Managing Weekends as a Founder & Dad and 'First Team' Parenting | Patrick Thompson (Dad of 1, Clarify)

Patrick: My wife and I we’re first team in the house. Like we're the first team. We need to be aligned and dedicate as much support to each other over, you know, the relationships with the kids or anything else, right. And so like, I do like this concept of first team being applied to kind of the co parenting or parenting together model and that we need to be aligned and we need to have a unified front to effectively the inmates running the asylum below us.

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 Patrick Thompson. Patrick is a three time founder, starting a company right after college and then founding and selling his second company iteratively to Amplitude in 2019.

He is currently the co-founder of Clarify, a next generation CRM platform. He's a loving husband and the father of one son. In our conversation today, we spoke about how to manage a young family with starting a company. The differences between his last startup and this current one, where he is now a dad and what the conversation was like with his wife when he wanted to get back to building.

We also discussed how to invest in your relationship with your partner, what his rituals for quality time with his son are, and how he recharges his batteries as a busy parent and a startup founder. He also shared his top tips for airplane travel with a young kid and a hilarious potty training story.

Adam: I would like to welcome Patrick Thompson to the Startup Dad show. Patrick, it is my pleasure to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Patrick: I don't know. I'm excited to be here.

Adam: All right. Well, I have to give a quick shout out and thank you to Austin Hay, who referred you to me, even though we knew each other, I'd kind of forgotten that I had an open invite to have you on the show.

So kudos to Austin, longtime listener of the program for nudging me to say, Hey, you need to talk to Patrick, my co-founder. Speaking of which, You have an 18 month old kid and you are starting a new company. As I just alluded to the first question that I have is a broad one. Why, Why would you do both of those things at the same time?

Patrick: My wife asked me that question a bunch of times as well. It's not the only person. I think there's no better time than now. you know, there's a lot of things you can do in life and this is definitely the path less taken, I'd say. I definitely feel like for me, I always knew I was going to do another startup, even after the last one uh, left Amplitude being the year wanted to jump right back in.

So then taking time off, I feel like I'm just wired this way. I like building companies. I like working with small teams, like that zero to one journey as much as I can. And I felt like now is the right time to do that.

Adam: All right. Well, we're going to dive into family life in a bit. But the second thing that I was really curious about is, you know, this is not your first rodeo. Your last company was actually acquired by Amplitude and you went and worked there for a while. So this is the second or third company that you founded, but I would imagine that life outside of work is a little bit different now than it was maybe right out of college or when you did your second startup, how has that caused you to approach building your company maybe a little bit differently this time around? Like how does this differ from your last startup?

Patrick: Yeah, there's definitely a few things. I think with the last startup iteratively, I was, happily married. I was able to put a lot of time and energy into effectively grinded our way into finding product market fit and effectively just hustle the first couple of years before the acquisition to Amplitude. With this one there's obviously I have a family. I have a beautiful kid. I have a wife that I care about a ton and I have a dog and a house and all the things that you get in your mid thirties as part of the American dream. Definitely wanted to kind of approach this a little bit more with a balance. I really enjoyed actually Siqi's podcasts that y'all had about the conversation around work life balance is something that I thought a lot about.

Going into the startup, I tend to find that when I'm happy at work, I have a very flourishing life outside of work. When I'm happy outside of work, I tend to find that I'm doing well career wise. It's really hard to say, hey, work life balance and being a startup founder. And for me, as I just want to give everything my all and be, a great husband, a great father, and a great teammate for my co founders and the team that we have here at Clarify, and it's sometimes hard to have it all have your cake and eat it too o I think the things that I really think about is just checking in with myself to understand where my energy's at, so not necessarily managing my time, but managing my energy and finding ways to really recharge the batteries.

So just got back from Hawaii where I co worked with one of my co-founders last week, it's a great way to recharge the batteries. I find ways to spend quality time with my wife. It's a great way to make sure that our relationship is really flourishing and vice versa with our kid. I tend to try to find rituals I can go spend time with him to make sure that I'm being a very present dad and not an absentee father.

Adam: Well, we're going to dive into all of that stuff, but I want to hit the time machine real quick. Where did you grow up and what was life like for you growing up? And maybe most importantly, what were you like as a kid?

Patrick: I grew up in Southern California. My mom was a nurse. My dad had his own general construction company, swinging a hammer. Effectively, I did that most summers. I'd say my teenage years as well, going into college. Southern California is a great place to grow up.

I never really know a whole lot about I'd say venture capital or the tech industry is pretty much included from that. The only thing I really did was just play sports. That was like kind of my life, the early stages of development did Boy Scouts as well. And that definitely kind of solidified a lot of the work ethic and how I kind of, A really strong relationship with nature these days as well. I ended up moving to Southern or moving to San Diego for college and from there effectively got into computer science and transitioned over into business administration. I was traveling pretty much every year. I was a division 1 athlete played football in college. That was a great experience.

Loved it. And ended up stumbling into tech. I'd say a very non traditional path to more things like conversion, optimization, SEO, SEM, web analytics, doing more experimentation and that's kind of what got me into technology user research.

I'd say like my parents really instilled a lot of discipline when it came to hard work.

For me, school wasn't necessarily easy, but I got good grades, but I definitely had to work really hard. I don't, I saw a lot of people who I think just weren't very naturally gifted or it came really easy for them. I grew up actually with a learning disability. So for me, like even reading and math up until like 3rd and 4th grade, it was extremely challenging.

And then I found ways to work around it and effectively overcome a lot of those challenges. And that kind of, I feel like for me instilled a lot of that discipline, I'd say at an early age. And then when it came to being kind of multifaceted, I really wanted to be a great athlete. I wanted to be good at school.

