Multicultural Families and Avoiding Over-Optimization of Parenting | Martin Pannier (Dad of 1, Founder/CEO Primo)

Martin: I think partner time can be a really quick, kind of easy collateral damage to having a first child or even a second one. And I think that's one of the things that we've really tried to focus on that we've not had to sacrifice. Where I'll sometimes just like, book a babysitter and say, okay, let's go.

We're going because otherwise before, you know, it, you know, weeks go by, but without any kind of quality time between your partner and yourself, so.

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 Martin Pannier. Martin is a French entrepreneur who started the company Primo to help small and medium sized businesses get their IT right for new employees.

He's also worked as a product leader at EasyWork. Gusto, and several others. He's a husband and the father of one young daughter. In our conversation today, we spoke about raising a daughter in a multicultural family. His wife is from the U.S., and he's from France. We discussed how to avoid the temptation to view parenting as an accomplishment or something to optimize, how you can maintain relationships outside of the family when it's hectic, and the balance of two working parents when one of them is a company founder.

We covered some of the most surprising aspects of becoming a dad and something he learned very quickly after his daughter was born. I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Martin Pannier.

Adam: I would like to welcome Martin Pannier to the Startup Dad program. Martin, it's a pleasure having you on the show today. Thanks for joining me.

Martin: Hey, Adam. Thanks for having me.

Adam: All right, Martin, let's get into it. Tell me about yourself. Give me a little bit about your background.

Martin: Sure. So I'm from Paris, Paris, France originally but I spent about a third of my life in the U.S. I'm a Sagittarius. I'm a dad of one, a runner who also enjoys kind of climbing and surfing which is not the best fit for Paris where we currently live with my wife and daughter the surfing on the Seine, they've been cleaning up the Seine for the Olympics, but it's still doesn't compare to California.

Yeah, I went to school in Paris was really interested in the startup scene. This was back in 2009. Startup scene was not such a popular choice in France at the time. So naturally I went to work in consulting and it ended up being that I was a terrible consultant. And uh, I was really fortunate that one of the partners sat me down one day and over lunch and basically fired me.

He told me, he told me, look, consulting is not what you want to be doing. It's not what you're good at, go figure that out. It was a really important moment for me because kind of having nothing left to lose in a way. I kind of reconsidered my passion for startups. And yeah, gotten in the startup scene, started a first company, shut it down after a year and a half was great experience, but ultimately, didn't get enough traction to kind of justify to spend time on it and move to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. And kind of had my formative professional years in a couple of startups in Silicon Valley. Most recently a company called Gusto, which is an all in one HR platform for SMBs. Met my wife there, Stephanie. And after a couple of years, moved back to France where we've been now for the past six years I was fortunate to join a really kind of big like scaling company called EasyWork, which is a temp work agency kind of digital temp work agency. And we went from 10 to 350 employees over three years. And. It was a really interesting experience. And one of the things that stuck to me was and that was the case over like all the experiences, but easy work really drove home the point for me is like, you know, as a VP of products in this company, we kind of got put in charge of it. The first, I remember my first day, a lot of the people in the company weren't so tech savvy and my first day, somebody came to me and said, look, my computer is not starting up. Can you help me with it? And I was like, wow you know, I team management is actually like pretty painful for a lot of these small companies. And so, yeah, after three years of easy work, I felt like the time was right and kind of broke off and started Primo to kind of fix that I.T., kind of management problem that I saw for SMBs.

And so, yeah, right now I'm the co-founder and CEO of Primo. And so essentially we do an all in one IT platform for SMBs. So, you know, with Primo, the idea is that onboarding and onboarding your employees on your whole IT stack takes a couple minutes. So buying the equipment, setting it up, creating the accounts in Notion, Slack, HubSpot, GitHub, you know, whatever that is. And then of course, offboarding, like removing all of that, getting the equipment back, all of this life cycle. We try to make a lot easier. So that's a bit about my background and why I'm here today.

Adam: Awesome. So it's sort of like a sister product to Gusto in a way. Gusto handles like the payroll and like making sure people get paid. And Primo does sort of everything else, making sure you can be productive at your job and get onboarded quickly and stuff like that.

Martin: That's exactly, that's exact.

Adam: I've mastered the pitch.

Martin: You've mastered the pitch.

Adam: Put me in coach. I'm ready.

Martin: You're a product person for sure, no doubt.

Adam: Yes. So, you know, I want to talk a little bit about life growing up for you. So you grew up in Paris and then the States and kind of bopped back and forth. Tell me about your family growing up and what were you like as a kid?

Martin: Yeah. So I come from a family of five, so two parents and three siblings. Both of my parents we're pretty traditional about work. My dad is a international civil servant who's worked cabinet positions in France and then worked at the world bank in the OECD and the world bank was actually what got us into Washington, DC when I was a kid.

And my mom's a doctor. So, you know, neither of them really like super gung ho about this, like startup scene that was trying to get into no prestige and a bunch of bearded people that, they didn't want to trust that much. And so, yeah, so always been a kind of interesting point of tension between me and my parents that you know, of course now is completely resolved, but at the time, like they really questioned my wisdom to kind of go into this space.

My sister was the proper one. She actually just did the same studies as my dad, followed in my dad's footsteps. And she's now number two at the French space agency. So she's the pride of the family for sure.

Adam: That's amazing.

Martin: Yeah. And my brother has a bit of a specific story. He is originally from Russia and we adopted him when we were in the U.S. And he has cerebral palsy. So he it's kind of like half between kind of assisted living and living with my parents. So, yeah, overall, My parents were both kind of Catholic. Pretty, I would say simple normal, you know, upper middle class upbringing really and yeah, as a kid, really happy, happy kid, like not very active, like pretty nerdy.

Like I would spend a lot of time reading books at school, like the alarm would ring to signal the end of classes and everybody could rush out of the classroom and I would just walk out and go to the recreational, like space and just sit down in a corner and open a book and start reading.

Adam: Uh huh.

