It's Not All About Getting The 'A' | Dave Boyce (Dad of 6, 5x founder, board member)

StartupDad_Dave Boyce - Final Edited Transcript

Dave: I don't think achievement is the number one thing. I think courage is the number one thing. I don't necessarily think driving to straight A's is a thing. I think driving to confidence is a thing and confidence is going to come from competence and competence is going to come from investment.

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 Dave Boyce. Dave is a successful five time Exited founder, a GTM expert, and runs a newsletter at productledgtm.com. He's on the board of Forrester and has just completed the final manuscript for his first book on GTM strategy. It comes out in 2025. He's a loving husband and the father of six kids ages 16 to 28. In our conversation today, we spoke about how to raise a family of incredibly successful kids. His kids are PhD students, applied math majors, machine learning scientists, and accomplished athletes.

But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. We discussed the importance of a play based childhood, the value of hard work, how to reframe achievement so it's not all about getting the A, and what it means to be home when you're home. There are tons of lessons in today's episode, and I hope you enjoy it.

Adam: I would like to welcome Dave Boyce to the Startup Dad show. Dave, it's a pleasure having you here today.

Dave: Yeah, looking forward to it.

Adam: So Dave, you reached out to me, I think, after listening to an episode or two. Glad to have you as a fan of the show. And you told me about your family and I was like, oh man, not only is this guy one of the most accomplished people I've ever heard about but also his kids are super accomplished and he's got a lot of them.

So let's start. We're going to spend most of the time talking about parenthood cause that's the show. But I did want to ask you a little bit about your professional background. So tell me a little bit about what you do and have done for work.

Dave: Yeah, you got it. I did reach out to you and and the reason is because I think of myself as a dad first. I mean, I think it's the highest calling. So all the stuff that I've done professionally has been to kind of keep me interested and kind of keep me engaged and I don't know lead from the front and be the best version of myself.

And I think kids really need that. They need to look up to parents who take risks and challenge themselves and, you know, put themselves out on the edge. I really believe in that. I'm sure we'll talk some more about that. But what I've done I've helped build and sell five SAS companies.

And I focused on kind of go to market. I'm at this point, a go to market specialist. And so I've sit on boards and advise growth companies around go to market issues.

Adam: Cool. Very exciting. Five companies you've built and exited. That is quite a track record. So congrats.

Dave: Well you know, some we exited with our life, and others we actually made some money, like, you know, it's, as you know, you take body blows at every step along the way.

Adam: That is true. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, much like raising a family. So tell me a little bit about Dave growing up. Where'd you grow up? What was life like? What were you like as a kid?

Dave: be hard to relate to, but I grew up in Oklahoma. That's usually a conversation stopper.

Adam: My sister in law lives in Oklahoma. She lives in Tulsa.

Dave: In Tulsa. Okay. Yeah. Tulsa was the big city. We lived a little away from that in Stillwater, which was a college town, Oklahoma State University. I'm the oldest of eight kids. And my dad ran the student center on campus on Oklahoma State University campus for our church and made me. enough money to feed us, but also I wore hand me down clothes, from whom you may ask, from people who felt sorry for us. Like, I earned money so that I could, you know, so I could have Nike shoes. you know, my mom budgeted cash and envelopes by category so that she could, you know, make the budget work every month.

We were pretty tight, but. You know, my parents were together and that was a blessing and they cared about us and I think we were lucky.

Adam: Where did you fall in the stack rank, the pecking order of eight kids? Were you kid number one or were you like the baby?

Dave: Well, I was oldest. I'm sure I wasn't kid number one in my parents mind, but I was the oldest.

Adam: Wow. And you had, I mean, basically if there's eight kids, you have like both sides of a basketball team, essentially.

Dave: If we ever got along long enough to like play a basketball game. Yeah.

Adam: Yeah.

Dave: We were good. We were good.

Adam: That's amazing. And yeah, growing up in a small town in Oklahoma probably gives you some real perspective on life. I imagine. You know, your life now very different from what you experienced growing up.

Dave: You know, when I was growing up, it was a thing to not have money. Like I was very self conscious. I was very self conscious that our house looked the way it did, that our cars looked the way they did. That we couldn't afford to turn on the air conditioning, so I couldn't invite my friends over.

We had so many rugrats running around and such disarray, and the house was too hot, and like, we didn't have soda in the fridge. We didn't even have milk in the fridge. We had powdered milk. Like, so very self conscious about money. So then I said to myself, I probably want to go earn some money, you know, my career but I didn't really have, I didn't have a ton of role models and we grew up in a college town, so I knew the college professors. I knew two dentists that seemed to have more money than my family did. So I wanted to, maybe, I wouldn't wanted to be a dentist until I learned what you had to do all day. And then I knew an attorney and I, maybe I wanted to be a lawyer until I, I even pursued that into college. And I was like, oh, wait a second.

Like, no.

Adam: Yeah, I'm married to a lawyer. It is not me.

Dave: It is not me. It is

Adam: A special type of person

Dave: More power to you. So, yeah, It did have an impact I just tried to figure out like what am I going to do? What path am I going to carve out for myself? But I was a little bit on my own looking for role models, looking for paths, experimenting my way forward.

Adam: Yeah. So I want to talk about your family. So you have a family of six kids and a wife. Kids are 16 to 28. Which is pretty awesome. I've talked to a lot of dads of younger kids. I've talked to some dads with older kids too, and like adult age children. And that's kind of what you're working with mostly.

