first two years just kind of whizzed by I was like, oh, wow, she's two now, that's crazy and I mean obviously like different children had like both had unique challenges, but I just felt like a lot less stressed and worked up about it for the first two years. After that like what has changed? That's a good question I mean I feel like, I don't know, both kids are so different and like, this was one of the surprising things about having kids is like, you know, you get a lot built in the personality.

Adam: yeah,

Immad: You know, my first kid never got into sports. And I was a very sporty child. So it was very hard because I was like, surely we should be doing more sports. And like, she just, I exposed her to a ton of sports and she was just never into them. And the, you know, the younger is completely opposite.

She's very into it. So that's a, you know, my experience around that is very different between the two. And I don't think I really changed that much. It's just the kid was very different. I think with the first one, I tried to teach her a lot of age inappropriate things early on. And I, it was kind of a frustrating experience for me and her whereas the younger one to try to be, think a little bit about like, what is age appropriate and be like a little bit further from that, if that makes sense.

It's interesting. I mean, you care so much and you're so focused on the first one that in some ways, maybe I even did some better stuff with whereas the second one is a little bit like, okay, you'll be fine. Kind of thing. Like I remember with the first one, like, you know, there was like no technology, no iPad, nothing until the age of like two and a half or something.

Whereas with the second one, we're like, you know, that's like her sister has some and like, you know, et cetera. We still have, like, a lot of restrictions, but we were definitely, like, a little more flexible. So I don't know, there's some regression there, I guess.

Adam: With your older daughter, you mentioned you tried to kind of teach her do sort of age inappropriate things with her. And I don't anticipate that means you're the two of you are sitting down watching R rated movies together when she's five or anything, but what's an example of something where you got out of balance with thinking like, oh, she's capable of this, or

Immad: I mean, all this stuff, like, yeah, like I'm really into maths and coding and stuff like this. So I was like trying to teach her algebra when she was like seven or something. I've been trying to teach her coding and things like that since the age of like seven as well, six well, maybe eight for that one.

But either, like this, I've always liked pushed fairly hard to try to like do like some of the things I'm interested in to try to engage it and like now that she's 12 she's finally like actually at a level where she can get it and I can like do it and like and I'm like, okay You know was it worth me like kind of getting frustrated trying to teach her something that she was like clearly not ready for but maybe you know, I did expose her to things and like hopefully like helped her form her brain

Adam: You know, you had a one kid when you started one of your earlier companies and you had two at the start of Mercury. Has that changed how you think about running a business or being a CEO or how you manage at all?

Immad: You know, the two companies were like eight ish years apart, right? 2008 and I think it's hard to disentangle like how I changed as a person and what I learned as an entrepreneur from like, okay, you know, what I learned from being a dad. You know, this Mercury was like a distillation of like, you know, all the things I'd learned from my three startups before.

I definitely did things that were like unique and you know, some of them you could probably tie back to this parenting stuff. So, you know, one thing that was really important to me was I, I tried to set myself up to never be a bottleneck on things that needed to get done at the company. So, you know, I'd often talk to other entrepreneurs and I'm a quite an active investor, I've invested in 300 companies, so I'm always talking to entrepreneurs and like, So often you talk to them and I'm like, Oh, you know, what's stopping you growing?

Or like, what's stopping you doing this faster? And it's often about them, right? Like, I'm like, the CEO will be like, oh, I just like, I don't have time to do this and that. Or like, I'm doing the sales and I'm the bottleneck on that, et cetera. I mean, it's different when there's three people and you have no funding, but like, this is like a seed funded company that have like 10 people or something like that.

I'm like, you know, is it really good to be the main person that's holding everything back all the time? And there's only one of you. It goes back to my point about like working an extra hour a day. I just think like when I, set up Mercury. I just thought that was flawed. Like I don't want to be the bottleneck on things.

So from like basically the start, we initially had eight people after we raised our seed round. There was a couple of things I did bottleneck, like fundraising, bank partnerships. But most other things I was never the only person working on. I mean, I always tried to set myself up from that stage onwards as like the accelerant, but not the blocker.

So, you know, I, initially I was doing front end engineering, but like there was two other people doing it as well and I just sped it up by 33 percent or so. And yeah,  obviously your role as the CEO changes over time, but I've almost always gone like, if I do ever become the bottleneck on something, how do I go hire someone that can like do a better job than me?

