Raising Teenagers, Making Movies & Founding Companies | (Eric Colbert, Jay Chandrasekhar, Eli Szasz; Dads of 9 kids, VouchVault, SuperTroopers)

[00:00:00] Jay: The second they can get a permit you should start teaching them that day. Make them drive every single place and then you'll have a lot of time to tell them what to do. And, there's a handle on the right side of the passenger seat, which you should try to not use too much.

[00:00:17] Adam: Do you mean to like open the door and jump out of the car or do you mean, like…

[00:00:20] Jay: No, I mean this handle.

[00:00:20] Adam: To grip on for dear life?

[00:00:22] Jay: this handle.

[00:00:23] Eric: The oh shit handle.

[00:00:23] Elijah: Oh shit handle.

[00:00:24] Adam: yeah.

[00:00:25] 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 a group of dads. Eric Colbert, Eli Szasz , and comedian and writer Jay Chandrasekhar. Together, they're the founders of a new company called VouchVault, which is designed to get better, more trusted recommendations from people you know.

Eric and Eli are also partners at Spark6, which helps companies turn ideas into products. And they have spent decades working at the intersection of media and technology. Jay is a comedian, film director, screenwriter, and actor, best known for his comedy group Broken Lizard and his movies Super Troopers 1 and 2 and Beer Fest.

He has worked on TV shows like Community, Arrested Development, and New Girl. In addition to being founders, they're also each dads of three kids. I invited them on the show today because I'm always curious about products that can help parents, and I wanted to share their collective wisdom on raising kids who are now all in their early adult years.

In a hilarious conversation, we covered their own lives as kids growing up, advice on raising teenagers, the three pillars of rule setting as your kids get older, how their relationship has changed as their kids have grown up, whether Jay's kids have watched any of his movies, and how they think about their kids relationships with media and technology.

I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Jay, Eli, and Eric.

[00:02:09] Adam: I would like to welcome Eric Colbert, Eli Szasz, just learned how to pronounce your name, and Jay Chandrasekhar to the Startup Dad podcast. Gentlemen, it is a pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you for joining me.

[00:02:25] Jay: Thank you.

[00:02:26] Eric: appreciate it.

[00:02:27] Adam: And this is the first time that I have had the honor of having a celebrity guest on the show.

And of course, I mean, Eric the CEO and a co founder. So I'm excited to dig in and talk to all of you about your business, about parenting. Y'all, y'all could give me some tips here, I think. And we're just going to get into it. So. The three of you have come together to co-found this company called VouchVault.

And I'm very curious how the three of you met each other and decided to partner on this product journey.

[00:03:04] Jay: Well, I mean, you want to take it, Eric? You want me to?

[00:03:10] Eric: I'll tell the, you know, the brief story of how we came to be, you know, it was a bath house in San

[00:03:15] Elijah: in WeHo, right?

[00:03:16] Eric: Yeah. Uh,

[00:03:17] Elijah: I get them mixed up.

[00:03:18] Eric: I do too. It's all a blur. No, in all actuality a mutual acquaintance that knew both me and Eli, who we run a design and development agency that had incubated, you know, what was to become VouchVault.

And we were kind of working on that pretty. Pretty fast and furious. And this person also knew Jay and kind of what he had been thinking about for 20 years about his revenge on Rotten Tomatoes, which we'll get into later. And, we basically were just introduced and said, Hey, we're working on a very similar problem.

You know, let's come together. Cause I think we could really do something special together. So that's how the three of us came to be.

[00:03:50] Adam: Cool. And did you all hit it off right away?

[00:03:53] Jay: Yeah, we did. You know, it was over a, a mutual loathing of these internet reviews. I personally was enraged by the movie reviews and they were similarly annoyed by the Amazon and Yelp reviews. And together, in our rage, we uh, unified as one.

[00:04:11] Adam: Your power is combined. So tell me any one of you maybe we'll start with Eric. Tell me about the mission of VouchVault.

[00:04:21] Eric: It's pretty simple, really. I mean. In this day and age, it's kind of difficult to know where, who and where to trust, you know, to get your recommendations from. And that might be as simple as a movie or a book or a podcast such as this. And, you know, we have a lot of different choices to go for that information, but let's take it back to what we used to do.

We used to talk to our friends and our family about what are you watching? What are you listening to? What should I be eating? All these things. And so we're taking it back to the people and really people to allow them to easily share and keep track of these recommendations, what we call vouches and make it very simple for people to do that.

[00:04:55] Adam: Cool. And so I'm thinking about this from the perspective of a busy parent who is the person listening to this show, million decisions they've gotta make every day. So how have you seen parents using this product? And, I mean, how do you, how would you guys use it as a set of dads.

[00:05:11] Elijah: I can throw out an example. Yeah, because this drives me absolutely crazy. And I spent a good amount of parenting as a single dad with a startup without a lot of resources or friends who are also doing this. And so I would turn to the same place that somebody would turn to find a good movie.

The public, right? And it doesn't always go so well. So a good example would be, I need a car seat, right? you can go on the consumer reports, you can look at safety ratings, and you go on Amazon. And what ends up happening is you are, of course, going to gravitate towards the things that have the most five stars, right?

Not just five stars, but the most five stars like this podcast, right? You want it to be statistically significant, but you know, with these larger data sets, you also get a lot of one star reviews. So I think, huh, I better read those too. And those are all these awful heartfelt stories, right? Oh, we got this car seat, but then the latch broke and then it always wiggled and my kid threw up and it smelled like plastic from a Chinese factory. And, you know, and these are obviously real reviews from very damaged people and you're like, Oh, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't get it. And then I just end up right where I started, completely confused, not knowing what to get. Right. And that's, that's the crux of it. And

when you're buying something as serious as a car seat, you want it to be the best. Like, that's a critical purchase, right? But, maybe you're buying a toy, maybe you're buying a little potty, maybe you're buying a highchair. All these purchases, there's another you out there. There's somebody who's been doing dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of hours, if you're my wife, of research on these things and maybe has bought like 10 of them, returned 9 of them because they found the best one.

I just want to talk to that person. And that's what vouch does. It just cuts right to that person, the person you trust and know who did the research and not a bunch of strangers leaving reviews.

[00:07:00] Adam: Yeah. The other thing I've learned recently is on these sites like Amazon and the rest there, there's like a ton of fake reviews of products too, which, not good, not helpful. I don't really need like a bunch of AI generated, like, fake goodness on a product, but there's like whole fake review schemes and stuff like that.

And the reviews here are really tied to, I like the identity of a person. And so it's right. It's so easier to…

[00:07:24] Jay: Yeah. Adam, I'll let you in on a little Hollywood secret,

[00:07:27] Adam: yeah.

[00:07:28] Jay: And these even go on the billboards you see when you drive by. Each of the studios has a, like a guy in their pocket. A reviewer in their pocket and they basically, the reviewer will say whatever the studio wants it, and they can say, a tour de force, and then they'll put this guy's name at the bottom of it.

If you really pay attention, you'll be able to find that same person's name their fake little magazine, it's, you know, as I often say, everything in show business is also show business. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a trick. And so, you know, there are a lot of, you know, like a restaurant will open and the one across the street’ll give it a one star review.

And you're like, you know, there it is prominent first one star review. You know, the goal here is to say, you know, if you know, like, if you're my friend and you look up my thing, you'll see, oh, I like the new show Blackbirds, and I like the book Shantaram and like, you know, I watched the movie Walk the Line yesterday.

I'm like, I guarantee it's good. And so it's just an easier way to, to be more trustworthy of the reviews.

[00:08:38] Adam: Yeah, it kind of like gives you that connection to the person to you're like, Oh, I know that person. So I trust their judgment on this as opposed to random internet denizen slash restaurant across the street trying to undermine the business. So yeah, I totally get it.

[00:08:55] Elijah: If I had to sum it up in one sentence, they're not reviews, they're recommendations. Right? You don't get recommendations from strangers. You get recommendations from people that you trust. And that's what we're trying to bypass is this whole multi billion dollar cottage industry of gaming reviews and just go to the recommendations.

[00:09:13] Adam: Cool. So I wanted to ask you. So Eli, you just talked about finding a car seat, which I can tell is a very personal experience for you. I'm sure that the throw up and the broken part was like a real thing that you read about. I'm curious from Jay and Eric, what is the worst experience that each of you has had trying to find a high quality review or recommendation for a product?

[00:09:37] Eric: So mine is kind of gonna be cobbled into the review fraud space. So I was driving home with my wife. We just had dinner with some friends and I've always wanted to have a jacuzzi at home. And so we were just talking and as we know, our phones are listening to us.

