Parenting Through Projectile Vomit | Mike Rome (Dad of 3, moonwater)

[00:00:00] Mike Rome: The right thought to have in your head is like, if you start your own company, like professionally, you're not going to have done anything harder, but for a certain type of person, like if you can kind of get through the desert walk, you're probably not going to find anything more worthwhile.
[00:00:13] Mike Rome: And so if you can kind of make peace with both sides, great. But even still, I mean, I'm five years into this like there's still things that are wearing off from having worked for other people for a long time. And
[00:00:24] 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. Traditional advice is to start a company when you're young, when you have boundless energy, and very few responsibilities like a family.
[00:00:44] Adam Fishman: Today's guest is Mike Rome, founder of moonwater, dad of three, and someone who firmly rejects that traditional advice. Mike joined me to talk about the ups and downs of founding a business with a family. Why it's not an automatic pathway to spending more time with your family, but how he's made it work.
[00:01:02] Adam Fishman: How his foray into entrepreneurship started as an experiment. Why you can leverage the ICE framework in your parenting life, and the idea of the parenting power law, and some really hilarious stories about moments with his kids that definitely didn't go according to his plan. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube or Spotify, so you'll never miss an episode.
[00:01:25] Adam Fishman: You'll find it everywhere you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Mike Rome. Hey, welcome Mike Rome to Startup Dad, Mike, it's a pleasure having you here today. Thanks for joining me.
[00:01:37] Mike Rome: Thanks for having me, Adam. And um, I know we kind of briefly chatted before this, but Yeah, I've been following your stuff for a while, I was glad I got the intro and it's kinda like a full circle moment for me to just kinda be chatting. So
[00:01:47] Adam Fishman: Yeah, well, speaking of intro, I would be remiss if I didn't shout out Ethan Austin for connecting the two of us. I think you and I have kind of run in some parallel circles for a while, but Ethan was like, oh, you should really have Mike on and, talk to him about being a dad. Uh, he's a good one. So, shout out to Ethan and, uh, thanks again for joining me.
[00:02:04] Adam Fishman: I know like one of the reasons, like the pull of the show for me is just like the authenticity of it and kind of like turning left when a lot of people in technology are turning right with like, just talking about the craft of growth or marketing or tech. And it was cool to have this other angle, but I met Ethan pretty early on in my career journey and I, I feel like you talk about like someone who like oozes authenticity.
[00:02:25] Mike Rome: that's like the first word that comes to mind when I think of Ethan. So.
[00:02:28] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Awesome. So folks who listening to this, if you haven't checked out Ethan's episode, give it a listen right after this one. Why not? okay. Mike, you just welcomed your third kid. Into the world. So now you have a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a three-ish month old. and there's something that I wanted to kick off with, which is, you wrote a post not too long ago and you wrote about the belief that a lot of people have, which is start companies when you're young, that's when you can give a hundred percent to the business. you think that's a myth. So why is that a myth? Tell me about that.
[00:03:03] Mike Rome: I've always been inspired by people who kind of turn left when people turn right. And, you know, going back to like this podcast and why it was interesting to me and just like zigging in instead of zagging. you know, that's like the common sentiment out there.
[00:03:16] Mike Rome: And I've been in like, early to mid growth stage tech for like 15 plus years now. And, and I just see that advice come around so often. And, and I would qualify it by saying I run a performance marketing studio now and we kind of work like a third, a third, a third with like venture backed PE and bootstrapped.
[00:03:32] Mike Rome: And so if you wanna build like a deck of corn or I don't know, whatever the latest sort of and greatest sort of ambition is there. Maybe it is true that like you wanna be like super young, but I have talked to so many people and have had the experience myself of like, there's just a lot of people out there who like would love to build like a $10 million, even a $50 million, a hundred million dollars company.
[00:03:57] Mike Rome: you know, with where AI has gone and like how lean you can do that, like that can be a wonderful outcome for you. And if that's sort of the narrative, like to me it just doesn't add up that like you need to be young. Like for example, I'm, five years into my own career journey. I had kind of come up in early and mid stage tech companies for the first decade of my career and.
[00:04:19] Mike Rome: I had my first child when I started my company, and I think, gosh, like, what better sort of like, productivity hack, like, I'm reluctant to call it a hack than like having a kid to like getting your shit together and going and getting your shit done. I've always been like a pretty organized person and type A and stuff like that, and so I don't think like all of a sudden like having a kid can like totally change someone who just maybe doesn't have those attributes to just really dialing it in.
[00:04:46] Mike Rome: But for me, like I always knew, like when I had kids, like it was going to be really important to like just be around, you know? And gosh, like starting my own company was like a wonderful avenue to do that if I could really like gut it out and really push hard. it's been incredible motivation for me.
[00:05:03] Mike Rome: And, uh, now I've got three kids and, it's been a, a great way to, to really focus my time. Like my kids 5:00 PM onward, I try to be around and if I need to work when they go to bed, great. But it's like when you kind of wake up Monday through Friday and, that's sort of like the non-negotiable, like yeah, you'd be remarkable what you could get done.
[00:05:21] Mike Rome: Right?
[00:05:21] Adam Fishman: the other thing that I know that you've told me is that like there's a flip side to this, which is that starting your own business isn't an automatic pathway to suddenly being able to spend more time with your family, like you have to really work hard at that. So tell me about. your experience here because I, I think a lot of people think like, oh, I, I get instant flexibility and suddenly my time is my own. And like you have to make that happen. Like you have to be intentional about that.
[00:05:51] Mike Rome: So I remember like this, this wasn't super recent, but in the summer I probably have like a day or two a quarter where like it's just not working. I'm not being productive. Like probably like maybe six to eight times a year and it's like, there's no reason to be at my computer.
[00:06:05] Mike Rome: Like I'm not doing great work, like my mind's somewhere else. so, like this summer I remember like, my kids had swim lessons and so I was just like, this is dumb. Why am I here? Like, you know, like all the works generally on track, like I'm kind of just sitting at my computer because one of my strengths is consistency.
[00:06:20] Mike Rome: And so usually I'm here, but it's like I'm just not doing good work today and I don't need to be here. And so I just like left and, you know, we hung out at swim lessons for a couple hours and then like we went out to lunch. But that was even a thing where, you know, here I am this summer, four plus years into starting my own thing.
[00:06:37] Mike Rome: And that was like still hard for me to do, you know? And, I'm still like the whole sort of nine to five be at your computer. Like, I still, even though no one's telling me I have to be here, no one's watching me. Like, you still kind of feel the resistance there. you have that thought in your head, which first of all I would say is like the right thought to have in your head is like, if you start your own company, like professionally, you're not going to have done anything harder, but for a certain type of person, like if you can kind of get through the desert walk, you're probably not going to find anything more worthwhile.
