Taking Risks and Having Fun with Molly Beck, Tech Entrepreneur + Mother of 2

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and forty one, which is airing in mid March of twenty twenty two. Sarah is going to be interviewing Molly Beck, who is a amazing tech entrepreneur has wonderful thoughts on building a career and a family in that world. She is also a best of both worlds listener, and we are hoping to bring on lots of listeners as guests as they talk about how they are combining work in life. So we are very excited to have Molly on talking about her life. So speaking of life right now, work in life, Sarah, It's birthday party season in your household with all your people having birthdays together in one fell swoop. I mean they're not that close together, but Annabelle and Cameron are only six weeks apart. I mean they're like almost two years apart, but you know what I'm saying. And then Genevieve is like two months prior to Cameron, so it just feel and then there's holidays and stuff, so it's like December, February, April, and then by the time each birthday gets done, I'm like, oh my god, I need to like figure out the next birthday like at that moment. And we didn't do a lot of parties during like the thick of COVID, but we're definitely back to doing them now. So I as we are recording this and by the time this airs, I'll just have happy memories of this party, hopefully, But right now I'm like, oh, because we're we're doing a video game truck, which seems like it would be so easy, and it felt easy when I reserved it, but I decided I did that we have a lot more room to park the truck at our new house versus our old house, like it would really kind of like clog up the whole street at our old house. So I did it for our new house, which is fine. Our new house is like a several blocks from our old house. But then it occurred to me that, like number one, I have like nowhere for parents to sit, and apparently a lot of parents are coming, and like I got a lot of people who were like, oh, I'm bringing my two other kids, okay, And I'm like, okay, which is fine. I don't mind it because I like bringing my kids to things together. But so I need to like have a place for parents. I have to hope that the weather is good and we haven't moved whatsoever, and our house is still dusty and like not pretty, and I'm like, I have to clean a bathroom, like people are gonna have to come in this house. And then I'm sort of like embarrassed by the fact that it's a completely empty, dusty house, and I just I don't know, like it's a lot. And now I'm just like, why didn't I do it at a venue where I could have not had to do anything? And thankfully Annabelle has requested an ice skating party, which will be nowhere near my house. I will have to do nothing but write a check and I'm super super thankful. Yay. Yeah, doing it at venues is always a great solution because yes, you generally just invite people and then sit back and you know, maybe you have to choose which pizza or something, but other than that, you don't have to do much. We are in the family birthday desert right now as much as you can, and a family of seven people have a birthday desert. But between Alex and January and then Jasper in May, we don't have anything. Well, I guess Max the dog is theoretically February, but I don't feel the need to throw him a party. So we are we're in the no zone right now. But Henry, by the time this airs will have actually gone to his first friend birthday party. He was invited to something. It's so cute. Really just kind of tickled about that idea that he has his own friends. Alex turned seven right at the sort of peak of omicron and so I kind of assume a lot of parents weren't going to want to go to like a bouncy house type place at the time, So we wound up having an outdoor party at a local playground and it was actually really cool. Like it was we just you know, had a handful of kids. It was like six other kids come. It was cold, but it wasn't you know, So we only did an hour because it was cold, and we did it late in the afternoon on Martin Luther King Day that Monday, because you know, it was the long weekend and so everyone was so happy to have something to bring their kid to by late afternoon on Monday that people were just like, oh, yes, I'm so glad to get out of the house. We got hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts and the munchkins, the little donuts, and people loved it, you know, because everyone loves donuts and hot chocolate. Yeah, it was. It was really cool. So I would say that was one of our maybe better birthday parties. And it was pretty low key, but it just in terms of how much fun the kids had, it was right up there. I love the fact that it was that short because then you basically it's not like you need a pavilion or like a place to sit or feel like you're hosting people for this extended thing. You're just like you're taking your kid to the playground like you normally would you're going to stand around or sit wherever, and we have donuts and hot chocolates. So that is that is beautiful. That was just good job. Yeah. I mean the thing is, I don't know that we could have gotten away with that on like a beautiful may Day, right, Like the reason it worked is it was a January Monday, and so nobody else was at the playground, Like we had the place to ourselves except for like two teenage boys who were playing on the basketball court. Like, I mean, that was it, right, And so it kind of was like our own party venue and I could just have the entire picnic area without making a reservation or anything, you know. So it was so low key because of that. But yeah, we did the video game truck thing once for Sam. That was fun and it's pretty easy birthday party idea too, if you as long as you have somewhere flat for the park the truck to park, which turns out to be harder than one might imagine in not in Florida. Well, this part of Pennsylvania. You need a flat spot, and my driveway it's not flat. That's so we parked in the road. But of course then I had to make sure like none of my neighbors were going to park in the road there, right, you know, some like defending five spots. Anyway, it was kind of funny. Party favors. What are your thoughts on party favors? I just hate them, I I agree. I mean the party favors that I've gotten that have been good have been like the kid makes a T shirt during the party and that's your favor. Love that. But I don't really feel like I have the energy to like do tied eye or anything. I mean, I guess I could. That wouldn't be that hard, but that sound terrible. My one A very memorable favor was a party we went to where they gave this like globe that like repeat it was some toy. It was probably she said she got them like at ross at some crazy deep discounted rate. It was probably a toy that would have been twenty five dollars or something, but she said she got them for like eight dollars each. And I think I may try to go to that route and like see if I can find some. We have like a Tuesday Morning and a Ross near us, as well as the good old Dollar store. So Josh said he will take Cameron on Saturday parties on Sunday and they'll look for like one random, deeply discounted thing because I just hate the little bags of crap like they bother me. And we did a no gifts this year. I know this. I got this a little bit from my sister in law, so her kids have done no gifts for years, just from a like we have enough kind of standpoint, and also just because like a lot of times you get