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Surprises of Fatherhood Advice on Becoming a Dad with Aaron White | Dad of 1 · Startup Dad

• [00:00:00] Aaron White: realize that you're signing up for the hardest thing you've ever done. Whichever of those two things. It is,and I think it's just true. If you've never started a, a company, hardest thing you, you'll have ever done, never had a child, hardest thing ever done, had a child, then start a company. [00:00:11] Aaron White: Still the new, hardest thing you've probably ever done. Right. That's just true. Let go say yes to it 'cause it's not gonna change. So just say yes, you can handle more than you think you can. [00:00:23] Adam Fishman: 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. My guest today is Aaron White. He's the founder and CEO of api ai, an end-to-end business building solution powered by AI agents. He's founded six other companies, including four that were acquired. [00:00:49] Adam Fishman: He's also a husband and a new dad of a seven month old son. We talked about the wild story of his son's birth, the deeply unnatural experience of modern parenting and why you shouldn't feel guilty about getting help, how having a kid has made him a better founder and leader, and two incredible frameworks. [00:01:07] Adam Fishman: Just say yes and your child becomes whom you believe them to be. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple. Welcome, Aaron White to startup Dad, Aaron, pleasure having you here today. [00:01:21] Aaron White: for having me, Adam. Good to be here. [00:01:24] Adam Fishman: By my count, Aaron, you have, uh, founded more companies than I have worked at, and I've worked at a lot of companies, and we're basically the same age, plus or minus a few years probably. you're [00:01:36] Aaron White: You're also the founder, [00:01:37] Adam Fishman: recent founder of a seven month old son with your wife, co-founder [00:01:41] Adam Fishman: so I think like you found a lot of companies, you have a little kid, you've nailed the ICP for this show as a, as far as guests go, so I'm really excited about that. and before we get into your daring adventures, I wanted to talk about your current which you are from stealth mode soon [00:02:02] Aaron White: the startup, uh, is called API ai, and what we're building is a platform where anyone non-technical will be interviewed by our AI agent, which will in turn construct a full on AI agent business for them. It will build you the AI agent, it will build you the site to go show your customers. You set your pricing, it captures customers, it serves them. [00:02:27] Aaron White: You improve it over time and you collect revenue, and we take a small portion of it. that's the business. And I think what's, Freaky we've raised five and a half million from, uh, forwarders Ventures, a really, uh, close friend and investor, Dan Skolnik and [00:02:42] Aaron White: founder collectives Eric Paley, and he's backed me several times and it's awesome to work with him again. So we are definitely in seed stage. We are building, building, building. I think AI is fascinating. I mean, the last company I was at, which acquired one of my other companies, we were working to be the place that helped people acquire and renew and, you know, keep SaaS prices low because you're just using so much effing software. [00:03:05] Aaron White: And when I saw the trajectory of AI and was playing with it viscerally as the CTO, I was like, oh my God, the world's about to change dramatically. And like my whole career has been, well, I should say the revenue positive side of my career has been helping people like sell or buy SaaS. [00:03:23] Aaron White: that world will not look anything like it looks like today in, you know, single digit years. which is wild. So I can go on and on about ai. I could make you suffer an existential crisis, mid call. We don't have to do that. We can, if you want to, might be worth it. For parents, you kinda gotta see around corners, right? [00:03:43] Aaron White: So like, what are you gonna tell your kids to do when they get to like, college age? I don't think the world has good answers for these questions right now. [00:03:52] Adam Fishman: Apparently they'll just be building a full business in a box by telling an AI agent what to do. [00:03:58] Aaron White: they wanna start that level of entrepreneurship. They can do it earlier and earlier, like send them in. I think you said that your oldest is 12. Like he's ready. you gotta help the family out, son. It's time to go to work. [00:04:08] Adam Fishman: can't wait. Uh, well, we will come back to AI as it relates to parenting, which I'm very excited about because, you know, it sounds like you are fully AI pilled [00:04:20] Aaron White: uh, [00:04:20] Adam Fishman: Like you, [00:04:21] Aaron White: fully, [00:04:22] Adam Fishman: down the rabbit hole. [00:04:23] Adam Fishman: I find when I talk to technical founders and engineers, there's like two camps. [00:04:30] Adam Fishman: There's fully embraced, I'm all in, I've jumped off the diving board and I'm swimming around and my AI swimming pool. and then there's like the highly skeptical and there's maybe a few people who are like in the middle, but you're kind of like one of two [00:04:43] Aaron White: It, [00:04:44] Adam Fishman: at this [00:04:44] Aaron White: it, it's polarizing. I think being skeptical is great, you have to be an informed skeptic. And so if I talk to the skeptics and I don't find that they're even 70% up to date on. What the frontier is, it's just not healthy. And I think the risk with AI is so wildly different. [00:05:02] Aaron White: It makes people wanna put their heads in the sand. And so there's a lot of engineers I talk to who are just like, eh, it'll never do what I do. And I'm like, are you, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because it's slowly starting to do more and more of what we all do. Right. That thing that I've been making my career on for 20 years, I don't think it's gonna be here in a couple years. [00:05:18] Aaron White: I think the hard part with tech is when you catch exponential tech early, it is very hard to extrapolate because our brains aren't used to that. If you catch it in the middle or at the top Yeah, you can extrapolate 'cause it's like more comfortable. We are at the beginning of something just nuts and, uh, it's hard to reason about. [00:05:37] Adam Fishman: okay, well [00:05:37] Adam Fishman: got work outta [00:05:38] Aaron White: now we've got [00:05:38] Adam Fishman: We'll [00:05:38] Aaron White: come back. [00:05:39] Adam Fishman: point. [00:05:40] Aaron White: Um, but I wanna about, [00:05:41] Adam Fishman: first [00:05:42] Aaron White: thing is, [00:05:43] Adam Fishman: uh, you've started a bunch of companies and you have a seven month old. and I'm sure that, that timing sort of has coincided with starting another company. You're probably becoming parents at the same time. I'm really curious what the conversation was like with your wife about the demands of starting a company, the demands of starting a family. Like was that a long time discussion? Was were you going into it with eyes wide open? What, what was that? Uh, [00:06:12] Adam Fishman: journey, like. [00:06:13] Aaron White: I'll say, uh, no matter how much I thought my eyes were opened or how unopened they were, they were very unopened with the benefit of hindsight. my wife has been with me for 13 years at this point, and we've, we got late to the kid party and we got, we were late to it because I was so busy with work in a very unhealthy way. [00:06:36] Aaron White: I mean, I have suffered a massive anxiety through, you know, my career. I've constantly beat myself up to do better. I mean, you can imagine all the sort of like toxic self pressure that people impose in oneself. I think I, pulled off the, shooting the moon and, did well in the end, which is awesome. [00:06:54] Aaron White: I think it's possible to do that without the level of self-abuse. but it did set back our family plans quite a bit and it wasn't until 20 22, 2 companies that I had started or had been a co-founder of sold banger year for me that we started going, okay, now we're gonna transition into starting a family. [00:07:12] Aaron White: You know, of course if you wait till I'm 44 now, right? We're looking at like IVF and things like that. So we were going down the IVF path. Now it's not nice to have to pay a lot of money and have the uncertainty that like, oh shit, maybe we missed our window. [00:07:24] Aaron White: turns out my wife is in, you know, fantastic health, even given some health crisis she had earlier. So, like, that's all well and good. you