[00:07:08] Mike Rome: And so if you can kind of make peace with both sides, great. But even still, I mean, I'm five years into this like there's still things that are wearing off from having worked for other people for a long time. And so yeah, I think it's like you can have this thought in your head and the thought is like a little bit different than, what actually happens.
[00:07:25] Mike Rome: You know, I still sometimes feel guilty if I'm not here at my computer, even if like there's no reason productivity wise or like value to the client to be here. did you have this experience? because I know we don't run the same kind of shop, but we had this same progression of coming up in big companies and then working for yourself.
[00:07:44] Mike Rome: Like, I'm still figuring it out.
[00:07:45] Adam Fishman: I was going to mention that, this is a common refrain that I hear from a lot of folks. We haven't talked about it that much on the pod, but I talked to a lot of, people who are doing now, kind of working for themselves and we're so hardwired to be on and like performing at the highest level professionally that it's uncomfortable to like take a couple hours off, even if you know that those next two hours of being at your desk are not going to be super productive because your brain's elsewhere. And also by the way, you can do that now and you couldn't do that before. So I don't know that I found any tricks, but I, I wanted to kind of like stay on this topic and ask you, you're five years into it and this is still happening. Do you have to like psych yourself up? Like what do you tell yourself in that moment to be like, it's okay to take a couple hours and go to swim practice with my kids. This is why I own my own schedule and my time. Like,
[00:08:47] Adam Fishman: do you have to like get into that frame of mind?
[00:08:49] Mike Rome: for sure, and I think the one thing that's helped me is you kind of mentioned you are wired a certain way and you hang out with a lot of people that are maybe wired in a similar way, where it's like, on the one hand it's a big part of the reason you've been able to make your own thing work.
[00:09:06] Mike Rome: And I think the thing that I remind myself of though, but you can't like use it as an excuse to like say no to these other things. And so I don't necessarily have a tip, I like, I like will have that in my mind where it's like, hey. This is a big part of why I've gotten here, but it shouldn't be an excuse for not evolving, you know?
[00:09:26] Mike Rome: And just kind of being aware of that thought kind of pushes me a little bit more. a lot of it is expectations. So like me telling you six, eight times a year, I know this is just going to happen, and my schedule, like I try to design it for this where, you know, I stack meetings on certain days.
[00:09:42] Mike Rome: I do have a small team. I, I'm with clients on certain days. I'm with them on certain days, and then I have, you know, a little over half the week for like deep work, very few meetings, stuff like that. And so I, I try to design my schedule so it's like half of the week. Like ultimately I have the flexibility if, one of these instances come up.
[00:09:58] Mike Rome: But yeah, I would say those are the two things is just, you know, being conscious of, hey, this is happening right now. it's okay that it's happening because it's part of the reason you're successful. But like, it doesn't mean that there's not an opportunity to get better here and, and build the life that you wanna build.
[00:10:11] Mike Rome: and then just kind of like intentionally having a schedule that just makes, saying no to work for at least half the week for me, easier.
[00:10:19] Adam Fishman: you mentioned a few minutes ago, you've been doing this for five years, your kid was maybe two-ish, one and a half, two when you
[00:10:28] Adam Fishman: went down this path. You didn't have another one yet. Now you have two more. I'm sure that maybe more kids was in the cards and which is more complexity in your life, but like, what was the conversation that you had with your wife?
[00:10:41] Adam Fishman: Kate, I think is her name.
[00:10:43] Adam Fishman: what was that conversation or series of conversations like when you were like, I wanna start my own thing. Also, we've got this family, we probably are going to expand this family. Like, how did you navigate and or negotiate that with her? Like what was that set of discussions like?
[00:10:59] Mike Rome: I had been working for Growth Stage, mostly venture backed tech companies.
[00:11:04] Mike Rome: I was a management consultant for a couple years outta school. Culturally wasn't a great fit. And so I got into tech pretty early on, like maybe when I was like 24 or something like that after doing consulting for two years. And so at this point I had spent like, I don't know, 11 or so years working my way up, growth stage tech companies.
[00:11:20] Mike Rome: And, it was kind of the first time in my career where six months leading up to this, I was like starting to become in demand. Like I, I feel, I love this quote, like, consistency feels like nothing is happening until everything changes. And I kind of felt like I spent a decade, you know, mostly kind of begging my way into certain companies and then, kind of earning my keep and stuff like that.
[00:11:42] Mike Rome: And I would say around this time, for the six months to year leading up to it. People were saying like, Hey, do you advise? Like I was getting full-time offers, I was getting advisory requests, and I was five years into the, current company I'd been working on.
[00:11:57] Mike Rome: I feel like five years in startup years is like doggy years, right? So like five years I was like, weathered man. I had like fortunately been able to move pretty fast. I was the CMO of, the company and had about 20 people reporting into me it just felt like it was time to make a change.
[00:12:11] Mike Rome: I ended up taking a chief growth officer role for a series B company that was like pretty flush with cash. Really cool problem they were solving. And going back to the whole, like, it was the first time. In my career, I was in demand. it was like a, a good offer and, different than the money I had had been making at my current job because even though I was A CMO, I was a first time CMO and I was promoted internally a lot and, you know, stuff like that.
[00:12:35] Mike Rome: And so I took a new gig and a lot of people don't know this story, but I only lasted like six to seven weeks. And so I got to this company and it's kind of the classic story of letting like a, a good offer cloud your judgment around all of these things culturally that just, they were not great for me. I don't think they would've been great for a lot of people, but certainly not great for me.
[00:12:55] Mike Rome: And it was, it was a rough environment and very quickly I knew this was the wrong decision. And so I had, a handful of mentors. I have people I've leaned on in the space andjust, one week, a handful of things happened that were just, you know, we don't have to get into this pod, but it was just very clear to me that like I needed to get outta here.
[00:13:14] Mike Rome: And so I, I talked to a few mentors. Basically kind of told them the scenario and was like, Hey, should I gut this out for like six months and just kind of hang, because I just got here, or you know, should I leave? And, and all of 'em who I really trust were all like, get the heck out of there. And so for me it was kind of like,
[00:13:31] Mike Rome: things were in a really good place. I was in demand for the first time in my career. I took this cushy job, I realized it was a mistake. And so I just kinda had this idea in my head that, you know, I'd been getting requests to advise. I think I could string together a few of these to match my current income.
[00:13:48] Mike Rome: And so my wife and I just had this conversation. I was like, Hey, if I can, match my income and give us like six months of runway, are you cool if we like give this a shot? And that's like really what it was. And I was fortunate at the time that there was like still a pretty good tailwind in tech when like this was all happening Yeah, I basically sold my tail off for like two weeks, booked three gigs, and then gave my two weeks notice. I was very upfront with the companies too, like, I'm only going to do this if I get a certain amount of work, and maybe that wasn't the right way to do it. I was just very honest with them. But you know, they were all great companies.