Martin: Until the end of the rec time kind of around. And as a teenager. I would say I was like not that good in school to the despair of my parents for obvious reasons. My scorecards would come back and say, Martin's smart, but why does he just not work? And it's always been an interesting thing. When I look back on it I'm not entirely clear why, what I do know is when I left that school and I went into prep school, which is in France, after 18, you kind of go to that before you go to university. In prep school suddenly I started working like a maniac. So, of interesting how these things go, but not sure why. I just maybe wanted to punish my parents for some obscure reason.

Adam: Well, maybe you always had that entrepreneurial book, right? Which, you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that don't schools, like not for them, you know, but building companies is, and so, but yeah, you really turned that around cause man, you can't build a company without putting in some work, or raise a family,

Martin: Yeah, or raise a family and especially not do both at the same time.

Adam: Right. Exactly. So that's actually a really good segue. Let's talk about your family now. So you obviously mentioned your wife, Steph. So you have a partner, you have one daughter, if I'm not mistaken, nine months. So tell me a little bit more about your family and, how'd you meet Steph?

Martin: So as you said, my partner's name is Steph. We met at Gusto. She was working in product marketing and I was working in product and she was, you know, always very striking to me. I kind of noticed her pretty, pretty early on. The first time we interacted was at the kind of company Christmas party.

We were all walking to the bar at the same time. And I said something to the effect of, do you want me to buy you a drink? Which is of course a, a very corny joke because this is a company party and the drinks are free, right. So she was with a friend who did the right thing and just told me to go away and leave them alone. She was probably not impressed with my sense of humor. And after that we got put together on a project and it was a really like a tier three project. It wasn't like that interesting or that impactful for the company, but we really enjoyed working together quite a bit.

And then we really just insisted to stay working on this project. And I think our managers were like really confused or like why are they insisting to work on this? This is like not an interesting topic. And yeah, one thing led to another. And then you know, suddenly we were kind of going out and yeah, so that's kind of how I met Steph, which is you know, I think really something that hopefully is not going to get lost too much with the switch to remote companies and remote working, right? It's something I think about often. I'm like, how are people going to meet? One of the main sources of meeting people is work. And I know for me, it's it was something that was obviously very formative in my life.

And yeah, Juno is nine months old, so she is an absolute delight. Love having her around. It's, I just sometimes I just sit on the carpet, you know, next to her and just watch her play. And I'm like, wow, this is

Adam: Yeah.

Martin: Pretty incredible stuff.

Adam: Yeah. And at nine months, kids get pretty lively, right? Like up until about six months, they can't do much. Then six months, they enter that like, a friend of mine referred to this as the potted plant stage where you can like sit them in a chair and they're just like a potted plant. They'll just kind of like sit there.

Martin: Oh

Adam: And you can like try to jam some food in their face and stuff. But like nine months, like they're getting into, you know, crawling, maybe they're moving around a bit. So like, they're starting to get pretty fun.

Martin: I will say because we've had this conversation with a lot of Dads, right? I think a lot of dads report that in the first six months, it's kind of hard for them to, this is not a hundred percent of dads, by the way, just to be very, very clear. But a lot of them, a lot of my friends for the first six months, they say it's kind of hard to have that rapport with a child.

I call you call it the potted plant. I call it the potato phase.

Adam: Siqi Chen referred to it as a potato on the show. About a month ago.

Martin: There you go, right? So, potato phase, but I was certainly really, really fortunate with, you know, she, I think laughed, she produced her first laugh. She was maybe three and a half months old and she's always been very kind of engaging, very much like she'll stare straight into your eyes and it doesn't feel like she's just like staring out into the void.

You know, she's really like looking at you. And so it's been a lot easier to kind of build that rapport really, really early on with her, which has been really, really delightful.

Adam: That's so awesome. And then you and Steph have moved back to France. You're not in France currently, as I understand. You're actually in my home state of Michigan, which is where Steph is from, if I'm not mistaken. Was it hard to convince her to move to France with you? Or was it like, oh no, of course, France.

Let's go, right now.

Martin: So there's actually a funny story there. And we've kind of never told the story publicly. So

Adam: First time reveals on Startup Dad, always a fan.

Martin: Reveals on Startup Dad. Absolutely. We'd been dating for three months officially and I'd been in San Francisco for six years and I was starting to get really homesick. And I, at one point kind of just had a mind switch and said, look, I really got to go back to France. I can't stay here anymore.

And, San Francisco is a very hard place to leave. Like it's an amazing place. I mean, people will say whatever they want, especially nowadays. They'll say it's like, you know, but the region is beautiful. There's hiking, there's the sea, there's Tahoe. There's, it's just really hard to get out of there.

And so I was like, I really need to do something radical. I need to go. And I kind of sprung that on Steph. We've been dating for three months. We've been involved for a lot longer, but we've been only dating for three months. And so I left kind of November 1st kind of that year and we met for my birthday a month and a half later, halfway in New York.

And she tells me, by the way, I got one way tickets to Europe in February. I'm coming. And so we'd been calling each other like, you know, every day we'd been on the phone we'd been very much still like, you know, talking a lot. But I was really not expecting her to kind of tell me that. And yeah, she was like, I'm just, I'm coming to Europe.

And the initial plan was like six months in Paris, six months in Berlin and six months in Barcelona. And then, you know, we shall see, and maybe like go back to San Francisco. But of course that was kind of like a fake plan. She went straight to Paris. And when she arrived, you know, I had a long term rental.

And we just moved in and we'd kind of been officially dating for five months. Or I guess six months really of which three months long distance. And suddenly we're like living in this tiny Parisian apartment. Um, so yeah, so like long story short it didn't take like a whole lot of convincing.

I think she was ready for an adventure. She's a very kind of strong willed person.

Adam: Sounds like a Parisian woman, actually. I know many.

Martin: She fits right in. Let me tell you.

Adam: That's awesome.

Martin: And I'm really happy that she did that like, I don't know how it is for some guys, but I think I needed that kind of strong minded person also to kind of take charge a little bit of that part and say like this is serious. Let's do it, you know, cause otherwise I think the temptation is there to be a non committal.