So I get home later that evening and I'm just scrolling through the IG and I get this advertisement for an inflatable jacuzzi, which I didn't even know existed. I'm like, holy cow, this thing looks amazing. It was like 300 bucks and I had a glass of wine. And so I opened up the link and I read all the great reviews for this thing.

And I'm like. Done. So about three weeks later, I get, you know, tracking and all that. So I know it's being shipped. And what shows up is this little box. It's little this big. And I opened up this little box, not knowing what it is. And it's called the little bee pool. And this was my jacuzzi that I read reviews about how great this was and total. Total review, scam, fraud, so.

[00:10:36] Adam: Oh, I had that experience with some glassware that I bought where I was like, oh yeah, this looks great. Where, and it came and it was like Montessori school size glassware. I'm like, this is not. This is not the picture that I thought that I was getting. So, cool, Jay, what about you?

[00:10:54] Jay: Well, I'll give you a good example. There's a movie called MacGruber. And my friend Will Forte made it and Kristen Wiig's in it. And it's basically a take on the Saturday Night Live sketch, MacGruber, which was based on the original show, MacGyver. And the Rotten Tomatoes Gave it a 35 percent fresh.

47 percent, these don't add up to 100, but Rotten Tomato. I mean, this site is named for throwing rotten fruit at filmmakers, right? So, I was reluctant, even though I know this, I was reluctant to see this movie for years. When it came on theater, I'm like, I don't know, 35 percent fresh. And I finally watch it, and I'm like, it's incredible.

It's an incredible, I watched it twice. It's an incredibly funny movie. And the bottom line is that, you know, I mean, I, if you think about like, who reviewed this MacGruber, you don't know if they like R rated movies. You don't know if they get the joke, they just may not like the same kind of movies.

They're strangers, right? If you would never walk up to a stranger on the street and say, hey, what movie should I see? And that's what Rotten Tomatoes is, and this is why I didn't see MacGruber in time.

[00:12:03] Adam: Yeah. The same people going and reviewing MacGruber are also going and reviewing Citizen Kane and then wondering why they, they like one and not the other. Right. So.

[00:12:12] Jay: I'll tell you why they like him, because they like these dramas, the studios invite them to these parties out in Hollywood. And they feel like they can tee off on comedies and make fun of them and then get snarky points. Do I seem a little angry?

[00:12:24] Adam: No. No, not at all.

[00:12:26] Elijah: Little, little bitter.

[00:12:28] Adam: Not biased in any way. No, I mean, that's the goal. The goal of the Startup Dad podcast is to get people as angry as possible in a short amount of time. So mission accomplished.

[00:12:36] Eric: We all have kids, so we're already

[00:12:37] Adam: We're working it. We’re working it.

[00:12:38] Elijah: Keeping that, keeping that general theme of parenting.

[00:12:40] Adam: All right. Okay. So we're going to come back to reviews. But I do want to delve into the topic of parenting, and I have a lot to learn from the three of you because y'all have several kids much older than mine, so I have a nine year old, almost ten year old, and a twelve year old.

I do not yet have a teenager, I'm on the cusp of the teenage years. I do not yet have an adult kid. We're getting there. I can see that in my future. So I got a lot to learn on this show, but I wanted to get in the time machine and just ask the three of you what you were like as kids. Because I think that tells me a lot about what people will be like as parents.

So, maybe we'll start with Eric. Eric, what were you like as a kid?

[00:13:21] Eric: So I was a younger brother, and I was a younger brother of an absolute terror, who went on to a very valiant career in the Marine Corps, who we're all very proud of, and has been like an amazing human, and really become one of my best friends as we become adults. But no hyperbole here. He blew up a car, when I was like in second grade now, granted, he didn't do it on purpose.

He had made a homemade smoke bomb and threw it into an unsuspecting vehicle that was parked at my elementary school that ended up catching on fire as sometimes these smoke bombs don't just smoke and hence car blew up. So I was in the shadow of my…

[00:14:01] Jay: Did he go to jail for that?

[00:14:03] Eric: He did not go to jail.

[00:14:04] Adam: Eric, this is a very different time we live in now. I am not sure that we would be talking about your brother in the same way if he did this in the modern era.

[00:14:13] Eric: He would not be no, but so I didn't have to do anything to be like the golden child. I just had to not do that. And so I, I had a very kind of cush, you know, I grew up in San Diego and you know, I played sports, I was a good student, went off to UCLA later. So like my parents like did not really have to do a lot of handholding with me.

So yeah, I think I comparatively, I was a pretty easy going kid.

[00:14:37] Adam: Okay, and your brother is now on trial for something, or

[00:14:41] Eric: Potentially. No, he's working for a state department and, you know, 21 years from the Marine Corps and he's just crushing it.

[00:14:46] Adam: Oh my God. Okay, cool. Well, I mean, there's something he, if he blew up a car as a kid, that the Marines, it seems like a good pathway.

[00:14:53] Eric: And I'll throw one shout out to him. So he was actually the mini series on HBO called Generation Kill is actually based on my brother and his unit that went, so yeah.

[00:15:02] Adam: Okay.

[00:15:03] Eric: haven't changed the name. So the Colbert that you see in that movie or that mini series is my bro.

[00:15:08] Adam: Cool. Oh, can't wait to have him on and asking about blowing up a car. All right, Eli, what were you like as a kid?

[00:15:14] Elijah: Oh boy. I was nothing as a kid. Like I am as an adult. I grew up in Northern California in the Bay area, San Francisco. And my parents were a hippie artists. And I was the epitome of like free range parenting. You know, you go out, you come back at the end of the day, try not to get your ass kicked too many times.

Try not to, you know, light too many things on fire. And yeah, like no exposure to sports, nothing like Eric's upbringing, just had to kind of figure it out. Got bullied a ton and just did a lot of artwork, a lot of creative, never liked school. Was never really into learning stuff and yeah, definitely kind of went through a metamorphosis like towards the end of my teen years like nothing like I am now. It's kind of funny to look back on. Yeah

[00:16:02] Adam: All right. And Jay, what about you? What was Jay the younger like?

[00:16:06] Jay: You know, I was called an underachiever quite a bit. Not working up to my potential, even though I was doing pretty well. But I was, you know, I was sort of early into alcohol, early into drugs. I was like trying to get laid. You know, like, I had a very Fast Times at Ridgemont High kind of upbringing.

And I loved it. Yeah. I was also the fastest guy in the neighborhood which earned me points with every body.

[00:16:30] Adam: Helps. Did you ever order a pizza to a high school classroom? Okay.

[00:16:34] Jay: Mr. Hand! No, I did not.

[00:16:37] Elijah: Did you get high in a VW bus?

[00:16:39] Adam: Probably.

[00:16:40] Jay: Yes,

yes.

[00:16:42] Adam: Just had to cover those two bases real quick. So, Eric and Jay yeah. I think you guys have teenagers and or kids in their early 20s, and then Eli, you've got perhaps the most interesting spread of everyone in this room. So, Eli, I kind of wanted to start with you, and my first question is just, how or what and why? 

[00:17:08] Elijah: Why is probably the best

[00:17:09] Adam: Why?

Yeah, why?

[00:17:11] Elijah: why?

[00:17:12] Adam: Yeah.

[00:17:12] Elijah: My oldest is 22. She's at the University of Utah lives 10 minutes away, barely get to see her. So that's, you know, look forward to that. That's gonna happen.

[00:17:21] Adam: Mm hmm.

[00:17:22] Elijah: Starts when they're teens, just keeps, like, the distance just keeps growing as they get older.

I have a boy who's 11, who's an absolute terror. And then I have a little girl who's 4, who Listen, I'll, you know, I, I know you, you're probably going to ask who's your favorite, right?

[00:17:38] Adam: Oh, we're getting there, eventually.

[00:17:40] Elijah: it was your, the younger they are, the more that I like them to be honest. Like, you know, people complain about the diaper changing and everything else.

It's just there's something so sweet about a baby and a toddler and even a four year old. And then it just starts getting really hard. That youngest one I ended up actually raising on my own from the age of two to eight. I did that solo with a startup, which is a whole other podcast. That was brutal.

Then I remarried, had two more kids. So that's the how, that's the how it

happened. Yeah.

[00:18:08] Adam: Got it. Apparently the 22 year old didn't dissuade you from following up a decade later with uh, two more kids.