[00:14:18] Mike Rome: The first three or four that I worked for, like, they were just wonderful businesses and so like the whole idea of working for myself was not even in the cards, you know, it was all sort of got punched in the face and then I don't know if you've had this, but having worked in, you know, growth stage tech for so long, I love the idea of helping build something that may not exist without you, and how quickly, how fast it was.
[00:14:42] Mike Rome: But there was like all these downsides to that space as well. And so as this started to evolve in my mind of maybe doing my own shop, it was kind of this perfect hedge of like, I'd still get all those wonderful things that I loved about working with this type of company, but because I was employed by myself, I could kind of avoid some of the bullshit, if that makes sense.
[00:15:02] Mike Rome: And that was at least sort of the thesis. And I think it's mostly come true. But yeah, that, that's the story. it was not clean by any means.
[00:15:08] Adam Fishman: So it sounds like the whole thing in true growth fashion started as like a, Hey, this is going to be an experiment
[00:15:14] Adam Fishman: conversation with your wife. Did you have like a timetable or were you like, well, we're going to give it six months and if this doesn't work out, then I'll go and get another full-time thing, and then the rest is history,
[00:15:24] Mike Rome: we kind of had this loose idea that it would be like, you know, six months. here's the hard thing about that. I was just talking to someone who, I'm sure you talk to people who wanna start their own business. And the hard part about this is that Plan B's are okay, but oftentimes if you have a plan B, like what do you do?
[00:15:39] Mike Rome: Like, you fall back on a plan. I think this concept of kind of burning the boats for an extended period of times, like you have to give yourself enough time to like see it through. And in hindsight, I was lucky because, you know, I've been doing this for a while and like I said, the economy and tech was still popping off and those were two like nice tailwinds I had.
[00:16:01] Mike Rome: So we were fortunate to never like, have to go down this road. But I often wonder like. I don't think six months would've been enough time what I tell people who like wanna start their own thing and like really to me seem like someone who has the attributes of a person who should start their own thing.
[00:16:16] Mike Rome: worst case scenario, you grind it out, you see it through for an extended period of time and it doesn't work out. And you go back and you get another one of these jobs and at least then you can spend the next 10, 20 years of your career knowing that you gave it a shot and like it just wasn't right.
[00:16:29] Mike Rome: You know? But like, it's like the same thing with like growth tests where it's like, I like to do less tests and like really try to do the work of my life on 'em because it's like, if you just half-ass the test, you never know, like, did the channel not work because you half-assed it or because the channel wasn't right.
[00:16:45] Mike Rome: And so I think that's true with starting a business. And so we were fortunate that it never came to that, but if it did, I think I would've, you know, been like, Hey, you know, we need to push for another six months because I feel like I haven't given it a fair shot. And I wanna definitively know if this is right or wrong.
[00:17:02] Mike Rome: The best thing you can learn outside of like, yes, this is right, is like it's definitively not right. So you can kind of like get it out of your head, right? I think that's true in life and it's true in business.
[00:17:11] Adam Fishman: yeah. That's cool. You miss a hundred percent of the swings. You don't take or whatever.
[00:17:15] Adam Fishman: you're like a year or two into this. You have a second kid, your middle son Gavin, who's now four. and it turns out he. Ends up having this super rare heart condition. and you told me that this completely turned your life upside down for like the first three years of his life. So you're running a business, you've got a kid who probably needs a ton of medical care and like doctor visits and specialists and things like that. Like, can you tell me the story behind his condition? Now he is. Okay now, which is awesome. I'm very happy to hear that. But like,
[00:17:52] Adam Fishman: tell me the story. Like what were you thinking? you're running a business that takes a lot of time. you're growing your family and then you're like throwing this huge curve ball by, uh, this medical condition that your second kid has.
[00:18:04] Mike Rome: yeah, so Gavin was born with a pretty rare heart condition. Uh, basically he, he would have these, pretty frequent bouts of irregular heart rates and very fast heart rates. and it's life-threatening if it's, uh, undiagnosed or it's not properly medicated. And actually, interestingly enough, it was a trip before Gavin was born.
[00:18:19] Mike Rome: because we found out probably about halfway through my wife's pregnancy that something was happening here. you know, like fetal cardiology is, is still like the wild west. I mean, that's like a, you know, trying to treat a baby through the mom. Like it was a trip man. And so, It was wild. and I'm not going to say like I always had this, this wonderful worldview when I was in it, but I think a lot of it is, perspective. Like on the one hand, yeah, like we were, we were dealt kind of some rough cards.
[00:18:47] Mike Rome: I mean we had, you know, numerous hospital stays, you know, some of which lasted weeks with Gavin. And his medication schedule was very rigorous. Like my wife and I would have to be up every night in the middle of the night. We would alternate giving him medicine. And you know, he had a lot of restrictions.
[00:19:02] Mike Rome: Like he could only eat at certain times because he had to space it out from his medicine. If he ran a lot as he got older, like it could potentially like spur him into one of these. So there was all of the things and you know, on the one hand you could kind of be like, gosh, like I just wish we had another quote unquote normal kid.
[00:19:19] Mike Rome: But on the other hand, it's like. Perspective's, everything. You know, it's like, wow, I can actually like work from a hospital because I have my own business and unlimited flexibility. or I can be super grateful that like my older son, like literally has no issues. and you start to realize like, gosh, how much of a miracle does just to have like a healthy kid, know, like what a wild concept, right?
[00:19:42] Mike Rome: There's like so many things that could go wrong and oftentimes they don't. And then when we were in the hospital too, like as hard as his situation was for us, most of the kids, we were often in like pediatric cardiac intensive care units and most of the kids in there were in a much worse situation than he was.
[00:19:58] Mike Rome: Like on the one hand, we knew once he was born, he got, a proper diagnosis and we knew when he was three to four they were going to be able to do what's called an ablation, which they basically go in with a catheter and resolve the issue in the heart. we knew that he was going to be able to have one of those.
[00:20:14] Mike Rome: And the success rate of that, overnight kind of fixing them were pretty high. So we had this like wonderful light at the end of the tunnel and there was, you know, other kids who were staying next door to him. And it's like, gosh, just like a parent, being able to give them a bath was like a logistical nightmare, you know?