can plan it a little bit better. And we were still throwing curve balls, like her mother ended up in the, the ICU during this time. So we paused, you know, this, we got a later start, even in our later start than we wanted. [00:07:42] Aaron White: So I had left. The last company that I was at, I had fundraised for this company. We were doing IVF and we finally got pregnant high fives all around. And, you know, my, my son was born about seven months into this nascent startup that I am, CEO, but also defacto, CTO of. And right when we were trying to get customer traction and, and you know, another curve ball, he was in the NICU for two and a half weeks. [00:08:06] Aaron White: He was born five, five and a half weeks premature. And, uh, you know, great in the end. And the prognosis for five and a half, uh, weeks early is actually really good. I didn't know that it was terrifying. but, you know, it was traumatic. We like emergency C-section, all that and trying to do a startup like, I'd say as stressful as that was, and it's gotten less like existentially stressful, like, how's my wife's health? [00:08:27] Aaron White: How's my child's health? How's my health? it's still really hard having a seventh month, seven month old, like sleep is a luxury. Like, and I don't think I knew how much, uh, sleep deprivation, torture was possible, And I don't know why evolution thought this was cool. there's no way I think I could have prepared my younger self for how challenging. [00:08:48] Aaron White: This particular startup would be on top of the other one. well credit to my wife though. She knows that I'm not my best self unless I'm making things. And she's like, you are at the top of your game. You've never been happier. You've never been more effective. AI was built for you for a variety of reasons. [00:09:04] Aaron White: You know, if you've followed me over the years, I'm a singularitarian. All this weirdness, right? But she's like, you have to do this. You just have to. I'm like, [00:09:12] Adam Fishman: Yeah. [00:09:13] Aaron White: Thank you. I sort of feel similarly and I will do my best to do this to my best ability as well. And what I will pat myself on the back from. [00:09:21] Aaron White: And it helps that in today's day and age, there's a lot of work from home options. Maybe you start a work from home company, it makes it a little easier. that makes it great. 'cause I just get to spend hours with him in the morning, cut out the commute times, I can help out in the middle of the day. I can hang with them here and there and then, you know, we immediately transition to dinner and bath time and all that. [00:09:39] Aaron White: And so the level of presence is much better than if I was. Trying to get outta the house at 8:00 AM at the latest to then come back at seven. [00:09:47] Adam Fishman: And I wanna stay on this topic of the kind of wild, birth story, that you have, because, you're an engineer, right? You're, you're a technologist. software is very deterministic, right? [00:09:57] Adam Fishman: You like, write a thing [00:09:59] Aaron White: used to be less so these days, but Yes. Yeah, [00:10:01] Adam Fishman: So, so there's a parallel hill between AI and, and parenting, by [00:10:04] Aaron White: yeah. [00:10:05] Adam Fishman: which is, you know, you write some instructions in code and like, you [00:10:09] Aaron White: You know, [00:10:10] Adam Fishman: does what you tell it to do, right? [00:10:12] Adam Fishman: right. not so true with generative ai. [00:10:15] Adam Fishman: Now, it's certainly not a hundred percent true with agent, uh, building, definitely not true with parenting. a lot [00:10:22] Aaron White: A lot of [00:10:22] Adam Fishman: folks that [00:10:23] Aaron White: that I, [00:10:24] Adam Fishman: talk to and when I had my own kids, I had this belief that birth was,painful and very hard for, for mom. but a relatively straightforward process. [00:10:34] Adam Fishman: You know, that's kind of like what they tell you in school. but that is not the experience that a lot of new parents have, and it wasn't your experience. so, you know, your first glimpse into the probabilistic nature of parenting was this wild story about how you became a dad [00:10:51] Adam Fishman: So tell me that story you already mentioned, you know, five weeks premature and, IVF, [00:10:56] Adam Fishman: right? Uh, but tell me what else happened. [00:10:59] Aaron White: having a healthy child, even despite all this trauma, is such a triumph for my wife as well. Five-ish years ago, just before COVID landed. To make things even worse, she had this massive health crisis. She had heart attack like episodes that left her with massive nerve, sort of nervous system damage where she would have these dystonic seizures five times a day until she would pass out from not being able to breathe. [00:11:25] Aaron White: She was in a wheelchair for eight months, like that's where we were five years ago. she's massively improved her health through like dedicated, repeated effort over those years so that we could start a family. but that was a hell of a baseline. And so when we got to doing IVF and IVF messes with your hormones, that was really challenging. [00:11:42] Aaron White: The first trimester was like incredibly challenging for her. Just constant reflux. Made it tough to sleep, made it tough to eat. You worry about her health, you worry about the baby's health. You know, we're a little bit older, so the baby's health is kind of more of a concern. She had these health concerns, so that was more of a concern. [00:11:56] Aaron White: it's just like there's a lot of anxiety trimester too. Things started feeling like really good and we're like, oh yeah, like this is like pregnancy. And towards the end of it, she started getting that sort of like happy glow about her and she loved it. And then trimester three stuff just went off the rails. [00:12:13] Aaron White: And like I have a lot of criticisms about the medical establishment here that I want to also just throw out there to the extent it's useful. But she wasn't feeling well at all. we did have a high risk maternity doctor working with us, but you know, we had problems with the first IVF clinic. [00:12:28] Aaron White: We actually switched midway through. We were so disappointed with them and like, to the almost the point of legal actions, how bad it was. You know, she has a thyroid issue. They just wouldn't answer their calls to get her medication renewed and things like that, which is nuts. It's just really nuts. [00:12:43] Aaron White: We're talking about weeks of trying to get in touch with somebody in charge of our high risk birth to solve these problems. So she wasn't feeling well one day, and, uh, she didn't feel well. The next day, the next day, the next day after a week of this we're like, we should just go in and get checked out. [00:12:56] Aaron White: This is really bad, right? Like, you look like death. No offense, my wife's beautiful. But in that moment, she looked like death. And uh, we went to, the local emergency room, and we were there and dehydrated her. They took all their vitals. Doctor came back and she said, you know what? You're fine. It's okay. [00:13:17] Aaron White: People get in their heads all the time that something's wrong and nothing's wrong, everything's great. And then while that doctor was handing her the discharge papers and she was about to sign them, her water broke. Sitting on that, that gurney. [00:13:32] Aaron White: Which is insane. And it's also like, just think of that about that for a second here. [00:13:35] Aaron White: The gaslighting of this doctor, who by the way meant well, but was trying to convince my wife, it was all on her head, and then her water broke instantly right there. it was nuts. So we were at that hospital and our actual doctor was at a different hospital, like 40 minutes away. And so they're examining her to see like, what's, what do we have to do here, right? [00:13:55] Aaron White: And check her blood pressure, all that. I run home, get some stuff, pick her up, and they're gonna be the wink, wink. Like, listen, don't sign anything here and sign this. Like, we assume all responsibility and you've got enough time to make it to your other hospital. We're like, okay, let's do that. [00:14:10] Aaron White: Because we'd much prefer to be with our doctor, given the, the high risk of situation while we got there. Contractions, of course, speeding up, but her blood pressure was spiking, like really bad, like preeclampsia basically. So they decided to do an emergency c-section the moment we arrived there. and we gave birth, you know, a couple hours later. [00:14:29] Aaron White: and she