[00:18:17] Elijah: No, listen I, I did the full time stay at home dad thing when she was two. And it was the best year of my life. I absolutely loved it. I missed nothing about working and we did the mommy and me yoga classes and art classes and music classes. I had my full schedule on like my Outlook calendar, just like I did at my job, except it was just for being a dad.

It was amazing. And, you know, those later years I kept thinking wow, this is really fucking hard. But I'd like it a lot more if I had a partner that was participating. And once I found that, you know what, it wasn't too much of an argument to do it all over again.

[00:18:53] Adam: Did you get any weird looks at the mommy and me yoga classes? Like, I find that sometimes the dad as the primary parent can be getting the side eye from like, oftentimes you're the only dad in the room for these things. I've talked to a lot of dads about that. So any weird side eye glances?

[00:19:11] Elijah: If by weird, you mean amazing. Yes. Like it was, I mean, you know, I was going into that time, like I was a single dad going to mommy to me yoga classes. It was amazing. It was great. Yeah. It was the best.

[00:19:24] Jay: Is that how you met your new wife?

[00:19:27] Elijah: Wasn't at a Mommy and me yoga class. No, that's a whole other podcast too, Jay. That's a…

[00:19:31] Adam: Well, well, Eli and I are going to have a follow up conversation on this.

[00:19:34] Jay: I remember being the guy at those little kiddie gyms with just 8, 10 moms, and they would just ostracize you. You're just like not welcome to talk about you know, the latest stroller, even though I had my opinions.

[00:19:49] Adam: Yeah, that came up a couple episodes ago. I talked to somebody about being a lead dad and that kind of weird isolationism that you can experience being the only guy at the playground or at the mommy and me yoga or something like that. So, now Eli, you didn't really have a choice in the matter.

But it's really interesting dynamic, but I hope getting a bit more normalized as we, we're modernizing here. So Eric and Jay, tell me a bit about your they're probably not kids anymore. Young adults. What do we describe them as?

[00:20:18] Jay: I have three in college. I have one of them is at Colgate, where I went to school. The older one the boy, and then he's 20, and then there are two 18 year old girls, twins. One goes to the University of Michigan, and the other one is at St. Andrews in Scotland.

[00:20:34] Adam: Wow. You know, I went to the University of Michigan,

[00:20:37] Jay: I did not know that.

[00:20:38] Adam: Well, now, you know,

[00:20:39] Jay: Are you one of those, like, fanatics?

[00:20:41] Adam: I'm pretty fanatical about it.

[00:20:43] Jay: I almost wore a University of Michigan shirt accidentally.

[00:20:46] Adam: You should have, I grew up in Michigan, that is my alma mater. I met my wife there. Like it's a whole thing.

[00:20:52] Jay: Colgate is a love cult, everybody who goes there just absolutely loves it, but when you wear that Michigan shirt, you get approached, I mean, in an airport, you get approached 7, 8, 9 times, like…

[00:21:03] Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:03] Jay: It's incredible.

[00:21:04] Adam: It is apparently the most highly sold logo, I think in the world or something I read one time. So yeah.

[00:21:14] Elijah: Are you waiting for them to say like, are you that guy from Super Troopers? And then they'd come up and talk about the Michigan shirt?

[00:21:18] Jay: Right. They do. Old, like, old ladies and random, you know, dudes are like, hey, Michigan, I'm like, hello.

[00:21:25] Adam: Yeah. Yeah. It's also a very fun place to visit. If you're a parent my dad used to go and visit me there. It was like a 45 minute drive and he also went there and, oh boy, did he have a good time. So, yeah. All right, Eric, what are we working with on your end here?

[00:21:40] Eric: Yeah. So I also have three, their daughters. We got 17, 19 and 20 and I have the, you know, the added bonus of being a blended family. So again, whole nother show potentially. But yeah the dynamics of blends is really interesting. So the two younger ones, 17 and 19 are from my first marriage and then the the oldest is from a previous relationship that my wife brought in.

[00:22:06] Adam: All right. Now, I mentioned earlier I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. So I am six months away from the teenage years. I am very curious to hear from all three of you. What am I in for? And, as a soon to be parent of a teenager, and Several others who will listen to this show. What advice do you have for surviving, thriving?

I don't even know.

[00:22:34] Eric: Well,

[00:22:35] Elijah: What are the genders, Adam?

[00:22:36] Adam: I have a, my, my daughter is the one who's about to be a teenager.

[00:22:40] Elijah: Oh, fun.

[00:22:41] Adam: and my son is the 10 year old. Yeah.

[00:22:45] Eric: Well, let me start with the three pillars that my wife and I came up with. If I might, and you'll have to change some of the vernacular for the son versus the daughter, but I think you'll catch the drift. So we figure that if we get accomplished these three things that like, we're going to set them up for success and there could be more, but this is what we came up with.

The first one is don't get arrested. So we feel like you can get into some shit and I definitely did too, Jay. You know, I had a pretty wild growing up time, but you know, having a record can really affect the rest of your life. So if you can not get arrested,

[00:23:20] Elijah: Not before you're 18. Come on, man. Like give them a little freedom.

[00:23:23] Eric: I guess my brother is a testament

[00:23:24] Adam: you get a hall pass.

[00:23:25] Eric: that you can still go on.

[00:23:26] Adam: You can bomb a car when you're in 4th grade, but you can’t do that

[00:23:29] Elijah: It's all good.

[00:23:30] Adam: when you're in 11th grade.

[00:23:31] Eric: Exactly.

[00:23:32] Elijah: just don't get tried as an adult. You should change that pillar.

[00:23:36] Eric: There's going to be some subsets to that. So the second one is don't get pregnant. I mean, I think that one's pretty self explanatory. It can obviously set your trajectory in a very different way than you had planned. And then the third one is don't get addicted. So obviously that has life, you know, altering ramifications.

So, you know, we really have worked with our daughters on those three things and so far, so good.

[00:23:59] Adam: I like the simplicity and straightforwardness of that, the three pillars. Gives a lot of freedom within there, but like there's kind of three lines that you don't want to cross.

[00:24:12] Eric: We, yeah, we figured those are the three things that it's really difficult to come back from. Everything else is fine. I mean, you're crappy in school. Okay. Maybe go get a trade. You're, you know, you're a little bit rambunctious and you want to go trap, like whatever. Like, I think all those things are fine.

And you'll see like all three of our kids are so different. So like, you know, that's what we distilled it down to at least. So.

[00:24:30] Elijah: So, Adam, the subtext here is lower your bar, just lower your bar. And it's if you want a surefire way to be disappointed, you should have high expectations.

[00:24:40] Adam: This is true. This is a thing that I am reminding myself on a daily basis with kids, but you know, it's look, it's hard. It's hard to meter those expectations, especially, you know, amongst this room. And I talked to a lot of like very kind of hard driving startup founders, leaders, entrepreneurs, like successful folks, like you, Jay, like in other careers.

And it's a hard thing to like, not like have this ridiculously high standard for your kids, even if maybe the standard for you is different. So Jay, what do you got for me for teenagers and what I should expect and you know what to do there?

[00:25:22] Jay: I mean, you know, there's a lot of driving. You know, you're going to have to. You have to drive them all sorts of places, and eventually they turn 16 and it just cuts off. It just ends. They just drive away. And that's glorious. Once you get over the fear that they're gonna be okay out there, you realize this is incredible, the amount of time you have to do whatever you want to.

So there are going to be a couple of years of you just driving around. I mean, there have been more than once I pulled up in front of my, like, daughter's friend's house and somebody jumped in the back of my car thinking I was their Uber. And I'm like, I basically am. I basically am but, you know, look, I mean, my honest opinion about this is that I tell them if you do well in school you're gonna be able to undercut our ability to tell you what to do, you know, work in advance, work hard, leave school knowing how to write. And I know ChatGPT, all this nonsense. I know it's not nonsense, but I mean, if you can write, you know, that's an important skill to take out all this time, you think you're wasting at school.

[00:26:28] Adam: That one. I. Can really relate to, especially as somebody who has like employees or a spouse who works with people who are writing decisions and things like that, like writing in general seems to be a dying art for people coming out of school. Like there's a lot of kids coming out of school who have no idea how to string together a few sentences, which is kind of sad.

[00:26:53] Jay: It’s true. It's true. And but if you're the person at the company who can write. You end up being kind of brought in and don't you, this is our philosophy. We're trying to get this idea. And if you can put that together, you're just kind of in the middle of everything.

[00:27:05] Adam: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:27:06] Jay: And I, you know, in ChatGPT, it doesn't quite get there.