[00:20:32] Mike Rome: Or like, you know, not to sound super dire, but like there was kids on his floor who didn't go home from the hospital. And so I think the perspective thing matters and it, that was a little bit of a double-edged sword too, because I would over index a little bit. Sometimes I'm like, we should be really grateful we have this light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:20:51] Mike Rome: And there's all of these other people who might not, or maybe like, you know, just the light at the end of the tunnel is much further out. but actually being overly optimistic and not acknowledging, hey, this is hard, was like not really healthy either. And so you try to find this, this middle ground.
[00:21:05] Mike Rome: he's thankfully okay today and he was fortunate to have a surgery that literally all of a sudden one day, you know, he was on lots of medicine with lots of restrictions to like three hours later literally having nothing and being a normal kid, which was a, a wonderful thing, but an adjustment period for us as well.
[00:21:21] Mike Rome: because my wife actually stopped working because of Gavin. so it like, you know, very much defined her life and a big part of mine. you know, a three hour surgery just kind of changed all that. So, the perspective thing really matters.
[00:21:33] Adam Fishman: there's a few things I heard in that one is sort of funny. I was thinking, gosh, you're talking about what it takes to like feed and do a medicine schedule that'd be hard if you were like 40, let alone you're trying to do it with a, 2-year-old, you know,
[00:21:46] Adam Fishman: or a 18 month old or whatever.
[00:21:47] Adam Fishman: Like, it's not like kids are particularly easy when it comes to feeding and eating at regular times. So like, man, kudos to you for being able to pull that off and your wife too, obviously.
[00:21:56] Mike Rome: Adam, how many kids do you have?
[00:21:58] Adam Fishman: I have two,
[00:21:59] Mike Rome: Okay, cool. But you know how like it's one of those things where it's just remarkable how like humans adapt, let's say you have a healthy kid and like the whole sleep thing for the first like five months, I was like a baby with sleep, like always needed eight hours.
[00:22:13] Mike Rome: and then it's like you get thrown into the ringer and like your body just kind of adapts. I don't think it's like sustainable long term, but for those five or six months you just figure it out. And I think to this point is it's like. Gosh, I remember with my first, my nephews are older. my brother would gimme the hardest time.
[00:22:29] Mike Rome: because like I didn't change a diaper until maybe like a few weeks before my oldest was born. you know, I'd be hanging with my nephews and they'd be like, change his diaper and I like held out as long as possible and it's like, I didn't know what I was doing.
[00:22:41] Mike Rome: I was like totally unqualified for our first kid. But then it's like you get two weeks of reps changing diapers, like you get pretty damn good at changing diapers. Right. And so I just feel like all of these things, you know, it is funny, like so much of what we're talking about is, about life right now.
[00:22:55] Mike Rome: But I think it's applicable to business. And I think one of the biggest silver linings with Gavin is yeah, I mean my wife and I, our relationship got stronger because it had to, we're fortunate that Gavin's kind of a year and a half out to like being, better.
[00:23:08] Mike Rome: I still have that perspective where it's just like. You know, have a bad day at work, client's mad, something like that, like just doesn't really matter that much,
[00:23:16] Adam Fishman: the fragility of life tends to put everything into perspective.
[00:23:19] Adam Fishman: okay. So what would you say to somebody who just found out something. Similar with one of their, one of their own kids, and maybe is in the same position as you. Like they're running their own business, and the world feels like it's kind of crashing down on them. Like how, how would you give that person some optimism or what would you tell them?
[00:23:36] Mike Rome: Yeah. A little bit of what I just said with perspective, but I think expectations are a big thing too. I think about Gavin's situation, I think about starting a business. Both of those were really hard at first, and then. There was a shift that happened for me where all of a sudden, like I stopped being surprised by it being hard and expected it to be hard, right?
[00:23:59] Mike Rome: Like, I was just telling someone the other days, like, if you wanna start a business, like one of the things I wish I learned sooner was like, just expect each day to be hard. And about solving problems, like all businesses is like solving problems instead of coming in and, you know, uh, someone has a request, your boss has a request, client has a request, and you're being like,
[00:24:16] Mike Rome: caught off guard from it. When in reality, if you're just being brutally honest with yourself, like that's all businesses, right? Like, problems come at you from someone or something, and then it's your job to figure out how to solve them. And I think it was true with Gavin, like, instead of just kind of at the beginning, waking up each day and, and kind of being surprised, like, oh.
[00:24:36] Mike Rome: This hard thing happened just being like, okay, some hard shit's going to happen and it's my job and my wife's job in his case to figure it out. And then in the work context, it's my job to figure it out. And I find the whole expectation thing just to be a big deal. Like if you're just not surprised by this, like, oh, this was supposed to happen,
[00:24:55] Mike Rome: that goes like a really long way for your psyche, in my opinion.
[00:24:58] Adam Fishman: Yeah. so I want to talk to you about frameworks in a minute. but before that, I wanted to ask what other advice you might give somebody who's in your position take like Mike from 10 years ago. what would you tell them if they're thinking about starting a business and growing, you know, a family? would it be all about expectation setting or would you have other advice for them?
[00:25:23] Mike Rome: I think that's a big part of it. Like if you're going to start something, you know, there's a quote, I think it was from one of the early Facebook guys Dustin Moskovitz, and I think I was watching like a Sanford lecture or something, this was many years ago.
[00:25:34] Mike Rome: Someone asked them like, why to start a business? And I've heard all sorts of answers on why you should start a business. The best answer I ever heard was his, and he said, because you can't not do it.
[00:25:43] Mike Rome: and by the way, I don't like think there's anything wrong with that. Like if, if you have another career path, I was a management consultant to start, that didn't work for me, but there's plenty of people. Who have like a wonderful ride there, or like you wanna always work for someone else.
[00:25:56] Mike Rome: For early stage companies, I did that too. If that works, like go, do you. But I think there's a certain type of person who wants to start something, and I think a great vetting mechanism for figuring that out is like, can you not do it? Like, are you just thinking about this thing at dinner? Like it's hard to be present, right?
[00:26:12] Mike Rome: Are you maybe like losing a little bit of sleepover and just keeps coming back This nagging thought where it goes back to that earlier advice of like, gosh, at least if it doesn't work, like this thing is constantly out in your mind, you need to get it out of your head. At least you'll definitively know that.
[00:26:26] Mike Rome: So I think the first piece of advice I would give is,that's the right reason to start because a lot of these other things we're talking about, like, if you wanna make good money, if you wanna have work life balance, like you can solve those problems so many ways. and one vehicle is starting your own thing and that happened to be the right vehicle for me.
[00:26:45] Mike Rome: there's other ways to figure this out. So that would be one piece of advice. But then I think if you do go down this road, expect it to be The hardest and most rewarding thing you've ever done. Like I had a boss who, I'm sure you can relate to this, before I had kids, I had a boss who I really looked up to who had kids, and I didn't just look up to him from a work standpoint.