The other thing is you told me about the kind of accomplishments of your kids. And they are all, as far as I can tell, profoundly successful. You are like probably the ultimate and proud dad. But your kids seem to have done really well. You've got like machine learning, you know, PhDs and math and all sorts of, you've got like, even your high schooler is like a super accomplished, you know, high school athlete and things like that.

What did you do? Like, what do you attribute that to? Did you work some sort of a magic? Is it all your wife? Why did your kids end up the way that they did?

Dave: Pluses and minuses to all this, Adam, as you know, and I'm sure we'll, you know, we'll talk about the, you know, the challenges along the way. But. I am a proud dad. Like yesterday I sent texts to each kid, just, I'm proud of you. And I was thinking about each one and we have six of them. And I was thinking about each one individually and why I was proud of them.

And I just sent that little text off. They do work hard. When we were raising the kids, we have one left at home. He's a rising senior in high school, but we had a family motto, work hard, play hard. But a lot of the kind of the detail of like what it means to do your best was driven by my wife.

So I had some work hard stuff that I did with the kids on the weekends, but I traveled a lot as a young professional. I traveled a lot. And Lisa was on the ground and she wanted each kid to do their best. And so mostly for better, maybe sometimes for worse. She really paid attention.

Adam: Mm hmm.

Dave: She knew what assignments they had.

She knew what, you know, things they were signed up for. She knew how they were showing up on their assignments and she encouraged them to do their best. She didn't need them to get all A's, but she needed them to do their best. And they knew that somebody was watching kind of at all times. And that's one.

The other is, I mean, our oldest name is Zach and he's just a, he's kind of like a pleaser personality. Like he wants to do well by everybody. He wants his parents to be proud of him. He wants to kind of do the right thing. and he ended up kind of setting a bar and I mean, his younger sister is not going to let Zach kind of outshine her.

And then their younger brother was not going to let them outshine them and then Jake, our number four, he had the middle child syndrome. I mean, actually Calvin and Jake had middle child syndrome and they're just looking for any way to distinguish themselves. So like all the instruments have been played.

Okay. So then Jake's going to, you know, do this, all the sports have been played, then Jake's going to do this. So there is a little bit of a competitive dynamic too. So mom watching Us wanting our kids to do their best and then them competing with each other, I think, probably all contributed.

Adam: That's really interesting about competition. You know, I have a younger brother the two of us kind of indirectly competed with one another. But when you're in a family of six kids and like the one in front of you is very accomplished, you're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna win.

Dave: So Davey, our youngest, mentioned he's a high school athlete. He's a distance runner. So you ask him like, what's your goal? And he's like, 426. I'm like, okay, that seems like a random number and it does seem like a random number until you ask a couple more questions and you learn that his older brother posted a 427 as his PR.

So, Davey's goal is 426.

Adam: That's awesome. So you mentioned your wife, Lisa. And it sounds like when, you know, when the kids were younger, she was sort of on point and you mentioned you traveled a lot and she was really the force that kind of moved stuff forward. But it sounds like she's recently gone back to work.

She's a speech pathologist. What was that like that sort of decision she was like, you know what? It's time What was that decision making process or conversation like?

Dave: We have so many friends who have gone through this. I think this is a universal experience. It's not universal, but for parents who decide to be full time parent. It is a universal experience. At some point, those kids leave the house and you can either like attach yourself to them and like follow them to college and like, try to be a helicopter parent while they're out of the house.

That doesn't really work. Or you can figure out what you're going to do with the next phase of your life. And Lisa really had to think that through. She has friends who, you know, got into, you know, You know, working out or traveling or whatever, but Lisa had gotten this degree in speech pathology and she really, she always thought that she always says times and seasons, like I'm going to be a mom and then it will not be too late for me to go pursue a career.

And so she decided, she was very deliberate about it. She launched an integrated preschool for normally developing and delayed language developing kids integrated. Play based preschool and then she sees those kind of speech delayed kids one on one as a therapist outside of the context of the play based preschool. And she's always been involved in schools, even when the kids were all at home, she was either PTA president or volunteer or some committee or whatever, which kept her close to the kids.

But then she ended up running for the school board and she's on the school board. So she's very, she's busy now as she's ever been, but it's more pursuits outside of the home.

Adam: Awesome. And what an amazing way of applying that speech pathology degree to teaching kids, helping kids like it's, that's amazing.

Dave: She loves it. and I love it. She does the, it's an outdoor based preschool. It's at our house. And so, if I'm working in the study, I can watch the kids running around playing like in the mud kitchen, in the sandbox, they're like collecting bugs, whatever. And I'm like, man, I want to be like, I really would like to be a kid in her preschool.

Adam: Yeah. That's actually a really good segue because you mentioned this idea of a play based childhood and sounds like she's running a play based I've recently gotten more into researching this. I've had a few guests on the show who have talked about it. I wrote an article about why we should incorporate more play based strategies into our company cultures and what that means for risk taking and creativity and things like that. But I know that you have the strong philosophy of the importance of play based childhood. So tell me about what that means. Why is play important? Why was it important for your kids? Why did you see that as important?

Dave: So, you know, defining what play is, is, important too, but I just see it as unstructured time, like a kid's job is to play. And what does that mean? It means as kids, we're wired to play, like, give me some unstructured time and I'm going to fill it with play.

That's like how a kid is wired. If you don't give a kid unstructured time, then they're not allowed to play. And the problem with kind of rules and structure and practice and rehearsal and assignments and academics is that it fills up all of our time and it doesn't allow kids to fill it up on their own volition.

