Hiten Shah joins the podcast. He needs no introduction for those in the startup space. He has built the following companies and is a father of two young children. He has started three SaaS companies, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics and Quick Sprout. and most recently FYI. One is venture capital backed & the others are self-funded. Find Hiten at the links below….
Hiten on Twitter
Hiten’s startup podcast with Steli Efti
Outline:
Tell me about your career and your kids
– Started a bunch of online businesses starting in 2003.
– I have a 7 year old son and a 3 year old daughter.
– Online businesses for 14 years, and have had kids for the last 7.
How did your world change when you became a father?
– It didn’t change that much. I’m pretty good at time management. It provided a new priority that trumped all business priorities.
– My business doesn’t have an office, teams are mostly independent, so the way I’ve run my businesses has a lot of flexibility. We’ve always had people traveling and spending time with their kids.
– When you’re in school you’re told when to go to different classes, when to take breaks, when to eat, and those constructs have been carried over to companies. But that’s not how we’ve thought about it. We still have high standards and get things done, but with flexibility.
– When I had kids, we already had this culture in our companies. So there’s an ability to have a high growth work environment with flexibility.
So you were already good at time management, like not working 80 hours a week…
– I didn’t say that I don’t work 80 hours a week. It’s not about the 80 hour weeks, it’s more about the flexibility than your time.
– I probably work more than many of your guests, but I don’t count my hours.
So how do you balance where you spend your priorities?
– People really believe that you have to spend time with your kids all the time…I just focus on the quality of the time.
Working with teams in my companies and figuring out how to leverage my time, I do the same thing with the kids.
– When I’m there I’m present, and I’m focused on what I’m doing with the kids. Being present is more important to me than spending a certain number of hours with my kids.
– I’m not saying this will work for anyone else. I spend a lot of time working, but I don’t think kids get in the way of that. In the last year or so, I don’t watch TV or movies. My kids have no ipads anymore. These screens make you spend time that are not enabling you to communicate with the people you care about.
– Cutting out screens helped me with my attention, so when I spend an hour with my kids it’s not spending 3 hours with them watching a show.
– So you’re saying I’m going to cut out all the crap, and make the time that I do have with my kids more valuable.
I don’t really believe in the word balance. It’s something we’ve made up. The second you think of it as balance then you see those scales. It’s not about quantity of your time, it’s about the quality.
– Everything is out of whack if you’re going to start businesses. Then it becomes about quality instead of quantity
Has your wife ever said that you’re not spending enough time with us?
– My wife and I have been dating since we were 15, and we’ve always known this about each other. We’ve never had a problem.
– She works with all the businesses too. We work. We don’t have many other things we do.
– I don’t think other people can necessarily relate to this.
– We’re not happy if we’re not working. We know how to support each other.
– Every weekend I work from home, no matter what. I don’t have too many in person meetings on the weekend. So if we want to do something as a family, weekends are the best time.
– It’s not about having balance in time, it’s making sure you’re balancing your relationships. My wife works from home 7 days a week, but she has those relationships with the kids.
– I always do my best to be home for dinner on a friday night and one other time a week if I can. That’s just the way it is.
If someone is playing the opposite side, they can label you a workaholic. It sounds like you keep that in check by saying it’s really about the relationships.
– The worst thing I’ve done to them is take away the ipads. Outside of that everything is great.
DHH said give the kids the ipads and they’ll figure out their own limits. So it sounds like your work is your hobby, and you and your wife have the same expectations.
– I don’t have that transition of reevaluating. But everything just boils down to communication. If you’re going to have a change in your life, and someone’s going to be affected by that then you need to be responsible for that change. And then you need to talk to your partner about it. And if you can’t have that conversation, then don’t do it.
Your relationship with your partner can’t be adversarial.
How did you arrive there?
– I just really value communication and brutal honesty, and setting expectations together.
– I grew up with it, my father was good at it.
– As I got into the business world, it seemed like that’s what solved all problems. If you feel it, then you need to say it. If you don’t set expectations together then people get off base.
– In most cases if I communicate what my needs are, things tend to be better regardless of how abrupt or different they are.
What are you doing from an education standpoint to keep your kids adapting to a changing world.
– I don’t like the word “try.” I told my kids why I don’t like that word and why I don’t think it should exist in his vocabulary.
I also believe in mimicry. Trying to be a good example for my kids for how to treat people.
– As far as education, I went through formal education, but I don’t put a lot of weight on it. My kids are self taught and they will continue to be self taught. I don’t want them to rely on something like school. Every founder I meet is self taught in some capacity, and I want that for them.
– I’d rather teach my kids things like this than worry about whether my daughter can write yet at 3.
– There’s more time to learn formal things, but not as much time early on to learn these basic principles.