So I think it was great that she really kind of forced the issue in the most positive, constructive way. Right. Which was really awesome.

Adam: So she's also a tech executive and so first thing that comes to mind is what was that experience like of deciding to start a family? You're also founding a company, you know, she's working full time.

Like, that's a lot. So what was that conversation like? Did you always know you were going to have kids?

Martin: It's a really interesting question. I think for us, it was kind of a natural thing to do. It was kind of always clear that we would want kids, how old were you when you had your eldest?

Adam: 29 or 30 I think pretty close. Yeah, I think I had just turned 30.

Martin: Yeah, see, like, you know, when we had Juno, which was again last year, so not that long ago, I was 36. So, you know, I think at a certain stage you get to the point where, okay, you know, there's quote unquote, never the perfect time. It's not like there's ever this like magical moment where like, okay, absolutely, let's have kids. But we were like, we both lived very full lives. We've traveled, we've, you know, had adventures. We're not getting any younger, you know, let's just do it. And the rest will work itself out. I will say one thing is that being in France, I think was somewhat helpful to the decision because the support structures are like much, much better here. It's much more affordable.

Like we have basically full time nanny for, you know, say like 900 euros a month which you know, it relieves a lot of that kind of both time pressure, but also financial pressure, especially as an entrepreneur where early stage entrepreneurship, you're not making the big bucks. Uh,

Adam: Right.

Martin: Right? So it was always really, really helpful to know that.

And to know that my parents were like, you know, in Paris and definitely more than ready and willing to help. So that was definitely like on the logistical side a huge help, but yeah, for us, we didn't do it particularly early. I think it was the right time for us to kind of like get moving on that front.

For sure.

Adam: Yeah. So when you're at a company that you own, or started at least I guess, you know, it's always a question of who really owns the company, the investors, you.

Martin: Kind of the same thing as who owns our house. It's like we own our house, but really the bank owns our house. Let's be real.

Adam: What was it like to, You know, have a newborn and be running a company. like, how did you think about taking time off?

Did you have to have a conversation with your co founders? You know, how'd you communicate that to the other people you work with at the company? 

Martin: It was an interesting process. Not entirely guilt free. Kind of on both ends, right? On the company end and on the family end. I think ultimately it was a balancing act. I think it was really important for me to take time off and to be there both for Juno, but of course, also for Steph, I think, you know, the main impact that you can have as a father on parental leave is, wife support.

Cause you know, as a breastfeeding mom she's carrying most of the, she's carrying the team. So I'm helping carry her, but she's doing most of the work. She had expectations for a big parental leave. You know, I think we're very much like kind of San Francisco startup culture. She definitely had those expectations.

Ultimately the right thing we settled on a month of I believe, which I think was a good balance. I think it could have been a bit more. One thing that I took away from that is, you know, of course, things slow down a bit. And of course, I was not 100 percent off. Like, you're still kind of somewhat connected and there to respond to some quick fire questions and help with some kind of you know, important decisions.

But I was pretty happy to see that overall, like when you recruit the right people and give them the right guidance, like a month, you know, when you're in the thick of things, a month just flies by and it's both a lot of time and actually not that much time. And so it was nice for me to see that I could like go for a month and come back and be like, wow, actually I'm like impressed at, you know, how much you guys have done while I was like out.

So that was a nice feeling. And ultimately, you know, I think both the investors and Steph kind of felt happy about where we landed. So I think. That kind of shows that even though for me, like I was feeling guilty on both sides, like ultimately it was like a successful negotiation, if you will, between kind of the parties

Adam: oh, that's great. That's great. And a month is pretty good. I mean, especially in a startup time that can feel like an eternity sometimes, a lot happens in a month, but you know, sounds like the idea of being a leader that can put other people in a place where they don't necessarily need you all the time, you know, that's a good thing.

Martin: And I'll add something versus that because we wanted to build a company with mostly senior people that, you know, bring this experience and we don't have to kind of like teach them everything. They're still hungry and they're still working hard. But they're not going to be this like kind of crazy young wolf 20 year old energy, just like working nonstop, but also kind of like, you know, a lot of energy going a lot of different directions. But one side effect of that is that we actually have quite a few parents or parents to be. 

And I think it was also important for me to model what I thought was the right balance, which is not like I don't want to set this expectation that you're going to take like a week and then come back.

Certainly not for France. Not in the culture. You know, I believe is at least two months. So I wanted to kind of like set that expectation and balance and role model that, of course, I want Primo to be super successful. And I recognize we're going to get there by working hard. But we're also going to get there by, we're mostly going to get there by working really smart, hence the people with experience, and then by also balancing all of the other important facets of our lives, because at one point, if one of those facets, like, completely explodes, it's definitely gonna have a, you know, big repercussions on the quality of your work, right?

So so I think kind of to your point it was really important in terms of like being that leader to show that you know you can take time anybody can take a month off and the company's like mostly fine and for family reasons is like some of the best reasons of all.

Adam: No, that's great. And, you mentioned something that's really interesting there, which is like, hey, the culture of France is like, you're not going to take a week off and then come back. And that a really interesting point because you have a multicultural family now, so you've got you, French.

Also sometime in the States, you've got Steph, Michigan might as well be its own country. I know, I'm from there, the Midwest. then you've got a daughter who's, you know, It's going to be both right French and American. I'm very jealous of her passport situation. And so, you know, I'm really curious how the multicultural aspect has gone for the two of you, you know, are there competing parenting styles between like, somebody who was kind of born and raised in the U S somebody who's born and raised in France. And then also I'm curious. Are there competing grandparenting styles?

So like, US based grandparents probably think very differently than, you know, French grandparents. And so I'm just curious, like, does that create conflict? Does it actually work really well? How do you navigate that in your household?