[00:27:11] Adam: I don't really like how it makes me sound when I try to explore it with writing. It comes out pretty generic, pretty syrupy. You know, that's not how I talk. So, I get it.

[00:27:23] Jay: Plus who wants to read what a robot thinks.

[00:27:24] Adam: It's true. It's true. Yeah. Eli, have you forgotten what it's like to have a teenager? Has that been scrubbed from your memory banks?

[00:27:32] Elijah: No, no, that's like, Hey, do you remember when you're in that awful plane crash? Remember that? No, I totally forgot. Like what? What plane crash? Like, no, that it sticks with you. You remember that.

[00:27:42] Adam: Yeah. And what advice do you have? So we've got lots of driving. We've got the three pillars. What advice do you have for me on soon to be parent of a teenager?

[00:27:51] Elijah: So, especially with a girl, right? It's very different. It's very different. And I'm a hundred percent behind Eric's pillars. And, oh man, Jay. When you said, do you forget? It's like, Oh yeah, I did forget about the damn chauffeur role that I had for like a big chunk of my life where I was just sitting on the four or five or the 10 for like hours and hours of my life.

But the difference with the boys and the girls, okay, before Louis CK was canceled and we couldn't talk about him, we'll just go back in a time machine and pretend that never happened. He had this amazing bit. Where he has girls, but his friend had boys and he's kind of observing the differences.

And it was something like, you know, boys will destroy everything in your home. They'll break stuff, they'll light it on fire. You can like measure the damage in dollars like you would with a natural disaster, right? But girls, girls will destroy you from the inside out. It's, It's like they will leave scars in your psyche that you find later on, right?

That's a difference. It's like there's more of this emotional racing. And so for me my wife's a therapist, so I'm really lucky to have that. But just they have just so much more incoming and mean girl shit that happens at school that boys just hit each other over, but the girls torment each other over, and then they bring it home and then you're the enemy.

And it's not easy. Like at least I didn't think it was easy.

[00:29:11] Adam: Yeah. Okay. Well now I'm appropriately terrified. Thank you.

[00:29:15] Elijah: There you go.

That's what I was hoping to do.

[00:29:17] Adam: For the three of you and maybe we'll start with Eric. As your kids have gotten older and as you've gotten older, how has your relationship with your kids changed?

[00:29:26] Eric: Yeah, I mean, I think we hit on the big differentiator when they really start leaving you, it is driving that was like, I didn't realize that because no one gives you the manual of when that happens, but like the moment they are mobile like that. Yeah. Those opportunities, five, 10 minutes in the car. We just catching up and just kind of checking in on each other like It is gone for the most part. So you have to find other opportunities to do that. So I think, you know, as they've gotten older, you know, you miss those opportunities and it really has been a joy seeing them come into their own. You know, young adulthood, you know, and they're all so different.

One wants to be a chef. One wants to be a nurse. One wants to go into the STEM space, you know? So it's just like, just appreciating them where they're at in their journey. And just like, just being that support system for them. I know that sounds super cheesy, but like, that's really just what we have to do.

It's just like, be that support, that net if they need them and just like encourage them to get out there and experience life. And I don't want them to ever have regrets about, I didn't try something because I was able to do that.

[00:30:21] Adam: Yeah. Jay, does that resonate with you?

[00:30:23] Jay: Yeah, it does. I’m going to circle back to this driving thing. The second they can get a permit you should start teaching them that day. Cause you're trying to log as many hours as humanly possible. And just sit in that car, make them drive every single place that is possible for them to drive.

And then you'll have a lot of time to tell them what to do. And, there's a handle on the right side of the passenger seat, which you should try to not use too much.

[00:30:52] Adam: Do you mean to like open the door and jump out of the car or do you mean…

[00:30:55] Jay: no, I mean this

[00:30:56] Adam: grip on for dear life?

[00:30:57] Jay: this handle.

[00:30:58] Eric: The oh shit

[00:30:59] Elijah: The oh shit handle,

[00:30:59] Adam: yeah.

[00:31:00] Jay: just keep your hands and just kinda, you know, they're gonna almost scrape cars.

They're gonna, you know, the key is just don't hit anybody. You know, just don't hit anybody.

[00:31:11] Adam: Yeah, we could fix the property. That's what insurance is for but people, a little harder. 

Jay: You can crash the car, I'm okay with it.

Yeah.

[00:31:18] Jay: I'm okay, but, you can teach them to be really good drivers if you give them enough time,

[00:31:22] Adam: I like the don't use that handle too often. Or like press on the dashboard, you know,

[00:31:28] Jay: You'll do that, but try not to,

[00:31:30] Adam: Okay. Okay,

[00:31:31] Elijah: It's

called instincts. You can't fake that.

[00:31:33] Adam: That's true. That's true. Eli, what about you? I guess you get to do this twice. So like, how is your relationship with your. You know, 22 year old changed as she's gotten older?

And then how are you seeing that happen with your kids now?

[00:31:48] Elijah: Well, the 22 year old, like I mentioned, lives 10 minutes away. Barely see her. With her boyfriend, in school, doing her thing. Rock climbing, you know, all good stuff. She's great. But that time I get to spend with her, you ever see

Tim Urban did that series of charts called like your time left, right?

[00:32:05] Adam: That's actually one of the things I read that sort of was most transformative for me. It's not super long visualizing the number of moments that you have left in certain things in the rest of your life. It's really powerful.

[00:32:16] Elijah: And with the kids, that one hits home, right? And so as I'm watching the kids get older, I just see it playing out in real time. Right? How she's just, she wants to do her school thing and drive around and hang out with her friends, be with her boyfriend, and my 11 year old, already, if he was given the option to jump on Roblox and chat with his friends while he plays, he would do that 100 percent more than hang out with me.

Right? My little girl, if I could just not work, I would spend every minute of the day with her. Like it's just it's amazing. Cause she still has that, Oh, it's my dad and I want to hang out with you and I want to do all this cool stuff. So yeah, it's just, I really do think it's this very linear progression of less and less time with them as they get older.

And then like Jay said, once they get that driver's permit, bye bye. 

See you later. So I think a lot of it, you know, as far as what do you want to grab onto or what do you want to try to control? How much do you really like being a parent? Like how much do you like? It's a lot of parents and it's not for everybody.

Not everybody likes it.

[00:33:19] Adam: I'm gonna leave this conversation to go hug both of my kids and like not let them go. This is where I'm headed. Okay. So I don't wanna spend too much time, Jay, on your movies, but I did have one question related to them and your kids, and that is I'm sure the kids have watched your films. And so I guess that's my first question. Have your kids watch your movies? Have you watched your movies with your kids?

[00:33:53] Jay: God no. You know, I really, you know, because I'm in movies, I just made a decision, my wife and I are like, the stars of this family are the kids. There's no, as minimal as possible do we ever mention that I've been in all these movies. And so we never showed it to them. And as luck would have it for me, you know, like these movies are still running through, you know, teens and 20s America, and they would come home and be like, were you in a movie called Beer Fest?

And I'm like,

[00:34:33] Eric: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:35] Jay: They're like, I saw some of it, like, there's a lot of, like, fast beer drinking, and I'm like, yeah, they're like, okay and, and they would just see little scenes and eventually their friends would have seen it. And, you know, they had these awkward things where they'd watch these movies at their friend's house.

And never with me. You know, never. I don't, I mean, these movies are, you know, there's, there's heavy drinking and drugs and some nudity and they're not the kind of things you want to watch with your children. They're the kind of movies I'd like them to like. But I recommend other movies that are like that. 

[00:35:13] Adam: I remember. You like MacGruber. I remember the most awkward moment that I had was watching American Pie with my dad when I was a kid. That is not really a movie to watch with your parents. So, wouldn't recommend it. So I get where you're coming from. so your kids eventually will watch this stuff and did.

Did you ever get any you know, biting teenage feedback from them about these movies? Or was it more just curiosity and then it kind of moved on?

[00:35:39] Jay: No, I mean, you know, my, my niece in Chicago is into the women's movement. She went to, I think Wellesley or something like that. And she was like very advanced on the whole like gender studies and women's movement. And she's been to all my movie premieres and she's sort of seen my stand up act, which is filthy.

And she's like, you know, there's a thing called the It might be called the Ulmer scale, and a scale that determines when you watch a movie, like, do the women only talk about the men and what their plots are, or do they have their own plots? And she came up to me and she goes, you know, you score pretty well on the Ulmer scale.

Your movies actually have women who have opinions and their own plots. And I was like, all right, great. So, yeah. I mean. My movies are not made for that, like they're made to sort of like keep the flame going on American rebellion, teen rebellion, and 20 year olds rebellion, so.