stuff that's just like really ran, Like you mentioned that when kids get older they just exchanged gift cards, which that wouldn't really bother me, but when you get just like a lot of random plastic crap that plugs in and like, like, how much of that stuff do you really need or use? We certainly don't need or use any any more, or given that we have three kids and like have amassed plenty and honestly, what Cameron really wants to do with his time is like play the Nintendo. So anyway, we just said no gifts, and in order to make the kids feel better about that, we told them we will get them like a sizeable target gift card so that throughout the year, as they see things that they want that maybe they would have gotten for their birthday. They can purchase it themselves, and that way they're choosing like things that they're really excited about, rather than being showered with a whole bunch of random stuff at once. And I'm super happy because I know I'm weird, but I get like depressed and distressed when my kids have a pile of birthday gifts. I don't know, Okay, I've made my piece at the lot of clutter. I don't know. I agree with you on the party favor though, I think it's best if it's either something that's like intrinsic to the party itself. So like Ruth had a you know, paint your own pottery party, which obviously your thing was the pottery that you painted. That's pretty straightforward thing that's associated with it. But I think your choice if you're looking at like little bag of cheap crap, like you're better off like going up a few dollars and getting something actually cool, like you know, buy everyone a copy of the kid's favorite book or a little lego set or something, but you know, an actual thing that would be good instead of saving a few dollars and getting something that nobody wants. I think that's, you know, maybe something you would try to decide to go up a few dollars amount you like your friend dead who got the cool toy for everyone? That sounds like maybe the way to go on something like that. Well, anyway, we will be uh, we'll keep you posted on how the birthday parties went down. And now we'll be talking to Mollie Well. I am so excited today to introduce our guest, Molly Beck. Mollie has been a supporter and listener of the show for quite some time, and it is only natural that she come to join us today to tell us all about how she dominates. She is the CEO of Messi FM. It has had a really fascinating career journey and has so much great stuff to share. So go ahead, Molly, why don't you introduce yourself? Sarah. I am just thrilled to be on this podcast today. I really applaud what you and Laura have done. I feel like that for me, it's been helpful and it's been tangible, and it's really made me feel less alone in this journey of motherhood. So I am just thrilled to be here today. Okay, my name is Molly Beck. I live outside of Orlando, Florida, and I live in Orlando, Florida with my husband, Colin, who is an attorney for a large hospitality company. And we have a four year old boy, a two year old boy, and I am six months pregnant with a very baby boy. So we are just a boy family. And of course we have our little dog, Blueberry, who is just the best part of the family. And from Orlando, Florida, I run my B to B software company, Messifm. We build internal podcast solutions for enterprises, primarily focused on the university, government and Fortune one thousand market. MESSI is a remote company, so we have employees across the US, in Canada and in India, and it's really a joy. Do you be able to work with lots of customers, lots of teammates in this wonderful new hybrid world from the Sunshine State. Yes, well, this is a sunshine to sunshine conversation. Now, for those of our listeners who are like me and doctors and don't use words like B to B, what does that mean? Because I know you pivoted at some point, I had to do some of abbreviation learning. A great question, I'm asked Okay, so there's two types of businesses. Largely, one is called B to B. The B stand for business to business, and one is called B two C, and that would be business to consumer. The majority of the products that you and I buy every day, toilet paper, lipsticks, Starbucks, our B two C products, were buying them directly from the business for us to use as consumers in our families. However, there's also a large percentage of services accounting software. If you wanted to buy that same toilet paper but in mass for all of your locations, that are business to business decisions, So someone at the business is making the decision, typically through what's called the procurement department, to purchase it for the business. So MESSIFM answer your question. Started out as a B two C company, which means that we created podcasting infrastructure for individuals. I got really excited about that market because I was someone that had really benefited from B two C web based services. As a blogger, I was able to start a blog without knowing any sort of back end coding because of service called WordPress existed, could just jump on. It was all web based create my blog, didn't have to learn any code, and when I saw podcasting starting to replace blogging. I got really excited about creating what at the time I was calling the word press of paid pasts, making it really easy for anyone to jump into the space. B two C is a very interesting space because what typically happens and what happened to MESSI is we had tons of users, but those users typically don't pay too much money. So you know a ton of users that are either on freemium models, which means they start off as free users and maybe you can upsell them to five ten. I think our highest package was forty nine dollars a month. Is a much different experience with instead of the B to B space, So the B two C space and podcast hosting became crowded. Most people are familiar with Anchor. We competed directly with Anchor for quite some time. This is just such a side note, but something that happened in my life that was very impactful is I was like eight months pregnant with my second son. We were competing directly with Anchor. I couldn't sleep because I had pregnancy insomnia, and I was on the West Coast in California, and I was refashioning Twitter, and I really think. I was the first person to see the tweet from Spotify. I went out at six am East Coast time saying they had acquired Anchor, And that was a real turning point in my business because it did two things at once. One, it validated I was in the right space. It sounds silly to say now, but just a couple of years ago, the idea that podcasting would become as mainstream as music listening was not really there. You know, you were a podcaster before that. So it was validating that I was in the right space. But it was also very stressful because I sort of instantly realized that these wars Anchor and I were having sort of like lowering prices. Now they would have the backing of Spotify so they could make their service free, which is exactly what happened. And so I do remember I saw that tweet and by like three, like eight am Pacific time, I'd emailed my board, I'd texted my parents because they're on Boston, So's East Coast. I was like, everyone, this is happening, Like we have to really think about this. Anyways, jumping ahead, we pivoted to the B to B space, which means that we primarily sell now into businesses, and what a joy that has been. I really think most people, if you're like me and you're starting a business, you instantly