Martin: If I'm going to start with the competing parenting styles I love that question. We think about these like competing cultures like quite a lot. I think there's like kind of two things. One is absolutely there is competing parenting styles. And I think The U. S. style is a bit more involved and a bit more. Let's say extreme of the U.S. Parenting style is like helicopter parenting, right? Or tiger parenting. That's taken to the extreme. I'm not saying this is like, right? Taken to the extreme. French parenting styles like laissez faire parenting. And so what I think is really interesting is that, first of all, neither of us are at these extremes.

We're pretty like moderate and pragmatic already in that kind of spectrum of styles. Right. And then we're having to actively negotiate that. And so I think what's even more interesting is we end up even more in the middle. And the older I get, the more I think, honestly, like the truth or the most kind of sensible is generally around the middle.

You know, the most sensible thing in many, many situations is like generally around the middle. So that's the first thing I will say about that. The second thing is there's US versus France, but kind of, as you said, you know, Michigan might be its own country in a way. San Francisco, Silicon Valley might be its own country in a way.

I mean, talk about a place that's like, you know, really, really different from like, you know, I don't know, rural Arizona or something. And so I think like a good way to think about cultural differences is also like. Rural versus big city you know, type A versus, you know, career driven versus not career driven.

And actually on those dimensions, you know, having met in San Francisco, having met at the same company and both being, you know, ambitious being ambitious about the quality of our professional lives. I think that gives us a lot more in common than there is. Separate. And I think that ultimately what was great about that is that there were not that many debates, not about the core things.

I think about the core things really were very much aligned on many things. And that's made it like a far kind of easier process to navigate. So we'll fight on like how much sunscreen to apply to, you know, like when we go out, you know, But on the core stuff, like how we should raise her you know, how much we should drive her versus just love her, like those kinds of things, like we're really just really aligned, and that's been really nice. On grandparenting styles. I don't know what your experience is, Adam, but you don't need cultural differences to have competing grandparenting styles.

Adam: This Is true. This is true.

Martin: That's been my experience talking to my friends, seeing my, brother and sister, well most of my sister, my brother isn't married, but you know, grandparents, I mean, I love them to death. both sets, both sides, but yeah, they come in with, they come in with very competing styles.

And then you tell them, no, this is really like how I'd like to, you know, raise my child and how I'd like, you know, this to go. And they go like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And then proceed to completely ignore everything that you're saying

Adam: Right.

Martin: And do your thing. I don't know. Has that not been your experience?

Maybe you have some special grandparents.

Adam: They grandparents tend to march to the beat of their own drum. It's less so cultural, I think, more generational, just things are so different from when they were parenting. Right? In good and bad ways.

Martin: I love that. It's really, yeah, that generational thing. And I, yeah, absolutely.

Adam: Well, that's good and I'm glad to hear that you know, you managed to survive the grandparents. Can you think of a,a terrible piece of parenting advice that you got From a grandparent?

Martin: You know, I like that question. I would say no. In fact, if anything, I would say really the parenting advice has been really good overall. What's I think not been as smooth is like kind of day to day parenting. So, for example, Juno is in a stage where she's kind of starting to eat a lot of solids on top of breast milk. And we came into the kitchen like two days ago and the parents were like feeding her gravy and I'm like, I understand the transition of solids, but gravy is an absolute no-go.

Adam: Yeah.

That sounds like Michigan to me. I mean, you're just eat some gravy, hook it up to an iv. Why not?

Martin: It could have been, it could have been like you know, in France, my parents could have like fed her blue cheese or something. I don't know. That's not an actual example. Don't call child services. But it's like, no, like no added salts, no added sugar, you know, simple foods, no process, like no, nothing.

Okay. It's like on these kinds of things that the tension like appears more. But if you think about like the advice that they give you, you know, I think as new parents, you don't always want to hear it because with their experience now, they're like, Oh, you're overthinking things so much, but overthinking is part of being a new parent and that's, it's okay.

And so they're telling you, oh, like chill out. You'll see things will be fine. And you're like, well, that's not helpful to me. You know, I got to learn that lesson

myself. Over time, as I see that my kid is now fine, you know, because if I like start out saying, oh, like all good, my kid's totally fine. And I don't know if something might happen to them. So overall it's been like good advice. Just yeah. Kind of hard to, hard to hear really mostly as new parent.

Adam: Well, and now your daughter's going to grow up loving gravy. Probably. So this is a thing. It's really going to happen. It's like a true Michigander.

Martin: A true Michigander. I love that. Steph is not going to be happy about Juno loving gravy. Let me tell you that.

Adam: When you think back to Juno being born, what's the earliest memory that you have of becoming a father?

Martin: Earliest memory is saying something really, really funny. And then the nurse looks at me deadpan and goes like, that's a dad joke. I'm like, wow, it's official.

Adam: Yeah.

Martin: No, unfortunately my humor has been dad humor for a long time now. It was a really interesting kind of process.

First of all, I think one of the, you know, earliest memories of course, is Juno's birth itself went into it without really, well, first of all, I went into it scared shitless, but without like a strong expectation of like what was going to happen or how intense it was going to be. And I have this really clear memory of like Steph during contractions, basically grinding my hand down to dust.

And I was like, wow, this is like, you know, way more intense than I expected and I'm kind of happy to be a dad right now and not a mom, you know. And then seeing Juno come out and guess first memory is really like relief and relief and joy for Steph. And then a couple days later, just doing skin to skin, I'm like, oh, wow, this is pretty, you know, pretty incredible stuff.

Having that little, tiny, little human being sleeping on your chest. It was a nice memory.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Martin: It's a jumble of emotions, really. I think, you know, don't know, like, what it is for you, but, you know, I'd love to kind of hear about it, actually, but for me, it's kind of hard to single out one emotion.

It was just one emotion or one memory. It's just like, a continuation from, like, pregnancy to kind of early birth, even to now. It's just like a journey and I'm trying to, like, be present at each stage of the journey and enjoying what each stage of the journey has to offer, right?

Without kind of trying to get in my head too much.

Adam: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about something that we kind of talked about a little bit in our prep for the show, which is somewhat related to this idea of enjoying the journey at these different phases. And that's there's a temptation to view parenting. You described it as like an accomplishment or applying a lot of optimization to family life.