[00:36:43] Adam: Yeah. won't, I

[00:36:44] Jay: I won't apologize.

I I, I still love those kinds of movies.

[00:36:48] Adam: Yeah. No they're fantastic. I just my question was more around. We all know teens can have some feedback for parents, you know, about just about everything that they do in life, how you're breathing, how loud you're walking up the stairs, you know, where you are in picking them up and how far down the street you need to park, you know, things like that.

And so I was just curious.

[00:37:10] Jay: We really didn't, like, I think it was such a surprise that I was actually in the movies. Like, mentioned them not at all. By the time they knew about them, they had heard about them from their friends who thought it was cool. And so there were no negative reviews.

[00:37:26] Adam: They were just like, you know, and by the way they didn't rush, even after they knew about him, they didn't rush to see him. It was years, three years later before they really, I don't even know if they've even seen most of them. I bet they haven't.

Adam: Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:37:41] Jay: And I'm fine with that. I love it. I don't care.

[00:37:44] Adam: Okay. I'm gonna pivot. And ask each of you to get in the time machine here and tell me what the earliest memory that each of you has of becoming a dad.

[00:37:58] Eric: I could remember it pretty clearly. This was my first born you know, first time parent and, you know, I think I was I was 27 years old, so pretty young man, and you know, they just hand over this baby, you know, we were only in the hospital for, you know, maybe a day. And you know, they give us our little daughter and we throw her in the back seat in a car seat, of course.

And we just could not stop laughing. We were just like, we could not believe that they just gave us this kid. We're just kids ourselves. And we just like the most giddy time of my life. And I just, I can go back to that moment. Like whenever it just like a joyous, just wonderful time.

[00:38:32] Adam: Awesome. Eli, what about you?

[00:38:35] Elijah: Oh man. So I never ever cry, but every time I think about this, like, I feel like I'm going to start crying.

[00:38:43] Adam: Wouldn't, wouldn't be the first dad on Startup Dad to shed a few tears, by the way.

[00:38:47] Elijah: So I'll go back to very first moment my eldest, her mom had a C section. And so while she's getting all put back together as they do, you know, I get to be the first one to hold her and do the first bath with the nurse and all that stuff. And I remember looking into these tiny eyes and thinking, ah, so.

That's it. That's why I'm here. Like I felt this really deeply seated biological checkbox just got ticked off like that big question. Everybody deals with the big. What am I doing here? Question got answered and that kind of defined being a dad for me from that moment on.

[00:39:24] Adam: Yea. Awesome. What about you, Jay? What's the earliest memory you have after becoming a dad?

[00:39:28] Jay: I mean, it's not the earliest memory, my son was nine months old he was showing a desire to start walking like a little early before his brain was ready. He was kind of holding on to my fingers and kind of, you know, doing that little thing, but he wasn't kind of doing it on his own.

He's nine months and my wife went into the other room to make some kind of little food and he walked probably eight steps. And I'm like, he walked and she came in and he fell over and she was, no, no, no, no, that doesn't count. And I'm like, no, no, he walked eight steps. She was, no, no, no, I'm going to be there when he walks for the first time.

And he didn't walk again for now another, probably two or three weeks.

[00:40:07] Elijah: five years,

[00:40:08] Jay: And I was like, yeah, I mean, he's. Yeah, he hasn't started to walk yet, I guess.

[00:40:13] Adam: Amazing.

[00:40:14] Eric: Went right to driving.

He's like, forget the walking.

[00:40:17] Adam: Do you remind your wife of that often that

you in fact saw the first steps? Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of thing you really hold on to and bring up in any argument.

[00:40:26] Eric: She was an absent parent, clearly,

[00:40:27] Jay: Yeah.

[00:40:30] Adam: All right. That's amazing. So Eli, I wanted to come back to you because you have such a spread on your kids. You have this opportunity to have kind of like a do over, right? You get another wave of kids, I think one of the hardest things about parenting is you do a bunch of stuff, and you don't actually see the long term impact of that for a long time.

And so I'm curious, is there anything you're trying to do differently this time around with this sort of wave of younger kids that you have?

[00:40:59] Elijah: Oh yeah. I have intentions of doing all sorts of things differently. And I get a opportunity to make a whole new series of mistakes. I mean, that's just kind of the way parenting goes. I think a big one for me is when my oldest was at the end of preschool. That's when the first iPhone came out and it wasn't long after that, the iPad came out and everybody's buying these things for their kids.

Everybody. I mean, it was like, you were an awful parent if you didn't get your kid and iPad. It was for the education apps and everything else and the interactive stuff and teaching about technology. And, you know, looking back now, it kind of reminds me of the cigarette ads in the fifties where they were doctor recommended.

Right. And I think about that now with no parental controls, like just full blown access to the internet. And I know I did some damage. And, you know, now most of my 11 year old sons, they already have smartphones. And he keeps asking, when am I going to get my smartphone? Like, when do I get my smartphone?

And now I'm like hopefully never. Like when you can get a job and buy one and then buy this, I just don't want it. I don't want the constant, you know, I see his friends walking around. Already getting, you know, they call it nerd neck where you start getting like the cervical spine damage because your chin is always down and you're looking in the palm of your hand.

And it's just everywhere, like on the playground. And so that's my thing I've uh, a very complicated relationship with technology as being a technologist. And I don't necessarily want to force that onto my young kids again.

[00:42:26] Adam: That is actually a fascinating segue into the next question that I had. And you just sort of covered your piece of this, which is, you know, also Eric and Jay and Eli, the three of you have built. Your entire career in media and technology and now the intersection of those things. I guess Jay and Eric, how do you think about your kid's relationship with those things as they're growing up and now they're becoming adults?

[00:42:56] Jay: I really kept hounding them, you know, when we had dinner, lunch, that if they wanted me to pay for it, they could not be on their phones. You know, it was like a way for me to to explain to them that, you know, there's a value to the human interaction and if it meant I was going to make them go hungry, I would do it.

I just feel it's a battle, right? Like I'm, somebody tries to, if I'm like, what was that actor's name? I really try to let my brain kind of do the work and figure it out cause you can look it up right away. It's right there. But joy in the sort of little side tributaries of conversation.

At the end of the day it was me being the person who was telling them what to do and them being the resistant person, hopefully. They will have internalized some of it and you know, value human interaction over just looking at these damn incredible machines.

[00:43:57] Adam: Yeah, I really like that point about. You could look up just about anything and I'm tempted to do that too. Or I'm like, same with, it's always actors or how old is this person or whatever, because my kids will ask me and the temptation to just jump and be like, oh, hold on. Let me pull up the thing.

But it's like, maybe you just take a second. Let's think about this. Let's try to like use our brains and see. Maybe we can guess, you know, or maybe we can figure it out or something like that.

[00:44:28] Jay: I mean, I try to also just not be seen on my phone in public. Which is like a, it's like a little trick to which reduces the amount you're on it. Like, if I'm at a coffee shop, I'm like, I'm just gonna stand here. I know everybody's on their phone.

[00:44:45] Elijah: Just raw dog this Starbucks.

[00:44:47] Jay: I know. I think I'm better than all these people, but they're not gonna see me on the damn phone.

[00:44:52] Adam: Yeah. Eric, what about you? What what do you think about your kid's relationship with technology and media?

[00:44:58] Eric: Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I actually feel the pendulums coming back like my youngest literally is like, I wish I just had a flip phone and it's not like something I've been preaching to her necessarily, but I think they're starting to feel this. I think it's becoming a part of their world now that the phone is not the answer that these connections that they have are very superficial.

You know, this. You know, epidemic or pandemic of loneliness that, you know, Surgeon General's talk. Like, this is a real thing that's in lockstep with social. And I think, you know, I don't expect a 10 year old to get that or a 12 year old who's just in it. But like, as they become 15, 16, 17 I'm seeing it very much so in my daughters.

And they want the physical in person. They want to just interact. And so, yeah I certainly try to model that, you know, it's not like we're throwing our phones in a bucket when we come sit down, but like it, it is a topic of conversation, get off the effing phone, let's just be together. And so we're just trying to, to move along.

[00:45:57] Elijah: I'm almost there with the phone in the bucket thing, man. Like, I'm not I'm not that, I'm not

[00:46:00] Eric: I have done it, believe me, like it didn't last, but like, it's, it's more of the sentiment.

[00:46:04] Elijah: I'd add in, Adam, like, you know, when you think about, well, what is your role as a parent in all of this? Right? Should I step back? Should I let them figure it out? I don't think that's really the answer when you zoom out and you kind of look at the ecosystem. It's not a level playing field, right?