And then how do I instead focus on the things that I can accelerate? And that’s a good model also for like having a, I mean, I don't love the phrase work life balance, but like having a family and having life outside of work is like, if you are the bottleneck and like, yeah, like Mercury is very important to me, it's my startup.

Like it's my life in its own way. But if I'm always the one like slowing things down, then I feel like I need to work harder. Right. Whereas like, if I'm like, hey, things are working well, even without me, like, continuously, like, at the helm that allows me to, like, actually step back and it's good for my career as well, because, you know, then you can focus on, like, some high level things.

You don't have to be always stuck in, like, doing the thing.

Adam: I love that way of thinking that, striking a better balance with your family helps remove you a bit from being the bottleneck to your company because naturally you're not there all the time. Other people have to be able to make decisions and move things forward.

That's a really good way of thinking about it. I wanted to talk a little bit about conflict and managing through disagreements, because this was a, kind of the third topic that you've mentioned in our prep. So we all know that partnership is super important when you have kids and you have spouse, but it is also very hard to agree 100 percent of the time with your spouse, especially when it comes to like things about kids or family decisions and things like that. And so I'm curious to hear about how you manage disagreements and maybe where's an area where you and your, wife have difference of opinion.

Immad: Funnily, I would say, like, the way me and my wife work with each other and manage disagreements is similar to how I work with my co founders at my startup or like how I work with people in general

Adam: She's your family co-founder. So it makes sense.

Immad: And the way we normally do it is like, we try to not care about the same things as much, if that makes sense.

So there's certain things that I care a lot about. And you know, when it's obvious that one of us cares a lot about it, the other one, like, you know, on the whole gives the other person space to like make the decision on it. So, for example, I care a lot about sports and my wife doesn't necessarily, and you know, I end up organizing most of them and like taking my kids and things like that.

And my wife cares a lot about education and she ends up doing a lot of it. And, yeah, it doesn't mean we don't help each other, but it does like avoid arguments when you have like, you know, like zones of control. It's like, hey, this is your zone of control. This is mine. And actually, I would say most of the time the arguments happen when either it's not defined whose zone of control a certain decision is, or it's something that you both care about so much that you both want to like be part of that zone of control if it's the former and it's just not defined then like I think you just have to spend some time like going okay, you know actually you care a lot more about this than I do like you do it. If it is something that you both care about and you really want to like come to it and I mean that's healthy too, right?

Like it's good to know like hey we really both care about this and let's hash it out and figure out like what's the What's the right answer. And then I would say like relying on like having like a very respectful kind of logic argument rather than like a emotional kind of like, argument where you're like, you know, being mean about each other or something like that, I think is like the key.

But most of the time, like if you do this well, like it's relatively rare for something to come up as like in both of our zones of control and care, right? Like, it's just like relatively rare that I'm like, you know, I definitely a hundred percent care about this. And I disagree with you.

That's like, actually like kind of unusual. We're both like fairly different personalities. I'd say like, that's also true in the startup world, right? Like I think like the way I split responsibilities with my co-founders are like fairly well defined and they really care about the things they care about and I also care about them, but I'm happy for them to like take the lead and I don't need to be the end decision maker on those things.

And so that works out well.

Adam: Do you find that, you and your wife have to carve out specific time to sit down and talk about, sometimes divide up these things or figure out who cares about what, maybe when there's a new thing that kind of comes into, to life, just like, I guess you'd have to do with a co founder.

Immad: Yeah. I mean, actually one of the risks when you have like, kids and a family is to make too much of your time logistics, right? Like, I think it's actually like a little dangerous to go like, what's happening tomorrow? What are we doing about this? And all that stuff. And you end up like not having any quality time to work together.

You're almost like, just like running your family together and not spending any time together. So, I think there's always a risk of that. And I think it's important to have like date nights and like do other things that like actually give you like one on one quality time together and not just logistics planning.

We're not like, you know, I know some families that do like weekly planning meetings and all that kind of stuff. I would say we're like a lot more ad hoc on these things. We have like a shared kind of notes to do thing and we do plan around that. And then we just kind of, you know, whenever something has to be dealt with, we talk about it.