[00:27:06] Mike Rome: I, I looked up to him from, a dad standpoint. he was a partner at, actually a small venture shop that I worked for. And, kind of in between working for growth stage companies, I had a stint with VC just to understand how deals get done and stuff.
[00:27:19] Mike Rome: And so he was a partner there and one day his kids came into the office and they were probably like my kids' age at the time. it was like a Tuesday at like 10:00 AM and they like ran up to him like dad and like jumped in his lap. It was like Christmas or something.
[00:27:33] Mike Rome: I want that, he was someone who kind of instilled this idea to me that like, I think you can have your cake and eat it too with like kids and work.
[00:27:43] Mike Rome: It's just going to be like really hard. I've never liked the whole, you can only do one thing. Like when I left Consulting for tech, people were like, whoa, you're leaving like a pretty defined track, clear career path. You could make a lot of money for like this unknown thing.
[00:27:57] Mike Rome: And I took like a massive pay cut when I did that. But in my head I was still like, I think I could like move just as fast over a five to 10 year period. And I think I could like do as well, but also like be in this place that's like culturally better for me. I've never liked when people say like, you can only do one or the other.
[00:28:15] Mike Rome: And, and I think the whole idea of, of starting a business It's going to be super hard, but it's a way to kind of have your cake and eat it too. I remember the last point I was going to say here, going back to, I thought you could relate,Like if you start your own thing, it's going to be the hardest and most rewarding thing you ever do if you got it out long enough.
[00:28:29] Mike Rome: I asked him about being a parent, this old partner boss, and I asked him like, can you just like, what's it like? And he had the best description of being a parent that I ever thought. He was like, you have this spectrum of emotions right now. As like a 25-year-old human being who has very limited responsibilities.
[00:28:45] Mike Rome: the one side of it is like pure, like joy and happiness. And the other side is like sadness and sorrow and disappointment. And he's like, the spectrum is like this. And then you have kids and it just goes like this. you'll have never felt joy like this and you'll just never have felt, you know, some just hard dark times li like this.
[00:29:06] Mike Rome: And I thought that was like the best description of parenting I ever heard.
[00:29:10] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And you know, some people might be scared off by that because they're only fixating on the, the low end of the, spectrum there. But, there's the high highs too,
[00:29:19] Mike Rome: And I think it's good to do hard things like I'm, I love like the STO philosophy and you know, like the Gavin situation, I would never wish that upon anyone. But then when it happened it was like, A difficult thing that was like an opportunity to get stronger in so many facets of life.
[00:29:32] Mike Rome: And gosh, man, being in it. I say that and I kind of cringe, like it sounds like I navigated it wonderfully. Like a lot of these are thoughts like I've really been able to come to full terms with after the fact. And yeah, some days was definitely better about 'em than others. You know, when you were more in it.
[00:29:47] Mike Rome: let's talk about frameworks.
[00:29:49] Adam Fishman: So there's two that you have. I would say two and a half. because that highlight reel concept is something that, that I would say is a little bit of a framework or a principle in life. But, a lot of people who listen to this pod are probably familiar with the ICE framework. Like certainly if you work in growth you've ever studied from like the Reforge School or whatever, like everybody knows about impact, confidence, and effort. how do you apply that to parenting because I think you bring that into your personal and your home life as well.
[00:30:17] Mike Rome: I've got friends who are teachers and traders, they would just be like, what the hell are you talking about, man? Or I, as a, as a tangent here, I remember like sending a calendar invite to someone who was like, not intact, like to go to dinner and they were like, what the hell are you doing, man?
[00:30:31] Mike Rome: Like, you texted me like seven o'clock on this day, I'll be there. This is like one of those things where I'm laughing as you ask it because it's like a total, total reasonable question, but it's like, we can only talk about this because like we've kind of come up in a similar circle, right?
[00:30:45] Mike Rome: I love the impact, confidence, and effort thing. the other one is like the power law, like only a small subset of things really matter. I think that's the one that's like really speaking to me in terms of like applying it in life outside of business.
[00:30:57] Mike Rome: But I think most people are probably familiar with the power law, but like small subset of things drive most of the outputs, right? And so, that's something I use in like my work and like my team, we're always talking through like, okay, we're only going to do three to four things today because we wanna do 'em really well.
[00:31:12] Mike Rome: Like what's like the power law of like the workload today, you know, small subset of things that are going to drive like, you know, the most outputs for in our case clients. But one of the ways I think about that for kids is, My oldest son is like super into sports so I took him to like a professional soccer game earlier this year.
[00:31:28] Mike Rome: And I don't go to like many of these events, so I kind of went all out and bought like really good tickets because I was like, Hey, I wanna enjoy it too and let's get good seats. And, and so, you know, I'm sure you've been to professional sporting events, they're not cheap. And then it's like, you gotta buy the food.
[00:31:41] Mike Rome: And I live in the suburbs so I gotta go downtown, pay for parking. it was a great night, but like at the end of the night it was probably like a $500 night, like not cheap. it was fun, And then so, you know, like any decent dad, I was trying to think for my, my middle guy Gav, like I should do something with him, you know, to kind of have a similar experience.
[00:31:57] Mike Rome: But he is into very different stuff. What should we do? And he was just hell bent on going mini golfing. Like he was like, let's go mini golfing. for a little while I was reluctant because I was like, gosh, this is going to be like a $40 night. Like I'm going to take him out for like ice cream and like mini golf.
[00:32:14] Mike Rome: And I just took my other son to like a $500, likenice evening out. And it felt really terrible. But he like wanted to do it and so we just did it. And then we ended up playing the course twice because no one was there and the people were cool.
[00:32:27] Mike Rome: So we played like 36 holes of mini golf for like 30 bucks for two people. He had the time of his life and then he wanted to go out and get a donut after. And there was this new donut shop. And so he got like this like ridiculously crazy, 2000 calorie massive donut. And it had like everything on it.
[00:32:44] Mike Rome: he had like the most wonderful time and he still talks about it it was just like less than a 10th of the cost of this other one. And it reminded me this idea of like. Inputs and outputs usually aren't equal. Like that's something I always kind of condition myself in business and, and kind of finding where, you know, going back to the ICE framework, like high impact stuff, lower effort, like high confidence, high impact, low effort, that's sort of like the magical stuff in terms of tactics.
[00:33:11] Mike Rome: This was kind of a scenario like that where it's like, forget the money. Like this, this thing that was super low effort. The mini golf place was like six minutes from our house versus an hour and a half commute to the city and it cost a fraction of the amount of money. Like is like one of the most memorable.
[00:33:24] Mike Rome: days of his life. being present is just a huge deal. Like, you know, 30 minutes to an hour, like my son and I, we play like catch pretty much every day after school. I live in Chicago, so even when it's cold, he wants to be outside.