And we optimize in our jobs all day long, right? Like I think about efficiency across everything. It's just like how I'm wired, but it's not always the case with parenting. So tell me more about this idea of parenting as an accomplishment or trying to avoid optimizing family life. 

Martin: So first off. A bit of a disclaimer, Juno is nine months old. And so, you know, who knows uh, you know, maybe when she's like 15, 16, 17, we'll really get into that optimization mindset because we'll want her to go like to, you know, a good school. And so we'll have, we'll get a tutor and we'll, you know, you read a lot and you hear a lot through the grapevine about these parents and there's, so again, just the disclaimer is to say that there's no judgment.

Right. And. I can only talk to you about how I feel right now. And for all I know, I'll just learn my lesson and be very different in the future, but you kind of hear through the grapevine and read about these parents and you feel like the kid is the parent's product.

Adam: mm

Martin: And they kind of measure their accomplishment as parents on how successful the child is.

And I think that leads to that, like, potentially to the extreme, to that helicopter parenting where kids kind of never, you know, you don't, the risk there is that you don't listen to the kid enough and you try to like push too much onto him or her. And, you know, ultimately your child is not a way to redo your life and relitigate your failures.

And I think there's one thing where we're lucky from that perspective is that Juno already at this young age certainly comes across to us as having strong opinions and be a strong willed woman. And so she's kind of reminding us that we're here to, you know, be there along for the journey with her.

Not so much to like, give her the tools maybe, but we're not viewing it as like, we absolutely have to make Juno successful. We'll give her the tools and she'll do with the tools that she wants. And I think it's this important kind of push and pull between pushing and listening. And so again, you know, kind of hard to say exactly what we'll do.

But we certainly want to be those chill parents too, where we'll be like listening to her and viewing ourselves as like this, like support network, not this like source of pressure. So on a day to day basis. What does that mean? It means in an interesting way I'm trying to segregate, certainly personally, and I know Steph does the same, but we try to segregate our work mindset from our family mindset.

And I know a lot of people, they want to unify that. They want to have this like single mindset that applies generally throughout their lives, right? What I found instead is that context really matters and I don't want to behave the same way as a manager to a team or as a leader to a small startup, as I want to behave in my family, as I want to behave with my friends.

I'm like a bit of a different person for each. And so I'll be super organized. I'll have like Notion and task management for my work life. I am never ever setting up a Notion for family life. Not judging people who do. I know my co-founder has like a task manager with his wife. So I think it's like, okay, but yeah, certainly we want to like, kind of do that differently.

And so we want to actually actively segregate those mindsets and those tools and those habits and keep that flexibility and play with ourselves a little bit and be able to be this like person. While always being ourselves, being person A in family, person B at work, and person C with friends.

Adam: Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's a great perspective to have there. What surprised you the most about becoming a dad?

Martin: One of the things that surprised me the most, to be honest, is how kind of natural it's felt. And I think it's a byproduct of two important things, is one, having a great partnership. I think that certainly eases the transition quite a bit. And two, like, having done it quite a bit later in life, where, you know, most of your friends are already parents.

So we're really not know, doing this in a vacuum. I know one of my best friends and my best man, like he was the first one in our group to have kids. He has six now, by the way.

Adam: I should get him on the show.

Martin: Yeah.

Adam: I don't know how he'll have time, but we'll get him.

Martin: He's also not in startups at all, but that being said, he more than makes up for it and being a dad. And you know, I think for them it was like a lot harder because they were really the first ones to, in their lifestyle, really kind of changed, bifurcated from the group's lifestyle, like, really, really early on.

For us, it's actually like, our lifestyle is bifurcated for not having kids. And now that we have kids we are essentially kind of like getting in the same groove as most of our friends. And that's been a really kind of nice feeling. And so, really, that's been like one of the more surprising things is again, like, yeah, how natural it's felt. And that's been a really, really nice feeling.

Adam: Is there a competition? You, You maybe mentioned surprising, thing about diaper changing ability. Is that a thing in your household? Who's the better diaper changer between you and Steph?

Martin: So Steph is so good at the emotional kind of side of things, everything that's like intuition, whenever there's a process to be followed in a methodical way. it's not her strong suit. So sometimes I go and want to change a diaper for Juno. And then I see that the diaper is basically put on backwards or you know how there's like these two scratches and like one of them is like set around the middle, but one of them is like at the edge.

And so the diaper is like all wonky and anyways, yeah, so I'm definitely like in charge of like those parts which has been an interesting kind of way to get to know your partner a little bit better, you know, for us, certainly. No huge surprises there. Nothing that I wasn't expecting with Steph.

Other than, you know, how awesome it is to be able to kind of just partner on this adventure.

Adam: What's one thing that you learned really quickly after Juno was born? Like right away where you're like, oh, I got to do this.

Martin: Two things. One, I learned that parental leave is not what I thought it was. what I thought it was, is like a month off. Um,

Adam: Yeah. Great.

Martin: You know, I'm going to be able to do stuff around the house and some home improvements and like stuff like that. And maybe some like kind of deep strategy work on Primo and Steph was going to be able to like take French lessons and absolutely not.

It's like a fight for survival. Nothing that your listeners will not know. Most of them are, dads, seriously, though, the one, the main thing that I learned was whenever Juno sleeps if you can sleep, Like on weekends or stuff like that especially at a young age where the nights are not getting kind of completed end to end you really got to kind of take that opportunity, I guess, really, whenever Juno sleeps, it's like you've got that hour and a half, you can sleep, you know, but in general, that's the golden time.

Like if you got some stuff to do, like now's the time to do it. And that, of course, includes napping, but really optimizing for that time, I think, was one of the things. Cause you know this better than anybody with two kids. Cause I think that's like, you know, kind of two times more. But when your kids awake it's just a lot harder to be focused on anything.

And again, which is why it's even worse with two kids. So when they're sleeping, go, go, go.

Adam: Yeah, the idea of sleeping when they're sleeping is well, one, I mean, I love naps. I appreciate them much more as a parent than I did beforehand. the other thing is like, it's hard to get yourself to say, okay, now I can sleep because you like, look around your house and you're like, there's a million things that need to be done right now.