I want to make sure that I had great friendships growing up as well. So, really tried hard across all three of those avenues. And I still think today. I think about that a lot when it comes to, I try to be a little bit more multifaceted into what I do outside of work as well.

Adam: Strangely have interviewed a lot of college athletes, some even professional athletes on this show, multiple football players. It could be the audience of people that I'm interviewing that just like, there's something in the wiring of what it takes to be a competitive athlete and what it takes to start a company.

But do you think that, do you think that's true? Do you think there's sort of. Either how you're wired or kind of the things that you learned in athletics helped mold you into a competitive startup founder.

Patrick: For sure. I mean, we used to have the saying If you don't grind, you don't shine. There's nothing in life is ever easy. Right? And so you as an athlete, you're typically having to wake up at 5 30 every morning to go to gym. You have probably 68 hours of commitments per day just for athletics, let alone.

The academics out of that yeah, it's not easy to be a division one athlete, regardless of what sport you play. I was an offensive lineman as well, which is like the grittiest of the grittiest position I feel like to play in football. And so, yeah, you just, you tend to fall in love with the suck.

And I look back on those years as like, Hey, you know, if I could do that, I can probably do anything. And so for me, when it came to thinking about starting a company or taking risks, I'd already gone through some level of adversity when it came to that. So like I was used to having some degree of pain in my life, so why not more, just why not pile more on top of that, you know, I think being a father is definitely very different than being an athlete, for sure. I think being a startup co-founder and being an athlete, there's a lot of similarities. And with being a father, I've learned to be a lot more nurturing, I'd say, than the football, where I tend to just like grit it and go push through it.

Being a father, sometimes you can't really just grit through it. You kind of just have to accept it and move on, an yeah, having that reflection has been helpful for me.

Adam: Knowing that you were an offensive lineman is your 18 month old at like the a hundred percentile height and weight or…?

Patrick: They don't score him at 100%. It's only 99. It's like, it only goes up to 99. So yeah, he's 99 percentile 97 percentile in weight, 99 percentile in height. So he was born 10 pounds, 12 ounces. Yeah.

Adam: He was ready for the line right away.

Patrick: Yeah. So it's it's funny when they pull it. My wife had a cesarean section when they pull them out literally wouldn’t fit in the newborn diapers and go get a number one diapers for him.

It was great. It was like definitely a wall hanger.

Adam: That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. When you said that, when you're an athlete in college, you have to basically already sign up for seven or eight hours of commitments. And then in addition to all the other, you know, academic rigor and things like that, that you're doing in school, I thought, Oh man, you're just like a natural balancing being a dad and a startup founder. Like you're already used to that number of hours in the day of commitments for things. So, kind of a natural fit there.

Patrick: Definitely. It's like getting up at 5: 30 every morning. I still do that.

Adam: Not a problem. Yeah. So I want to ask you a little bit about your wife. you have a long time partner. You have an 18 month old. What is your founding story with your wife?

Patrick: Yeah, we actually met at a college bar in San Diego. I was doing my master's program at the time, and she was finishing up her undergrad, and we met on St. Patrick's Day of all of all days and ended up kicking it off. And then I ended up moving up to the Bay probably about three months after that.

And then she moved back to Seattle. We did long distance for about a year. And then eventually she missed the sun. I hope to some extent missed me as well, and then came back down to California. And then we spent many years in the bay and then eventually ended up moving back to Seattle about five years ago.

Adam: All right. So maybe she missed the rain this time around.

Patrick: I think family. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: Probably. That checks out. And she works in ops. I think you said in, in customer support operations at a tech company?

Patrick: She's a customer success operations. she's been doing that now for say, about a little over 5 years, but before that did high network public tax accounting. So has her CPA and lot more rigid, I'd say, and by the book when it comes to those types of things.

Adam: Yeah, that's an intense. That's an intense job. I mean, not that her job now isn’t intense, but I wanted to ask because, you know, you found in a company, multiple companies. Now you've got a young kid. She works. At a tech company, which I'm sure there's some demand to that job. Just knowing what I know about this industry.

What was the decision like for the two of you to start a family?

Patrick: I mean, we've always definitely wanted to have kids. That was early on in even some of our conversations. And before we got married, we had a lot of these conversations as well. We got married back in 2018. Glad I remember the right year on that one.

Adam: Good job.

Patrick: They got back married in 2018. And it was really kind of a timing thing.

So when I left Alassian to work on Iteratively with Andre, it was really kind of a financial constraint at the time we were, you know, trying to, one, definitely want to make sure that the time and the energy was going into investing in the startup, but then two, from a financial constraint perspective, wanted to make sure that we weren't dipping into a lot of our savings at the time from there and then post the acquisition of Iteratively by Amplitude, I think that really just kind of opened up like, hey, this is kind of a perfect timing.

We're probably a little bit younger than what we originally had been planning on but it worked out. Well, we thought it was going to take us a little longer to get pregnant. We got pregnant relatively quickly. And Yeah, it was nice that I was able to Amplitude was able to for me a little bit of the flexibility of being able to take some time off, invest in that relationship, be very present for the birth of Chris as well.

And even the first year of kind of upbringing him into the world.

Adam: And then what about when it was time to leave Amplitude? You've got a young kid you've got, you know, Probably no revenue stream coming in there for a little while. And then you're going to go start a company. What was that conversation? Like, how did that go with with your wife?

Patrick: Not, it wasn’t an easy conversation. It was probably one of the hardest conversations I've had. You know, it's funny. You talk to investors, you talk to do co founder dating, and I think the biggest hurdle is trying to convince my wife that this was a good decision.

Adam: Checks out for me. Yeah.

Patrick: Yeah, it was for her. I think we wanted to have two kids.