And what happens when you're faced with like, you know, free time? And boredom? Then you employ creativity. Then you figure out, like, hey, we're gonna go, like, why don't we play cops and Robbers, or why don't we play Yankees and Red Sox, or why don't we, I can't remember the name of the game that my kids made up, but they just make up games, they have to negotiate conflict, they have to repair relationships when something goes wrong, they take risks, you know, they climb trees, they jump in ponds.

You know, they ride skateboards down the sloped driveway, they skin their knees. They, you know, they hurt themselves. They decide, you know, whose fault it was. They decide whether they're going to tell a parent. That's all really, really important stuff. And when we take that away, then they don't learn how to engage with the world on a basis that empowers them.

If we take away that empowerment and we just give them rules, what you can and can't do, we're going to keep you from taking risks, we're going to keep you from inventing your own stuff because we're going to tell you the stuff that you're going to do. It just takes those development opportunities away.

So we've always viewed boredom as good. And when our kids came to us and said, they knew not to come to us and say they were bored. We're like, hey, That's cool. We can, you know, give you something to do and they're like no cause they knew it was going to be a job.

Adam: Yeah, that's what I do with my kids when they're like, I'm bored. I'm like, oh, I have a list of things you can help with. Let's start by emptying the dishwasher. Uh, let's find some fun in that. How do you then transition from this idea of play based childhood to then instilling the value of hard work in your kids?

And they all seem like, you know, to get where they are, they're all incredibly hardworking. So at some point you have to, you know, I like to say, hey, It's funny. I like to say at work that like, you know, we're all here to work hard. It's not like summer camp. We should still take risks and things like that and get some skinned knees, but like we have a job to do, we got to work hard. And so how do you make that transition? Or how do you kind of balance this like play with like, yeah, but we also have a job to do like objectives and goals and things like that.

Dave: We were not perfect at this, but my philosophy, Adam, just having learned over the years is, just want to be really clear about what the job is that needs to be accomplished. And so for us, we had a Saturday morning set of things that had to be done and when they were done, they were done. So that we did actually pretty well.

If you could get your jobs done before nine, then you had the rest of the day. If you get your jobs done before 10, you had the rest of the day. If you were going to kind of dilly dally around and you weren't going to be done until after lunch, like, okay, that's fine. My domain, this sounds very gender stereotypical, but my domain was the outdoors.

And so I would give them outdoor chores. Lisa would give them indoor chores. So I'd clean my room and then have one indoor zone. And then I would give them an outdoor zone and I would write those outdoor zones down on a piece of paper. I'd leave it on the counter and I have be like a signup sheet.

So, and we had six kids, right? So, and then I'd have like job, empty column for name, and then prize, and the prize would be something like honor and glory, bragging rights, first to be done, like there would be nothing, but you'd be surprised at how motivated the kids were to get up first and get down there and grab the one that was going to allow them to be done first.

Adam: Yeah, that's awesome. I love that idea of just also just here are the things that need to get done. I'm not assigning them out. It's y'all get to pick and, you know, negotiate over it. It's another opportunity to like figure it out, you know, resolve conflict and stuff like that. When you think across, you know, 28 years of fatherhood, cause your oldest is 28, what are some of the most surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

Dave: I'm sure I'll start crying at some point.

Adam: You would not be the first,

Dave: Yeah, I thought you could do the right thing and get results you know, follow the instructions, do the right thing, get up early, work hard lead from the front. You know, I thought we could hustle our way to good fatherhood and the surprising thing to me is that, it doesn't work as formulaically as that.

And I only learned this in the last few years. And like you said, my oldest is 28. So, only in the last probably five years did I realize how tone deaf I had been to trying to kind of hustle my way to success as a father. Each kid is wired differently and each kid has a certain pace at which they kind of take in the world and process information and then engage back with the world.

And I was assuming, you know, faster is better.

I just rammed through some of those experiences and just glossed over some of those opportunities. And I don't think I really knew each of my kids the way I should have known them as kind of individuals. So the surprise to me is that it just makes me dumb and not observant.

I'm sure everyone already knows this, but each kid is an individual human being. And the more I learned that, and the more I learned to engage with them on their terms, the more I would have adjusted some of those things I was talking to you about with, you know, work hard, play hard, and let's all get done by 11 a.m. And, you know, once in a while you take a kid aside and you kind of sit with them and and process with them and work shoulder to shoulder with them. You don't just blow past it and say, everybody keep up with me.

Adam: Yeah. This idea of each kid is their own individual with their own style and development approach and way that they process things is really, I've heard a couple of dads mention this on the show. But you know, they've also mentioned that they didn't realize that, right? Until maybe they were in your position.

If you could rewind the clock to a time, maybe right before you had your first kid would you translate that into advice for yourself? Or what advice would you give to the younger version of Dave? What would you say to him?

Dave: First of all, I would just breathe courage into younger Dave. I think younger Dave was pretty courageous, but I'd just say, look you're going to be moving fast and you're going to be trying to do all the things, but there are a couple of things that are real gifts and do not skip over them. One is, any time you can say yes to a kid is a gift. So don't say yes but, don't say no, don't say well, da da da da da, like, like all these kind of corrective things.

We have to do that, but anytime you can just say yes, it's a gift. It's a gift. It just aligns that kid with you and encourages them. We're trying to encourage kids, not discourage them. So anytime I can kind of put momentum behind kind of their idea or their request or their statement, you know, that's a gift.