had been training to do a vaginal delivery, had been doing all the classes on Hypnobirthing and Lamaze or whatever, you know, all these things to sort of mentally prepare and got thrown this wild curve ball, um, emergency C-section because mother's life and baby's life are, you know, at some level of risk. [00:14:46] Aaron White: and that was tough. And then, you know, after that it didn't get better instantly. Postpartum depression is a very real thing, and especially because they took the baby from us. without sort of telling us we were asleep, it moved it to, uh, the NICU to, to keep, our baby son warm, which is the right move. [00:15:03] Aaron White: But from like an animal instinct, from the mother standpoint, you wake up and your baby's gone. Like, that's incredibly unnatural. [00:15:08] Adam Fishman: Yeah. [00:15:09] Aaron White: took us a long time to recover from a lot of that sort of like immediate trauma from, you know, not getting the medication we needed, which probably caused this early birth to some confusion in the hospital that led to some kind of traumatic experiences that was all really rough. [00:15:24] Aaron White: and I would say that things didn't sort of start getting kind of like normalized until three months after we got home. That's when it was like we could kind of allow ourselves to relax a little bit and enjoy the fact that we're all this brand new family with this lovely son who's so handsome, so curious, so laughy and joyful. [00:15:41] Aaron White: It's wonderful, but you don't know what's gonna end up there when you're in the middle of it. [00:15:46] Aaron White: That is. [00:15:47] Adam Fishman: wilder than, uh, you hinted at, in the, prep for this show. That is something else. Trauma is kind of the exact way to, to describe it. Very traumatic. It takes a long time to come back from that. [00:15:58] Aaron White: and I think there's a lot of stories that are probably much worse. This is not to say that, you know, we've got some uniquely bad one, but just, like every child's unique. I think every birth story is unique and, you have to take a lot of your, your care into your own hands to navigate all this. [00:16:12] Aaron White: So for anybody who's listening, who's been through it or going through about to go through it, be nimble, be prepared. [00:16:18] Adam Fishman: yeah. Um, [00:16:20] Aaron White: so [00:16:20] Adam Fishman: you know, I'm [00:16:21] Aaron White: happy Now [00:16:22] Adam Fishman: your son is born. Everyone's on the mend and, and doing great. so you're a [00:16:27] Aaron White: your dad, [00:16:28] Adam Fishman: Your [00:16:28] Aaron White: wife's mom. [00:16:29] Adam Fishman: You have this tiny infant. [00:16:31] Aaron White: Yep. [00:16:31] Adam Fishman: startup. [00:16:32] Aaron White: Yep. [00:16:32] Adam Fishman: you've got [00:16:32] Aaron White: Two [00:16:33] Adam Fishman: kids. and in that, you've, you described to [00:16:35] Aaron White: Describe [00:16:36] Adam Fishman: the modern parenting experiences, I think the words you used were deeply unnatural. [00:16:41] Adam Fishman: that's led you to this belief that like, don't feel guilty asking or getting help, can you talk about the, the like modern parenting experience being unnatural and then [00:16:51] Adam Fishman: you know, what it means to kind of ask and get help. [00:16:53] Aaron White: maybe I made it more unnatural. Maybe a lot of people could hear like, well, you did this to yourself. Dumb, dumb, fine. I like you're you, you're some, some level of Correct. I grew up in New Hampshire. My wife grew up in South Africa. We met in, in the Boston area, but you know, her family lives on the other side of Massachusetts and mine moved to Florida and we don't have a big family anyway. [00:17:12] Aaron White: we moved to down in Miami, uh, for a variety of reasons and we don't really know anybody around here. We don't really have a lot of family around here, but it wouldn't have been that different if we were in Boston necessarily. You know, I think if you look at like how challenging it is to have a small infant, you're not sleeping right? [00:17:31] Aaron White: And our child was up every hour and a half and still remains that way sometimes. you're not designed not to sleep, uh, for months at a time like that. And, you know, dad can only do so much for this. You know, I, I can try to give my son bottles till I'm blue in the face and sometimes he's open to it and other times he's, he's just not. [00:17:50] Aaron White: And mom, you know, mom is the one he's going to and, you know, puts a lot of pressure on her that she cannot hand off. kind of look back and we were like, should we get night nurses? Should we get this help? We resisted it for a while in the end we did. It was wonderful. I would recommend that to anybody who can afford it. [00:18:08] Aaron White: I would also suggest flexing to afford it if you're like on the bubble. depends on your child, I suppose. But it's just deeply unnatural to be raising a child in a small nuclear family. Like that has not been a thing in human history. Like you can actually look at like when nuclear family dynamics changed, it was like through the rise of cities, increased mobility, increased specialization, people moved around to find jobs. [00:18:30] Aaron White: It kind of like detached your your family cousin town network. But if you go back a couple thousand years, you always have sisters, brothers, mothers, uncles, aunts, cousins. there's a literal community. I know people still have this today, but for city startup dwellers like myself, it's much rarer. [00:18:49] Aaron White: That's the context you're raising a child in. You know, you've got other nursing parents, Nursing mothers right around. You've got other people that can help out and swap in. Generally, people are much younger as well. And so the modern nuclear family experience with this is like deeply unnatural from like an evolutionary perspective. [00:19:07] Aaron White: Like you weren't meant to solo this, but we get in our heads like, I'm not a good enough parent if I can't do this on my own. That's so unhelpful. It's so incorrect. Right? It's just like, that's not how your great, great-great-great-great, great grandparents were doing it. why do you think that you need to be playing on hard mode? [00:19:25] Aaron White: Because you happen to be born into hard mode, [00:19:28] Adam Fishman: I think that last piece that you mentioned there, which is like, really beat ourselves up about it. And you mentioned like, don't feel guilty if you can for help. If you have the means, you know, take advantage of it. [00:19:43] Aaron White: but don't feel bad about asking for things that make this process easier. Right. Whatever levers you have. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but like, I, I'm, we have a lot of friends giving birth now as well. Uh, and we're like, lemme just shake this knowledge into you if nothing else. [00:19:57] Adam Fishman: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, stay off of Instagram, which is telling you to do it all yourself. [00:20:03] Aaron White: Right. Yeah. I woke up today and my five infants wanted to, you know, sample a cake, so I made them one from scratch before they even woke up. I'm like, okay. What fantasy world is this? [00:20:14] Adam Fishman: well, [00:20:14] Aaron White: aside, [00:20:14] Adam Fishman: baking, in the first seven months of your son's life, [00:20:19] Aaron White: what are some of the [00:20:20] Adam Fishman: surprising things that you've discovered as a dad about either being a dad or about yourself? [00:20:27] Aaron White: I am far more, Loving and, physically affectionate with my son. and just playing with him. And I didn't know I had that side of me, like, I don't think I'm a bad person, right? But, you know, I'm kinda like a, somewhere between, like a troll and an entrepreneur, right? [00:20:43] Aaron White: I like to make jokes that people don't get and, oh, well, you know, you didn't have my sense of humor, or let's go build a cool project together, but not let me care for someone like this. Like, I didn't know I had that. It's been wonderful to explore that. I didn't know what level of, endurance I had in me, and I've done some stuff. [00:21:02] Aaron White: I've climbed Kilimanjaro, I've run marathons. I used to do outdoor rock climbing, like, you know, long distance bike riding. I've, I pick a hard endurance sport. I've tried to do something with it. This is way harder than all of that. Like. Every dad out there, every mom out there, you've run 20 marathons. This has got nothing on this. [00:21:20] Aaron White: so I don't think I knew I had that level of endurance in me. And then, you know, just other surprising stuff is actually watching a little being grow and change is just nuts. It's nuts Every day he's bigger, which means every diaper's bigger every day too. So I wanna warn new fathers that like, you think you've seen the biggest diaper you're gonna change, but actually just know that they only get bigger from here, key insight. [00:21:45] Aaron White: But every day he's a little bit larger and a little bit smarter. And you can watch from one day to the next him like, learn something. And then you're like, oh my God. Like he's doing what we are doing. He's only seven months. Like, what's up with that? That's been just nuts. 