You've got companies who are buying the highest paid best psychologists in the world to demand your kid's attention. Like that is their sole job is how do I get their attention? How do I make this as addictive as possible to keep their attention on this so I can serve ads. Right. And to say like, ah, They'll figure it out.

You know what? They probably won't. Like, smart as you think your kids are, it's not about smarts, it's about psychology.

[00:46:48] Eric:And their brains aren't even developed

Elijah: a lot of dirty, a lot of dirty pool there. So I think if anywhere, like that's a place to step in. I think that's awesome that, you know, Eric's kids are starting to see that for themselves.

[00:47:00] Elijah: It's not the way that it goes for most adults that I know, to be honest. You know, they haven't figured it out

[00:47:05] Adam: Yeah.

[00:47:06] Jay: I will also say our app is not, it's not like Instagram in that it is in itself entertainment. Our app is sort of, whether by design or by luck, it's really, built to go appreciate other things. Like you go, Oh, I need a new book. Okay. I got found a book and then you can go read the book or watch a movie or eat at a restaurant or, you know, get a car seat.

[00:47:34] Elijah: When I said, Adam, that I've got like an incredibly complicated relationship with technology. Like I've been in tech for 26 years, you know, Eric and I, before we met Jay, we're building software and mobile apps and websites for people. And. You know, I think that being involved in that is, it gives you a place where you can actually do some good.

You can build some tools, right? It's like the surgeon's scalpel that can save a person's life or stab somebody in the heart, right? It's how you use this stuff. And what we've made is a tool set, not another thing to get addicted to.

So that's how we frame it.

[00:48:07] Adam: Eli and Jay, to come back to your point too, I had another dad on the show and he talked about the idea of, is this a tool or a toy, right? Instagram for a lot of people is a toy. It's not really a tool. It's entertainment. It's

[00:48:21] Jay: And I love it.

[00:48:22] Adam: Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it, we

[00:48:24] Elijah: What's not to love?

[00:48:25] Adam: all love it.

I mean, for sure. But what you guys are building with VouchVault is a tool, right? It's not designed to be addictive or entertaining. It's designed to help you make a decision about something. Like, incorporate that into your consideration process. Which is good.

[00:48:42] Eric: Yeah, we want people to come there for a purpose. You know, it's not like you're going to come and doom scroll all day. It's like you go to this place cause I'm looking for a restaurant or a recipe or a product and I'm going there

[00:48:52] Elijah: It would be hard to doom scroll. You're like, Oh, another recommendation.

[00:48:55] Jay: Yeah, you're looking for a restaurant, then you go to the restaurant.

[00:48:58] Elijah: where,

[00:48:58] Eric: it. Get back to your life. You know, it really is get back. Don't spend time reviewing and doing all, you know, going down the rabbit hole. Just,

[00:49:05] Elijah: Yeah, it's less about an algorithm and more about actually handpicking the people that you want to connect with because you trust the stuff that they're recommending, right? Whereas my teen daughter gets on Insta and the algorithm is serving her stuff up that is like a bunch of self harm content, eating disorders, just crazy stuff that is like spiraling depression in teen girls, right?

So it's like a very, very different side of technology the way we see it.

[00:49:32] Adam: Yeah. So, we're going to get to our lightning round here in just a minute or two, but I have two more questions for you guys. And one is you know, Partnership is really important when you have kids and when you're a parent. Partnership with a spouse, partnership with family, but also, hard to agree all the time with that partner.

And so I'm curious, what is something that you all don't agree on with your wives when it comes to parenting?

[00:50:00] Jay: Is she gonna watch this?

[00:50:04] Eric: Well,before I get into a specific Adam, 100%. Jay, she will.

So before I try and come up with the specific, I do want to add of being a blended family and what that means in the home. So I'm sure all of us, even in our best selves, we've seen another parent. We're like, I would never parent like that. That person is an asshole or whatever.

Right. Or just like totally judging how someone's handling their kid. Right. And we've all done it. I've done it a million times. Well, imagine bringing that into your home. Cause that's what a blended family dynamic does. So when my wife is, you know, parenting, you know, my stepdaughter, I don't, we don't use that word, but you get to see the inherent bias that we have of our children.

And like, if you think you don't then you need to, you know, wake up because we all do, we all see our kids through our own lens. And so it's, we laugh about, we're very aware. We talk through it all, how like, you know, I trea you know, the other two is slightly different or, you know, whatnot. So it's a very interesting dynamic that comes up all the time.

And I know other blended family and fathers out there will certainly agree with this one.

[00:51:08] Adam: Yeah. That's a really interesting perspective. I haven't had a lot of blended family dads on the show, so.

[00:51:13] Eric: Okay. Yeah, it's a real thing.

[00:51:14] Adam: Eli, Jay, what do you think? Where's an area of of disagreement or you know, maybe where you have to better align with your spouse?

[00:51:21] Elijah: Who wants to get in trouble first? Do you want to get in trouble

first, Jay?

[00:51:24] Jay: I’ll go first, why not? But I have a little trick that's gonna She thinks that I go to restaurants too much and that I want to eat out too much. And I think that you know, there's a book by Marie Kondo called Tidying Up and you basically look at everything in the room and say, does this spark joy?

And the amount. What this is more when my children were home of Amazon packages that would arrive every goddamn day Sometimes there'd be like 15 unopened packages in my foyer and I'm like first of all does anybody know what's in these and do they spark joy and why is my card being just run through the mill here? So that's my complaint and yes, I do. I do go to restaurants too much. Okay.

[00:52:12] Adam: I had this, I had this happen. Jay, I feel like we live in the same household here. But I had this happen to me. I had a package. I very rarely get something that is delivered with my name on it to the house and it happened. And then that package came into the house and disappeared completely.

 I don't know what happened to it. Can't find it. Kids might have done something with it. Somebody else opened it. It's been integrated somewhere in the household, but I don't know where it is, so.

[00:52:40] Jay: Yeah, exactly. Like I would get, I would get packages with my name on it. I'm like, Oh, okay. So I'm going to open it up and it's like three lip gloss. And I'm like, Hmm, okay.

[00:52:51] Adam: Yeah. Trying to tell me something here or what? Yeah. All right, Eli.

Where's, you're, you get to get in trouble next.

[00:53:00] Eric: And his wife's a therapist, as he mentioned, so you don't want to disagree too much.

[00:53:02] Elijah: Yeah. Yeah. She, you know what though? That means that we're usually on the same page with most stuff when it comes to the parenting stuff. We're both really into this like evolutionary biology and how that folds into parenting. Basically, like, you know, how did humans live for most of existence?

And how is that at odds with the way we live right now? Part of that is co sleeping and we both tend to agree that like, yeah, it feels kind of cruel to leave a toddler alone in a dark room to just cry it out that you have to, you know, train them to not cry and they're biologically wired to be scared alone in the dark because for most of human history, that's when they'd probably be eaten.

Right? But we don't live in caves anymore.

[00:53:40] Jay: I like to eat children when they're alone in the dark.

[00:53:43] Elijah: Crying. When they're weeping.

[00:53:45] Jay: It's just natural. It's my instinct.

[00:53:47] Elijah: the

[00:53:47] Eric: Sparks joy, right?

[00:53:50] Elijah: It's the taste of baby tears.

[00:53:52] Adam: A thing you and your wife don't agree on, Jay.

[00:53:53] Jay: She doesn't like all the babies I'm eating. She doesn't like

[00:53:56] Adam: She thinks you shouldn't eat the children. You are very okay with

[00:54:00] Jay: And then she's buying too much on Amazon.. We have, it's a give and take.

[00:54:04] Adam: Hopefully those are, she's buying enough antacids on cause eating all those kids is

[00:54:08] Jay: Oh my god, you wouldn't believe what it does to the stuff.

[00:54:11] Elijah: So where that was going was, yeah, I agree, right? But what if your kids are just awful sleepers, right? And you know, am I doing like this attachment damage thing by leaving them alone in the room? Or do I let them keep me awake all night, right? And not be next to my wife. And I'm just a complete basket case the next day for consecutive days.

And then I'm an awful parent because I lose my temper and I scream and I yell.

[00:54:42] Adam: Who gets to be damaged more? The kid or you?

[00:54:45] Elijah: Well, yeah, it just kind of turns into this. I'm like, well, we don't live in caves anymore. Like what's worse. Like what's worse. And I'm like, tending to now err on the side of yeah, just let go, be unhappy and do some kind of evolutionary damage to yourself so that I can sleep.