The other thing that's a gift is any moment that you can just grab with your kid that's unprogrammed. Any unprogrammed moment with the kid is a gift too. Sometimes I did a good job at that. I'm usually in a manufactured way, which we can talk about, but I would say, hey, younger Dave, either manufacture it or just look for the opportunity and take it when it presents itself.

Like unstructured time with your kid is a gift.

Adam: What did you mean by manufacturing it? What does that look like?

Dave: When the kids were young, I had, and I try to remind myself of this still, but we don't have as many kids around. We had a saying, never leave home without one.

Adam: Love it.

Dave: So, like, if I was going to go to the hardware store, go to the bank or go whatever, you know, just grab a kid, like, stick him in the seat with you. And now I've got unstructured time on the way there. We can walk around the hardware store, unstructured time on the way back. We would sometimes make up songs or sometimes I would hear a story or I'd ask them about like their classes or their school or sports.

I would just, you know, just, but just having that unstructured drive time is great. I've also with every kid taken a, at around 12 years old, between 12 and 14, depending on how our life was going at taking like a week. Like five days, a lot of it was backpacking, like five days backpacking, where it's just you and the trail and one other person for five days with no electronics and anything, that's manufactured kind of window of time, but you fill it in the way we're talking about unstructured time.

You have to fill it in with conversation like you're just on the trail. Road trips do the same thing. I've done that a couple of times with kids like we'll drive across the country instead of fly. All right. Amazing. Now you got three days of windshield time with a kid. You can learn about their music taste.

They can learn about your music taste. You can tell stories about your childhood. You can ask them about what decisions they're facing. And by the time you get to like, you know, hour five, you've done all the small talk. Now you got two and a half days left and it's magic. It's amazing.

Adam: I love that. Thinking about, you know, you came from a family of eight. You probably had tons of advice from your parents. You probably know a bunch of other parents. What advice did you get that you would tell your younger self to ignore?

Dave: I don't think I got a ton of advice from my parents. I think. Eight kids is a lot. We got one eighth of their attention. You know, we got the same amount of attention as that show Cheaper by the Dozen. Like, you know, what advice would I tell them to ignore? So I don't think this may sound counterintuitive or disingenuous.

It's not, I don't think achievement is the number one thing. I think courage is the number one thing. I don't necessarily think driving to straight A's is a thing. I think driving to confidence is a thing and confidence is going to come from competence and competence is going to come from investment. And then if you're doing all of those things, then you'll, you know, then there will be some grade that comes out of it if you're doing your best, but it's less about the grade.

I think that can really get in kids heads and all the comparison that we talked about at the beginning can really get in kids heads. But if I see you as an individual human who has individual hopes and dreams, who has individual talents. And is investing them in a way that you understand, and I can encourage you to keep doing that and do your best at the things that you care about, and I'm on your side.

It feels very different than me being the taskmaster that's requiring you to get an A in Calculus.

Adam: Yeah. How have you been able to define this sort of alternative view of achievement in your household? How do you know if your kids are building the confidence that you know, really want to see them get?

Dave: We're working on it, but you know, one of those things is, you know, saying yes. And actually my parents did a really good job at this. I turned down an offer to go into tier one strategy consulting in order to be a musician.

Adam: Ha!

Dave: Yeah. And I never heard word one from my parents. Maybe they didn't know the difference. Hey, this one pays six figures. This one doesn't pay at all.

Adam: Right. Starving artist.

Dave: Right. They never said a word and I was engaged at the time when I made those decisions. And Lisa was like, all right, so if you're going to go be in a band, go get it out of your system now. I don't want you to be a middle aged dad who never got to pursue his dreams. And then all of a sudden quits the job and goes and does whatever she's like. So get it out of your system now. And I actually think that's really good. Like when a kid wants to go pursue something, if I can say yes, I want to say yes.

We have a daughter who is really struggling on, you know, I don't want to give up dance, but I also want to be doctor. And so in theory, I should go major in biology. In practice, I know I'm not going to be able to dance forever. I'm still young and I'm good at it. So I was like, then be a pre med dance major. Just do it. Like, you can do it. You just have to take the pre med, pre right, well, let's go talk to some people who've done an arts degree and then went on to med school. And we did that, tried to encourage her and she kind of got a vision for it and she leaned into it. And that's what she's doing right now.

Adam: It's really amazing. And then, you know, maybe she goes on to help people with repetitive injuries from years of dance or something like that. Who knows.

Dave: Yeah, you never know, but I just think encouraging kids to lean in and, you know, explore what they're good at, explore what they care about, figure out where their passion is. I think that's really, really important. I can't tell you what you're passionate about. I can't tell you what you should and shouldn't do.

Like, I can't tell you, no, in the Boyce family, we're not in drama. Like, no, that's not cool.

Adam: Yeah. When you think about the evolution, there's probably two evolutions you went through, right? You've got an evolving parenting style from kid to kid as you learn. You know, trial and error on the oldest and then the next one, you're like, I'm going to do that differently. And then but then there's also how you as a leader and a manager outside the house professionally have evolved in your approach.

How is just being a dad changed your approach to that in your career? And then how as you had multiple kids and gotten those kind of reps, how has that influenced what you bring to a professional setting?

Dave: You know, back to your question about what would I tell younger Dave? I'll try to accelerate this. There's a transition both in management and in parenthood that I've experienced that had been, there's a parallel between them, which I think you're alluding to. I would want to accelerate that transition.