And I have this window of time. And so you almost have to not, you know, beat yourself up too much to be like, you know, what Mount Laundry is going to stay there. I need to rest. So that's what we're going to do,

Martin: That's a thing that I think you learn. You know, when you're not a parent, you might go to some friend's house to kind of like, wow, they've kind of really let themselves go a little bit. And then you become a parent and then you go like, you know, I should have not…

Adam: Judged.

Martin: Judged anybody, you know?

Adam: Yeah.

Martin: Because you know, once you really get into the thick of things, there's just way more to do than fits in an average day. And so, yeah, you really got to like, kind of make some small sacrifices and kind of let go of some small things. And it's a work of patience and really, yeah, letting go is super important.

Adam: Speaking of letting go, one of the things that I hear from a lot of folks is that maintaining relationships outside of the immediate family gets a lot harder when you have kids. How have you prioritized doing that you know, with the overlap and being a busy parent and a startup founder and like all the things?

Martin: I mean, the honest answer is I, haven't as much. I explained to my best friends that, you know, these are going to be a couple of years where I'm not going to be as present and it's going to be a lot harder to kind of make that time. So that being said, where we're lucky is with one child, it's still pretty flexible.

You know, I don't know if you remember that time, maybe before your second was born, but because there's only one child, like you can somewhat at the start of the week, say, okay, you know, tonight or that's the night in the week where I get off and that's the night in the week where you get off and maybe we can get a babysitter for Saturday and we both kind of do something social together and with friends.

So, we're still managing to see friends at least like, you know, once a week but yeah, between working out. You know, staying healthy seeing friends, seeing family work and kind of the core family unit, it's a lot. I think if people kind of go into parenting with the expectation that they're going to be able to maintain their social life, I don't think that's the right expectation.

Adam: Right.

Martin: I think you have to be okay with at least a temporary or what you think in your mind is a temporary decrease in social time.

Adam: Yeah. It's almost like when you went into, you know, parental leave, you and Steph were both like, ah, we'll do all these things. And you're like, nope. We learned that real quick. Like gotta make some adjustments to our expectations.

Martin: Absolutely. Some sacrifices and some adjustments. 100%.

Adam: what's your favorite book to read to Juno?

Martin: My favorite book to read to Juno is, Sheep in a Jeep.

Adam: We've owned that book. I know that book. They crash into a tree because they're having too much fun.

Martin: Cause they're having too much fun. And then Jeep for Sale.

Adam: Yes. Love that book.

Martin: Awesome book. I love it. Let's be honest, Juno is nine months old. She's not understanding much what's going on in the book. So might as well read a book that I love. And that is really Sheep In A Jeep.

Adam: Right.

I mean, I know that Sheep In A Jeep is not War and Peace or anything like that in terms of length, but have you memorized? Like, can you read that book from memory now or are you just like turning pages and saying words and not even have to look at the page?

Martin: I have the book, like, yeah, I like mostly know what's coming next. So sometimes before even turning the page, I'm like kind of giggling to myself, you know, Juno's looking at me like confused, like what, what is going on?

Adam: That's awesome. That's awesome. question, are you raising Juno? I think about this because we have a bunch of French children's books in our house. My wife was a French major. We get them as gifts and things like that. And they're kind of fun. So I have the French version of Where The Wild Things Are and stuff like that. Are you raising Juno as a, like, do you speak to her in both French and English?

Martin: Short answer. Yes. Long answer is it's more complicated because our kind of family language is English. You know, if. At three years old or, maybe sooner she goes to daycare and then at three years old, she goes to preschool that'll all be in French and we have a couple of like, you know, either American friends in Paris or French American couples where the kids go to school in France and the family kind of language is English the kids are between five and eight years old.

And it's worked out like pretty well in terms of having both languages. The most challenging thing is that the kids will start correcting the non national parents. I'm thinking about this, these couple of friends and the kid goes like, mom, that's just, that's not how you say…

Adam: That's so funny.

Martin: It's not how you say that in French.

I'm like, Whoa, so Steph's not super excited about Juno correcting her French. but yeah, that's kind of how we're approaching that.

Adam: It's funny when my wife and I were in Paris with our family last summer and we went out. That's just the two of us for a drink one night and sitting next to us was like a grandmother who was Australian and her granddaughter who lives in France but has English speaking parents.

And the granddaughter was who was like the same age as our kid was like doing everything in the restaurant because grandma's like, well, I don't know, I don't speak the language. And so the granddaughter was like ordering, asking for the check, like all the things, and then striking up a conversation with us.

It was really fun. So maybe, you know, you'll get that with Juno at some point she can help navigate.

Martin: Yeah, hopefully. That'd be really nice. Yeah, she'll help. She won't even correct Steph, she'll just be like, Actually, let me just do this for you.

Adam: Yeah. How has starting a family and a company simultaneously impacted your life? 

Martin: I think one of the main ways it's impacted my life is the sudden and dramatic loss of time. Of available time. kind of forced me out of overthink things. Um, And so I think that's been a really interesting experience where, a lot of parents, by the way, you don't have to be a founder, like report this.

A lot of parents will say, you know, after having kids, suddenly I approached my work like a bit differently where I just don't have the luxury anymore of, like talking about it and then thinking about it and I'll just like do it and be focused on, you know, of course doing a good job, but yeah, be more about like just being efficient and doing, and so I think, that's been actually really, really useful. In my kind of founding role, which is somewhat new to me. Because, you know, after 15 years, you just don't approach the role in the same way, I'm referring to the first time I started a company. And so it's been like, really, really helpful to just not worry about all the details, not be as in everybody's business, kind of have to be more trusting and focus instead on setting the frameworks for the company, both cultural strategic, you know, of course, I'm still very, very, very hands on, but it's kind of forced me like be more focused. And I think that's been really, really helpful in making me a better founder, at least I hope I would have to double check with the team on this cause they might report something completely different. but yeah, very sudden loss of time overall and shortage of time.