think what's a service I can use, and then you build for yourself. But I would encourage anyone listening you're thinking about starting a product, think about that B to B space, think about selling it to businesses. A couple of benefits here. One right up the back price point. You can charge a lot more for businesses, and you also have a lot of upsell opportunities in terms of the size and scale of the organizations that you're selling into how you're pricing your services. Another really big one, especially if you're a small company and you're doing some of the customer service yourself, as I do, is that if you're selling primarily into businesses, you're mostly getting customer service questions during the business day. Very rarely are people working on their podcast for work on like a Saturday afternoon, And we have a twenty four hour guaranteed response time on all of Messi's thanks for individuals and businesses, and that's a different experience if you're getting lots of emails over the weekend of people working on their side Hustle podcasts for staring. So if you have an idea, if you are listening to this podcast and you want to start a business, but you don't have an idea, here's what I really think you should do. One there's three questions you should ask herself. One what businesses do I love? What products do I use as a consumer? Two? How could technology make those experiences better? And three what businesses would buy them? So, Sarah I was actually thinking I came up with that framework this morning. I was like, hmm, I'm going to create a planner that businesses say buy for their employees. Yes, okay, So Sarah, I actually had an idea for you because I was thinking about so Sarah obviously loves planners. We all know that. And then I was thinking, okay, so right now her planners are manual, and so what's technology that would help that? What if they were like living some sort of software in the computer. And then I was thinking, what's like a narrow a narrow thing she could sell into. Obviously she's a doctor in the doctor space. I have honestly, I have no idea what epic is. I've never even reasership, but I know you always talk about Epic on your blog, So like, what if you did some sort of like browser sension for Epic that made it so people could do like planning for their personnel. You know you're laughing because I don't know that's a bad idea, but like, following that train of what do you love? How could technology improve it? In what businesses would buy? It can help you think of a really nice B to B business. I think Epic may hire you as a consultant. Now they're like, wow, we never thought of getting into the physician wellness space, but here's our angle. We're going to hire Molly and Sarah and we're going to go for it, and all of a sudden, charting will go from being a chore to a pleasurable part of your day where you just know, oh my goodness, this is so funny and I love it. I love it. I love it. Molly, you are full of amazing ideas and this is already a lot of fun. Okay, so we're going to pivot. I love your business story. I think that's so fascinating, and I think you did mention in your explanation that I think women especially are intimidated to go into the B to B space, but I can see why a lot of us should. Just if that's what you're interested in doing, just get over your fears and try it, because I absolutely hear the benefits and how they've worked out so well for you. You. So now you have this blossoming career and so does your husband. And you have said that you have a fifty to fifty split in your household with your two boys, young boys and boy to be. I guess that one's more of a you, because that's hard for him to help as much with that one so far. But tell me about this split. Have you talked about it? What processes do you have in order? I want to hear the logistics here absolutely well, and I also actually have we sort of have a solution that we've worked out for the how I carry the baby for nine months, But we'll get to that second. So Colin and I do do we split childcare fifty fifty, truly fifty to fifty, And the way that we do it is the night before we look at the schedule like whatever's happening in the day, and I would say our days are fairly predictable. We both work largely nine to five. We don't do a ton of work on the weekends. Our kids are in some activities, but they're somewhat planned, and we do have forty hours a week of childcare combination of nanny and preschool. So with that in mind, I look at the schedule for the next day, and then I can tell you a top of my head that I know that during the week we have about five and a half hours each weekday that's not covered by tildcare, and on the weekends we have thirteen hours. So dividing that in half, we each do like two point seventy five hours on the week days, and then we each do six point five hours on the weekends, and we just come up with a schedule. Typically, how it breaks down is I usually do the morning shift and like an hour after work and then calling us after work till they go to bed. That's like on a typical day, and then on the weekends I still am sort of the early riser, so I typically take morning straight through till around like one p one thirty, depending on what time big it up, and then he does that till bedtime. Something that's really important to note is that it doesn't mean that we're not hanging out as a family. We often do family activities on the weekends. Kids are in sports. We're big like NASCAR, monster truck people, so we go to that on the weekends a lot. So we're still doing stuff as a family, but the person who's like on, they're like the primary. So if we're at the monster truck rally in the morning and one of the kids wants a snack or has to go to the bathroom, it would be me that's jumping up and doing it, because I would be in the morning shift. If it's the afternoon, we're lazing about the house, the kids are hungry. These kids always want snacks, then it would be cool and that would jump up and do it. So it's it doesn't mean that we're not together as a family, but somebody is on, and somebody is sort of more off as off as you can be, but then they also are off. If it's the afternoon and it's Colin's time, and I am very social, I like to hang out with my friends a lot, and if I want to do that, it's fine. I can either hop on a zoom, I can sometimes I do a little messy work, like just doing some stuff and that's totally fine. Colin usually works out in the morning. He's more of a runner than I am. And we love it. I really enjoyed. You know, how we started it actually is I think that the hardest part of parenting for us was when we had one child under a year old, not a ton of activities. You could really take them too, like you can take a six month old to the zoo, but like, who's enjoying that they're I don't not. In our family, nobody was enjoying it. So then you have like two adults and one kid and not a lot to do. So we started splitting up the weekend, somebody being more on and off. And then as our family grew, as the kids frankly became more interesting and like had things to do, we just kept with the schedule. And oh, I want I think, I want to tell you was the nine month thing. So something that we do actually is after I'm done like breastfeeding, then Colin does do the next nine months of wake ups in the night time, and that's like sort of you know, is it a perfect science? Like no occasion I'll get up in the middle of the night, but if the baby can take a