– My dad never told me what to do or got upset with me. What he did do, was he was a great example of how he would want me to be when I grew up. He would tell me stories of his life and what he’s done. I think as my children grow up, there will be stories from my dad and me and my wife about what we’ve been through. I think there’s so much to learn from that.
It seems like a lot of education doesn’t emphasize those soft skills. I think you can always make up the hard schools if you aren’t learning them by a certain age. Do you have anything else to say?
– I think we forget that you have relationships with coworkers, with your significant others, and your relatives, and the relationship you have with your kids is not much different. You’re building a relationship with your kids and it’s not that different.
Relevant Links:
His latest venture, FYI
Hiten’s Homepage
CrazyEgg
KISSMetrics
Quick Sprout
Transcription below (May contain typos…)
[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Welcome to the two cent dad podcast, where we interview dads to discuss their journeys of intentional fatherhood while doing work they care about and living a life purpose. I’m your host, Mike Sudyk.
Hiten: [00:00:17] I think we forget that even like you have relationships with coworkers or people on your team, you have relationships with.
So your significant other and then your own relatives. Yeah. And then you have believe it or not the relationship you have with the kids is not much different. And so the thing I would, end my, I guess my version of this podcast, it’s don’t forget that you’re building a relationship.
They’re kids too, and it’s not really any different than a relationship with any other unit.
Mike: [00:00:47] Today on the podcast. I have someone that needs a little introduction in the tech startup community. Shaw is on the show today. Now, if you’re a listener of his podcast, startup chat, then you’ll appreciate the passion, [00:01:00] intensity, and insights that he brings to this interview because it’s on the same level.
He talks about working, show me hard modeling behaviors, your children, and how communication is the glue of it all. So listen up as heat and drops the knowledge.
today on the podcast we have Heaton Shaw. Who’s a multiple sites.
Hiten: [00:01:24] Yes,
Mike: [00:01:24] founder. Kissmetrics, QuickSprout a couple of different others. but also very prominent player in the startup community, a thought leader in. Starting businesses, especially. so I think he offers a very unique perspective on how to do that in light of being a father.
So he’s got a couple of kids as well. And so thanks for being on the show. Heaton.
Hiten: [00:01:43] Yeah. Thanks for having me glad you’re doing this.
Mike: [00:01:45] Yeah. So tell me a little bit about, your background as it relates to having kids. I know you have what? Two, a couple of young kids. but you’ve had a string of successes and then had kids after that.
So tell me about where those came in. in your context there.
[00:02:00] Hiten: [00:02:01] Yeah, sure. I, so I started a bunch of online businesses in 2003, started one, and then, have just kept going since, and, right now it’s 2017, so I have a seven year old son, and then I have a three year old daughter. And, so yeah, I’ve been doing, online businesses since 2003.
So about 14 years and have had, kids or a kid, for the last seven.
Mike: [00:02:28] Gotcha. So tell me about, how that’s impacted, tell me a story about how your world changed when you became a father.
Hiten: [00:02:36] Yeah, for me, it didn’t actually change that much. I was already pretty good at a, what many would call like time management and stuff like that?
I think, it definitely added a priority that trumped every other priority, basically in terms of business or anything like that. in the sense that, these are your kids and you want to be able to be there for them as much as possible. in my case, like I’ve [00:03:00] had businesses where we had an office.
We don’t have an offset office. The teams are mostly remote and hybrid and we don’t really require anyone to be in an office or be working at any given specific time. it’s more about people getting their stuff done. So if you, in my, from my perspective, yes, the way that I’ve already run my businesses, since, since I started them, they’ve already been running away where I get a lot of flexibility.
So does everybody else on the team, as long as they’re making good decisions about work, usually great decisions about work. And, we’ve had team members who will go travel for three months in some other country with their kids and that’s totally fine. and they get their work done.
and they get to enjoy time with their kids and whatnot. we have some teams that, are full time with us, but they actually are only committed to a certain number of hours a week of work. so we have, in our businesses, we have a lot of flexibility. One thing I like to really emphasize is, and this is not necessarily for everyone, cause I think we’ve been trained a different way, when you’re in school, you’re told [00:04:00] when to go to them, different classes, you’re told when to have recess.
you’re also told, when and went to eat, and then to me, yeah, a lot of those constructs we’ve carried over to companies. And, my teams being remote teams, that’s not how we’ve thought about it. we feel like people should have a lot more say in like how they do things and when they do them, and this is not to say we don’t have high standards or we don’t get anything done, or, I don’t necessarily believe in this four hour work week type of thing or any of that kind of stuff.
A lot of the team members in our companies are they’re working even on the weekends and all that, but that’s their kind of prerogative. and it’s more about how they want to work and what flexibility they want in their lives. So when I had kids, this was already going on in my companies and, it just emphasized it even more for me because obviously, I was working with people who had kids before I had kids.