And that transition is, I would say it to younger Dave. It's not about you. Younger Dave, it's not all about you. It's about this, it's about this young human who is trying to evolve into something, you know, and it's like, it's about helping that person give themselves permission to thrive and opportunity to thrive.

You're not a carpenter, like you're not cutting with precision and measuring and exactly fitting pieces to create exactly the thing that you want. That's not what parenthood is. You're a gardener, you're just creating the space and you're providing the nutrients and the environment and then this thing is going to do what it does and you're going to help it be the best version of it that it can be.

And that is true for management too. Like you can't take a human. And make them be interested in something or make them be good at something like what you can do is discover what they're good at and discover where they fit and get them in and then give them opportunity to thrive and give them the opportunity to give them permission to thrive.

And when you find that fit, it's more about fit than about force fit then amazing things happen. Both in the professional world and in the parenting world. And I'm guessing each of us has to give ourselves permission to do that for ourselves too.

Adam: Yeah. But so hard, you know, there's a tendency, I think, especially in high achieving parents to be like, there's a way, there's a success and why don't you look more like me, you know, and then you really…

Dave:All Fishmans are lawyers!

Adam:Yeah, exactly. You have to learn your lesson. so I wanted to transition for a second and ask you, you know, it takes a really strong partnership to raise six kids to raise one kid.

Dave: Yeah. Amen.

Adam: And you've got six of them. And you mentioned, you know, Lisa really leaning in a lot when the kids were younger. The other thing I'd say is it's also almost impossible to agree 100 percent of the time with your partner.

Dave:I have no idea what you're talking about.

Adam: So where's an area and, you know, keep in mind, Lisa may listen to this, but what's something that you and her…

Dave: Doesn't resonate at all Adam. We never fight, never disagree. Not sure what you're talking about.

Adam: We speak the truth here on, on the pod. So where's an area that you and Lisa. Don't agree on when it comes to parenting, or one where you had to work really hard to kind of get on the same page about?

Dave: Sooo..hi Lisa. Maybe I won't send this to her, but you know, Lisa is pretty fastidious in follow up.

Like she checks power school like every day. I don't know what's going to happen when she has no more kids in power school. It's like, I think she's as addicted to that as a Instagram.

Like, so she knows how many assignments have been turned in, how many haven't, what the current GPA is. You know, she'll say to me, like, you know, well, Catherine's got a 0.5 GPA. I'm like, what? She's like, yeah, I don't like, and of course it's the beginning of the semester and none of the grades have been entered and like, but she'll go right at Catherine and say, you know, what's going on.

And let me, let's go through one class at a time. I'm less like that. My guess is that my kids have better overall GPAs because of Lisa's followup. But she's more the she's more of the disciplinarian and I'm more of the kind of encouragement guy.

Adam: Mm hmm.

Dave: I think the balance was needed. Like, it would be great if we could do both. Like, if I were just as enthusiastic and encouraging and also paid attention to the details or she paid attention to the details and was just as positive as I am that would probably be perfect. And maybe that's why we're together. Yeah, I'm not the detailed disciplinary and follow up on everything.

Dude.

Adam: Did it take conversation between the two of you to kind of understand your roles and who plays what role? Or did it kind of naturally evolve? Yeah.

Dave: No, she, Lisa's not in generally in the market for suggestions on how she should parent.

Adam: I love that phrasing.

Dave: So I think what it took was just learning how to harmonize what we were doing. Like I wasn't going to be able to, suggest that she make adjustments. I could, just wouldn't do much good. And same thing in the other direction. She could suggest what I should do. And I probably was just a stubborn and so, it's just figuring out. So there was, there's probably some learned experience you know, to answer your question about who's going to be playing which role. Just like. You know, I'm the morning guy. She's the stay up late with the kid who's trying to finish an assignment person. Like, I'm going to take care of the outdoors and we're going to teach kids how to work, you know, through outdoor chores.

And she's going to do the stuff inside. We're going to do some cross pollination. I do Sunday dinner. She takes care of the kind of the food during the week, mostly now that she's gotten more busy, I'll do a little bit more of that, but yeah, there's negotiations around all that stuff.

Adam: That's great. I wanted to ask you about a concept that you mentioned in our prep for this, which is this idea of being home when you're home.

Dave: Hmm.

Adam: What does that mean?

Dave: Big fan of this. Big fan of this. That means. Your phone stays in your pocket and your laptop stays closed. Like, when you're home, it's so discouraging and such an ego kind of blow for a kid to look over and see mom or dad home, but not home.

With them, but not with them, like in the room, but not paying attention, not have time for them if they're still at the office or if they're behind and I've worked out of a home office before they're still at the office, you know, at home with the door shut.

Okay, great. They're not available to me. But if they're out here, then we got to make ourselves available. We got to be not distracted. So Lisa and I worked very hard on this and these were explicit conversations. Like, I don't care, this is Lisa to me, like, I don't care how long you have to work, I need you to be done with work when you step through the door.

Because when you step through the door, we need you. The kids need you. And so, if you miss bedtime, that's fine. It's not great, but it's fine. And I did miss bedtime a lot. But if you're gonna walk in I need you to not be constantly checking things and distracted. And, I thought that was really good advice of hers and I definitely took it to heart.

So I worked long hours, you know, 12 hour days, five days a week, but not seven days a week. I did not work on Saturdays or Sundays. If I had to get up early and be in the office by 7 a. m. or 6:30 a. m. I would, if I needed to stay until 10 or 11 p. m. I would, but weekends were ours, and if I came home in the evening and I was there, I was going to be present.