Adam: Do you have a particular piece of technology that the two of you use to bridge that? Are you just doing Apple notes or are you…

Immad: Yeah, we just do a shared Apple notes. Actually, we just created one with our daughter as well which is kind of fun because now she's 12 so you can like have her kind of involved in it and she's like adding things on her mom's to do some things like that as well. But yeah shared notes.

I think that works fine and it's available on all platforms.

Adam: So that actually brings up a really good question that I have for you, which is your oldest daughter about coding. You've been doing that for a little while. And you just mentioned this idea of having a shared note. And so, you know, she's obviously somewhat immersed in technology, obviously, and one of her parents is that's your whole career has been steeped in technology.

How do you think about the relationship that you want both of your kids to have with. technology as they get older.

Immad: Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I'm anti some things, like think like short form video, whether it's TikTok or YouTube shorts or whatever, it's kind of just junk, it's like junk food.

And I've mostly deleted it slash banned it on all of the technology devices they have.

But, and, you know, I guess like everyone does this, like I watched a reasonable amount of TV growing up, and I played a lot of computer games growing up and, you know, I feel like I learned a reasonable amount from them, and I don't think they're, like, as negative as it seems, I think everything has to be in balance, but, like, I actively encourage my six year old to play games on her iPad And yeah, there's obviously some slightly more educational games or even non educational ones, I think.

I would rather she spend time playing a game on her iPad than like watching a TV show on her iPad. And then we have like lots of like, you know, general like rules to try to limit it just because like, it's obviously not good at self control. So we try to not give them technology during the weekdays.

But yeah, I mean, I would say like we're on the flexible side, like I think all of these things like in some measure are like good and too much, they're bad.

And our 12 year old, and I don't know if we were really good at this or she's just like very sensible. It's just like, she's just very sensible.

So like we don't have to like do too much.

And you know, she mostly likes reading books in her spare time. So that's great. But I am also very anti social media, especially for teenage girls. I just think it's fairly negative and we do let her have iMessage and like she talks to her friends through that a lot and has a lot of group chats with them, which even that like I can see is distracting her a lot, like, you know, message comes in, she wants to like see what her friends are saying.

But at the same time, like don't think it's like too unhealthy. I just, I don't like the idea of like Instagram and all that kind of stuff. I don't know how long I can hold the line. My current plan is to kind of go all the way to 18, but I have a feeling that at 16, maybe I'll have to give in.

yeah, otherwise, you know, I think technology is a good enabler for a lot of things. And like, my older daughter is like very into drawing on her iPad and things like that. You know, I don't try to like overly restrict things.

Adam: So you have many irons in the fire. You're a founder of a company. You're an investor. You mentioned you made over 300 investments, which that's for a different show, but we'll talk about that at some point. You're a dad. You also have a podcast that I have recently discovered. What do you do to restore your batteries or center yourself or like recharge with all of this stuff going on?

Immad: Almost everything I do when it comes to things I do outside my startup, I try to do things that give me energy. So, you know, investing, like I like talking to entrepreneurs, like, you know, they give me like this view into like the future and I like helping entrepreneurs, like it's fun.

Sure. Like at times it's like a little draining but on the whole, I would say it's like a pretty fun thing to do. And I mostly consider it as like a fun hobby. Same with my podcast, like, yeah, the main, my main work is really like Mercury and that's, you know, 90 percent or 99 percent of my focus and the thing that like does take a lot of energy and then obviously like making sure my kids are happy and growing all these other things I try to construct in a way that they're like generally like low effort, low logistics and mostly like things I would enjoy doing and I would do for fun.

Adam: That's great. As long as you're finding the things that give you energy, you don't have to do that much recharging because your batteries are always recharging.

Immad: It is recharging. And what are you going to do instead? Watch TV? That's boring.

Adam: That's, That's absolutely right.

Immad: I mean, I would say I have like a, a lot of mental stamina. I don't think everyone is like this, but like, you know, like even in my spare time, I want to go read like a book about science or something. Like I want to, I always want to be or like listen to this kind of podcast.

Like I always want to do things that like take a lot of mental energy, but like I find intellectual stimulation, like really interesting.

Adam: So one of the things we talk a lot about on podcasts, when we talk about talking with the professional folks or entrepreneurs, talk about mistakes that you've made in building a company. And I'm sure you've made many it's impossible not to, right. You've done it enough times. You're going to make some mistakes.