And it was just great to see that there’s an ability to create a work environment, and still be highly productive and high growth. And. where people have a lot more flexibility with their [00:05:00] time and that really helps when you have kids.
Mike: [00:05:02] Yeah, no, it sounds like you guys were already set up that way, like you said.
so you already were good at time management or, not being, just working 80 hours a week. Like maybe many are when they have kids and they have to make this drastic adjustment.
Hiten: [00:05:15] and so that’s, that’s the thing I got to correct you there? I didn’t say I don’t work 80 hours a week.
Mike: [00:05:19] Okay.
Hiten: [00:05:20] I didn’t say anybody on our teams zone. I probably work. if you really want to put it this way, I have multiple businesses. I have more than I’m starting, pretty much at all times I have a, over 110 companies. I’m an advisor to, or I’ve invested in personally. And so it’s not about the 80 hour weeks.
It’s more about the flexibility with your time. Gotcha. Which is a way different concept. And again, I wouldn’t want you to think that it’s like, Oh, I don’t work that much. I probably work more than anybody you’ve ever got on this show in terms of hours. But one of the things I do is I don’t count my,
Mike: [00:05:54] yeah.
So how did you balance then? just emotionally, when you’re putting all that effort into [00:06:00] your business, I didn’t mean to say you don’t work a lot. I think you have, it sounds like you have a healthy, let me just say prioritization, but. how do you balance, like when you have kids and it’s your world kind of changes and where do you want to spend your priorities is like 80 hours with your business or working all those hours.
Where do your kids fall in that then?
Hiten: [00:06:18] Yeah, I think people really believe that you have to spend time with your kids all the time, or you have to make time to spend with them or whatever. I just focus on the quality of the time. It has a lot to do with even, when I’m running these teams in my companies.
And we’re working together. It’s it’s really just about my own time and how much leverage I have with it. and I treat it the same with the kids. And so when I’m there, I’m present and, I’m very focused on what I’m doing with the kids. So I think being present is much more important to me than spending, four hours a day with my kids or anything like that.
Yeah. I think
Mike: [00:06:52] that’s a good point. cause you can spend a lot of time. That’s not quality time and then it’s not as valuable.
Hiten: [00:06:56] I’ll give you an example. I don’t. And again, none of this stuff I’m [00:07:00] saying is meant for anybody else. The only reason I was telling you about the 80 hours, just to rehash it again, is it’s not about me caring, whether you think I work or not.
It’s more about understanding that for the case of people that are listening, it isn’t about the hours I spend. I probably spend more hours than most people working. That being said, I don’t think kids get in the way of that. And I don’t think kids require more time or less time. I think it’s more about what you do with them and when you do it.
So the thing I was going to say, that’s not for everyone is like in the last year or so, I actually don’t watch any TV and I don’t want it movies. and this just because of me, but also my kids have no I-pads or anything anymore. And the reason is and they had it for awhile. and then I just realized that like it, these screens, these TVs, these movies, all these things, they’re there, they’re making you spend time in ways that are not labeling you to communicate with the people you care about.
Yeah. and and look, it’s nothing against those things. I used to watch TV and movies at two X speed. I used to get [00:08:00] done with, like game of Thrones within a weekend, the whole, one whole season, maybe two. I used to watch TV when I was working in front of the computer or whatever, and I totally cut all that out.
And one of the things is, it just helped me with my attention. Yeah. I was just able to pay more attention. So then all of a sudden, even if I’m spending an hour with my kids, it’s not three hours watching a couple shows or watching a movie or something like that instead it’s, what many would call more quality
Mike: [00:08:25] time?
Yeah, no, I think that’s a good point. Cause the, you have to work. The, you have to balance it if you’re trying to throw in all those other things with it, right? So then you have this mix of like TV time. kids’ time, work time, and you’re saying, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna cut out all the crap and I’m gonna make everything that I’m actually focusing on super high quality.
And I’m still gonna work a lot of hours cause I’m doing a lot, but I’m going to make the time with my kids even more valuable.
Hiten: [00:08:53] What’s funny is like you keep using the word balance. I know a lot of people use the word. I don’t really believe in that word either.
Mike: [00:08:58] No, I think you’re, I think you’re a good [00:09:00] company because I had David cancel on and he said the same thing.
He said, there’s no such thing as balance.
Hiten: [00:09:04] Yeah. it’s just, it’s something we’ve made up. We, in the second you think of it as balance, you see those scales, with the two sides and you’re like, I gotta balance everything. no. Everything’s always out of whack. If you’re going to start businesses, let’s just start there.
And then it’s all about, again, the quality of your time, not the quantity of your time in everything you’re doing. how
Mike: [00:09:22] have you seen those things, go out of whack one way or the other? Tell me a story about that. have you had times where you said you had your kids or your wife say, Hey, you’re not spending enough time with us.