bottle. Then Colin does the night wake ups for about nine months after and then hopefully by that point the kids are so think you're the night Oh that's so funny. For us, it was more like the minute that I wasn't feeding them at night, they were like, okay, fine, there's nothing to do, I'll just sleep, So that would not interesting. I want to hear a tiny bit. Well, we have to take a quick break, and as soon as we're back, I want to ask you a tiny bit more about your weekday split. Maybe we can do like a day in the life. All Right, we are back and we are hearing logistics from Molly, especially how she splits things with her husband very thoughtfully. And I want to hear you mentioned kind of that you are more of the morning parent and you kind of really split those childcare free hours very equally. So I want to hear a day in the life at your house. I wake up the angel saying, now, I'm just kidding. I try to get up around six. My kids usually they have one of those traffic lights in their rooms that goes from like green to or red to green when they can get up, so I know my four year old does get up a little bit before then I can hear him in the room, but my two year olds still a sleep. They share a room, and my four year old when he gets up, he has to get dressed and make his bed, and then it's when it's traffic lights, which is colors. He usually calls for me. By that point, I'm usually dressed myself. I just I find it very frustrating to try to like do my hair, do I make up, and get dressed with kids running around, so I try to avoid that as much as possible. So then he and I we trumps downstairs. Sometimes the two year old is up, then sometimes they're not. Calm's usually still asleep with the dog. Calm the dog are sleepers, come downstairs, have a little breakfast. In terms of breakfast, I don't usually eat breakfast, but the kids are right now. They're on like a dinosaur eggs oatmeal kick, which honestly that stuff isn't bad. If you're like looking for a little snackeroo cereal, you know, we have some fruit YadA, YadA, YadA. The kid usually watched some TV. They're really into number blocks right now, which is if you watch it as an adult, you'd be like, why do my kids like it. But my kids really like it, so they watch number Blocks. I'd probably last like a half hour ish, and then we trumps back upstairs. It's like seven fifteen, seven thirty, we wake up Colin, who's actually Colin is sometimes already awake that the kids really like to waken up, so sometimes he gets back in bed and pretends to be asleep and then be kind of all that's like the most stressful part of the day is like seven thirty to like seven forty five. It's still my time. But like the kids are running around, they're already dressed usually at that point, like they've gotten The four year old was alread dressed when would downstairs, and the two year old is like in various stages of it, and like nobody has like a defined activity, but around eight o'clock defined activities start. People need to get shoes on out the door, and the time switches over to Colin. Colin is usually the one that brings them to school in the morning, and okay, so then it's my time. So now it's like eight fifteen, I am definitely walking out the door, going to the coffee shop. Let my little routine in the morning I always run into people I know, people to chat with. It was really important to me to live in a community where I think I had like a number even I think I wanted to know if fifteen percent of people in the coffee shop every day when I moved here, Like, I just really wanted that. Com made me feel and I do feel like I run into people to chat with, which you really like. So go to the coffee shop, get my coffee, come back home by me, and it'd a bit. It's maybe around nine. If I like, like every neighborhood right now, everybody's talking about real estate gossip. So if I got some like very hot real estate gossip, then I was chatting with someone. I'm like texting Polin. Oh my gods, you'll never believe who's thinking of listing? YadA yad YadA. Okay, Then from nine to five, it's just a normal day. I am usually on slacks with internal teams. I'm usually on demos with customers. I do a lot of customer onboarding myself. We do some creator training for some of our bigger accounts. MESSI is no longer Messy's venture back, which means we took outside capital to build our initial products. So occasionally I interface with investors, although we're not currently raising. And that's just like my nine to five. The kids are usually in and out because we have a nanny the two year olds. Not neither of the kids are in full time school, but all of our schools are just the morning, so I pop out chat with them. Honestly, on occasion. They do a lot of crafts. I love crafts. They were doing the craft that I like really like I happen just rely, like five or ten minutes, just to remind them who the craft master is in the house, not me, no anyways. Okay, So then five o'clock the day and we say goodbye to our nanny. Something that's important to know is our nanny's actually a family member, but we treat her like we would someone that was not a family member, Like we keep very defined hours, she's pain on the books, all of the things that someone that was not a family member would get, and we try to be really respectful of her time. And the truth is she's a really good friend of mine, Like you know, even though we weren't sister in law, she would be a good friend of mine. But I still try to really keep that boundary during the day, So five o'clock we say goodbye to her, and then kids and I hang out. I usually start making dinner. No, I really like pasta, and my kids really love pasta, so they do pasta a lot of nights, little veggies the whole Shenan's, and at six o'clock call and takes it over. I usually hang out for a little bit. That's when I read the paper. We'll talk about that later. That's when I read my paper and like sit in the couch and kids are running around eating. And then usually seven o'clock I start having more zooms and they're usually more social. So I meet with like a creative entrepreneurship club twice a week part of a life group at church. Usually just like like to pull get togethers with friends. So I usually do like some social stuff online from like seven to nine. For nine o'clock, kids are down on and I hang out chill watch some house Hunters. It's a really fun game. One person chooses what house hunters to go to. Another person has to see if they can figure out what's to be there in before they say it. It's pretty crazy actually, and then go to bed. Yeah, that would be a day. I love it, And so does your husband like kind of take over the bedtime duty since that's like technically his hours. Yeah, don't show me a bedtime book. I'm not interested. And I'm just kidding. I do by him, like I probably do buy him twice a week, but most of the time it's him. Awesome. Oh well, that sounds lovely. It sounds like you do have a lot of fun together and with your kids. And what a cool but unusual setup with an employed family member. I have like some fantasies of maybe one day, well they're going to hear it on this podcast. I don't think they listen, but like, you know, hiring one of my nieces or nephews to be like kind of like a vacation O pair like everybody wins. They go on a free trip, they hang out with their cousins, I pay them, Like, I think it could be kind of fun. So yeah, I think that's really cool that you do that. Okay, So I wanted you to talk a little bit