The following is a guest post by Allyson Downey, founder of Weespring which is a Techstars company based in NYC that provides trusted reviews for baby products.
—
Here’s some good news about being both a parent and an entrepreneur: whichever hat you put on first is going to help prepare you for the other. The bad news: it’s because they’re both unpredictable, utterly exhausting, and (usually) thankless jobs, wherein you’re making things up as you go along, constantly dealing with variables out of your control, and cleaning up crap (both figurative and literal). Sounds good, right?
So unsurprisingly, doing both of these jobs at once requires some serious juggling skills. (I like to say there’s no such thing as work-life balance… just work-life juggling.) As the founder of a start-up whose whole mission is to make parents’ lives easier, I’ve spent the last couple years also trying to figure out how to make my life easier — while still feeling like a good parent to my kids and a good CEO to weeSpring.
And the truth is, all of the aforementioned headaches aside, if you get the entrepreneur thing right, you can build in tremendous flexibility for yourself — while building a company that will attract great talent.
Preach what you practice, and practice what you preach: As an entrepreneur, you’re the one setting the culture for your company. Articulate your values early on both inside and outside the company, whether they’re broad (“do your job where you want, when you want, as long as it gets done”) or specific (“no one is expected to answer work email on weekends”). And by the way: these values are important for parents and non-parents alike.
Do stuff that’s just for you: It’s typical to feel guilty about your kids when you’re running your business, and guilty about your business when you’re with your kids — so doing neither can feel pretty awful. But if you burn yourself out, both the family and the company will suffer. Carve out a couple hours every week to do something that’s a little self-indulgent: take a long solo walk, read a novel, go to a movie, or whatever else re-charges you.
Embrace the second shift: Long hours are a given for entrepreneurs, but they don’t have to preclude you from spending time with your kids. We allocate 5pm to 8pm as family time, for dinner, a bath, play, and tucking into bed. And then we’re back online after (and often will do things like schedule conference calls at 9pm).
Think in terms of quality, not quantity: This has become one of our core values at weeSpring, and we apply it to pretty much everything — especially time. Three hours with your kids when you’re checking your iPhone every 10 minutes is worth a fraction of even just 30 minutes wholly focused on them.
Make use of your “found” time: We all have pockets of time that (inadvertently) get frittered away, whether it’s standing in line at the supermarket or riding the subway. Have a running list of small tasks that you chip away at when you have a couple free minutes, like clearing out emails or working on blog posts (like this one).
Leverage your village: I’m a big believer that it takes a village to raise a child, but you have to be pro-active about tapping into it. Childcare is an enormous headache for any working parent, but for entrepreneurs whose work can extend into the weekends and other odd hours, you need an especially solid support system. Find (or start) a baby-sitting co-op and build up a solid stable of friends, family, and sitters who understand and can help you.
There’s nothing easy about either being an entrepreneur or a parent, but nothing that’s easy feels all that rewarding. And now a few years into both running a start-up and starting a family, I can’t fathom anything more rewarding than what I’m doing.
—
Be sure to check out Weespring and let Allyson know what you think about her post in the comments! Thanks Allyson!