[00:54:59] Adam: And don't let your kids sleep over at Jay's house.

[00:55:01] Jay: Nah, I'm gonna Or in a like pizza parlor basement. Yeah.

[00:55:05] Eric: You need to eat more, Jay. Go out more.

[00:55:08] Adam: Yeah.

[00:55:09] Eric: Stop the children.

[00:55:10] Adam: All right. Eric, you are in charge of this company. So how can people follow along or be helpful to you and VouchVault after they're listening to this show?

[00:55:21] Eric: Yeah, if they want to obviously jump on in the community, they can download it at the Apple app store or Google play. And we are actually about to embark upon a Crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder. So actually, our early users can actually be a part owner in our company. So we're going to be on Wefunder.

I'm not sure exactly when this is going to air, but we're probably going to be going live in early March. And so they can come to our website, vouchvault.com for more information there. And we'll have links to our, campaign if anyone wants to participate. So we're excited to allow our crew to participate in this round.

[00:55:56] Adam: Awesome.

[00:55:57] Jay: And the best way to use Vouch in my view is to get two friends and just start recommending stuff to each other. Cause that's really the way to build this thing, is to have, it's like a little text chain, like on your phone where you're like, I just saw this great movie and you got eight other people, like, oh yeah, okay.

I mean, that's the best way to use this thing, is sign up with a couple of people. I know that's sort of difficult, but where it really sings.

Adam: seems doable to me. That's what I'm doing right after this episode. So, cool. All right. Lightning round. Are you guys ready?

[00:56:30] Adam: I don't know how we're going to do this with three people. Maybe we'll just popcorn around and I will kind of call on you. But we're, you know what, we're going to do it. We're going to get this done. So here we go. Eli, what is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased?

[00:56:46] Elijah: Ever. Well, that's a big one. I think, I don't know if you're familiar with this toy, Magnetiles, but I've gotten so many miles out of Magnetiles where I'm like, Oh, you're about to age out. No, you still like them. And the one who's 10 years younger than you likes them too. It's almost like a fidget toy that you can just like, I'll sit down and play with them.

So that's one of my go to toys for sure.

[00:57:07] Adam: Awesome. Jay, what is the most useless parenting product that has ever found its way into your house?

[00:57:13] Jay: The most useless parenting product, I mean, I would have to say it would be, you know, the 75th stuffed panda.

[00:57:25] Eric: Oh, hell yeah. Stuffed animals.

[00:57:27] Jay: One of my daughters decided pandas

[00:57:28] Elijah: so much real

[00:57:29] Jay: was her thing, and it literally you're like, another one? I mean, another one?

[00:57:34] Eric: Yeah. is my son with penguins. We have a lot of stuffed penguins. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,

[00:57:39] Jay: You only need two.

[00:57:41] Adam: Right Eric what is the weirdest thing that you've ever found in a kid's pocket or in the washing machine?

[00:57:50] Eric: My kids went through that trend of making was it goo?

[00:57:53] Adam: Oh, yeah

[00:57:54] Jay: Oh, yeah

[00:57:55] Eric: slime? Oh my gosh. Like every varietal of slime and they would always try and find hacks because they didn't have the right Borax. So then they would like just raid the, you know, the garage and have like kerosene in there. I mean, it was.

Nasty. So yeah, all

[00:58:10] Elijah: Carpets. Carpets love slime.

[00:58:12] Eric: Oh my goodness, ruined a lot of carpets.

[00:58:14] Adam: Jay or Eli, do you have a not a slime story any other objects that you find in your kids pockets back in the day?

[00:58:21] Elijah: I've, got one. We were on a trip just a couple of years ago to visit my family in San Francisco and we're taking a walk along the shore of the bay and get in the car and I'm like, wow, it smells awful in here. Like it smells like, like rotting seafood looking around. I'm like, the fuck is that smell?

I'm like looking under the car mats and we get all the way back to my sister's house. And I'm like, I'm still getting whiffs of this. And, uh, getting my my son ready for bed, he pulls out this giant, like decomposing crab claw, like out of his pocket that he'd been hanging onto all day. Cause he thought it was so cool.

And this thing is just like rotting.

[00:59:00] Eric: Time to co sleep,

get after it. Yeah. Yep. Get in bed. I want to bring that. I want to put that under your pillow. Maybe

[00:59:05] Adam: Tuck that under

[00:59:06] Elijah: the crab fairy will come give you 5 for it. Yeah.

[00:59:08] Adam: God. Oh, God. Okay. Wow. I don't know if we can top that one. Jay, true or false. There is only one correct way to load a dishwasher.

[00:59:17] Jay: Look, the reality is that I load it a certain way. And then somebody in this house sometimes will come in and reload it the correct way.

[00:59:29] Adam: I see.

[00:59:30] Jay: I disagree. I mean, I'm a full grown adult here, and I've been washing dishes for a long time, but apparently there are. There's one way to do it right. And then there's my way.

[00:59:41] Adam: Right. Okay. Good. Eric, what is your signature dad superpower?

[00:59:47] Eric: I would say just humor. I like trying to make a joke out of everything, even the most serious times. And I think that that goes a long way in my house.

[00:59:57] Adam: Okay. Okay. We already know this answer from Eli, but maybe I'll ask Eric again, which one of your kids is your favorite? 

[01:00:05] Eric: uh, Brutal, no comment, man. I'm not doing it, Adam.

[01:00:10] Adam: Jay, what about you? Do you have a favorite kid?

[01:00:12] Jay: I like my son a lot. Um,

[01:00:19] Elijah: I'm not saying he's my favorite.

[01:00:20] Jay: plays, you know, he's pretty good golfer and you know, he's golf, we go off and play golf and I'm like, that's pretty, pretty nice. Hard to beat.

[01:00:27] Adam: Yeah. My, my vote would be the University of Michigan student, but that

[01:00:31] Jay: That one's great too. I mean, that one's great too. She doesn’t golf very well though.

[01:00:35] Adam: That's a bummer. Okay. Eli, what is the most, aside from the crab claw, what is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

[01:00:44] Elijah: Oh my goodness. That's a really, really long list. I don't think there's, I don't think there's a one. When Eric mentioned that slime, I forgot all about that. And I made this hard, fast rule of there is no slime inside the house. Like I've tried to get slime out of so many different kids' garments, my clothes, rugs.

And the other one was a magnetic sand. When I'm like, who the fuck invented sand to go inside your house? Right? Because it acts just like regular sand. It gets everywhere. It's like. In your bed, in your food, on your table, it's everywhere. So just like cleaning up that kind of stuff for me, I feel like it between uh, listen fighting, fighting the screens, I would probably have to say supersedes that as far as the bane of my existence of being a parent right now is how many times a day I have to say, okay, that's enough.

That's enough Roblox. No that's enough of the, My Little Pony show. And it's always met with like yells and screams and fighting. And that's a daily thing for me

[01:01:42] Adam: Eric and Jay, I don't think you all probably have an appreciation for the magnetic sand that probably didn't exist when your kids were the age of my kids and Eli's. But it's also a very popular birthday present for people to give to other parents. I think mostly out of sadism.

[01:02:00] Eric: These are the parents you don't like.

[01:02:01] Adam: Yeah, good luck with this magnetic sand.

[01:02:04] Jay: Well, is there a magnet that collects it all or not

[01:02:07] Adam: No it's, it's sand that is, they call it kinetic sand, actually. You're supposed to be able to like build things with it inside on a tray, but of course it never stays on the tray

[01:02:17] Eric: Well, it comes with the tray. Perfect.

[01:02:18] Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it comes problem solved. Imagine just bringing the beach into your house. That is what you're

[01:02:24] Eric: Sounds awesome. Damn. Sorry. We missed that.

[01:02:27] Adam: Alright, What is your go to dad wardrobe? Jay?

[01:02:30] Jay: I wear pretty similar clothing to what I always wore in college, which is just t-shirts and pants. And I'm, you know, my, my wife feels that it's a little bit of a childish look.

[01:02:44] Adam: Soft pants or hard pants?

[01:02:47] Jay: Soft pants. Well, you know, not sweatpants uh, they have structure to them, but I feel like she, you know, she, I don't know what, she thinks I should dress a little older and I'm not sure if that means more collars or ties, but you know, it's not going to happen.

[01:02:59] Adam: No, never, never. I'm surprised actually you didn't show up to the show in a tie. That's what I was hoping for.

[01:03:05] Jay: I have ties. I mean, I went to a prep school. I could, I used to have to wear a tie every day in high school.