about not specifically your company, but the tech Stars program and kind of like the chance you took when your kids were young that was pretty outside of the box. Just I don't know, so listeners can kind of hear what's possible and how it worked out for you. Sure. So, tech Stars is an accelerator program, which means that they take a very small number of startups each year. They run them through a four month long program that's a mix of mentorship, fundraising, everything to get your company into a really great space, and they also invest into your company. And so then the idea is that they take startups that they think are going to be on a great trajectory and help them grow even more. Tech Stars is very competitive to get into, and I had applied in twenty seventeen when Messi was still just an idea. I applied in twenty eighteen when Messi was just coming out of beta, and then I didn't even get an interview either time. However, they it's part of the application you have to submit a video. And the first time I submitted video, you can like get like hosted on my private YouTube. I saw that it was only watched like three times. But then the second time the application video was viewed like fifty times. So I was like, oh, at least, like I think getting better because they're like passing it around. So I was just like excited that this application video was viewed fifty times and I just got the form rejection letter. Okay, so fast forward. Now it's twenty nineteen. I have a one year old, and I am pregnant with my second son, and we are living in Los Angeles, California, so we had just moved cross country. My first son was born in New York. I'm about to get birth to my second son in Los Angeles. My husband works for a different, like hospitality ish company out there, and I get an email from Texars in like January, from the managing director asking me to apply again. And you know, one of one of my traits is I'm definitely a Gretchen Reuben rebel, and I don't like it when people tell me. I don't like what people tell me what to do. You wanted this program until they wanted you a hundred percent. And also the logistics of my life just made absolutely no sense. I was like super pregnant, I had this one year old. You know, another reality of my life at that time is that MESSI was not making very much money. Remember we had all those users, but no real money. We're still by to see, so I didn't have regular childcare at all. And we also lived in LA where we do no one, so we didn't even have family. So I was doing the bulk of the childcare and I was like working on MESSI really early in the morning, which actually worked at well because on the East time it was like nine to twelve, so it was like early in the morning six to nine my time, so I could do work before Calm left for work. But like, you know, I don't know how other people feel being pregnant, but I just like it wasn't in the right head space. So I get this email, totally blow it off, blow it off, like a million times. It keeps emailing. I'm like, he's like, I really think you should apply this year. I'm like please, no. Anyways, long story short, my baby comes early, maybe became with sposed to come like the end of April. That came to on April fol side, and so the application deadline for Textars was April seventh. So give birth to the baby, thank God, everything is great, and then get out of the hospital and I just keep thinking about his Textar's application, and I'm like, I don't know, like why do I keep thinking about it? You know? But then I always think of that quote that's like, you should dance with the one that wants you, And I was like the fact that textar is email me is kind of interesting. So anyways, decide one night, like April the textors application to do April seven. Decide on April six, I'm gonna do this application. So I do the whole thing, and then I realized, oh my gosh, I should do another video. Remember my videos that were only being viewed a couple a couple of times. However, I just had this epidural. My face is like so puffy. You know, I didn't look my best. I didn't look my worst. Actually just yeah, let's like we all know that most people listening to this podcast are like not my finest hundred person exactly. But so I like go in the corner of our bedroom and I'm talking really low in the video because Be's sleeping, and I just do this quick video and I send it off. Anyways, end up getting email like inviting me to interview in Philadelphia. And I don't know what other people's marriages are like. But I hadn't really told Colin all of the details about this tech Stars thing. You know, I always think, why worry people until things are becoming more serious. You know, I was like, oh, isn't it fun? Textar seems like they want me. Oh yeah, I applied, We'll see what happens blah blah blah. But then it suddenly becomes really real that I have to if I want to continue the process, I have to fly to Philadelphia and interview. And at this point I the interview process, the interview date, I would have a five week old and then I still have a one year old that remember we have no regular childcare, so like that's a whole other brinkle, Like who would watch the one year old while I'm gone? I didn't think I was up. I knew the five years old would have to come with me because it was so breastfeeding. If I knew the one year old couldn't, it would just be too crazy. So do a little thinking, And I called my parents and I sort of like told them the whole story, and they're like, tech what the stars like? Blah blah blah, And I'm and my dad like, this is just a parva story that I think is really important. Is like, I'm very lucky that I have a community that really believes in my ideas and my dad, who's not I would say a super baby person volunteers to fly from Boston to Philly, meet me at the interview, and then watch the baby during the interview. And it was just such a kind offer. And so once my dad offered that, I was like, I think I should do this, Like I think people really, I think people are rallying around me, and so fly to tex Stars. The baby just We're on this cross country flight. The baby is crying the whole time. We're in the middle seat. I'm like trying to breastfeed the night before my dad's like flight. I forget the details, but whatever it was. My dad didn't get in until really late. I was there. Baby was crying the whole night. I was like, still working because to interview at textars, you do a panel interview with about forty people and you have to do this whole like pitch and you see the other startups player there. Mine was at the Comcast Anology Center, which is like this big, fancy building. Keep in mind, I've been working for myself for the past two years, literally out of bed, a baby's bedroom. And so I go to dry bar, like god bless driver. I get my first blowout since I've had the baby. I was like, I have a new person, give the baby to my dad, go into the interview. I have this picture that I just totally treasure of my dad pushing the baby around the corner of the Textars center while I go inside. To keep in mind, the baby wasn't taking a bottle, so my dad's really his only option to watch him was to like push him in a stroller, like for however long it took. So go in, have the interview, end up getting into Textars, and then I realized I have to tell like they don't tell you right way they get into Textars. But like I felt like the interview went well. My dad and I had a chili chili this is called Philly cheese steak, and