[00:33:36] Mike Rome: If there's not snow on the ground, we're like throwing the ball.
[00:33:39] Mike Rome: that's a great impact, confidence effort, framework example where it's like, doesn't take that much just like, be around and like, this is a mistake that I've made. Which we can get into like, don't conflate, like physically being around with being present and like, truly being there.
[00:33:54] Mike Rome: So, yeah, there's a couple, couple of ways I think it applies to life.
[00:33:57] Adam Fishman: there's another thing in that story that you just told, which is on the thing with your older son, when you went to the, soccer game, it sounds like that was kind of your idea. You're like, oh, he likes soccer, so I'm going to plan this thing. We're going to do this thing. And then on the flip side, with your son Gavin, you were more following his lead. And as a result, not that Parker didn't have an amazing time at the soccer game, but this sort of payoff for, for Gavin who had like desperately wanted to go mini golfing and you were like, I'm going to follow your lead here.
[00:34:32] Adam Fishman: And then the enthusiasm, it was like, oh yes, I got to do this thing that I've been like wanting to do and donuts and like this whole, this whole thing. So, You know, hopefully your, kid when you're following their lead isn't like, you know, dad, I really wanna like buy a Bugatti or something like that.
[00:34:46] Adam Fishman: Could we do that But, it's just an interesting dichotomy of like when you follow your kid's lead. That's kind of the takeaway that I have. Like when you follow your kid's lead, the idea of sort of impact and effort, like fits can fit a lot more, nicely, or at least your likelihood of success is higher.
[00:35:05] Mike Rome: Totally. That's like a 37 or 40 or 45-year-old person. Your perspective is so different than them. And yeah, I think it's a good reminder that like oftentimes that is the way to go. And I don't know who's said it, but you know, you've heard it a thousand times. It's just like we don't give kids enough credit.
[00:35:19] Mike Rome: they know so much more than you think. And I think this is another perfect example of that. So I also think like with where the world's going. I often think to myself like, what can I teach my kids that's pretty timeless and going to be like, valuable as they grow up? And gosh, like, I'm curious on your take here.
[00:35:36] Mike Rome: I mean, I feel like you're even more in it than I am. The world's changing so fast the one thing that feels right is like, I can teach them to critically think for themselves. And so, you know, oftentimes at dinner, they'll bring something up and I'll just kind of press like, well, why do you think that, you know, and keep going down that road.
[00:35:52] Mike Rome: But I think this whole idea of like letting them sort of drive and following their lead is like another example of that. Like really pushing them to like, come up with the thing on their own. because it just seems like that's going to still be valuable. And my head's spinning, like, I don't know what else will be,
[00:36:09] Mike Rome: How do you think about that one? Like. I know this isn't the question you asked, but selfishly I'm curious about like, you have like a front row seat more so than most people. So like, what are you trying to instill in your kids? What are you trying to teach your kids?
[00:36:20] Mike Rome: Just knowing how fast like the world is changing.
[00:36:23] Adam Fishman: I think for our family, it's two things. It's like, how do you think and reason independently, work through a problem on your own versus like outsourcing your thinking to something, something or someone else. So like owning your kind of decisions and, having agency. and then the second thing that's like really important for us is. Appreciation, like appreciation for the outcomes of our work. Understanding that like things aren't just handed to you. because we're all, you, me, like a lot of people who work in tech, like we tend to be better off than the majority of, of people like financially and things like that. And so how do you continue to underscore that that is a privilege that like the vast majority of the planet does not have access to, and so don't get like high on your own supply,
[00:37:18] Mike Rome: That would be awesome if like your kids, like, learn the phrase hi on your own supply.
[00:37:23] Mike Rome: do you have a practice like, or sort of a ritual for doing that?
[00:37:28] Adam Fishman: Yeah, I wish I could say the answer is yes. I mean, especially coming out of the holidays
[00:37:32] Adam Fishman: where like appreciation is sort of the name of the game, but I don't think we're doing a great job of it.
[00:37:37] Adam Fishman: I think it's a challenge. It's
[00:37:38] Adam Fishman: really, really a challenge, especially when you're surrounded by like the commercialization of the holiday.
[00:37:44] Adam Fishman: So, certainly something always working on, but I don't think I have like a, particular like bottom line answer to that that works a hundred percent of the time.
[00:37:53] Mike Rome: I, fell for one of these like, goofy Instagram reels and I don't know if it's true, but it was like this wonderful hook of like, you know, something parents do in Sweden that like, presents 90% of anxiety in kids or like some wild, you know, stat. So I was like, I'll bite and, again, I don't know if it's true, but I like the idea and, and we haven't been doing it consistent, but I'll probably do it every other night.
[00:38:15] Mike Rome: They said one thing that they do in this culture is every night when they go to bed, they ask the kid what was like the last good thing that happened to you today? so my older son might be like, we played football outside, or a friend came over after school or, you know, my middle guy, he like, loves food and Legos.
[00:38:32] Mike Rome: He'd be like, I finished this Lego, or you know, we had this good thing for dinner I have no idea if it's actually true. And I was like, I like that idea. And it's easy, you know, I'm all into like the lower effort ideas because it's like, what can we actually do as a family?
[00:38:45] Mike Rome: Like most things are just too complex. We're never going to keep the habit. But I like that one.
[00:38:49] Adam Fishman: Yeah, that's a simple and straightforward thing that you can, that you can do in practice, so
[00:38:54] Mike Rome: one, potential piece of advice for dads going back to the whole letting your kids lead. I love that. For most of the time, I have a buddy who told me like the most remarkable story, about how he grew up and he went fishing with his dad all the time and it was like the thing that they did together.
[00:39:13] Mike Rome: And then he had kids and he was so excited for the day. that he could take them all fishing. He'd been dreaming about this forever. so I think about, we have three boys and, but my youngest is, you know, he is four months, like, it's still going to be a few years before, like I could take them all fishing and then by that time, my oldest is like 10.
[00:39:30] Mike Rome: So it's like he'd been building this thing up in his head for 10 years, you know, like to the day, day finally comes around, like he's hyping it up. He takes all the kids fishing, it's kind of an elaborate thing. They like hike into this fishing spot and they start fishing kids fishing, like lines get tangled, like they're barely fishing.
[00:39:47] Mike Rome: And he just had this epiphany in his head where he was like, out there and he's just like, holy smokes. For the first time in my life I realized I freaking hate fishing. Like I never liked fishing. And he's like, but. It was the thing my dad and I always did.
[00:40:03] Mike Rome: And because we got to do it together, like I convinced myself that I like fishing, but I freaking hate fishing. And so his whole lesson was like, actually find things that you like to do and just like, bring your kid along. I live in the Midwest and I, I love to snowboard.