Adam: Yeah,

Martin: Necessity is the mother of invention. So think overall being resource starved kind of forces you to make some better decisions to be honest and I think that applies to founder time as well as other kind of aspects of resource.

Adam: That's great. So aside from your six months stint in consulting you've spent an entire career in technology, when you think about the relationship you want Juno, potentially, if you end up having more kids, like what is the relationship you want them, your daughter to have with technology as she gets older?

Martin: It's a bit of a stressful question because I think what it does is it kind of forces us as, you know, executives at our own level, not in the biggest companies, but as executives in tech to think about the impact that tech is having on the world. And. One other thing that I think informs what I'm going to tell you is the fact that my, so my mom, I mentioned that she's a doctor, but she works in and specifically on, kids brains.

So she's specialized in MRI and that imaging of brain activity in kids. And so we talk about her often about this and especially younger kids how technology screens and algorithms specifically can have a really negative impact on prefrontal cortex development. And in general, like social skills development sometimes even like motor development for, like, typically eye movement and that kind of stuff.

And so the conclusion that we've reached is really as little technology as possible. You know, of course, look, we're realists. We're going to get to a point where Juno is screaming and we'll just give her an iPad and she'll get an hour of screen time so that we can like, I don't know, drive somewhere or, you know, be in a plane without ruining everybody's lives around us.

But overall, we've really settled on, you know, really like no tech. And what I find concerning is that you've probably read this too, but there's like anecdotal stories in the press that executives at some of the biggest like social media companies, for example, that's how they approach technology.

They say no phones until, you know, you're like 15 or 16 years old. And even then with like parental controls and no social media until you're 18. And so I think that should make us like collectively kind of think about what we're doing and why we're building these tools that we, in many cases, don't want our own kids to use.

Adam: Yeah. I talked to somebody at YouTube who said, yeah, all the leaders at YouTube don't let their kids watch YouTube. And I was like, huh, that's interesting.

Martin: Yeah. Interesting and concerning, you know, because on the other hand, we're building these algorithms that are highly engaging. And yeah, and look ultimately, I think there's no broad depiction of technology that will be useful, like even, you know, a little like toy that has electronics and it could be considered technology.

So I think really, it's like technology is a tool. So, think about like, iMessage or something that enhances our capabilities, like, Steve jobs is bicycle for the mind kind of metaphor. I think that's like really positive. And I remember as a kid being on like MSN, right. The first social media essentially, and loving it and loving how it enabled me to stay in touch with some friends that were really far away.

And sometimes you would make new friends. Versus, tech as like a destination. I'm thinking typically like, you know, feeds and that kind of stuff. So I think there's some nuance that we can bring on top of that, but overall, yeah, I mean, I think what you're saying is, like a really good example and should be a really kind of big warning sign to a lot of parents out there that technology can be something that can be really detrimental to the development of, children and until they're like kind of their brain is fully developed as adults, we should probably limit their exposure to it for sure.

Adam: Yeah. Aside from sleep, what's something that you had to give up when you became a dad?

Martin: Screen time.

Adam: For you? 

Martin: For me. It’s been a really interesting journey to realize how addicted I am to my phone. I don’t know if you use the screen time, um  what's it called? I think it's called screen time on iOS.

Adam: That tracks how much you're on different things? Yep.

Martin: And you know, it also tracks you know, how many pickups you do.

Adam: Oh, I did not know that.

Martin: It's insane. Like 120, 150 phone pickups a day, you know? So kind of actually related to the previous thing that we were talking about, really it's both I don't want to be on my screen in front of Juno and two is it's forced me to take a step back and wonder about the role of technology in our lives.

And the net is that I've definitely sacrificed a lot of screen time, which I think is like overall good. And of course, you know, there's the standard stuff, which you all know as a dad. But yeah, of course, like, you know, social time, like impromptu social time. I think one of the big ones that you have to be very careful is spousal, like partner time.

I think partner time can be a really quick, kind of easy collateral damage to having a first child or even a second one. And I think that's one of the things that we've really tried to focus on that we've not had to sacrifice. Where I'll sometimes just like, Book a babysitter and say, okay, let's go.

We're going because otherwise before, you know, it, you know, weeks go by, but without any kind of quality time between your partner and yourself. So I think that's like something that we've been very conscious of.

Adam: If you think back to the last nine months, what would you say is a mistake that you've made as a dad? Something you'd like to do differently?

Martin: When I look back at these 9 months, I think 1 of the things that has been a mistake and to be honest is a bit of a recurring thing is kind of getting easily frustrated or overwhelmed and not always reacting in the best way.

I think that there's a lot of stress. There's a lot of tiredness. It's a big life change. It's kind of sudden, even though you get nine months to get ready for it, the actual change is kind of sudden. And it's kind of too easy to take it out on your partner and not voice it in the most constructive way possible just cause you're overtired and you just want to get it out.

And I think that's not super helpful. Your partner's in the same situation as you are. You know, he or she is your partner. And so, you know, they probably want to vent too. And so kind of trying to be more mindful and conscious of that. And to take a deep breath, look inside, go, I'm sorry. I'm overwhelmed.

I'm a little overtired. This is how I feel right now. We're going to get through this. 

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. It's not necessarily. You never get frustrated. You never express that frustration. It's your ability to recover from it and kind of move forward. Because like you're right when you're Maslow's hierarchy of needs is not being met at the baseline of the pyramid there - food sleep, you know, it's hard. It's hard to be at 100%.

Martin: I love that. Actually, I'll reuse that. That's it. That's a good way. Like my hierarchy of needs. Like I have some like base needs that are not being met right now.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, how can people follow along with your journey or be helpful to you? Either professionally or personally.,

Martin: Number one is if you're either a founder or an executive at a startup and you think it is more painful than it needs to be. Or you might actually directly be the accidental IT manager of your company. Just check out primo and even if you're not you know, interesting in becoming a customer for X, Y, Z reason, I always love to, to kind of hear feedback.