then I flew back. But the Textars program is in Philly and I'm in California, and so I get into Textars and that's when I realized I have to have a really serious conversation with Colin about how we're going to make this work. I am, obviously so not an expert on marriage, but in my marriage, one thing that we have always sort of thought is the person that really feels the strongest should get their way, so, you know, forgetting takeout, and I kind of listen one for pizza, but Colin really wants taco Tuesday. He wanted more. He should get it that night. And this is one of the situations where Colin wasn't thrilled about the idea of both of the kids and me moving to Philly for four months. He had to stay in Los Angeles because that's where his job was. This is pre COVID, you did not get permission to work remotely. He would have to fly like maybe every we thought, maybe like every third weekend to visit us and be away from his kids and me for four months for an idea. MESSI, the company of MESSI now with employees and real customers and all, is not what we were back then. We were a ton of users not paying in a space where Spotify had just bought our biggest competitor. Like it was really it was. It was like not. It wasn't like a tenuous and uncertain so tiny centered And we didn't have childcare in Philly, and we had never had regular childcare, so I didn't even really know about was I supposed to be looking for daycare? Was I supposed to be looking for nannies, but I just feel call on, like, hey, I'm going to do this, and I just did it and he was helpful. I think if you're not yet with a partner, I do think it's helpful to marry someone that's just easy going. I just think it makes your life easier. So anyways, the kids and I fly to Philly. I found a nanny agency. They assigned us a nanny. I met her on Sunday and then Monday she started watching my kids full time. We rented an apartment across the street from the Comcast Technology Center, so I would did you do firm lunch every day and feed the baby and then go back and text hers like changed the trajectory of my business. Comcasts ended up investing in the business. They became a customer. We ended up pivoting to B to B. I felt like a real entrepreneur's when I felt like I wasn't just like toiling by myself, Like I had this community around myself and it was one of the best things I ever did for myself and in our family. Everybody gets to follow their dreams and sometimes that is even the mom So that was our journey. What a cool story at a crazy time, and obviously it ended up like paying off amazingly. So your gut instinct must have really kind of told you to move on that and you were totally right. So I love that you shared that. And speaking of kind of dreams and instincts, my last question before we get to the level of the week is goal setting. You mentioned a couple of goals and how you I'm curious, like, do you do it quarterly or do you follow the best of both worlds or best laid plans kind of methods or are you more just a yearly or how did you create these big dreams and goals? Okay, so this is a good question. I cannot believe I just forgot to tell the craziest part of this textoor story. Okay, so we get to text. The second week of the program, I'm sitting in a meeting like with my leg tucked under my butt. My leg falls asleep and I tried to walk on it and I broke my leg. So I was on crutches for this program with these kids. I'll never forget calling calling from the er. I had a conference call with my mom and Colin and I'm like, Okay, here's the deal. They just did an X ray. It's like not looking good. That was honestly all joking aside. The lowest I've ever felt as an adult was I got home from the er like one d am. I had to pay the babysitter a ton of overtime to stay that lake because I broken at the end of the day, which like is expensively on the babysitting is expensive. I was watching my pennies, so I had to pay all this overtime, and my leg was broken. I was on these crutches. I had this we were living in an apartment building. I had this huge fear already that was gonna be a fire. I was gonna be able to get the kids out, And now I'm like, I'm on crutches and I have these kids, and it was a very stressful time, and I just wanted to share the advice. Something that really helped me is that particular night when I was so stressed, I couldn't take any serious I didn't want to take any serious drugs because I was the only caregiver. And I also didn't have tilan all on my apartment because we just got there and so I was walking in and I had this horrible worry that there was going to be a fire. I had this broken leg, and how did I get the kids out? So I stopped and talked to the guy, the doorman at the front desk, and I was just like, hey, I just moved in obviously. I just they think my leg is broken, said to go to orthopedic like the next day. So I'm like, they think I didn't have health insurance in Philly. It was a whole namer. So I'm like, here is the situation. I'm like, just fi, we live on the eighth floor. I didn't ask him, hey, if there's a fire, like come and grab us, but just like telling somebody just the situation. And I think that that works in almost every situation. If there's always people who are paid professionals in almost any situation that will help you. If you were flying across the country with a baby, there are flight attendants that can help you if things start going really south with the baby, if you are alone, Like sometimes I even you know, I'm about to have three kids really close in age, and you know, the first time you do anything with when I did it with two kids and now I'll do it with three kids. It will be nerve wracking to go out alone with me and just the three of them, but I'll think about, like, Okay, what are other people around the situation that like whether they I always thought like, oh if I pass out when I'm alone with the kids, Oh if I feel light headed, I'll just walk into a Starbucks and then there are paid people there that will have to deal with me. So just like always look for paid people that like they can kind of help you if you're stressed. So anyways, sorry, that was the text I story. Let me tell you about my goals. Okay, the two things are true at once. One I love goals and I am a big goal setter, and two I have not done so hot on my twenty twenty two goals. Just laying it up there. My goals for this year, my three big ones that were personal not mess you related, would be to meditate every day, to document my experience of mother better, and to do one hundred thought leadership pieces. So I'm actually doing okay in the thought leadership. I'm like on target for that. Meditation every day is happening a few times a week, and the motherhood documenting has a bit falling off, but that's okay, that's part of the process. That's okay. You could just play them this episode that will count. And the other thing I want to say about sort of goal setting is I also think it's okay you can always just reset the goals, like you know, sometimes it's fun to look back. And also there were stuff that I did in twenty twenty one that wasn't on the goals list, but I was like, oh wow, I started running, like I'd ran a mile. I never thought I would run a mile in my whole life, Like that wasn't on the list. But some other things maybe just tinge, where did that goals list go I love making goals lists, but I fully agree you can always hit that reset button. You can always start over, you can always cross goals