That's how you learn. Like you mentioned, Mercury was like. An amalgamation of multiple companies, like in one sort of approach. But I wanted to ask you, what is a mistake that you think you've made as a dad?

Immad: That's a good one. Hmm. I think this is the lesson that I'm often relearning is, I think it's very important to like kind of push your kids to do things that they're already enjoying and like doubling down on those rather than like trying to get them to do things they're not enjoying. So. You know, as I said earlier, I often try to get my older kid into sports and she was never into it.

And I think maybe some of that energy could have been like put in towards doing things that she was enjoying and like doing more of those. I think that's one big one. This one, you know, it's tricky to say like how you could, how we would have done it differently, but you know, There's a whole art to like getting into a good school in San Francisco.

Uh, and when we had our first kid, you know, I was 27, none of my friends had had kids. So we were just kind of figuring it out, right? Like, I mean, obviously we could talk to some of the other parents, but it's not, it's different when your friends or like your direct people are like having kids and you can see like how they got into a school and what they did, et cetera.

It was like, even how you pick a school, like everything was very, very foreign, and I think we ended up making much better choices with our younger kid. And now we're really happy with where we are, but it was definitely like a bit of a struggle figuring it out. And I don't know how I would impart that knowledge to a younger version of me.

And, you know, if there's someone out there, they can maybe ping me and I could tell you like the high level but it is like a tricky, game to play. I don't know if it's like that in every place, but even like knowing like, what do I even care about in a school took a while to like figure out all these things.

And now I feel like I'm a freaking pro at picking schools and getting kids into schools. But it took a long time. And like, that was like, probably like some better schooling I could have delivered my kids earlier.

Adam: I'll tell you one thing we won't do on this show is tell people to email you with all their school application questions. You're a little too busy for that, but I can appreciate that after going through it with multiple kids, you're probably an expert in navigating San Francisco school applications. So

Immad: It is quite an ordeal.

Adam: Yeah, I hear they don't make it very easy. I fortunately live outside of San Francisco, so I haven't had to manage it, but I have many friends who have, doesn't sound fun. So my last question for you, before we get into our rapid fire round is aside from, you know, telling people to go sign up for Mercury which I did as soon as I started my business. How can people follow along or be helpful to you and your journey or as you're building your company?

Immad: Good question. I tweet a lot on X or Twitter and I've been trying to get into LinkedIn, so feel free to follow me there. And I also have a podcast is currently called Curiosity Podcast, although I'm changing it to Age of Wonder Podcast.

Adam: Oh,

Immad: So yeah, follow along. And if you have any feedback or questions about Mercury feel free to DM me on Twitter. I'm pretty responsive there.

Adam: Okay. So Twitter, LinkedIn, and the soon to be renamed Age of Wonder podcast. Now the Curiosity podcast. All right. Well, thank you very much. Now let's do rapid fire. If you're up for it,

Immad: Yeah, let's do it.

Adam: First question, here we go. What is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased?

Immad: I think the best thing, which I either didn't exist or I discovered late was a Duna uh, push chair stroller, sorry. And the coolest thing about it is that collapses. So we lived in San Francisco and often we taking Ubers and like taking in an Uber is such a pain in the ass that the child seat, it's like so annoying, whereas this thing just like completely collapses and takes like two seconds super useful product.

I would highly recommend it.

Adam: You know, other people who I've had on this show who live in San Francisco have said the exact same thing,

Immad: It's just amazing.

Adam: So there must be something there. I should get them to sponsor this show. Okay, what is the most useless parenting product that you've ever purchased?

Immad: You know, the funny thing is almost all plastic toys are like completely useless. Like most of the time you buy the plastic toy and then the kid spends all their time with the packaging, you know, the box and I'm like, what the hell did we buy this?

Adam: Yes, plastic toys go right in the garbage and just contribute to whatever waste we're creating in the world. Okay, finish this sentence. The ideal day with my kids involves this one activity.

Immad: Honestly, just quality time. If we're doing something fun together, I often take them to the arcade. There's a couple around San Francisco and that's like always a kind of a fun thing that they both like doing together with me.