Originally, it's probably three and still might be three. We'll see. We definitely we wanted two kids. So for her, it made the most sense for us to have the second kid while I was at Amplitude. So it left Amplitude a little bit early. It was in a very good position Amplitude as far as the hours I traveled a bunch, but generally the hours weren't too bad and stress level is relatively low.

Comparatively. And so for her, it was like, why don't we just stay and have another kid while you’re at Amplitude? And for me, it was like, yeah, but this is like a year of like the prime years working in tech with this whole, we're definitely on this huge wave in my mind when it comes to AI and things that are being unlocked right now within the industry.

And so definitely didn't want to miss that when it came to working on the next startup, so it's kind of a now or never situation for me. I very much am an all in type person. Personally, if I make my mind up, it's really trying to figure out like how to go get it done. And so once I had to kind of like, made up my mind up, she just says, okay, like, it's probably easier just to get on the boat and then go on this then to fight you tooth and nail.

She still looks at me funny every so often. I'd say like every couple of weeks, she looks at me like, is this the right decision? I was like, in, in general, but she sees how happy I am with the work that we're doing, with the team that we're building, with the problems that we're solving. And it's tangentially related to her own industry.

So she has some interest in it as well.

Adam: What you took away from Siqi's interview is this idea of work life balance is not really as we thought it was. And so like, if you're not happy in the thing that you're doing, it's probably hard to bring the energy home, right.

And be great at home. But if you're energized with what you're doing at work, and I heard Immad Akhund from Mercury said this exact same thing, what gives you energy that you can then bring home to your family and vice versa. And so it sounds like you made the right the right call there.

Patrick: Yeah, I couldn't be happier at this point. It's like a very different spot. Just headspace wise than where I was, I'd say 9, 12 months ago.

Adam: Did you write your wife an investment memo or put together a PowerPoint presentation or Google slides or something like that?

Patrick: So I've been thinking about this for about 18 months. So she's very much. And it's like, I don't well, I talk to people all day long. I'm not the most communicative person at home, because I'm usually I'm like, I'm tired of talking. So a lot of this was like with her, it was mostly her talking to me about the problems that she faces within her role as well.

And kind of having an unpacking a bit of the tech ops function at the company that she works at. And so I was like, yeah, you know, all those problems that you talk about at your company, yeah, we're solving a lot of those with this new startup. She's like, oh, okay. I get what you're doing. So that was actually kind of a nice thing is that it was kind of related to the space that she's in from that perspective I did share the deck with her. I shared all the information that we had from investors and she was very much kind of brought along on that journey, but the last startup was funny, we're living in a one bedroom apartment at the time, and my office was like squarely in the center.

So every single call I had, she could hear this time around, we're in a bigger house. It's like my office is upstairs. And so, yeah, a little bit more disconnected, I'd say from the actual company building part of this one. But yeah.

Adam: Yeah the first one, she was co founder by proxy, just by, by by osmosis. I love that also that you were basically conducting customer discovery on your wife for 18 months.

Patrick: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, last five years essentially.

Adam: Yeah, five, five years cause that's how long she's been doing this. Speaking of which how do you invest in your relationship with her? What's important for you?

Patrick: Great question. I think one of the pieces of feedback and advice I actually got from somebody a few weeks ago that really stuck with me was like this whole concept of When you walk through the door, you kiss your wife first, right? Not your kids. You don't pick up your kids and give them a hug.

You kiss your wife first. And then I was like, oh, interesting way for me to think about it. Because a lot of the times it's like when I saw our kid or anything, I'd be like, I'd run and give them a hug. It's like, I love them so much. Like, no, no, actually it's my wife comes first here. If you think about like the whole like evolution of like, hey, kids going off to college.

It's like, I want to make sure that we have a very strong relationship for after that chapter of our lives together as well. So like, I've been thinking a lot more about how we think about our relationship together typically the things that we do really well is we actually, we take time away from Chris and I have great parents in law who live close by.

So they'll watch them and we'll kind of do like weekend trips together. We travel a lot as a family as well. So when I'm unplugged, I'm unplugged. And so, and you know, we can take a three or four day vacation. We'll go do something and I'm pretty much offline the entire time. I'm spending time with the wife and the kid.

But I think definitely having trips with just my partner, it's been very beneficial to our relationship and times to have conversations. And the more I'd say frequently we have dinners together, so we'll just drop the kid off or we'll have a nanny come over and watch the kid during dinner.

And then we'll go out for a meal or go see a show together. And that's been really nice for us. We try to practice I'd say more proactive communication, and I definitely say that's an area that I can improve on. I'm like, no, she's probably going to watch this podcast and just give me shit, so I have to like hold myself accountable to that.

But yeah, proactive communication would be good and just like talking about how we're feeling to each other and being very open and honest about that. The other thing I realized is that, like, when I'm not feeling good, I'm very communicative about that. My wife never really, like, hey, like, raises the white flag and says, hey, I need a break, actually.

So that's one of the things that I'm looking for more is, like, signals from her on how she's feeling. So I can step in or can give her the support that she needs. But yeah, I definitely think that that's an area of opportunity for me.

Adam: Yeah. And you mentioned this concept of the first team which I know about from You know, company building perspective, but how is that apply at home?

Patrick: Yeah. It's funny, we're going through this exercise back at Amplitude around first team. And I really liked in the context of like, okay, cool. Like my wife and I were first team in the house. Like we're the first team we need to be aligned and dedicate as much support to each other over, you know, the relationships with the kids or anything else.

Right. And so like, I do like this concept of first team being applied to kind of the co parenting or parenting together model and that we need to be aligned and we need to have a unified front to effectively the inmates running the asylum below us. And we'll see how that works. I think it’s a concept that she and I have chatted a bit about and I found has been extremely helpful in the context of work in the past. And so with us, it's like, hey, we just need to be on the same page about how we communicate.