[01:03:10] Adam: Oh boy. Any of you, what is the most embarrassing thing that you have ever done in front of your kids besides everything when they're teenagers? 

[01:03:22] Eric: Man, these questions.

[01:03:26] Elijah: I mean, I feel like this isn't really funny, but I mean, we all lose it sometimes. You know, we'll just come unglued and I'll yell and like, I'm kind of embarrassed for myself. Like the moment after I'm like, really, was that the way I wanted to handle this? Well, that was the best I could do. That's how it came out.

[01:03:48] Adam: Like, yeah, 

Eli: I think like anything I, anytime I catch myself doing something my dad would have done, I immediately feel embarrassed.

Adam: Jay, you seem like you're about to

[01:03:59] Jay: My daughters have these friends who they've had since they were three and so I've known them forever. They're now 18. when they were little, I, you know, I'd give them all a little bit of juice and then I'd pour myself a vodka soda. And they'd say, are you having juice too? I'm like, yeah, it's daddy juice.

And recently, all my kids came back, they all came back from college for like a little break. And one of their 18 year old friends walked in and I was, you know, drinking a vodka soda as I always was. And she goes, Oh, you having your little daddy juice? And I was like, 

[01:04:37] Elijah: Awesome. Incidentally, the name of Jay's next film is called Daddy Juice.

Let's uh, in theater soon.

[01:04:43] Adam: Alright, just a couple more. I don't know who wants to take this one. What is the most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

[01:04:52] Elijah: I'll go right now. Coco Melon. Fucking awful.

[01:04:55] Eric: Baby Einstein.

[01:04:56] Elijah: Like just, Oh, dude, did you ever have to watch Coco Melon? Because Baby Einstein was a treat compared to Coco Melon. And it was just like, speaking of AI, I think this whole thing was just generated by AI, the songs, the animation, everything.

And it just work its way into your brain, like some evil technology. And I would hear it while I was trying to sleep. Like just awful.

[01:05:19] Eric: How about Dora? That one was awful. I mean

[01:05:22] Elijah: Dora is a pleasure compared to Cocomelon.

[01:05:25] Jay: It

[01:05:25] Elijah: Spongebob, you know you still, you know you still watch Spongebob, Jay. Get a little, fire up a bowl, turn on Spongebob. Laughter.

[01:05:34] Jay: like Johnny test either.

[01:05:36] Adam: Oh God. Okay. What is your favorite kids movie?

[01:05:41] Elijah: Super Troopers.

 [01:05:43] Adam: I think we established that that is not a kid’s movie.

[01:05:46] Elijah: Oh, wait, wait, uh, that's just,

[01:05:48] Eric: to the first one was way too much.

[01:05:51] Jay: I like Toy Story quite a bit.

[01:05:53] Eric: Yeah, Toy Story is great. Moana was really great,

[01:05:56] Adam: Okay. We've got some consensus on Toy Story. Moana is a good one too. Fastest way to get a teenager out of bed in the morning.

[01:06:03] Eric: I like to do the um, well, I do it on Fridays, and I did it for a long time, that Amanda, is it Amanda Black song?

[01:06:10] Adam: Oh, the

[01:06:10] Eric: Friday? Yeah, so I go dancing in the rooms with the boxers on, and crank that up and they are, they're out of there.

[01:06:17] Elijah: funny, man. I do ACDC Highway to Hell, like, level 10,

[01:06:23] Adam: What about you, Jay? What's the best way to get a teenager out of bed in the morning?

[01:06:27] Jay: It's really like a, it's like a good cop, bad cop game. We used to play where I'd go in there and be like, look, I get it. I know you want to sleep, but you know, she's pissed and you know, I'm, it's not going to be good out there.

[01:06:41] Elijah: And if she's mad at you, she's gonna be mad at me, buddy. So you just gotta get up.

[01:06:44] Eric:She’s going to get on the dishwasher in a second. So get out.

[01:06:49] Jay: it's fake, it's fake,

[01:06:50] Adam: Love the good cop, bad cop. I too like to sleep, but you got this other person.

Okay. Last one. Since you all have older kids as well as Eli having younger kids, what was the first nostalgic movie that you forced your kids to watch with you?

[01:07:09] Elijah: Star Wars.

[01:07:09] Adam: Okay. One vote for Star Wars.

Eli: Age, age four. And I said, listen, if this is too much. If this is too scary, we'll just turn it off. I liked it. I was a year older than you when it first came out. I saw it in a theater, but if it's too much and she just watched the whole thing and right when it's over, she said, is there more? And I said, Oh yes, there's so much more. We're not leaving the house this weekend.

[01:07:32] Adam: You actually went and did the Phantom Menace after that? Oh God.

[01:07:37] Elijah: I offered, I said, okay, chronological order or, you know, the order they came out in theaters and so she went for the old school and we watched them just like I did all weekend.

[01:07:46] Adam: All right. What about Eric, Jay? Nostalgic movie?

[01:07:49] Eric: I got Back To The Future

[01:07:51] Adam: Okay.

[01:07:52] Eric: and I can't say it's landed yet. I don't know if it's a gender thing, but I don't know. That's one of my all time favorites. And yeah, I'll still watch it

[01:08:00] Jay: I showed my son First Blood. Um, I mean, he was, he was 10 and he loved

[01:08:08] Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My parents took me to see Terminator two in the movie theaters when I was way younger than I should have been. And that was also a high, I love that movie. So high quality film.

Okay. Last one. And I think this may be, I may start a fight here between Eli and Eric. I don't know how Jay feels about this, but what is your take on minivans?

[01:08:30] Eric: I'll go first. I am a huge fan. I've had a minivan. The Chrysler Pacifica, and it's, I want to qualify it. It is the sport model. So it's got like nice rims on it. loved it, really, honestly. I packed that thing full of Girl Scout cookies when the kids were young, camping gear, and I surf, so I get to throw all my surf stuff in there, so it's an indispensable vehicle for me and the crew.

Adam: All right, Eli.

[01:08:54] Elijah: I'm all about utility. It's so hard to argue. And at the same time, I'd rather just cut off my own genitals than like buy a minivan. I'm just not going to do it. Yeah.

[01:09:04] Adam: We got one, one pro, one con. Jay, you're the tiebreaker. How do we feel about minivans?

[01:09:09] Jay: We had, we had one. I do miss those sliding doors on both sides

[01:09:14] Eric: It's pretty nice.

[01:09:15] Jay: We have the, it's incredible.

[01:09:17] Eric: Was your name on the

Title? Was it Your Minivan?

[01:09:20] Jay: yeah,

[01:09:21] Eric: Alright, there we go! 

[01:09:22] Jay: right. And I drove it around and I just rationalized it by saying, you know, You're a cool R rated filmmaker, pal.

[01:09:31] Elijah: It's okay. It's okay.

[01:09:34] Adam: You have cred from a different thing.

[01:09:36] Jay: And when we got rid of it I never looked back.

[01:09:38] Adam: Never

[01:09:38] Eric: Did you have the sticker that said, Cool Minivan, said no one ever on there?

[01:09:43] Elijah: I can, I'm just like picturing Jay with these self affirmations like in the rearview mirror, like saying it at every stoplight,

[01:09:49] Jay: That is not good. It

[01:09:53] Adam: Oh, amazing. Wait, but here's the other question. For you minivan lovers. Were you driving teenagers around in that minivan? Did the teenagers drive the minivan themselves?

[01:10:03] Jay: No. We got rid of it.

[01:10:04] Eric: No, I still have mine.

[01:10:06] Adam: You still have yours. Okay. Eric. All right.

[01:10:08] Eric: I'm in, I'm all in Chrysler. If you're listening, come on I'm your guy, the Pacifica.

[01:10:13] Adam: They're gonna sponsor this podcast next.

All right. Well, gentlemen, thank you. That concludes the lightning round. I learned a lot about you all. Eli, I hope you never have to cut off your arm or genitals for a minivan. Whatever comes first. Thank you all three of you for for joining me today.

VouchVault is your company. We will definitely link to the fundraising campaign. So people can get a piece of the action and thanks for giving me some advice on teenagers today, guys. I really need it and I appreciate it.

So yeah. Good luck with all that.

[01:10:47] Eric: Thanks for having us. Adam this was fun.

[01:10:49] Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Eli, Eric and Jay. 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.

If you're a startup founder, leader, or just want to get better at your job in tech as a growth practitioner, product manager, or executive, You can join a community of over 11,000 subscribers and stay up to date on my thoughts on growth and product by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening. See you next week.