Adam: And it's almost worse. In fact, it is worse. To come home early and just be somewhere else mentally, just not be present.

Dave: It's like insulting to the kids. Yeah, it's terrible. And to your partner.

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

Dave: So we got married when we were 26. And you know, between the 18 leaving the house and 26, I discovered a lot of things that I like to do. I like live music. I like to play volleyball. I'm an outdoor volleyball guy. I Probably those are the two things that I mostly gave up. Actually I bought a lot of records. I now buy records again, but you know, we couldn't afford records as a young couple. So I just. I just started like parking some of those interests for later. Years and years, I didn't play volleyball.

Really sad. I'm trying to play again, but at 56, you don't have the same hops.

Adam: The knees are, it's a little, you're not jumping up and spiking that ball as much. You're more of the setter and the bumper.

Dave: Yeah. And I was never a golf guy, but that just didn't. That didn't make sense to me. I tried for a while when I was, you know, in go to market roles, you have to be able to golf in theory. I finally decided no, that's not true. A, I wasn't any good at it. B, it took so much time.

Like, holy crud, so much time. So I just gave some of that stuff up. It's fine. And I love Lisa's phrase times and seasons.

Adam: Mm hmm.

Dave: Like, okay, you know, I'll be the old volleyball guy.

Adam: Yeah. I really like that times and seasons thing, because I think like, you know, a lot of people who are thinking about starting a family are terrified that it means the end of so many things. I agree with that times and seasons thing. You may have to temporarily give up some stuff, and temporary might be 10 years.

But it is a season of your life and you find other joys in that season. And so I really liked that. I really liked that phrase.

Dave: Yeah. Some of my personality, I felt like, you know, my enthusiastic personality of showing up, you know, that never went away, but some of my personality around just like how I presented and how, and the music that I listened to and the kind of vibe, like, I don't know, that kind of went away for a while.

I'm, I kind of regret that, but, you know, like this office is full of all this stuff I love. Like I've got Queen Latifah and Elvis Costello and Sonny Rollins and The Clash and Talking Heads, like, all the stuff I love around me.

I got records behind me, like, so this is me again. I couldn't afford to kind of build an office like this before, but now I can. So, so here I am.

Adam: Are any of your kids really passionate and into music? do you have like a favorite concert memory or any sort of like favorite music experience with one of your kids?

Dave: Such a good question. Well, so tomorrow is one of my daughter's birthdays and we're going to go record shopping. We have this really fun thing where I give each of us a $30 budget and we go to used record stores and then we have a competition who can do the best with $30.

So at the end of the night, we compare like what we got with $30. It's fun. We're going to do that tonight. I just got back like 3 weeks ago. My son, Jake, he's way into Scott punk and pop punk which I am too, but I could never find, I can rarely find people to go to those concerts with me. And now Jake's my concert buddy for like, punk concerts.

So we went to Punk Rock Bowling the, festival in Vegas, and we were like in the mosh pit together and we like hung out all day and then we hopped in the car, did a 38 hour cross country trip to Boston where he's working this summer. And the headliner at punk rock bowling was Madness.

So like that was over at like 11 PM on a Monday night. And then we drove 38 hours and we saw them on a Wednesday night at Fenway in Boston, the same band. And that's going to be a memory forever.

Adam: What a cool experience. I would have never gone to, oh, Dave must be a ska punk fan that wasn't, I mean, clearly a music fan, but that wasn't on my bingo card for this conversation. So, yeah, I spent a lot of time enjoying music with my dad too. He's a musician and amongst other things. And many of my earliest concerts were with my dad. So, uh, love it.

Dave: Rock on. That's so great.

Adam: So. You know, you mentioned music outdoors, but what are some of the other ways that you recharge your batteries? You know, you worked hard, you helped raise six kids still in progress. What'd you have to do when everything hit the fan and you needed to like take a breather?

Dave: So along the way, the easiest thing for me to do, and this was an acquired taste, but I had to stay in shape. I wasn't feeling great. I was getting fatter and I don't care necessarily what I look like. I kind of do, but but just feeling lethargic and like, you know, staying up late and I don't know, it didn't feel good.

So I had to get back in shape. And the best way I could do that because I was traveling so much and because my schedule was unpredictable was running. Acquired taste. Like,

Adam: Yea, I'm not a fan.

Dave: Not a fan. Yeah, exactly. Like, but you know, I ended up, I don't know it, you know, take my shoes with me and on the road you can run in a foreign city.

You can get to know that city, especially if you run in the morning as it's waking up. I really started to love that. I run in so many cities in the morning. I'm not a great runner. I'm a big guy. I'm not built like a marathon. I'm not built like my son, Davey or Calvin.

I'll plot along, but I'll listen to books, and I'll run, and I'll take in the scenes, and it's amazing. I still do it. I run in the hills every week. And the other thing I do for myself, this is going to sound weird. This was not an acquired taste. I actually naturally gravitate to this. I love gardening.

So we have ornamentals and flowers and I've planted probably 200 trees and shrubs in our yard over the 10 years we've lived here. And actually every place we've owned, I've just really invested in, like, what it feels like to be out in the yard. And so I probably have dirt under my fingernails right now.

I was planting flowers this morning.

Adam: Nice. Nice. My wife is very into gardening. It's her like happy place. I'm very good at killing plants. And then occasionally moving large bags of dirt and stuff. That’s my use.