[00:40:19] Mike Rome: And I'm like, my only ticket to being able to, you know, do that every year would be like getting my kids into it. You know, like that's the way I would be able to sneak away for a trip. And so at first I was kind of like, ah, like they haven't like expressed any interest, should I really do this? But then I heard that story and I'm like, I'm just, I'm just taking 'em to get lessons.
[00:40:37] Mike Rome: Like I'm not really interested. I think 80% of the time it's like you can learn so much from letting your kids lead. But I love that fishing story where I'm like, yeah, I'm going to pick one or two things that like selfishly I wanna do and I'm just going to bring 'em along for the ride.
[00:40:51] Adam Fishman: I think that's okay. I think that's okay. I'd mentioned we were going to come back to this, speaking of like the highlight reel of life and this Instagram reel that you saw that was like, oh, you should do this thing, you know, blah, blah. you've talked a bit about, the idea that what we put out into the world is like only a very small slice.
[00:41:12] Adam Fishman: It's only sort of the best slice of our professional lives, our personal lives, like, et cetera. And I wanted to get a take from you on why should parents try their damnedest to ignore, like the highlight reel that is LinkedIn or Instagram or other social media posts when it comes to like, I guess like keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak.
[00:41:39] Mike Rome: I feel like the research just continues to come out, that it's just like, incredibly unhealthy, the data is there for one, I don't know anyone who would like, say they actually feel good after like, having one of those experiences. And then I think candidly, man, it's just like we drive a fair amount of our business from I do a lot of like founder-led content specifically on LinkedIn.
[00:42:00] Mike Rome: And you know, like people wanna work with people who are successful. I get it. But I also think like people wanna work with people, at least the type of people that I wanna work with who are authentic. Obviously, like I have financial goals, but it's like the more I just wanna like work with people who kind of look like the person I wanna become.
[00:42:16] Mike Rome: I think that's a really good filter because when I see people who are only kind of boasting about the winds and stuff like that, like, we spend so much time working, you know, one of the like wonderful hacks of moonwater is like, it is this tool for life to like, surround yourself with, a certain type of person.
[00:42:31] Mike Rome: And, I've been doing this long enough where more times than not I'm able to accomplish that. I wasn't always the case, like I was for a while just kind of taking work to, to take work. But first of all, it's just nonsense. I've met so many people who are so much more successful than me and when you actually start to have real conversations, you just realize that like.
[00:42:50] Mike Rome: You know, their life is kind of a shit storm too, and sometimes they're way worse off than you are, you know, when you really get into it. And I think the hardest thing here is the goalpost for like ambitious people, right? I, I imagine the ICP for who is listening to this podcast. One of the hardest things I think is like the go post is always moving.
[00:43:10] Mike Rome: Like, I think back to when I started my career in management consulting and I got into tech, if someone told me where I would be five years from then, you know, like at the time I would've been like, this is all I could have asked for. Right? Like, it would've been a worthwhile career. And then if someone would've told me where I would've been at 10 years, I would've said the same thing.
[00:43:33] Mike Rome: And then even like when I thought about leaving tech to start my own company, if someone told me where I would be today, I would be like. This is like the most successful endeavor of my life, but I don't feel like that now. I think the best thing you can do is just make peace with like, there's always going to be people who are more successful than you.
[00:43:53] Mike Rome: And by the way, like society's definition of success is pretty damn broken. And I'm not saying there is a one size fits all definition of success, but I, I think the best thing you can do here is be brutally honest with yourself around what success looks like, and then just try to like. Surround yourself with a feed or with people in real life who kind of represent that version.
[00:44:16] Mike Rome: you know, that old saying like, you're a product of like the five people you're closest to a hundred percent. the only hack that I know is just to like, just try to cut that outta your life.
[00:44:26] Mike Rome: Like, I follow plenty of people in business who like, are absolutely ripping and have surely already done more than I'll ever do in a lifetime, but they're like super authentic and like when something shitty happens, like they'll talk about it
[00:44:40] Mike Rome: if we're kind of at like, the peak of this where it's like people are just starting to value like real life, and calling like bullshit more often and. I'm just to an age where I just like the data's there and I just have no interest in, in being around that.
[00:44:55] Mike Rome: I think the gratitude thing's really important too. Like, it's so easy to get tripped up in, Like that person has that and I don't And what is it like, uh, comparison is like the thief of joy. It's so true. I don't have any facts.
[00:45:08] Mike Rome: I, I, I think going back to some of the stuff I talked about with Gavin, I think just being hyper aware of it is sort of the start.
[00:45:13] Adam Fishman: Let's chip away at the highlight reel, a little bit. I want to know what a mistake that you've made as a dad is.
[00:45:19] Adam Fishman: It was a mistake, and, and now I'm aware of it, so it's less of a mistake, but something I like still am trying my damnedest to figure out each day is that whole idea of, yeah, because I own my own thing. I, I do have a ton of flexibility and so it's like, being able to get your kid from the bus or being at dinner every night of the week like that by itself doesn't mean anything.
[00:45:38] Mike Rome: Like you really have to be there, you know? And so again, conflating this idea of being around with actually being present, I think is just one of those things where I think at first I thought I could just check the box of I was doing those things, but it's like, what's the point, right? Like, if you're still at work in your head, and by the way, like, I would say I've gotten better at this, but talk to my wife like, half the week it's still a struggle, you know?
[00:46:03] Mike Rome: But, I think that's the biggest thing I love to read about successful people who are honest and You read about the things people regret on their deathbed and it's like, it's always like being more present with like the people I care about, right?
[00:46:17] Mike Rome: Whether it's your spouse or your kids or your friends. And so I'm just trying to, to do more of that, like really be places in real life. I just went out to dinner with some buds and I don't do that very often. My wife doesn't do it very often. We're trying to like, once a quarter and it's like I don't bring my phone.
[00:46:32] Mike Rome: I try to like not look at my phone for a couple hours at night and that might not sound like that much, but gosh, if you don't look at your phone for a couple hours and you can be like truly there with your family for like two hours is a lot of time, you know, a lot of time. You can do a lot. You can,
[00:46:48] Mike Rome: Create really valuable experiences with two hours. So, that would be like the biggest thing again, that I think was a mistake. And then I got aware of it and now it's less of a mistake, but still like a struggle. but something that I'm, interested in, uh, continuing to get better at.
[00:47:02] Adam Fishman: Okay. Well, so I'm going to do one more thing to throw some cold water on the highlight reel of life, and also talk about a two hour experience that you had that, maybe some other parents can relate to. So tell me about the time that you took your two older sons out to dinner when your wife was out of town.