'cause I've been around babies, but I haven't had that level of continuity with one, [00:22:03] Aaron White: there's a lot of things to learn and discover about yourself and your child. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. [00:22:08] Adam Fishman: I like those three though. So, you found something new about yourself in your kind of capacity for caring. the endurance that you have climbing kilimanjaro and, and you know, things like that don't quite compare to the endurance required for [00:22:20] Aaron White: No, not at all. [00:22:22] Adam Fishman: and then the wonder of watching your, your son grow up and just change, you know, told through the, the analogy of growing bigger over time. That, that's a great one. sort of the opposite of, of what people say about ai, which they say like, this is the worst it's ever gonna be. Oh no. Oh no. This is actually the best it's gonna be. And then tomorrow it's gonna be a little bit worse so what [00:22:44] Aaron White: what [00:22:45] Adam Fishman: do to prepare yourself for the arrival of your son? especially as like a. like somebody who's kind of balancing both. And now that he's here you know, you realize that this is a, non-deterministic system being, raising a kid, anything you do differently than what you did to prepare [00:23:06] Aaron White: yeah. This is called resulting right? But in the sense that it can help others. I can I, I'll play the game. I'll start with the following is that like, I don't know that there was enough we could have done to prepare that would've changed things one way or the other, just to be honest, because it's like you don't know what you don't know for sure. [00:23:23] Aaron White: But how do you prepare for an endurance sport that you can't practice in, like you're not gonna sleep deprive yourself for months before the child arrives. I can get into some of that, but here's what we did do. We did try to set up the nursery ahead of time. We thought we had a month more. We didn't. [00:23:39] Adam Fishman: right. [00:23:40] Aaron White: So I would actually suggest maybe get started on that a little bit earlier than you think. you know, and we had a bunch of stuff here, but it wasn't arranged. And like you will have zero time to go arrange that after the fact. So maybe leaning into that first. and then I tried to prepare the business as well, and this was a tough one because you know, we were starting to work with partners. [00:24:01] Aaron White: I was just starting to write out this master game plan and thank God, you know, I've got like a really incredible, VP of product who is just, good at almost everything. he hadn't actually started yet, but I was thinking about, okay, well, you know, as this team grows, I've got leaders. [00:24:16] Aaron White: I can hand stuff off to him, me go write stuff up for them. But that didn't land in time either. So, you know, it was just an immediate shit show at, at home, at the hospital, and at work. Uh, credit the team that, you know, kinda carried us, uh, here. I don't know that I could have done anything to get started a month earlier. [00:24:33] Aaron White: That's like the, the single biggest thing I would say on the, like, what could you do to prepare better for this, lineup, help family, you know, friends or otherwise, because you're going to, you're gonna need it. that I wish we had done sooner, because that's a, an immediate lever one can pull to get some help. [00:24:53] Aaron White: And I think being prepared to really make space as a father to take time off from work. I mean, like, I think at a startup, if you're having a baby in the middle of it, like you're not gonna take, you know, months off. But I really did try to say like, I'm gonna be just completely divorced from work for X weeks. [00:25:12] Aaron White: I was targeting more than I ended up doing. maybe great, maybe not. but don't feel guilty of making space for that because it's not, in this case, it wasn't even about bonding with child. It's more about just like really helping, you know, the operations of this whole new experience that's been thrust upon you. [00:25:29] Aaron White: and don't be afraid to ask questions. Here's one thing, I'll bring it back to ai. 'cause I have to. What a world we live in now, by the way, where you can gut check things instantaneously all the time is so helpful because, you know, like, how should we bother the pediatrician? [00:25:43] Aaron White: Should we call our parents on this? Should we go Google this thing? It's like you can just ask right away and you'll get some answers. And maybe there's hallucinations, maybe something's wrong, but say nine outta 10 times, you're getting pretty solid, you know, feedback from this thing and not having to worry about am I inconveniencing others with these minor things That scare me quite a bit, is. [00:26:03] Aaron White: Amazing. if you're gonna have a baby in 2025, that was pretty great. [00:26:07] Adam Fishman: I think the number of times that we waited on hold to talk to like the night, you know, nurse, the emergency nurse about something and then they would get on the phone and be like, eh, your kid's fine. [00:26:18] Aaron White: Yeah. [00:26:19] Adam Fishman: Uh, you know, when you're sitting there you're like, heart is racing. You're, what's wrong with this kid? [00:26:24] Aaron White: we've had that experience too. you should still call better to err on the side of safety. [00:26:28] Adam Fishman: maybe kick off an AI agent to make that call for you wait on hold. that's good. okay, so you've talked about a couple of. Uh, frameworks or beliefs that you have for parenting. And I think maybe just life in general, at least one of these. and I was hoping you could talk about them here. [00:26:47] Adam Fishman: the first one is just say yes. I [00:26:50] Aaron White: I wanna ask [00:26:51] Adam Fishman: this one because a lot of people would say, you have to say no to more things. You have to say no to [00:26:56] Aaron White: everything. [00:26:57] Adam Fishman: 'cause you gotta protect your, your time and, don't say yes to things. You'll regret it. So for you, what does [00:27:03] Aaron White: What is, [00:27:03] Adam Fishman: say yes mean? [00:27:04] Aaron White: I'll give you three buckets. There's early in your career, there's mid-career, and then there's parenting, right? Early career, you should just say yes to everything, both at work and in life, because you don't know what you don't know. [00:27:18] Aaron White: And it's a wonderful time to go get a ton of experience with friends doing whatever with work, trying ambitious projects that may fail. But just say yes, because you should be in a state of constantly expanding your surface area to learn more because. The number one thing you need to be doing is learning, right? [00:27:35] Aaron White: And then at some point you can capitalize on that if you want to, or you can just live a really enriched life, right? You win either way. Mid-careers I think when people start saying, like, start saying no to things, that's actually terrible advice. Unless you're in a place where you know what the one lever you should keep pulling is and ignore everything else. [00:27:53] Aaron White: If you don't have that, keep saying yes until you find it. I really struggle with that advice for folks because I don't think it's that great. And then the parenting context, just say yes to me has like a whole new set of meanings, right? Like wife asked you to change the diaper. [00:28:09] Aaron White: Just say yes, go do it. Just go do it. Always go do it. Like, shouldn't even me a question. Same with doing a feeding, trying to put the child down even though he won't let you because he only likes mom to put him to sleep. Like whatever it is though, like just say yes because it is hard. You don't wanna be constantly negotiating with your partner about who's doing too much or too little. [00:28:26] Aaron White: I guarantee you, dads, you're doing way less than your wife is doing. It's inherent in, in