What are some of the principles at which we operate around? What are some of the rituals or things that we hold dear to each other? And I guess communication is very key to any relationship, including raising children together.

Adam: One thing I wanted to ask you, this is going back to, you mentioned, you know, traveling with your wife, you mentioned also doing little family trips. Have you taken your 18 month old on an airplane?

Patrick: Oh, he's got a frequent flyer number.

Adam: Wow. So, what are your door busting tips for keeping an 18 month old or younger I don't know, entertained on an airplane?

Patrick: he's probably been on close to a dozen flights at this point. He's gone to Italy. Italy is definitely the longest, but he's been in New York as well. He's about to go to Hawaii in a few weeks as well. And California and Austin, a bunch of other places. I think the, definitely like running, like getting them their energy out before getting on the plane is the best thing you can do.

Timing the flights to kind of coincide with nap time is also a really good thing to do. So we're trying to book flights where we know he'll be tired and sleep, especially on the international flights. 1 thing I realized internationally is that specifically when we travel to Europe is that it's just.

There's more systems in place to support parents that you have separate lines for parents. Everyone's very accommodating. Everyone's very understanding, which is just not the way it is to be able to hear with domestic travel in the U. S. It's funny. The 1 thing I think we waited to do too long was actually purchasing a travel stroller.

So I'd be lugging all the bags plus the stroller plus the car seat. And that was just a pain in my ass. Now we have a great travel stroller. We have a great car seat that goes with it and just makes life a little bit easier. We'll see how two kids is generally going through the airport.

I'll be interested, but yeah, with the toddler now, toys, we basically bring a bunch of toys, toys that he hasn't played with for weeks, if never, essentially, we bring a ton of snacks. Basically, again, he's like 99 percentile. Anyway, so as long as we feed them, it's effectively entertainment, which I have mixed feelings about.

But that also works really well. So, yeah, we basically are all hands on deck during a flight just to keep him quiet and entertained and happy 1, not obviously his sake, but also for the sake of others around us.

Adam: Yeah. A lot of what you said really resonates with me. have photos of me looking like dad Sherpa in the airport with just like bags strapped to every appendage on my body. Yeah, you just bring so much, you need so much gear when you're traveling with a young kid, even if it's just for like two days, you need the same amount of gear as if you're going to be gone for seven days the snacks thing really resonates.

I mean, my kids are older and I still meticulously assemble tasty treats for the plane. Cause you just never know what you're going to need to ply them with along the way. So, I love that. when you think about, you know, all the way back to when your son was born. What's the earliest memory that you have after becoming a dad?

Patrick: I mean, I literally remember the operation. So my wife is a cesarean. So I remember like this giant effectively like screen in front of my wife. So she couldn't see, but I'm tall, so I could see directly over. And they're like, Oh, there I go. Do you want to watch? I was like, yeah, I kind of do want to watch.

I'm a bit squeamish when it comes to some of those things, but for whatever it is, I was so, I mean, obviously so emotionally invested in this experience that I was like, I watched the entire thing and That was the first memory. I literally remember just seeing him get pulled out, like, as if it was yesterday of my wife.

And yeah, like, literally just the reaction from everybody in the room because of his size. It's kind of still I still find comical and then cleaning him off and putting that brought him and handing him to me. And then just me getting some skin to skin contact, I think, within a couple of minutes of them removing him and yeah, like just effectively falling in love with him at that point.

And my, my wife still recovering. So she you know, it was a decent surgery and was still kind of drugged up. So I was like, oh, this is great. And then they're like, she's like, oh, and I was like, do you want it? I was like, ah, maybe I'll keep him a little longer. And yeah, eventually gave him up to my wife and she gets a skin to skin as well.

But that was my first memory and still like vividly remember it to this day. I think what's funny about it is I didn't know what to expect going into it. I feel like it's one of those things that a lot of people talk about the experience. A lot of people, you can read however many books you want, but until you've gone through it, it's really hard to gauge how you're going to react and what you're going to feel.

And for me, I was, it's like, yeah, I just had to kind of live it before I can kind of sense how it was going to be.

Adam: That’s a really good point that you just mentioned about the going through the experience. I've been thinking a lot about this lately and just how experience trumps information and you can have all the information you want, but then it's always not quite like you've been told, you know? So I think that's really good.

Patrick: It's the same. You can read every book on building a company or doing a startup. Hard thing about hard things until you actually go do a startup. It's all theoretical.

Adam: Right. Right. Speaking of which, what are some of the more surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

Patrick: I I mean, I love baby cuddles, like, like, it's like this whole notion. I don't know. It's like, not like a super touchy fillies that person. Like, so, like, with Chris, it's like, oh, yeah, like, cuddling him or just like, oh, like, giving baby hugs. It's just such the best feeling in the world. You know, one of the things that I'm excited about, cause he's starting to take interest.

So he has his own, obviously his own personality now, his own interests, the things that he likes and like seeing him like fire trucks and cars, like, great. Like I'm going to go like, you know, have fire trucks and cars. I'm like, let's go look at those things. And just how much I'm more interested in the things that he's interested in now as well.

That is something that's been surprising to me as a dad. Yeah, so it's just every day is kind of a new adventure at this point. He's still very young, but he learns something new every single day and just seeing him process information and see him grow as an individual. Yeah, it's it's been fun.

Adam: Oh, that's amazing. When you think about there's obviously some of those more surprising things that you discovered, but what about Mistakes that you made as a dad. what's a regret that you had or something where you're like, Oh, that didn't quite go according to plan.