Like you’re always on with your business and that’s all you care about. that’s,
Hiten: [00:09:34] I’ve never had a moment where, I’ve had that happen to me. What, for one main reason, like my wife and I have been dating since we were 15, so I know what I got into and she knows what she got into in a very.
Longterm sort of way. we’ve known each other. We’ve been dating 20 years now this year, this year, last year, actually. I never had that conversation. Never really need to have that conversation in that way. Part of the reason is she works in a [00:10:00] lot of our businesses as well and helps out a lot with them at the same time.
she’s the same mentality as myself and also my co founder. Who’s actually her brother. and, yeah, we literally just work. Like we don’t have many other things that we do except maybe take care of the kids. there’s a couple of things we do for fun, but at the end of the day, we really have that sort of, have a work ethic like that.
like I’m saying, I don’t think. Other people can necessarily fully relate to this because my, my relationship is super old in terms of, just how well we know each other and what we’re yeah. All about. She knows that if I’m not actually working, or doing those things, I’m not happy.
And at the same time, if she’s not happy, she’s likely not working. And she’s likely just dealing with some, stressful situation either at home or at work. And then it’s more about leaving her alone or supporting each other. And For us, we just have these sort of basic systems. and we don’t try to make these things too complicated.
So if she wants more of my time or any of that, we talk about that being said every weekend. Yeah. I worked from home no matter what, I [00:11:00] don’t have that many meetings, outside of, that are in person, on the weekend. And then, if we need to do anything as a family or we want to do something that’s family, weekends are the best time.
If I, if She’s a, let’s say she’s tired of the kids or something like that. Or it’s been like a long week on other stuff for her. I’ll go take them out somewhere, like for a few hours or longer half a day. things like that. So I think it’s more about having, I know we said the word balance is exists.
Cause I think that shouldn’t exist because that means that you’re balancing time. I think this is more about balancing your relationships right. And making sure that like you’re there for each other. Cause again, like in my wife’s case, she works from home seven days a week.
And she is with the kids most of the time. So get help because my mother-in-law, has been with us for a few years now. And so that’s great. But at the end of the day, like there’s stresses that come up in both sides and yeah, just being able to respect that, like I have stresses in the fact that got multiple businesses and all kinds of things to do every week, that most people, it would be like, Oh, you’re doing that many things and that many businesses.
Yeah, I am. and then in her case, like all these things come [00:12:00] up because she’s the one that’s at home and as actually actively dealing with the kids, I know from a weekday basis, I also do my best to the home for dinner on a Friday night. and home, any other things at least, roughly one other time a week, if I can.
And because a lot of my work has to be do with, having dinner meetings and things like that. that’s just the way it is. So I think for me, it’s more about the balance of the. System that you have at home and with your family in terms of like communication and things like that. , and for me it was the systems of space, right?
Again, that doesn’t mean that I’m not working like 10 or 12, sometimes 15 hours on that weekend. or, on the, on each day on the weekend. But I am definitely conscious of, what I should be doing as a husband, as a father, et cetera. Yeah,
Mike: [00:12:42] no, I think that’s a good point.
I think the. If someone is playing the opposite side, they could say, Oh, he’s a workaholic or something. but it sounds like you’re keeping that in check by saying it’s really about the relationships. It’s not about me just saying, I need to be there X number of hours out of the week, or even saying, [00:13:00] Hey, I’m going to be home for dinner and there for breakfast every morning.
It’s no, that’s, it’s about, I’m making sure that my relationship is good with my wife. My relationship is good with my kids and I’m getting all my work done. And that’s what it’s about is that right?
Hiten: [00:13:12] Yeah. And the worst thing I’ve done to them is take away the iPads. So the only reason my relationship wouldn’t be good with the kids is because iPads are God.
But outside of that, everything’s great.
Mike: [00:13:20] Yeah. I can definitely relate to that. It’s funny though. Cause I had DHH on and he was all about just give the kids like the iPad, don’t worry about spoiling them and they’ll figure out their own limits, which I think there’s a case to be made for that.
But I think your point though, of, it sounds though your work is if your hobby for one. And then for two, you and your wife were on the same page in terms of expectations. So it’s not like you had this inflection point where you’re like, Oh, I want to start a business after working for a company for awhile.
And then that changed. And then you’re having to reevaluate things,
Hiten: [00:13:50] Yeah. I don’t have, I don’t have that transition and I’ve talked to a lot of people that have had that and it is different, but again, it’s honestly, all this stuff just boils down to communication. If you’re going [00:14:00] to have a change in your life.
And there’s other people that are. responsible for the change, like responsible in terms of like their responses, please change or something changes. You have to be responsible for that change or you’re causing. And then it just boils down to communication. It’s talking to your significant other, and being able to say, look, things are going to change on my end.
Is that cool with you? How do we change things?