the asymmetry here. Just say yes to all of that. And then, you know, when your child is making bids for your attention. Say yes, give it to them. Have fun. I mean, I'm sure it's only gonna get more intense as they get older, and I'm looking forward to it. [00:28:46] Aaron White: when he's looking at me like, I'm gonna go engage, don't walk away from that. I mean, I know people say you're gonna regret it later, and you can't know that until you know that. But just say yes. Right? Just, just go for it. And then I think this advice I've not sold on with this flavor of this advice I'm not sold on yet because we're not sleeping reliably enough still for me to make like big plans to do, go do things. [00:29:09] Aaron White: But like, when you're thinking about getting outta the house with a child with a stroller, just go do it. or getting on a plane, like yeah, it's gonna be logistically obnoxious and challenging. I. But the option is to turn into a hermit crab and, you know, live your life out in a small box, which will also be not very enriching for your child. [00:29:26] Aaron White: So like, say yes to trying to get out there and reengage the real world. it won't be smooth, but we've learned a lot and it gets smoother well probably walk that line for a while, is my guess. [00:29:36] Adam Fishman: So say yes, but lower the bar of expectations [00:29:40] Aaron White: Yeah. Lower your bar first, but don't at least directionally start heading outwards instead of collapsing inwards. [00:29:46] Adam Fishman: that's great. On, on, just Say Yes. The, the second framework, um, that you have, kind of a statement that you made to me, which is your child becomes who you believe them to be. [00:29:56] Adam Fishman: I'm really curious about that. Tell, tell me about that, thought. [00:30:00] Aaron White: So I think perspective is one of those deep lessons that, Hopefully everybody learns and relearns over and over. You can look at any situation through any number of lenses, and the lens you choose to look at it through is what reality is. Like. You can look at your life and say, I am an abject failure according to this standard, and you will be an abject failure according to that standard. [00:30:23] Aaron White: Or you can say, here's a different standard and I'm doing great and I've got a world of opportunity ahead of me, but I even love where I'm at. And that's a way better way to live. Clearly. And you have a choice. half of my family's Jewish, and I think one of the old Jewish teachings is, um, you can't control what others, you know, think, but you can control how you react, right? [00:30:43] Aaron White: I believe that meditation tries to teach that. I think so many different places try to teach that, but in the context of our child, it's like, oh, my child's crying because he is colicky or upset or unagreeable or just a bad baby. And if you start thinking that that is what your child is. Or your child's crying because he's uncomfortable and this is the only tool he has to get help. [00:31:09] Aaron White: And you may or may not be able to solve it, but he's not doing anything to you. This is happening to him and this is what he is experiencing. And my wife and I really try to practice that. It's really early in the first, or very important in the first three months to kind of keep that perspective. [00:31:23] Aaron White: As he's gotten older and we've watched him do things, you could say, oh, well he just randomly did this thing. [00:31:28] Aaron White: Or looks like he's learning this thing. there's a huge difference I think in the outcome of what we've seen with him and I imagine pays compounding dividends. If you're trying to get technical about it over the years, if you believe this stuff is just sort of random or happens at its own pace, it will be random and happen at its own pace. [00:31:46] Aaron White: But if you believe these are things he's doing, you will be watching for ways to invest and unlock these capabilities because you know, you know he's capable of it and. I'm fairly confident that leads to a much richer life for your child. So your child becomes who you believe them to be, and if you, choose a positive perspective, you will end up with a smarter, happier child. [00:32:07] Aaron White: It's not to say there won't be challenges and things that no one controls, but, but I, I, I believe that deeply, and I think that's true of people as well, just in general, but I'm seeing it very concretely with this young person who hasn't mastered any words from English yet. [00:32:20] Adam Fishman: What is it? What's an example of one of those things that you're with a seven month old that you're kind of like watching for, uh, [00:32:28] Aaron White: Yeah. [00:32:29] Adam Fishman: him along with? [00:32:30] Aaron White: call response was one of the early ones for us. we would make sounds, he'd make sounds, we'd make the sounds again, sometimes he'd make 'em again, sometimes he wouldn't. But we chose to believe he understood what was going on and,but you know, he's like five and three weeks adjusted. [00:32:45] Aaron White: Right. [00:32:46] Adam Fishman: Right? [00:32:46] Aaron White: Uh. He's mastered call and response. You tell him to kick, he'll kick things like that. I think that's Is that early for this age? Maybe. But we believe he's made these connections. Right? We believe now he understands his name. Does he? We could debate that, but we choose to use his name more. We choose to notice what he notices and it, and it makes for deeper, richer interactions. [00:33:06] Aaron White: So like, those are some of the early ones that we've seen that we're like particularly excited about. [00:33:10] Adam Fishman: Cool. So when you're changing the diaper, you have to say, don't kick the leg, [00:33:15] Aaron White: Right? Yeah. Uh, [00:33:17] Adam Fishman: diaper is gonna go flying [00:33:19] Aaron White: we haven't mastered the negative framing of things yet. Only like [00:33:22] Adam Fishman: can't, [00:33:22] Aaron White: yeah. Sit still. It's not like. [00:33:24] Adam Fishman: doesn't understand. Don't, you founded a bunch of companies before you had a kid, and now you're founding one and you have a, and you have a son. has becoming a dad changed you as a founder or a leader of company? [00:33:39] Aaron White: definitely. I would like to believe, and I'll leave it to anybody who's worked, you know, with me or for me historically to comment and say, oh, he is full of shit. [00:33:49] Aaron White: I would like to believe I was very empathetic with folks when I could be I mean, sometimes empathy is just being firm, uh, oddly enough, and that sucks in those motions. But when you can tell people and explain them why things are happening that might be negative or what, you know, what's going on and be very transparent, that's wonderful. [00:34:06] Aaron White: I. But I would have much deeper empathy now for the challenges that parents have being in business broadly, but especially in startups and especially around, the time of, of a newborn. even if you have close family that's going through this, I just don't think, you know, until, you know, and empathy is like either because you are really intuitive and you can imagine people's life circumstances, which is doable for common things. [00:34:33] Aaron White: But this is so out of band for the normal human experience, pre-child that you can only learn from experiencing it. And I'm going, oh my God, how did these people ever do this? How do moms only take like X months off? that to me is probably the most wild thing, is seeing, you know, new parents go back to work. [00:34:52] Aaron White: I don't know how you do that, right? Like, I know how I did that, but it's sort of a different thing in a lot of ways. Like if you're a, a founder, you've got a lot more sort of leeway on stuff. but if you, if you weren't working from home, if you're working for a more established company, it's tough. [00:35:08] Aaron White: So I have a lot more empathy for parents, and then specific things happening in their lives. Not that I was unempathetic before, but I can really experience it now, in a whole, a much deeper way. [00:35:19] Adam Fishman: and then some advice to founders out there. If you, if you think you know what it's like to be a parent, just wait. [00:35:25] Aaron White: I probably also had some of that, like, uh, when I was early in my career, in my, my twenties, well you choose to be a parent and, uh, you, that's your choice. And so the complications that come with it, you fully own. Okay. I suppose that's true on some reductive level. [00:35:39] Aaron White: Right, but like also, we wouldn't be here making companies or having a society