Patrick: I kind of shoot from the hip most of the time. So I kind of, felt like I was like, I'm going to wing it. This is a hard thing when it comes to like, I don't, I definitely think my expectations were off on how hard it was going to be. And um, as much as I've had hard experiences in the past growing up and I've gone through a bunch of adversity and like, work my ass off from a career perspective, it's really hard to put it in context on how much work having a kid is and how much it changes your life.

I don't think that was something that I was as aware of, I mean, obviously people say it, but it's like, until you're in it, it's hard to know. And so, like, even going into the hospital, it was like my wife's like, yeah, my, like, Patrick can go home, right? He doesn't have to stay here. Like, might be able to go home and take a good night's sleep.

And you're like, no, you're up every single hour, feeding the kid, changing the diapers. Like, I just didn't know. And so, I think for me, like some of the lack of awareness, I'd say, or just not having a really Crisp understanding of what it's going to take. For me, I think that was, was a mistake.

I, you know, I don't know if it was a mistake, but it definitely was something I wasn't expecting it to be as hard as it was. It was definitely harder than I thought. I used to say like, Iteratively was the hardest thing I've ever done. And now it's, you know, in comparison. I'm like, it's probably wasn't like raising a kid.

And this is all I'm going to get for the rest of my life, hopefully right at the end of the day. So, like, this is something that doesn't have a finite date to it. But, yeah, that was one thing that I thought a lot about. And, you know, it's funny. So, you know, we're obviously expecting another kid as well.

And I expect that to be equally as challenging, right? You're like you go from one plus one. My guess is it's not like it's not a linear progression in difficulty. My guess is it's an exponential progression in difficulty. You have to completely change your game plan from man to zone at some point, especially as the toddler gets older.

So we'll see how that goes.

Adam: Yeah. And then you'll have, I think, based on the calculus, you'll have two under two. So

that in, in and of itself is challenging. So I wish you the best of luck on that endeavor, but no you'll, you'll be great. So, many people before you have gone through this experience.

Patrick: Exactly, that was 1 nice thing. I think, putting in context of this humanity in general is that we've been doing this for thousands of years. Right? So it's like, you think about it that way. You're like, if other people can do it, I can definitely do it. It's like, it's a known quantity. But yeah, I think it was nice not to have so many preconceived notions going into it, but definitely was a surprise on how difficult it was.

Adam: Yeah, so, you know, you're not that far removed from being a brand new dad if you have an 18 month old but if you could hit the time machine and go back in time 18 months or 24 months or something like that what advice would you give that Patrick from the pre kid era?

Patrick: Yeah, I mean, it comes down to a couple of things. I think 1 self care and forgiveness, right? And I think worked my ass off going into birth of a care. I was working on launching a new product at Amplitude and, you know, put in a ton of time, energy into that. And so it was a little burned out.

I'd say going into being a new father as well. And so, yeah, focusing on self care, making sure you're in a really good head space, making sure that you're healthy and Looking after yourself so that you can look after somebody else effectively, putting your own mask on 1st, definitely something I'd recommend for folks.

The other thing is just forgiveness for yourself for others. Like, it's hard. You're going to be tired. There's a lot of new news, essentially things that you've never done before with a baby. I never changed a diaper before my own kid. So, yeah, there's a lot of mistakes that you'll make. So just leaving room for forgiveness for yourself and for others is definitely important. Understanding that you're probably going to be pretty short and irritable. And just like, that's part of, I feel like every parent's journey raising a kid at certain points and then yeah, just making sure that yeah, like you, you know, for us, we very much wanted to integrate our child into our lives and not center our lives around the child.

And so we still think about that a lot and, you know, we're trying to find the balance as well there where it's like. We still get to go do the things that we do. We still have our hobbies. We still have our friends. We're not just hanging out with other parents with kids, which it feels like is the most common and easiest thing to go do at this point.

And yeah, so yeah, I'd probably go self care and forgiveness and just make sure that, while you're incorporating another human being into your life, like you're still an individual yourself.

Adam: Is there something that somebody or another piece of advice that somebody gave you you That you got really like wound up about, and maybe you would tell yourself to ignore now, having put in some reps with an 18 month old?

Patrick: So, I mean, everyone gives you advice, which is funny, right? It's like similar to building a company. Like, everyone's going to give you feedback and advice. Some of them might be relevant. Some of them might not be relevant. Some of them might be 30 years out of date. And some of them might be actually like new research, right?

So, you know, very similarly, it's like, yeah, somebody pulled a company in 99. So I guess some of the advice is still probably relevant. Some of them might not be anymore. And so, especially when it comes to parents, it's like, you know, they had very different ways of sleep training, of feeding different methodologies that didn't exist or don't exist anymore for good reasons to compare to today.

So I tended to thank you everyone for their advice similar to how I thank somebody for their feedback doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to go implement it. And yeah, it's, I wouldn't be too wound up about it. It was a lot of folks are just trying to help. So I try to think take it with a grain of salt, but try to see the best in people that are there.

Adam: I love that parallel that you said you, when you're building a company, you also get a lot of advice. Always be thankful for that advice. Do not have to listen to it. I love that, love that perspective. So, you know, you're a busy guy. And one of the things that you mentioned is that it is really important for you to have rituals and defined quality time with your son. So what are the rituals that are important to you and your family?

Patrick: I mean, there's two things that are important to me. I traveled a lot for work last year. So I was gone three months, at least on the road at Amplitude during the first year of his life. And so for me, when I was at home, it's like, you know, I very much want to be like, travel a lot less now, still travel a bit.

And when I'm at home, I want to be the first person he sees when he wakes up. So like, as soon as he wakes up, starts crying, it's like, great, okay. You're not going to go back to sleep. I'm there and I pick him out of his crib. I give him a hug, I change his diaper. I give him a kiss. And then for there, it's like, I bring him down, make him breakfast since my wife can get ready to do her thing.