off the list because hey, maybe you learn something about yourself and that just as productive sometimes that like I thought I wanted to do this, Actually I don't. Moving on, so I fully applaud that. And yeah, documenting, I mean, yeah, maybe it's overrated. Like there's always a photo role in your phone, right, there's always the iPhone share album. I had like a little Google spreadsheet where I was like writing. My goal was to everyday start the experience with like I felt like global blessing about motherhood. And for like three days in a row, the entry was I felt cranky till I eat chocolate and I'm like, who is this for? Like, I can't even tell this to my kids? So funny. All right, Well it is time for Love of the Week and we know okay, So full disclosure. Molly's is our Patreon group, and she shared some of her loves of the week because she wanted to see which might be the best one for this episode, and I deemed her the world's most prepared guests we've ever had. So I think you should share at least the book you mentioned, and then whatever else you would like to mention from that list for your loves. Great, Okay, so let's do some book recommendations. I actually have a couple that I think might be helpful. So first book recommendation is I wanted to give a book recommendation for people that I love being an entrepreneur. Obviously, it's something I feel very passionate about. It has been really transformational in my life, and so I recommend if you have an idea for a business. Read this book. It's called Business Minded. It came out earlier this year by someone named Carly Reordan, and I just wanted to throw out there that sometimes when women write business books, the reviews come back that like, oh, they're making business too easy, or like it's not as complicated as it could be. And to me, that is a massive form of gatekeeping. And if someone tells you that business is too hard, two things are happening. One they want you to feel like they're super smart, which is why they're saying that it's hard. Or Two they're nervous that if you get into business, you will crush them. Business is not hard. And I really feel passionate that if you have an idea for a business, you can do it. Spend a couple minutes every day working on your business. In like the next five weeks you've spent twenty hours, you have outlined it, and then just start doing things. You don't have to spend a lot of money, you don't have to like announce it to the whole world, you don't have to leave that day job. I think having control over your business is wonderful for your mental health. Okay, so that's the business recommendation. Other one for people that are interested in the B to B space. There's this book called The Startup Gold Mind. It's by someone named Neil and it's the subtitle is like how large Companies can grow and fund your business, And it's just about how businesses can work with like large established companies in order to become both customers and funders. The book was very helpful to me. Then finally a book about middle children. So I am not a middle child. I'm the oldest, but I'm about to have a middle child because I'm making my two year old and middle child. So I was trying to find a book that would be about my sweet little guy, and I found this book called The Sek Power of middle Children. If you are a middle child, if you love a middle child, if you have a middle child, if you're partnered with a middle child, this is the book for you. Man. You will read this book and you will want to be a middle child. Middle children are like the best combination of like the first board and how they tend to be more driven and the last board and how they tend to be more social. Middles like run this great path And it sounds like it's it's an envious rule to be in the family. So that's the secret power of middle children. Love it. Those are excellent recommendations. I don't have any recommendations to compete with that, but since you had so many of them, maybe I don't have to. Okay, I will mention one that was brought up, and I don't know if I've used this before, but you know what, who cares. So when we were having this discussion yesterday, if everybody's loves of the week, people came up with subscription services that they use and love, and I will. I have three, so I'm going to give that theme. One is I get masks on subscription. Like I'm hoping I don't have to do that forever. I would really like to stop getting them, but right now it's very easy, and like we always have disposable masks laying around, which is kind of I've given up on the cloth to some extent because I don't know, it's just easier. So that's one. Mine is from Armbrust American, which is like an American made mask company, and they fit my face, So that's one. Number two is an old podcast sponsor that hasn't been a sponsor for like three years, so this is non sponsor, but I still get the Lola tampon subscription and never buying tampons is the best, and they're really good tampons, So there you go. And then the third one is I get the allurea Beauty box and I got that recommendation from a Bogel and it just comes as sample sized products and a couple of full size products every month, and you get to try a lot of things. And my oldest kid is already interested in them, and so sometimes I will give casts off to her and it makes her day. So it's really fun. That is awesome, you know what. I used to be a little less subscriber too before I got pregnant. I obviously pass it, but it's really nice to have them come. I feel like they're very high quality. Yeah, that's a good Lola recommendation and it's like never something you want to go out and have to buy last minute, like the Yes, maybe we can sponsor them again anyway. Thank you so much for being on the show, Mollie. You were wonderful. Tell everybody where they can find you. Thank you so much for having me on. You can always find me at MS molly Back Miss Molly Back on any social platform if you like data lives, I actually do a lot of data lives on my Instagram platform. And if you're interested in networking, I also wrote a book called reach Out that you can find wherever books are sold. And if you're interested in starting an internal podcast at your company, you can go to Messy Messy dot fm. It's called messi because the future of audio is authentic and transparent, and internal comms don't have to be born they can be really about the leaders. Oh and of course you can always email me Mollie at messim My whole book is about emailing strangers, so has Tea. I love it. Thank you so much, Mollie. Well, that was amazing. Mollie has tons of energy and enthusiasm for life and work, and we are so glad she was willing to talk with us about that. Our question today comes from somebody who also has many small children. So this is from someone who is looking to get school aged and baby children ready and out the door in the morning without having to get up insanely early. So the listener says that her daughters attend a private school and her baby boy will also be enrolled in their childcare program. So the good news is it will be one stop drop off for her husband, who is doing the morning run, and she does the afternoon pickup. She said, the last time we had an infant, the oldest was a toddler, so it didn't matter so much what time we dropped them off. But she can't have her girls, now that they are in school, be tardy. The girls can dress themselves being school aged, but still need a lot of prompting to put shoes