without families. So [00:35:44] Adam Fishman: right. [00:35:44] Aaron White: shut the heck up. 20-year-old Aaron, you're an idiot. You know what you're talking about. if you're a young person who's founder afraid of this podcast and you think like that, like you really need to go get some more, you know, turns on the, uh, the crank because it's just, is not the way the world works and it shouldn't work that way. [00:36:01] Aaron White: You wouldn't want it to work that way. I think the more you believe in people empower them and are generally flexible with them. Not, not holding people accountable like you always have to do that. but people will always, more often than not rise to the occasion, put it that way. Like if you believe people can be even better versions of themselves and you're willing to invest, you'll often get that. [00:36:22] Aaron White: And just on the business thing for a second here, I was thinking about this this morning. It's like your options are either like. Coach someone or part ways with them. That's it. Like, that's all you have. Why not always make the effort to try to invest in someone? [00:36:35] Adam Fishman: you've described yourself to me as hyper-focused, which, uh, you know, a lot of founders, I think have this ability. so it's probably a superpower for you when it comes to starting companies like tunnel vision, I gotta get this thing done. [00:36:49] Adam Fishman: I'm, I'm very focused. curious if that superpower is a. Bit of a detriment as a parent where like you have to be able to like be working, but also here if something's happening over here. Like what has your experience been there with that like hyper focus, founder energy? [00:37:08] Aaron White: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, I'm probably more hyperfocused than your average founder. And I'm not saying that is a positive thing. I'm just saying that as a. relative thing. I, I think that there are a lot of founders that are really good at juggling many balls, and you kind of have to, because you're, you're hiring, you're building, you're selling, you're fundraising, you're marketing, you're doing all this stuff. [00:37:28] Aaron White: And so you can't really tunnel in on any one thing That said, I do tend to tunnel in on one thing fully. So if anybody hasn't heard from me in months, you know why? Because that's kind of like, I'm just, I didn't look at my iMessages for, you know, three weeks one time, whoops. Like, I just didn't even occur to me. [00:37:45] Aaron White: that's a weird, the weird thing for me. So I'm actually learning to undo that right now for a number of reasons. I think one thing that Hyperfocus allows you to do is to work to 4:00 AM and not worry about do I need to eat? It doesn't even cross my mind. Right? And then I'll pass out hard and wake up starving and repeat the cycle. [00:38:03] Aaron White: I. That's really great for startup building. No lie. Like if you're trying to build product from nothing, previ coding, like that was kind of sometimes what it took or often what it took. That does not work, I think as, a CEO founder as well. And it certainly does not work as a, parent,I mean, I could, at the risk of not enjoying the existence of my son and my wife for that matter, so I don't want to do that anymore. [00:38:28] Aaron White: And what that's forced me to do is to slowly learn how to, enable others more. I mean, I would like to believe that I've got some ability to do that, but now I'm investing more and more into it. but also to sit back and wait for things to kind of mature, right? Be like, okay, the team has got this. if I do anything important today, it's gonna be this phone call or this email. [00:38:49] Aaron White: Everything else after that is a bonus. It's not that I'm slacking off, but like. Do first things first and then whatever else you can get in, go for it. And that's been really a different way of company building for me. and there's still times where I've gotta be like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna just need some extra time to just pound this out. [00:39:05] Aaron White: But it's not every day. It's much rare. I think it has to get unlearned. I really think it does. And I think what I've heard from other new parents out there is you actually end up much better leader at the other end of, of this because you learn that hyperfocused is maybe great, but it's actually not necessarily, like you're not always hyperfocused on the most important thing. [00:39:25] Aaron White: Sometimes context switching is more important and sometimes making sure that you just got the right team around the table, let them focus on what they need to is the right strategy. So this is showing me that in stark contrast, I'm like, oh, we're still advancing and it's not because I'm just in there doing a bunch of hard work. [00:39:41] Aaron White: Like you're not. You're not Jesus Christ. Like you don't have to, you're not the savior of things. Right. It's the whole, the whole point's, the team. it's been good. I'm sure there's a long way I've gotta go there, but Yeah. [00:39:52] Adam Fishman: I guess that's another way that, uh, becoming a dad has kind of helped you evolve as a founder or, or like, recognize that hyper focus. Is good. It has its moments, but also there's some good aspects of it, [00:40:09] Aaron White: Yep. [00:40:10] Adam Fishman: to kind of find your next way of evolution there. [00:40:13] Aaron White: and just being explicit about which mode you can be in and want to be in or should be in is just a useful pause, [00:40:21] Aaron White: don't just throw yourself into the fire over and over. 'cause that's what you've always done. [00:40:25] Adam Fishman: so I have found that partnership is really important when you have kids. I, I cannot tell you the number of dads that come on this show and talk about that. Probably a hundred out of a hundred so far. [00:40:36] Adam Fishman: obviously it's super important in building a [00:40:38] Aaron White: company. [00:40:38] Adam Fishman: your co-founder relationship, your, your employees. but I think in parenting, really hard to agree a hundred percent of the time with your, with your significant other. And so, you know, you're only seven months into it, but where is something where you and your wife have really had to like, talk through or come to alignment on when it comes to parenting? [00:40:58] Adam Fishman: Where do you see the world differently? [00:41:00] Aaron White: a very good question and that's tough to answer, not because it doesn't happen, but because it's such a common experience for my wife and I to be on different ends of something and negotiating what the right. I think we're both a little type A in that regard. Like what the right answer is that like. [00:41:16] Aaron White: It's not novel to me that we have those, those misalignments. her only beef with me is how I address the misalignments, which is fair. the one for me is I am, I don't think I'm as sensitive to, like when things could be going a little bit wrong, I just sort of assume the right thing tends to work out, which I don't know is a given for small children. [00:41:37] Aaron White: Right? So I'm really grateful that she's like, he's got this rash. We're gonna go address it. He's got acid reflux. We're gonna go address it. his temperature's elevated, we're gonna go address it. I tell her all the time that like, if, you know, for some reason she were to leave me, or, I don't know, get teleported somewhere else. [00:41:55] Aaron White: Two things would happen. One, I'd be taking the small baby to like the nightclubs, trying to like find someone who, you know, wants to care for for him with me. Because, because the other thing would happen is I would be a terrible single parent because I am not that sensitive to these kind of things that like, look, there's a infants need to be nurtured. [00:42:14] Aaron White: Small children need to be nurtured. So I've learned that my instincts on like what's like, oh, we could ignore that. It's not a big deal, are actually just generally wrong. I sometimes have to relearn this lesson, but that's one where I fought it a little bit just to make sure my point of view was heard. [00:42:29] Aaron White: But at the end of the day, she's actually been, you know, not just right, but like meaningfully, right. You know, way more often. So like, why am I challenging on this at all? you know. So we've done a little bit of the divide and conquer there. So like partnership I think is both, you know, some healthy debate to get better outcomes and division of labor as well. [00:42:48] Aaron White: and so we were starting to find that groove, but, yeah, there's