But I'm with the baby at the time. And then at night, it's like, great, 5:30 rolls around. I check offline for a bit. I go have dinner with the family, make dinner, do the dishes, hang out with Chris as best I can, and then we do bath time together and put him to the bed is a lot of that includes story time and reading books.

So I kind of love reading books to him. He loves books. He loves cuddling on the bed before we put him down. And so these things are a little more sacred to me. I'd say now that especially this time around, because like, there's always more work, right? There's an endless amount of work for a startup.

And I definitely don't want to miss these moments, and I want to think of them as pretty sacred. Like, yeah, I might miss dinner once a week if I have an event that I need to go to or something to do. But otherwise, if I'm home, I'm there. I'm not at my computer. I can always come back online. I do come back online afterwards.

But those things are sacred to me.

Adam: Yeah. And then do you have to, you know, as a founder, you probably have to put in some time on the weekend. So what is sort of the way that you prioritize or manage weekends?

Patrick: Yeah, mean, my wife and I have we sometimes do effectively take shifts on the weekends. So, like, both of us need to work, like, she'll take the morning shift. I'll take afternoon shift and then I'll work in the morning. Vice versa. But we always tend to have at least 1 day on the weekend where we're all together as a family.

We'll go on a walk or go on a hike. Go walk around Seattle, especially in the summer now it's beautiful here. So it's actually more compelling reasons to go out and hang out as a family outside. So we always typically have some event that we go do. Invite people over for dinner at night. and then the other day, typically Sunday, we'll work a little bit and that's been pretty helpful.

It's just like it's an easy way for me to get some extra hours on the startup. But it also means that I feel like I'm not missing something that otherwise would be missing or putting in a couple hours here, a couple hours there, but not making progress that I’d want on the startup.

Adam: You seem like you might be a frameworks guy. So I wanted to ask, because you worked in product for a while, so you've got to be a frameworks guy. Have you developed any particular frameworks or guardrails for parenting? 

Patrick: It’s funny, I’m so type A at work. I have all the frameworks. I love frameworks. The Alassian team playbook thing at Alassian. And I use a lot of those rituals outside of that now. So if you ever want to race here, Daisy it up with me. I'm like that's my thing. But it's funny outside of work I’m more laissez faire because I'm so typically structured in many of the hours of my day that I spent working to be outside. I tend to be a little bit more hands off. My wife tends to also take more of an active role and a lot of the planning and responsibilities there. And I'm more of a passive role.

I'm sure there's going to be times where that has to switch, but I typically go along for the flow. I also know the things where I can be helpful and the things where I'm less helpful. Or it causes conflicts. I tend to kind of just fall in line there. But yeah, as far as frameworks, I think the other thing that we tend to do a little bit differently is instead of being so rigid with nap time or feeding schedule or the exactly like the macros of all the food that Chris eats, we tend to just like read our baby or it's like, what does he want?

Is he tired? Is he hungry? Does he want to play? Does he want some solo time? Does he want to watch Bluey on the weekend, we tend to read him a little bit more and understand him as an individual and then try to kind of apply our parenting style to that versus us just being like, this is the way it is.

You have to do these things. That's just not who we are as individuals. And it allows him to have some autonomy and freedom as well. So it's like less structured. We try to make sure he goes down for a nap once a day at this point, but some days he's going to nap. Some days he's not going to nap. So it's like, great.

You don't want that. Let's go play. Let's go for a walk. Let's put you in the stroller do something. So that seems to work better for us than being super rigid around parenting.

Adam: What you just described is sort of the product manager approach to parenting, which is rather than cram a solution to a problem you'd understand. Just try to understand the problem. What is the job to be done of this child right now? And let's do that job.

Patrick: Situational awareness.

Adam: Exactly. Exactly. So, You know, I found that partnership is really important.

You've talked about this too. It's super important when you have kids, it's super important when you're building a company, but much like, you know, working with founders, it's also hard to agree with your spouse all the time. So where's an area that you and your wife don't agree on when it comes to parenting?

Patrick: There’s definitely arch types when it comes to parenting styles specifically in like more of a heterosexual relationship. And I think with us, like I had a dad who was a disciplinarian, so I don't want to be the disciplinarian mostly because that was my experience growing up. so I definitely think as he gets older, I'll be interested to see how that unfolds, but like for me right now, like I tend to spoil our kid like, like sweets, playtime you name it. I like, I just wanna like show him a ton of love unconditionally, just like love on him as much as I can. And my wife's so a lot more of the like, okay, like, hey, don't do that. We don't bite, we don't hit. I'm like, I'll just play with him.

Throw 'em up in the air and like, we'll we'll wrestle and do all those things now. And so I tend to fall into. To that role, good or bad. I think my wife wishes that it's a little more even probably maybe in the future, but right now I definitely feel like I get in trouble because it's, I tend to spoil them.

But yeah, the other thing that we didn't really agree on going into this was more around education. So my wife grew up going to private school her entire life. I grew up going to public school up until university. And so for me, I was like, yeah, I like public school. Like I learned a ton.

I can make friends with pretty much anybody. I have a very diverse friend network. And I tended to have very, I want to say distasteful opinion of private school growing up, but I definitely feel like folks weren't as well rounded or want to have as much exposure to the real world or what I would have called the real world.

And so like, I think that was definitely one area that we had some conflict on, but at this point it's like, I know how to pick my battles and this is a battle that I'm not going to win. So I'm not going to fight it. And yeah, my assumption is that our kids will go to private school growing up.

Adam: Know when to hold them and know when to fold them.