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

Immad: I think the hardest thing is like having a baby that's crying on an airplane. I know people sometimes experience it as a passenger and think it's bad, but it's much worse as a parent because like you're trying to console them and you're trying to sleep yourself, especially on an international flight.

Oh my God, that is a very frustrating experience.

Adam: Okay. Yes. For all those people who judge parents on an airplane, just remember the parents are judging themselves even harder.

Immad: It's the worst.

Adam: So you've got six year old and 12 year old. What has been the favorite ages for your kids?

Immad: Oh, my absolute favorite age is 3 to 4.

Adam: Three to four. Okay. All right,

Immad: I just think they're so cute, they're still like little babies but then they start talking, and they say the cutest things, I just love that age.

Adam: What about your least favorite age for kids?

Immad: I think anything sub three months and then nine to 12 months, nine to 18 months, like there's a time period actually nine to 18. It's probably the worst because there's a time period where they start moving around, but they just have no sense, right? Like, and there's no way to communicate. It's like, you just have to continuously be like looking at them and like, like it's full on helicoptering because they're literally fall down the stairs or like hit themselves.

Adam: All right, nine to 18 months. How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day? And how often does your 12 year old roll her eyes when that happens?

Immad: I'm very into dad jokes, like a couple of times a day for sure. My 12 year old actually still kind of finds them funny, but I know I'm running out of time.

Adam: Awesome. What was the most difficult kids TV show that you have ever had to sit through?

Immad: The number of times I've watched Frozen. I am so done with that movie specifically. And I don't know, there's a lot of other TV shows that you know, one thing that's really good is Teen Titans,

Adam: Oh, okay.

Immad: Like it's actually like a surprisingly entertaining show, which I've had to watch all the way through as well, but at least I didn't mind that one.

Adam: I will check that one out. I'm not sure that it's made my rotation yet. So speaking of which, what is your absolute favorite kids movie? We know frozen is probably the least favorite now. Which one is like a favorite of yours?

Immad: What is the one with the emotions?

Adam: Oh, Inside one, Inside Out. I really liked that one. I thought that was like a, at least, I mean, I didn’t like it the fourth or fifth time I had to watch it, but the first time I like, I watched it, I was like, okay, you know, there's some like really good ideas there. I feel like they're, It gives you like a nice vocabulary to talk to your kids about emotions with as well.

Immad: I kind of like that show.

Adam: All right. Have you ever accidentally mixed up your kids names?

Immad: I mean every day. Well, I actually, it's kind of interesting. I think like in my head, they have like one box, you know, it's my kids. So like, I'm often like, you know, it's very easy to mix them up,

Adam: Yep.

Immad: Uh, it's gotten a little easier actually now that they're older and they like, I feel like their boxes are separating a little bit in my head.

But yeah, it's super easy to do that.

Adam: All right. Two final questions for you. What nostalgic movie that is your favorite, can you just not wait to force your kids to watch?

Immad: I just recently got them to finally watch Matrix with me,

uh, made both of them watch it. I tried before, but my older one does not like action movies until recently. And my younger ones are happy to watch it regardless. But we watched it all the way through and yeah, it's kind of fun.

It's such a great movie. One of my faves.

Adam: Impressive. Impressive. And final question for you. What is your take on minivans?

Immad: I had one until very recently. Now I have a model X, which is almost as big, but not quite minivan y. I love minivans. They're great, like unlimited storage. So, so flexible.

Adam: We don't get a lot of pro minivan people on this, on this show, or sometimes we get a lot of conflicted spouses where one is very pro and one is very anti, but I love that.

Immad: both me and my wife are into minivans.

Adam: I love it.

Immad: I mean, I am a very practical person and there's just like, no one will argue that they're not practical.

Adam: It's especially helpful in San Francisco because the doors just slide open and they don't like come out from the car to be clipped by a biker or something like that, you know? Maybe not practical in the size, but um, okay, well, we've got a positive vote for minivans. So, all right. I would like to thank you for joining today, Immad.

This has been wonderful. I appreciate everything that you shared and wish you all the best of luck with Mercury and your investing and your soon to be renamed podcast. And of course your family. So thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

Immad: Thanks, Adam. Thanks for the thoughtful questions and hope everyone enjoyed that.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Immad Akhund. If you enjoy 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 Herron. You can join a community of 10,000 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. See you next week.