probably way more than that, but I think that one's the most sort of like substantive [00:42:54] Adam Fishman: yeah. What are some of the ways that you've sort of divide up, like household or parenting responsibilities or, or life responsibilities? [00:43:02] Aaron White: probably in very stereotypical heteronormative ways. Right. you know, she's a a, a stay at home mom right now, which we're lucky enough to be able to do, and I think that's kind of awesome and. one, one bit of work I do there is to support her just in the sense that not even financially, I'm like literally in the sense that like, this is an amazing gift that you're able to give your son, and it's a lot of effing hard work. [00:43:26] Adam Fishman: Yeah. [00:43:26] Aaron White: it's like, what do they say? It's like children feed your heart but not your mind. You know? There's a lot of boring work in there and a lot of like hectic work in there. I think it's really nice for him that, that we're able to do that. you know, outside of that I try to make sure that, when she needs time to go be a person for herself, I'm, I'm saying yes to opening that up. [00:43:45] Aaron White: I'm sure I could do way better there, but I'm trying, I think if you're a dad with this sort of, again, the toxic mentality that like, and I say this 'cause I've, I've experienced it, right? Like my work is work and your work is child rearing. So like that's the division of labor, like mm-hmm. [00:44:00] Aaron White: It doesn't work like that. Like momming is 24, fing seven and it's more than you'll ever do. So you really have to like lean in and help a lot more. but I don't know that there's any specific insights I have in here. Just change every diaper, run every errand, just go do those dad quests. I call 'em dad quests. [00:44:16] Aaron White: I'm like, you got any dad quests for me? Like, I'm ready. Put me in. [00:44:19] Adam Fishman: I love that the dad quest. I wanted to [00:44:22] Aaron White: I. [00:44:23] Adam Fishman: on a couple things around technology and parenting. so you've been a technologist for over 20 years, and we've got this new AI thing happening. We've got mobile devices, we've got YouTube, we've got social media, you know, who knows what it's gonna be like 10 years from now when your son's kind of starting to get into this stuff. what is the relationship that you want your son to have with technology as he gets older? [00:44:47] Aaron White: I'm in the camp with some asterisk that technology's a tool and I think it'd be naive to assume it's 50 50. Good use, bad use. Some is like remarkably good use and some is remarkably bad use. I'll throw in like social media reels as it's remarkably bad use of your time [00:45:04] Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. [00:45:05] Aaron White: something up. [00:45:06] Aaron White: but it is a tool and I think that one thing that is really easy to get wrong, here's an example. And look, this is a thesis. Check back in 10 years. See if I have a, a well adjusted child, right? But you know, you can learn anything on the internet on YouTube. With ai, you can learn anything. And so the, the opportunity to unlock a curious child has never been better than it is today. [00:45:29] Aaron White: There are many pitfalls along the way. Like you can't go into a library and really hurt your brain. Uh, in any meaningful way, but you can walk into YouTube and hurt your brain, right? So I think the, the role of the parent is to be present to help the child discriminate between healthy and unhealthy like you do with food. [00:45:45] Aaron White: And hopefully set them on a path where they know how to healthily indulge their curiosity without turning into just media consumption. Like, it's like the biggest, like fulcrum and feel for a lot of people, because if you don't have time and you're stressed out, I don't know how you're gonna help a child do that. [00:46:02] Aaron White: I mean, seven months, you can't turn screens on. So that's, you know, we just keep 'em off and that's that. But I've seen two year olds who are like, know their stuff about, you know, theoretical physics and it blows my mind, right? And that's something that's possible today that was never possible before. [00:46:17] Aaron White: So I want my child to be curious and I want him to be able to tell healthy from unhealthy. I don't know exactly how to achieve that, but I think if you, I. Give technology over to your children, you're asking for serious trouble. And if you deny it from them, you're actually not helping them live up to their best potential either. [00:46:34] Adam Fishman: Yeah. It's kinda like, you know, in the physical world you can cross the street, but you should probably hold on to dad's hand, [00:46:39] Aaron White: it's a must, must hold onto your father's hand while you cross the street. [00:46:41] Adam Fishman: Yes. [00:46:42] Aaron White: thing I ever did, by the way, was driving our son home from the hospital. I was like, how do I rent a tank? Is that something I can do? I'm like, it's Florida. Maybe I can rent a tank. [00:46:49] Aaron White: you probably could. You [00:46:50] Aaron White: I didn't, I didn't end up doing it, but I thought about it. [00:46:53] Adam Fishman: Okay. Maybe Southern California. I think there's that story of that guy that stole [00:46:56] Aaron White: Yeah. [00:46:57] Adam Fishman: had drove it on [00:46:57] Aaron White: Like, I need your services to get my infant home from the hospital. Are you ready? [00:47:00] Adam Fishman: right. Okay. Uh, new segment that I'm calling AI Corner. and, you know, you're fully into the AI world. you talked a little bit about using it, having it at your fingertips to kind of ask parenting questions, but, what are [00:47:14] Aaron White: what are some other creative [00:47:15] Adam Fishman: uses of AI that you've found so far as a parent? [00:47:18] Adam Fishman: So, for the parenting use case [00:47:20] Aaron White: asking questions, do it liberally, do it often. And I think one amazing thing about Chacha bt is it's memory system. our son's named Ronan by the way. [00:47:28] Aaron White: AI helped name him. Not gonna lie. it knows our son's milestones and so actually we can talk to it about those milestones and his memory around them. [00:47:36] Aaron White: our chat BT instances is actually helping us track his development, which is wild. I think it's really wild. So it's been really good for like, sort of getting feedback and benchmarking and it even follows up on stuff that's just really cool. There are other really fun things to do. So we're trying to teach our son, various sounds and names and like, he's got a ways to go before he speaks. [00:47:55] Aaron White: But for anybody who's got a child a little further along, I would check out suno.com. SUNO. You can make songs up. You can say, I want a children's song about a boy named Tommy who lives in, you know, Elm Lane or whatever it is, and you'll get one. And so you can make up bedtime stories and songs and children's books. [00:48:15] Aaron White: , The opportunity to help your child connect with media that feels relevant to them, is just nuts. So learn everything, get defacto parenting advice on the cheap, and then really enrich the hell out of, you know, your child's experience. It's just been a lot of fun and I think as he gets older, it's only gonna get kind of far more spectacular. [00:48:38] Adam Fishman: All right. I love that. We will check it out. Okay. I wanted to end with a note of optimism, for future founders or dads listening to the show, which is pretty much my audience. what [00:48:49] Adam Fishman: What advice offer them on how to be successful as a founder and a new dad? How to walk that line together? [00:48:57] Aaron White: I think it's realize that you're signing up for the hardest thing you've ever done. Whichever of those two things. It is,and I think it's just true. If you've never started a, a company, hardest thing you, you'll have ever done, never had a child, hardest thing ever done, had a child, then start a company. [00:49:10] Aaron White: Still the new, hardest thing you've probably ever done. Right. That's just true. Let go say yes to it 'cause it's not gonna change. So just say yes, you can handle more than you think you can. I do think that saying yes and leaning in to hard things is always the right answer. [00:49:27] Aaron White: Uh, in both worlds, no one's coming to save you in either event. Actually, one other quote, I want this in my tombstone. Uh, adulthood is an illusion. Only children can see your child thinks you're an adult. Uh, other children might, but there are no adults. Adults know that we're all still just children pretending that we know what we're doing even now, oh, we're both sound, hopefully fairly confident or no squat right? [00:49:53] Aaron White: it's an illusion. No one's coming to save you. So just say yes and keep leaning in and if you keep showing up and doing the hard work. you will get better and better at it, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. it sounds reductive, but I just think that's it. I don't think enough people try either way is probably the number one failure mode. [00:50:12] Aaron White: You just gotta show up and try. [00:50:13] Adam Fishman: Okay. Awesome. That is a wonderful thing to end on. Uh, before we get to lightning round, how can people follow along on your journey or be helpful to you in any way? [00:50:25] Aaron White: I'm on X as Aaron White, so you can follow along there or LinkedIn. Uh, I'm trying to get better at posting in both places. and if you want to know anything about AI at me and I'd be thrilled to talk about it clearly. I don't know, uh, what I need just yet other than to get this product fully out into the world. [00:50:41] Aaron White: We've got people using it and, uh, I'm looking forward to teaching my son board games when he is older. 