Startup Lessons Learnt from Parenting

Baby Startup vs Business Startup: There’s More Similarities Than You Imagine

One serial entrepreneur once compared caring for a newborn with building a disruptive startup. While I find the connection with my child a lot deeper than anything I’ve done at work, it is true that parenting can benefit a lot from what we call – transferable skills.

VLADYSLAV KOSHELYEV

Member, SCS Product Marketing Lead, Meta Founder, The Koshelyev Company

Afew weeks ago, we welcomed our newborn daughter to the world. Suddenly, all the comments from my colleagues about how raising a child is the toughest job they ever had – became my business. Indeed, just like in a startup, developing a long-term plan, balancing many priorities and carefully budgeting expenses are all urgent and important for a new parent.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT IS KEY

Taking the analogy further, fluency with tech can be important for parenting. Babies are not born with manuals, and even if we attend prenatal courses and read extensively, we can still find ourselves helpless in front of a crying newborn. That is why being able to search and get instant answers to questions like “Why is my baby crying?”, “How much should she eat?”, “What does the colour of the stool mean?” is important. Likewise, in a startup, the ability to find good learning resources such as videos and articles, and a community where you can get advice from experienced entrepreneurs can be helpful for scaling the learning curve.

AUTOMATION IS NECESSARY FROM TIME TO TIME

It is natural for a new parent to want to give your little one the best care. Particularly, I found tips about creating a constant white noise to help kids relax very helpful. At first, I tried creating a “ssshhhh” sound on my own, but the outcomes were inconsistent. Hence, I turned to a battery-powered sound machine, which helped the baby fall asleep faster, and even adults (like myself) snooze better. In another instance, we came across an automated bottle machine from a Singaporean startup that washes, disinfects, dries and tends to all our feeding containers. That machine has since saved us hours! This is the same for business startups. Founders often stretch themselves thin, taking on responsibilities they are not equipped to do. During these times, they may be better off delegating and automating to achieve better outcomes and free up their attention for other important things such as developing or marketing their products.

(BABY) GROWTH DATA

Every parent is obsessed with their young ones hitting the right milestones. For techies, this offers opportunities for some serious data analytics. From feeding frequency and amount of milk drunk to weight and other parameters, it is not only encouraging to see the metrics going up and to the right over time, but also allows for benchmarking the baby’s “performance” against other kids and adjusting care plan where required. Similarly, every business startup today needs good data about their user profiles, usage habits, or their product performance in terms of download frequency, favourite feature among users, etc. These information are essential for informed decisionmaking as well as strategising for future growth.

DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTER…

As my little one is just reaching the first month of her life, many more firsts are waiting for her. Tech has played a big part in my life – shaped my worldview and interests, and expanded my connections to include people on every continent. I am excited to see how technology will help her develop as a person. I hope, like me, tech will empower her to grow up having deep, rich friendships all around the world.