Dave: Yeah.

Adam: So, but my son is very into gardening. Which is, which is fun. That's his thing that he loves to do his mom. So, we talked a little bit about this earlier.

This idea of kind of moving too fast and trying to get everyone to keep pace with you. Would you say that is sort of the primary mistake that you've made as a dad and sort of lesson learned?

Dave: Yes. I had a daughter tell me three weeks ago. This is terrible. That she doesn't remember the last time she just sat down and played with me. She's 25. Like, she's like, I must've been six or seven. So all this great talk about you know, like unstructured time. She doesn't remember unstructured time with me since we were six or seven.

Luckily at the time she told me this we were sitting in a rose garden and she was drawing and we were in Boston and it was a nice moment, and then we walked around and we're observing, she likes to garden too and she was saying, you know, I don't remember the last time we just had time like this.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so horrible. I was moving fast and there's lots going on and she didn't feel paid attention to.

Adam: Yeah.

Dave: I'm sure she felt instructed.

Adam: Mm hmm.

Dave: And inspected,

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave: But I'm not sure she felt and she needed it more than other kids, like in every, you know, like we said before, every kid's different.

She needed it more. And I did not recognize that like, hey, Calvin doesn't need that. So why does Rose need that? Like it wasn't even going through my mind in that way. But if I had been paying attention, I would know that, yeah, Calvin is going to go mow the lawn as fast as he can and precise as he can.

And I'm going to sit here with Rose and we're going to dig for worms.

Adam: hmm. Mm

Dave: And then at two o'clock, she'll go do her zone. And she'll be happy and it'll be fine. And I don't have to shame her for not having gotten it done the same schedule because she's just on a different path.

Adam: That's really great. Reflection. Thanks for sharing that. You know, you've got six kids on a tremendous trajectory. Seem like you've done a good job of building the confidence and helping them learn how to build that confidence and competence.

But I'm sure it wasn't always like up and to the right. Like, building a company is never a straight path. What are maybe one or two of the kind of more challenging things that you've experienced as a dad or as a large family?

Dave: Yeah. So from my kids perspective, most things were up into the right. Until I sold the company to I, we, I was a VP. It's not like, I was the founder. We sold the company to Oracle and then we bought our dream home in Boston with a pool and a big yard and lots of space to garden and play and like amazing.

And then I worked for Oracle and felt my soul slowly leaking out. Cause that's not exactly a soul feeding place in my opinion. but everything was up into the right from my kid's perspective. And then I decided, you know, I got to go went back to like a five person startup and I decided that it needed to be located not in Boston, but in Silicon Valley.

So we sold our dream home. We packed up our six kids and our dog. we shipped one car and drove another car all the way to Silicon Valley, and we rented a home, and then we eventually bought a home, the home we bought was 1,600 square feet, 1,600 square feet, we took over the garage as living space so that we could at least have enough room to set up like homework desks and stuff, but six kids and a dog in 1, 600 square feet, and then that company, I was struggling to raise money to keep us afloat. And my kids knew it. Like I went to work every day and we had employees and they knew it. And we had family day at the office and they knew all of our employees and we were working hard. And they had t-shirts that said Fundly on it, which is the name of the company.

And like, and so they were invested in dad's work, but they also knew that this may not work. Like we may not be able to raise money and This company might fail.

So we literally like, and we're, religious people. So we would pray that dad would raise money and we would be able to stay in this home and in our schools.

And first part of that happened. I did raise money, but then some other stuff happened. We didn't achieve liftoff. I restructured the company, fired myself and we moved again. So you know, my kids were pretty invested in and affected by what I was trying to do professionally. I wasn't trying to hide it from them.

I was actually trying to lead from the front in terms of courage, but it didn't all work out to your point. It wasn't all up  and to the right. So we had a couple of moves that were less than comfortable and we had to kind of pull ourselves back after I'd spent all of their, you know, all of our retirement and their college funds.

We just figure out how to get that replenished again. And and they were along for the ride. And what I hope from that, Adam, like I know that it created some trauma for some kids, but what I hope is that it gives them the courage to know that the sun will always come up the next day and that they can actually put themselves out there as well and reach for what they want.

And if they don't quite get it, it's a long life and there's always a chance to go, you know, put things back together.

Adam: That's a really valuable lesson and perspective to be able to share with your kids. So thanks for sharing it with me. All right. Before we get into rapid fire, how can people follow along or be helpful to you on your journey?

Dave: I'm a huge people fan. So I'd love to be connected on LinkedIn. That's super easy. And please DM me anytime. If once we're connected, I have a Substack at productledgtm.com productledgtm.com. That's one word. And that's where I do all kind of public. I actually have a little section on their personal growth.

So talking about stuff like what we're talking about just, you know, discovering who you are and what you, what impact you are. meant to deliver to humanity and, you know, how you can go embrace that. But I also have a lot of stuff on product led growth. I've got a book coming out with Stanford University Press in March of 2025.

I just submitted my final manuscript, so I'm excited about that. That's on product led growth. But anyway, Substack is a great place to stay connected. LinkedIn is a great place to stay connected.

Adam: Cool. We will link to both of those places and exciting about the book too. That's a lot of work…

Dave: A lot of work.

Adam: publishing a book, so.

Dave: A lot of work.

Adam: Labor of love. Congratulations on turning into that final manuscript.

Dave:Thanks brother.

Adam: All right. Are you ready for rapid fire?

Dave: I doubt it.