'cause that's my number one hobby. So, you know, any, any parenting advice to get to get 'em there faster, let me know. [00:50:52] Adam Fishman: Well, you know, AI is probably a great companion as a dungeon master for, uh, [00:50:57] Aaron White: Oh, [00:50:58] Adam Fishman: and stuff, so that's [00:50:59] Aaron White: yes, yes. Yeah, he's gonna have some wonderful times. [00:51:02] Adam Fishman: okay. Alright, let's do lightning round. the rules are simple. I ask you a question, you say the first thing that comes to mind and we move on. It is a judgment free zone. [00:51:12] Adam Fishman: what is [00:51:13] Aaron White: what is [00:51:14] Adam Fishman: parenting product that you've ever purchased? [00:51:16] Aaron White: the wipe warmer, [00:51:18] Adam Fishman: Okay. [00:51:19] Aaron White: if you have a young boy, you need the wipe warmer. [00:51:24] Adam Fishman: what is the most [00:51:24] Aaron White: What is the most useless? [00:51:25] Adam Fishman: product you've ever purchased? [00:51:27] Aaron White: The hatch nightlight, the newest version where they took away physical buttons to turn a light on, and instead it's like some sort of weird capacities thing. And the dead of night when you need this thing to go on. [00:51:39] Aaron White: It is wrong. Don't do it. [00:51:41] Adam Fishman: I love that. Uh, true or false, there's only one correct way to load the dishwasher [00:51:47] Aaron White: True. the right way. It's not my way, it's God's way. It's plates at the bottom. Nothing that traps water facing up. [00:51:56] Adam Fishman: Okay. [00:51:56] Aaron White: But there's only one right way. So, [00:51:58] Adam Fishman: it. Okay. Uh, would your wife agree with that? [00:52:02] Aaron White: uh, now she would Yes. Yeah. Dial it back a few years. No, but you know, I think we've, we've, we've aligned finally, [00:52:11] Adam Fishman: great. What is your signature? Dad's superpower. [00:52:14] Aaron White: summoning up positive energy. No matter how tired I am, [00:52:18] Adam Fishman: Okay. What is the crazier block of time in your house? 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM or 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM [00:52:26] Aaron White: 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM actually 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM is my favorite. And I feel bad for my wife here because he wakes up and I just get him fresh in the morning and we're one-on-one so she can catch up on sleep. 'cause she's done some, night breastfeeding [00:52:38] Adam Fishman: Yep. [00:52:38] Aaron White: uh, it's wonderful for me. And then she misses that. [00:52:41] Aaron White: And then six to 8:00 PM is just nuts trying to get this small child who does not wanna sleep no matter what you do to wind down at all. [00:52:49] Adam Fishman: Okay. Alright. Uh, that will change I'm sure at some point, but good to know. [00:52:54] Aaron White: I hope, [00:52:54] Adam Fishman: Um, what is your go-to dad Wardrobe. [00:52:58] Aaron White: I've got like the equivalent of the mells and the like, technical polo. I, I, I'm even wearing one of those now and just it looks casual or it looks professional enough and they wash easy when stuff gets thrown up on it. [00:53:12] Adam Fishman: Which is very important right now. how many parenting books do you have in your house? [00:53:17] Aaron White: We only have, let's say, like four, and I'm including audio books in that list. There's, there's some good ones. [00:53:24] Adam Fishman: how many have you read cover to cover? [00:53:27] Aaron White: Zero, [00:53:28] Adam Fishman: Okay. pretty common refrain by the way. [00:53:31] Adam Fishman: how many dad jokes do you tell on average each day, even though your son's not old enough to appreciate them yet? [00:53:37] Aaron White: I'd say probably five a day going up. [00:53:42] Adam Fishman: Okay. And you tell them mostly to your wife. [00:53:44] Aaron White: Uh, anybody who will listen, uh, I think work would say that they get the, the bulk of them and then the good ones I bring to her. So I like workshop a little bit, then I take 'em home. [00:53:52] Adam Fishman: great. have you tried any particular baby food yet and what is your favorite [00:53:59] Aaron White: Yes. Mushed. Parsnips. I love [00:54:03] Adam Fishman: do you like real parsnips? [00:54:05] Aaron White: I don't think I knew what a parsnip was until our baby started eating mush, parsnips. And now I'm like, this is pretty good, dude. Can I have half of this? [00:54:12] Adam Fishman: Alright. [00:54:13] Aaron White: will make him eat. All of it like me trying to do that, by the way, [00:54:15] Adam Fishman: No, what [00:54:16] Aaron White: what is the new, [00:54:17] Adam Fishman: kids movie? [00:54:19] Aaron White: we're not old enough for that just yet, so we're not quite there. [00:54:22] Aaron White: But what I will say is the one song for whatever reason he's gravitated towards is, what does the Fox say? If you know that joke song, and he will dance his little legs after that. So that's a twice a day occurrence in this house. [00:54:34] Adam Fishman: Okay. Is there a nostalgic movie from your childhood or from your life that you just can't wait to force Ronan to watch? [00:54:42] Aaron White: there are so many, I think of all the like eighties films that I just loved the hell out of that. He's gonna be like, dad, why are we watching the stop motion made in the caveman days? I mean, any of those old adventure movies like the, the, the Goonies, the Ewok movies. I've loved the hell outta that stuff, and I'm sure he'll think it's really lame. [00:55:00] Adam Fishman: Okay, cool. [00:55:01] Aaron White: Um, what? [00:55:02] Adam Fishman: experience you ever had assembling a children's toy or a piece of furniture? [00:55:06] Aaron White: Yes, that one's very easy. Imagine assembling a crib only to figure out that you can't fit it through the doorframe, uh, of the room It needs to end up in. So, pro tip, assemble anything you're assembling in the room, it's ending up in. [00:55:19] Adam Fishman: Oh, amazing. Amazing. and [00:55:21] Aaron White: And finally, [00:55:22] Adam Fishman: this is probably sacrilegious in Miami, but what [00:55:24] Aaron White: what is your take on minivan? The minivan here is like the Lambo orus, uh, that's like the Miami minivan, and I think that's overpriced and not that great of a car personally. [00:55:35] Adam Fishman: Yep. [00:55:35] Aaron White: But I have no problem with minivans whatsoever. I don't think I've seen one here. And we opted for, uh, Tesla, which is like pretty safe comparatively, and, uh, kid friendly in a lot of ways. [00:55:48] Aaron White: but I'm not opposed to it. You show me a cool minivan, man. I'm, I'll get on board. [00:55:52] Adam Fishman: Okay, cool. Team [00:55:53] Aaron White: Minivan. [00:55:54] Adam Fishman: Aaron that does it for startup Dad, I really appreciate you joining me today to talk about, uh, fatherhood and company building and, uh, best of luck to you on your company and with your wife and raising your son. [00:56:09] Aaron White: thank you so much, Adam. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate the time to, to reflect on it all. [00:56:14] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Aaron White. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Startup Dad to find it anywhere you listen to podcasts, or visit www.startupdadpod.com. [00:56:32] Adam Fishman: Thanks for listening. See you next week.