Patrick: Exactly. I play poker all the time. And unfortunately I like to, I do bluff every so often. This is one where I think my wife called my bluff.

Adam: I love that. I love that. Turns out she's the better poker player. Um, So your entire life has been built around technology. You know, you've started three companies, you've worked at a bunch, you invest in some tech companies. So you could say that it's a cornerstone of your life, your career. you think about the relationship that you want your son, your eventual kids, plural, to have with technology, what is that relationship?

Patrick: Yeah it's funny. Like once you know how the sausage is made, sometimes you don't want to eat the sausage. I think this was one where as a parent I'm definitely a little bit more paranoid or concerned about just things like social media in general. Like, I will probably be the dad that has like a pretty good firewall set up and parental controls on the network effectively going into our house.

And specifically I just want to make sure that our kids are safe for like, that's, I think what most parents care about. I had a very good relationship with technology growing up myself, right? Like I didn't have my first computer until I think I was probably 11 or 12 years old. But I got really into video games and like spent a lot of time doing that, but I felt like it was a very healthy relationship that I had.

So for me, it's like, I don't want to take away the opportunity for our kids to interact with technology or limit their use of it. I just want to make sure that it's done in a very proactive way. So when it comes to things like learning a foreign language, I think there's a great opportunity for technology to sign in there when it comes to study, when it comes to the ability to learn music to read, all these things that I care deeply about for our children.

I think technology can have an immense impact and value. But like, I still think having real books on the shelf and having a piano or real instruments to play are equally as valuable. And so, for me, I think everything in moderation is typically our approach. So we want to have technology in moderation.

We want to have technology in a way that serves a purpose and can be fun, but is also generally stimulating. In the right way.

Adam: I love that perspective. I like the moderation approach there. What is something that you had to give up when you became a dad?

Patrick: I feel like being a dad gets you really good at prioritization and getting things done that would typically take you a long time and a very little amount of time. And so I think you get really good at being like, okay, like, this might not be A plus work, but I don't need a plus worker to be B plus. So I still do a lot of the things I did before being a dad, just not as much as an example.

Like, I still hang out with friends, just not as much. I still fish, just not as much. And when I do, I appreciate them. I say a little bit more. I think that's part of the moderation angle as well. Right. So I don't want to necessarily give up all the things that I enjoy in life. I still want to be able to have hobbies.

It's just, how do I think about, you know, I don't need to be the best fly fisherman in the world. I don't need to be the best skier in the world. Whereas previously I would have wanted to like master the subject or I wouldn't be like, how did I become The best fly fisherman. And that's not the case at this point.

Like I just do it because it's fun because I need to be the best at it. And I mean, the thing that I probably do the least amount now that I used to do is I just don't watch TV shows. Like if I'm going to watch anything, it's a movie and it's like, you're like once a week on the weekend with my wife.

Otherwise I just don't have time.

Adam: I always have this feeling of like if I'm doing something like that. There's probably something else I should be doing with my time. It's hard because it's so entertaining. But yeah, I hear you on that when you Need to recharge and because work is hard, family, child raising is hard. What do you do?

How do you recharge your batteries?

Patrick: I think there's two things, right? There's like the slow drug and then there's like the supercharger. If you think about chargers in general, right? And I think like my slow trip, trickle charge is effectively like yoga. And I try to do yoga as much as I possibly can.

It usually happens to be like two or three times a week, but that's a good way for me to just keep my mental sanity and health and a good position. And then, yeah, as I mentioned, like, I like just spending one day a week to kind of underwine and not do anything and not really think about Anything other than just hanging out with my family.

And then I'd say like every couple of months, just having a trip that we can go on that just effectively allows us to reset the batteries. That's the fact that like the supercharger for me, like travel quality of time with the family. And right now I feel like we have a relatively good balance of that.

Like we have a bunch of vacations scheduled up where it's like every quarter we can go on a trip for three or four days. And I feel like that gives me something to look forward to. And helps break up a lot of the monotony. I feel like that you tend to fall into as a parent as well.

Adam: You've gone on a bunch of trips with your son and your wife, what's been the family favorite so far?

Patrick: Italy was really cool. We've done Italy before, but Italy this last year, we did the Dolomites with our son, had him on the backpack, just walking around, doing a lot of hiking. That was pretty cool. Yeah. I think Italy, it felt like it's just a very easy country to travel with a child and my wife's Italian and Croatian.

And so, like, A bit of history there as well. Yeah, we just had an amazing time. And like the hotels that we stayed at they haven't figured out. They have playrooms for the kids. Like all the waiters are very accommodating in the restaurants you go to versus here in the U S it feels like a lot of times, like going or doing anything with a child feels like it's a burden on somebody or like they're a lot less accommodating.

Adam: Yeah. Europe really has this dialed in super well. They love your kids. They like everywhere. You could take your kid to the fanciest restaurant. In Europe, and that's totally fine at like 11 o'clock at night. And they would be happy to have him.

Patrick: Yeah, we do have a pretty cute kid, which I think helps.

Adam: Not biased in any way. The other thing about Italy is, you know, kids love pasta. So you don't have to worry about the food.

Patrick: Yeah, we definitely had some people coming up and taking photos of our kid. Straight up lady in the trapping some spaghetti.

Adam: I love that. I was going to ask if he was just like shoveling handfuls of homemade spaghetti into his mouth. And it sounds like he was, so that's awesome. Well, it sounds like a really fun trip. All right. My last question for you, sir, before our rapid fire round, how can people follow along or be helpful to you?

Patrick: Yeah, it's funny. I typically ask that question to other people, but you can follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. I mean, we were pretty active on social media there, at least in the context of what we're building moving forward. I mean, we're the earliest stages of company building. If you're interested in following our journey, I'd say connect there.