Adam: Rules of rapid fire. There is only one. I ask you a question and you respond with the first thing that comes to mind. It's a judgment free zone. Then we move on to the next feel free to say pass if

Dave: So, so if I say Pokemon every single time, you're going to be cool.

Adam: Totally fine. We'll turn it into a meme. All right, here we go. What is the most indispensable parenting product that you've ever purchased or used in your house?

Dave: A dough cutter.

Adam: Dough cutter. Okay. What is the most useless parenting product that you've ever purchased or used?

Dave: An iPad.

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

Dave: Unstructured time.

Adam: Which one of your kids is your favorite?

Dave: The one that's with me right now.

Adam: Speaking of which, what are the favorite ages for your kids?

Dave: Oh, four to 11 or whenever they go monosyllabic. And then, 19 or whenever they return to the world of kind of normal human.

Adam: Monosyllabic, I love that. What is the least favorite age for your kids?

Dave: Three. That's easy. They say terrible twos. That's a lie. It's three.

Adam: How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?

Dave: Oh my gosh. I try to maximize it for sure. I'm sure that it's north of 15, and they're very funny.

Adam: Of course they are, of course they are. Funny for an audience of one. Um What was the most embarrassing thing that you've ever done in front of one of your kids?

Dave: Oh, how about in front of all of my kids? I entered my daughter's birthday wrong into my Delta app and I can't change it. So every time we fly, every time she has to go to the counter, it's a whole thing. She has to get it rebuilt. I'm going to figure this out, but it is. It is so embarrassing. How do you get your daughter's birthday wrong?

Adam: That's amazing. And it is truly the gift that keeps on giving because it's unchangeable. Yeah. Have you ever pretended to be asleep in the middle of the night to avoid a wake up?

Dave: Oh my gosh. Yes. I'm very embarrassed about that.

Adam: Well, you and 50 plus other dads who have been on this show, so don't worry about it. What is the most absurd thing that one of your kids has ever asked you to buy for them?

Dave: Senior trip.

Adam: Where did they want to go on that senior trip?

Dave: Oh, you know, like Greece.

Adam: Oh, sure. No problem.

Dave: No problem. Yeah. Let's do it.

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

Dave: The worst ever. Teletubbies.

Adam: What is your favorite kids movie?

Dave: We mentioned it before, Cheaper by the Dozen. I also really like Swiss Family Robinson, but I don't know if people know that anymore.

Adam: Okay. I know it. I don't know that, we'll see about the audience.

Dave: My kids know it.

Adam: Now you strike me as a guy who's pretty handy, but can you recall the worst experience you've ever had assembling a kid's toy or a piece of furniture?

Dave: I am indeed pretty good at that. we would procrastinate. It's hard when you have kids and everyone who's listened to this knows this and we celebrate Christmas meaning we're, you know, we're going to unwrap presents on Christmas morning. So, It may not be that I was bad at it. It's just that I was starting it at 1230 a. m. And then we needed batteries and then you have to find someone that's open at 3 a. m. for batteries. So I've been on many of those trips.

Adam: Dad's in the backyard with a wrench assembling the swing set at 2 a. m. As the Sun is starting to rise.

Dave: Totally.

Adam:So you messed up your daughter's birthday, but have you ever accidentally your kids names?

Dave: I don't really do that. I don't think I'm sure in the heat of the moment, maybe, but no, it's not a thing.

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

Dave: Oh, geez. Measured in minutes or hours.

Adam: That it tells me everything I need to know. Is there a nostalgic movie that you have forced your kids to watch?

Dave: Yeah we've got a bunch of movies so Dumb and Dumber is a favorite movie of ours. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a favorite movie of ours. yeah, we've got a bunch. They're just dumb movies, you know, Tommy Boy, like, Napoleon Dynamite. Nacho Libre. Like, we quote these movies all the time around my house.

Adam: Classics of the genre. How often do you tell your kids back in my day stories?

Dave: Oh, whenever they'll listen. Those long hikes or cross country trips opportunities.

Adam: Alright, and now, the culminating moment of this interview. With six kids, what is your take on minivans?

Dave: Oh, yeah. We tried to avoid, try to avoid, then we got one and then we were like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. The seats come out, it's got cargo space, like, and we eventually said, hey, now we can afford to get like one of those giant SUVs. So we got like a GMC Yukon XL with like fancy grill and like the TV and everything. It was worse. It was worse. It didn't have as much space.

Adam: Wow. And way less fuel efficient, too.

Dave: Yeah, minivans are great.

Adam:  We got team minivan over here, Dave. So this is great. Well, Dave, thank you so much for joining me on the program today. That brings us to the end. We've landed this airplane right on time. I really appreciate you taking the time and telling me about your family and the ups and downs of fatherhood.

Dave: Thanks for the interest. it is worth it. Like these special, I'm really looking forward to the tonight with my daughter doing what she loves, shopping for records and a used record store and seeing if she can beat her dad with a $30 budget. It's going to be amazing. Those moments, it's just so worth it.

And then, you know, I'm just rooting for her to be the best dancer and then the best med school applicant and then the best doctor and multiply that by however many kids you have. And what a privilege, what a privilege for you. What a privilege for me, just to be part of this.

Adam: Pretty amazing. Well, happy birthday to your daughter. And that sounds like a wonderful way to spend your evening.

Dave: Thanks brother.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Dave Boyce. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review. It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Heron. You can join a community of nearly 11,000 subscribers and stay up to date on my thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.