on, brush teeth, get backpacks, put on coats. This listener is already doing things like packing lunches the night before and everything else she can possibly do to make mornings go more smoothly, but it is still a flurry of gentle and then not so gentle nudging to get them out the door. Her husband's an engineer, she's an attorney. We're both gonna be busy when she returns to work. She's on maternity leave and getting ready for the childcare runs coming up soon. So what do we recommend? Sarah? Okay, So, just to set the scene of how long it takes for us, we wake the kids up at around six forty five to six fifty although today it was seven because that was being very lazy and we leave at seven thirty five and today went fine, So I guess thirty five minutes is enough from wake up to out the door. One thing that helps us is the older kids are expected to pretty much do themselves, and the only thing that has helped to keep them on track, other than a lot of nagging, has been music as prompts. And in fact, this morning I was like, Karen, start putting it. He's like, no, Mom, the ten minute song didn't come on yet, and then like it came on two seconds later and he went to work. He knew, like that's the countdown and you have to be ready. We've also had like discussions where it's like if you're not ready and the song stops, which that's the queue to leave, like you will lose video game time. So there's some steaks like tied to things, and they take it fairly seriously. So yeah, having the big kids be as self sufficient as possible, and we do have the clothes kind of set up. We have them downstairs. Currently, our new house is going to be all one floor, so I don't know, we might change things up, but for now, the cloths are downstairs to make things really easy to change, and our nanny is very nice and she sets out there like uniform outfit the day before, so there's just no thought that goes into them putting on their clothes. And one other thing I will note is that maybe there needs to be slightly earlier bedtime that would facilitate an earlier wake up for the baby, because it sounds like the baby is the one that you are worried about. But when my kids were little, they tended to go to bed really early, so they were up pretty early, and then you don't have as much of a rush with them because maybe you have a whole hour to get them ready or whatever it is. So think about out maybe the baby in particular might need an earlier bedtime so that getting them up at six or six thirty or whatever the time it needs to be is in a struggle, but more of a natural phenomenon for them. Yeah, said, I had some questions about the scenario because obviously, anytime you start new routines and she's going back to work after maternity to leave, it's it's time to think about who's doing what, and you know why you're doing what. You're doing. So just a couple questions to get clarity on. So, first, if she is doing the afternoon pickup, what is involved in that? Is she then like done with work at that point and she's doing the after dinner I mean the after school shift with the kids and starting dinner and all that while her husband's still at work. Because if she is the afternoon parent, then it seems like he should be the morning parent, meaning that this is mostly his problem, not hers, right if that is their split, And so I'm not saying with an infant that he could get everyone ready, especially if she is nursing like she is going to be on the infant, but it could be that she is only doing the infant and like she hands the baby fed and in his little cute onesie to her husband, who then is you know, has gotten the girls ready and gotten them out the door. So I don't know that she needs to be the one doing all this, you know, not saying it's going to be easy for him either, But he didn't write into us, so I don't know what his deal is. Maybe maybe he has other ideas for how to make it happen, but you know, splitting it could be good. In any case, you know that she takes the baby, that just makes obvious sense. He takes the girls. I would also say it's going to be a pain, Like there's no real way around this, And so I think having some idea, some fantasy that there is a version of getting three children out the door that is all butterflies and fairies and wonderfulness is just not realistic. And so when you but the thing about acknowledging that is that then you don't spend so much of your energy pursuing whatever hacks you think are going to make it easier for you. Like you just acknowledge that it's not going to be a fun necessarily part of the day, and you just deal with that, right, Like you say, Okay, you know, yes, we have to get out the door. We're not going to have some magical system where it's all great, but we do have to get out the door. And so let's just all deal with it. Because the problem when people decide that there must be some magical, wonderful approach that they just need to work to find is they start making decisions that then gets you know, they lose their entire night to getting ready for the next day. So I'm not even just talking. Just like the lunches. I mean, there's the lunches. They pack everyone's bags for everything, it's all done. It's like, you know, you spend an hour getting ready at night, but then you still have to get ready in the morning too, and you're still yelling and you're like unhappy about it because you know, you put out the unicorn pants and now she doesn't want to wear the unicorn pants answer you know, whatever else happened, and then you know you still have a scene in the morning, and you didn't have your hour to relax at night because you were putting out the unicorn pants, and now you are really unhappy. So if you accept that it is going to be slightly chaotic and unpleasant, maybe not unpleasant, but just not smooth and well oiled machine every day, then that allows you to enjoy some relaxed time at night, not thinking you should be doing everything on earth to prepare for the blizzard that is coming the next morning. And then the last thing I would suggest is possibly, now that you have three children, you need to think about your childcare scenario. And one of the reasons we started employing a nanny once we had multiple children is because it is a lot of work to get everyone out the door, and having another person whose job it is to help make that happen can make your mornings feel far more smoother. As you were preparing to go to wark. So you know, yes, your daughters are in school, but maybe it would be beneficial for you to have, you know, care for the baby so that's always there, you know, so you have a nanny come in the morning, get the girls ready, you know, take care of the baby during the day, pick the girls up at school. Do you know the hour or two after school with the three of them, you can come in you know as somebody who started dinner already and you know put the time in at work. You need to and feel relaxed about it and have that support at home instead of having you know, you and your husband both have this crazed getting yourself and the kids ready and cutting your work day short in order to do the pick up. Maybe it would be time to think about that fully fully agree with that if you're able to do it, I mean, it's life changing and probably worth it if you're able to worth it. If you're able to, yeah, well this has been best of both Worlds Sarah has been interviewing Molly Beck about tech entrepreneurship. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.