We're also hiring as well. So folks are interested in a new role, paying us yeah, we're very excited about what we're working on.

Adam: Awesome. Well, I'm rooting for you and Austin, the rest of your founding team. I don't know your third co-founder, but, Andre.

Patrick: He's also a dad,

Adam: Oh man, I should have had all of you on the show. Well, yeah, anyways, I'm rooting for you all and let's get into rapid fire here. So rapid fire is very simple, there is, but one rule. I ask you a question, you say the first thing that comes to mind, and then we move on to the next question. Are you ready?

Patrick: Sounds good.

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

Patrick: Definitely a service, which would be a night nurse. So not necessarily a product, but very indispensable and definitely got us a lot of sanity during the first couple of months.

Adam: Awesome, I know a lot of people who have done that. this was not a thing that existed when I had my kids, I wish it did. What is the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?

Patrick: Got a really expensive German humidifier when Chris was first born because he's super stuffy and congested. We used it like the first two weeks and just sits in the room now at this point.

Adam: Most of the bad parenting purchases are out of desperation

Patrick: Yeah, for sure.

Adam: At midnight or something like that. So, finish this sentence. The ideal day with my kid involves this one activity.

Patrick: For me, it's definitely going to the park with them and just like play on the swing at the moment. It's like, he loves it. I love it. Giggles and laughs the entire time.

Adam: Awesome. Which one of your kids is your favorite or your dog,

Patrick: I do love my dog. I cuddle with my dog equally and we just started having the dog into bed with us at night. And yeah, I do love my dog, but definitely Chris is my favorite by far. We have a cat as well, but the cat's completely ignored at this point.

Adam: That's what I should have asked is of all of your furry friends, including your son, which one is your favorite? So, um, definitely Chris, definitely the human. What is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

Patrick: This is more recent, but we're actively doing potty training now and uh, dropped the diaper, got off like we're on the toilet for maybe 20 minutes and he runs straight to our new couch and just straight up pees on it. And that was that was a little frustrating for me. This is recent little bit of recency bias, but that happened like two weeks ago.

Adam: That is amazing. But you know what, as hard as potty training is, you will be so happy that he's potty trained before your next kid comes, like a hundred times over, you will be. So anyways, good luck to you on that journey. What is your go to dad wardrobe?

Patrick: So I'm a capsule wardrobe. I wear the exact same thing pretty much every day. I wear Lululemon tech t-shirts. I wear Lululemon shorts or Prada jeans if I'm going out. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Nike shoes, same thing every day.

Adam: Same thing every day. Just keep it simple. Steve Jobs style. How many parenting books do you have in your house?

Patrick: Uh, probably a dozen. I've read zero of them,

Adam: That was my next question, so we can move on. How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?

Patrick: Probably three or four per day. I think I usually only get like one or two chuckles though. So room for improvement.

Adam: That is the definition of a dad joke. Do you have a favorite? I don't know if you have a favorite you want to share. I don't want to put you on the spot here. But that is kind of the role of the rapid fire round.

Patrick: So, the one that I've been telling the most is related to Chris primarily, cause he the first, he knows beer as a word. So a lot of times whenever I bring a can, he'll go, oh, can I have the beer? And so the now and I'm there. Grandma or grandpa, he basically says it on demand and they just give me the evil eye.

So that's a pretty good, that's one that I've literally trained him to do specifically for grandma and grandpa.

Adam: That's awesome. Have you ever pretended to be asleep to avoid a middle of the night wake up?

Patrick: I know my wife's going to watch this, I plead the fifth on this.

Adam: No. Never. I would never do that. No one has ever said that. What is your favorite kids movie or TV show?

Patrick: Yeah, Bluey by far. I actually like Bluey and it's funny because if Chris like gets bored and will run away, like I'll finish the episode, which like otherwise I would never do.

Adam: Okay. The opposite side. What is the most painful or difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

Patrick: We kind of refuse to let them watch CocoMelon at this point. I think I don't have that one comes up with folks, but like I watched, I was like, okay, like, interesting. Let me like, see what this is all about. And I was just like, no, can't, I can't do it as an example.

Adam: I think Cocomelon holds the prize for the most often cited terrible TV show on this podcast. So, yeah. What is the worst experience that you have ever had assembling a kid's toy or a piece of furniture?

Patrick: When it goes back into IKEA furniture for me, it's like it was before having a kid, it was the same answer. And so even post having a kid, it's just, we, he has like a playroom. And so we like, we need stuff to put all this toys in there. Like I bought all this stuff at IKEA and had to assemble it. And there goes an entire weekend for me where DIY hack some stuff together as well, but it is what it is part of dad life, I guess.

Adam: Have you ever accidentally mixed up your dog and your child's names?

Patrick: Yes. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: But never the cat.Just the dog.

Patrick: Never the cat. Yeah. No, never the cat.

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

Patrick: Princess Bride. Yeah, Yeah, for sure.

Adam: Love that film. And finally. What is your take on minivans?

Patrick: If you asked me a week ago, I would have been a hard no. And then I just drove around on one this last weekend. I was like, oh they're not that bad. And I, you know, if you ask me a year from now, I'm gonna be like, we're gonna have a mini van. So like, we'll see. I still will say, probably not, but get the appeal now, let's just say that.

Adam: Okay. you're in the sales cycle. You're in the long, you're in the long sales cycle on the road to minivan town. All right. Well, Patrick, thank you so much for joining me today on startup dad. I wish you all the best of luck with Clarify. And it was just such a pleasure to have you and hear some of your stories.

So thank you.

Patrick: Of course, thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's episode of Startup Dad, a conversation with Patrick Thompson. 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 over 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.