We're still like early on in our development. But we're really ambitious and we're always like interested in learning more about why people adopt this, but also don't adopt us. Otherwise, always happy to connect with product professionals. And you know, talking product is, I think there's this like, kind of product vibe between the two people that work in product and you could start nerding out about a ton of like different topics.

And so I love to connect with like minded people and just nerd out on the most obscure things. That's always nice. Just connect on LinkedIn and drop…

Adam: We'll send all the product nerds your way. Angry customers and product nerds, those are the two people coming to you.

Martin: Angry customers and product nerds. Oh boy. What did I set myself up for?

Adam: It's all right. We won't give you people your personal cell phone on this show. Okay.

My favorite part of the program, although this has been a wonderful discussion.

Here are the rules of rapid fire. I ask you a question and you say the first thing that comes to mind and then we move on, it's a judgment free zone. Here we go. What's the most indispensable parenting product that you've ever purchased?

Martin: Baby camera. Because we don't have to get out of bed to know if Juno was like, you know, really awake or having a little, just a little, like a little nightmare and she's whining, so we could just do that, the comforter and that's just amazing.

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

Martin: Hatch lights. You know, hatchlights, they wake up the baby with like this like sunrise imitation. The baby's like up, you know, either at sunrise or before sunrise. I don't know, like who needs this like Hatch light. You know, Juno wakes us up really, so no need to wake her up.

Adam: Yeah. What is your favorite activity to do with your daughter?

Martin: Bottle feeding. We're transitioning her kind of between breastfeeding and bottle feeding. And I just love having that moment with her. Sometimes she even falls asleep in my arms, which I think is just. You know, so nice to kind of see her doze off, you know, I love it.

Adam: Yeah. What is the most hectic time in your household, 6 a. m. to 8 a. m., or 6 p. m. to 8 p. m.?

Martin: Oh, 6 a. m. to 8 a. m. Like neither Steph nor I are like really strong morning people. So yeah, definitely the most hectic time, a hundred percent.

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

Martin: Not that many. I mean, we have a bajillion baby books. But not that many parenting books. Like, I think maybe I have one audio book. Steph has like an audio book and maybe one physical book. But it goes back to this like pragmatic parenting style. And again, it goes back to Juno having like being actually quite vocal about what she needs and doesn't need.

And, you know, of course she's still very, very young, so we might yet buy a lot of books when she grows up and we feel like kind of lost.

Adam: Awesome. And even though there are only a handful in your house, how many of these parenting books have you read cover to cover?

Martin: The only one that I owned. It's called The Expectant Father and I, bought it when Steph was pregnant. Bought one, listened to it end to end on my audible. I still have it. And I think Steph's like, read both of hers cover to cover. So we've had at least a good ratio of like, you know, cover to cover to bought, the ratio is pretty good.

Adam: This is good. Have you ever pretended to be asleep to avoid a middle of the night wake up?

Martin: Oh, yeah. Who am I pretending to, though? To Juno or to Steph? Because it's not been successful for either one, to be completely honest. Juno continues screaming until we actually get up. And Steph knows. Steph knows.

Adam: She knows. She always knows. Have you ever thrown away a piece of your kid's artwork? Now, Juno probably not doing a lot of artwork, probably can't even grip a crayon.

Martin: She's getting there. So it's mostly Steph artwork for now. And yes, I have. Absolutely. I have, I go like, oh, this is so pretty.

Adam: Oops. Have you ever used Juno as an excuse to get out of a social event?

Martin: Oh yeah.

Adam: Okay.

Martin: The end of a tough work week. It's really amazing how often Juno falls, you know, catches like some virus or uh, you know, at the end of tough work weeks it's been very convenient.

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

Martin: The worst experience was that we bought uh, her crib secondhand. And kind of all the structure was fine, but it came with a mattress. I'm not going to go into too many details, but I wasn't super stoked when I actually unpacked mattress part of the crib.

I was like, well, definitely going to be buying a new mattress. So it was still nice to kind of have this like secondhand. It was a beautiful crib really, but the mattress was like not.

Adam: A less beautiful mattress.

Martin: Less beautiful mattress.

Adam: What nostalgic movie are you super excited to force Juno to watch as she gets older?

Martin: So Lion King, I would say, but I don't think I'm gonna have to force her. I mean, I think the Lion King is such a good movie. I mean, maybe I will have to force her and I'll be a total boomer about it. I guess I don't really know. We'll see. And you will see it in a few years. But another one would be like, Honey, I shrunk The Kids. 

Adam: Oh…

Martin: Oh boy.

Adam: Rick Moranis’ finest.

Martin:Oh, yeah. She, I will force her to watch that one. that will not have aged well. Like in 12, it already has not aged that well, but in 12 years, oh boy. I'll have to make the VR version. Cause otherwise she's not going to want to watch.

Adam: All right, Honey I Shrunk The Kids. That's a good one. Finally, I don't know how Europeans respond to this, but what is your take on minivans?

Martin: Never, never, ever, ever. But that's not a European take on minivans. If anything, that's a pretty much an American take on minivans. I'm like SUV or nothing. No, look my take is anytime a product has mini and it's like category name, you should avoid it. I think iPod mini or like mini cooler, like honestly, there's the worst versions of all of the products, right?

So. I would say if you want to take a van, absolutely. Like, you know, get a van, you know, go hiking, go camping, go surfing. That's great. Minivan. Absolutely not.

Adam: Okay. I love that logic. Don't buy things with Minnie in the title. There goes Mini Cooper. I will have no advertisements from any of these companies on the pod. That's okay though.

Martin: I'm so sorry that I dropped your Apple sponsorship. Uh,

Adam: Well you know, Tim Cook was calling me up on that one. It was gonna happen.

Martin: Let me know if I can make up for it.

Adam: I will. Martin, thank you so much for joining me on Startup Dad.

That does it for our show today. I really appreciate the time that you took and I learned a lot.

Martin: Thanks for having me, Adam. This was a lovely time.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Martin Pannier. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review on Apple or Spotify. It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Harron. 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.