[00:47:21] Mike Rome: this was like earlier this year. I don't know about you, but like, my son's like plenty of bad restaurants, but there's only a few that I'm like, this place is legit. That they like, you know, there's maybe like three of 'em. And so I'm always like down to, you know, local good restaurant.
[00:47:35] Mike Rome: They actually like will eat two things off the menu. I'm always like down to do that. And so my wife and I, we each try to take a trip a year when the other one watches the kids. And the rule is no matter how bad they are, you can't talk about it. when the other person gets home
[00:47:53] Adam Fishman: you can't like make the other person feel guilty
[00:47:55] Mike Rome: You can't make 'em feel shitty about the trip. Right. With, she's way better at it than I am. But I'm, I'm like, I'm getting there. And so, we take a trip a year and, you know, I'll go see my dad or go somewhere with buds. It's just like a long weekend. And then we try to take a trip together and we're fortunate to have family around who, you know, a few times a year over a few nights, like, let us do this.
[00:48:14] Mike Rome: And so it all started with that. My wife was on like one of these trips with her friends and I should just not bite off more than I can chew. not only am I going to take the kids entirely, like I'm going to like level up as a dad
[00:48:24] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Big dad weekend
[00:48:26] Mike Rome: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want it to be awesome, right? Like you want them thinking the dad weekends are better than the mom weekend. And, and so anyway, so we go out to one of these places and first of all, I don't know if I told you this part, but it was off to a bad start because I forgot, like we have sort of like, a bag of stuff we bring to the restaurant to keep them occupied.
[00:48:46] Mike Rome: And you know, it's just a few small things. Like, we're not like big iPad people and stuff, so it's like, you know, a couple of toys or like my oldest son, like loves sports books and bring a few of these things. I forget it. Okay. So like we get to the restaurant, I forget it, and I'm like, well, at least they have a kid's menu.
[00:49:01] Mike Rome: They can like, draw outta kids' menus out of crans. So like, we we're like, we're sitting down and I'm just like, this is not off to a, a good start. And then by the grace of God, we're sitting next to the bar and my youngest son, he notices they have like a collection of lava lamps in the bar and he's like.
[00:49:20] Mike Rome: Those are awesome. What are those? And like somehow, like I'm literally able to talk about lava lamps with both of 'em.
[00:49:26] Mike Rome: They're both into 'em. They both tell or tell me how they want one for their, you know, next birthday and talking about the colors and the shapes. And we spent 20 minutes talking about lava lamps. All of a sudden the food comes and I'm like, I dodged this massive bullet. Right?
[00:49:39] Adam Fishman: dad win.
[00:49:40] Mike Rome: Major dad win. I'm already starting to think about having a conversation with my wife.
[00:49:44] Mike Rome: Like, oh yeah, I like played it. Totally cool. Like, yeah, we went out like I actually forgot this stuff and it worked out fine. Like, we had a great conversation. By the way, Gavin wants a lava lamp for, you know, his birthday, whatever. So we get through dinner, it's one of the smoothest dining experiences we have
[00:49:59] Mike Rome: my oldest son has his coat on, like, we're about to leave. Bill is paid. And my youngest son, he, or like my middle son now, he, uh, was my youngest at the time. he's an eater. He loves food. so he finished his meal and then my other son like, just doesn't have as much of an appetite.
[00:50:12] Mike Rome: And so he was like, Hey Parker, can I have like, you know, some of your cheeseburger, whatever. so he has a few bites. He coughs a little no big deal. Like, didn't think anything of it. And he's just kind of wrapping up and, you know, we're probably like 60 seconds out from like getting up.
[00:50:26] Mike Rome: He's just kind of digesting his food, coughs again and gets a little bit louder, don't think too much of it. And then a third time he starts like really coughing. And this was one of those things where it's like everything slows down. Like I knew he was about to get violently ill in the restaurant,
[00:50:42] Adam Fishman: Your whole life is flashing before your
[00:50:44] Mike Rome: Yeah. And everything slows down. no one's looking at us yet, but like I see all of their heads like starting to turn in my head and all of a sudden he just projectile vomits once on the table, once on the floor this way and once on the floor. That way I'm not talking like spit up, I'm talking like three
[00:51:03] Adam Fishman: like a meal and a half,
[00:51:05] Mike Rome: all of my other son's food who he was just eating too. And it's all on him. And so, and then at this point, everyone is looking, I mean, I've already ruined everyone's meal, right? I remember like, of course I'm not going to ask them to like clean most of this up, but I need some like tools, right?
[00:51:23] Mike Rome: So like, there's like three waiters next to me and. I'm like, I'm so sorry about this. Like I will, I'll clean it up, but like I need some like wet towels, like can you guys bring me some stuff? And so, you know, they do and people are frozen, like no one knows what to do. And so I cleaned like 80% of it up but they still have to like take it all to the back and it was still a terrible experience for them.
[00:51:43] Mike Rome: I think our dinner was like 80 bucks and I left like a $90 tip or something and we just got out of there like super fast and, and I remember like my youngest son's like, I need to go to the bathroom. I was like, we are not going to the bathroom here. Like you're to gut it out for 10 minutes in the car.
[00:51:58] Mike Rome: And then I remember getting in the car and my whole car smells like puke because my son is still covered in it. I'm kind of covered it. And my oldest son is like. Dad, when do you think we can go back there? And I'm like, Parker, now is not the time. He's, and he's like, it's probably going to be a little while.
[00:52:12] Mike Rome: Right? And I was like, it's definitely going to be a little while. the answer to that question was like five months. And we went back and I kid you not, I was wondering if people are going to remember we went back and someone like made a comment like, oh, I remember you guys.
[00:52:24] Mike Rome: And in my head I'm like, do they remember us? because we come here a lot because it's one of the few decent restaurants my kids like, or do they remember it? because my other son literally like ruined everyone's night one night when we were there. So I don't know.
[00:52:36] Adam Fishman: That's amazing. What a story. I mean, the only thing worse is if your younger son in the car had been like, Hey dad, I'm kind of hungry.
[00:52:44] Mike Rome: Yeah. I'd be like, walk home, unlock the doors. Like find your own way home. But you know, it's one of those things with kids where it's just like life gets a hell of a lot easier when you realize there's only certain facets where you actually are in control.
[00:52:56] Mike Rome: And then outside of that, just kind of enjoy the ride.
[00:52:59] Adam Fishman: Yeah, well that one's definitely not for the highlight reel, but I guarantee that like your kids will probably talk about this when they're 30,
[00:53:06] Adam Fishman: it will probably be the only thing that your 4-year-old remembers from like that time of his life,
[00:53:10] Adam Fishman: but he'll remember it.
[00:53:12] Mike Rome: some point, you know, it's like you've seen those clips too, where it's like 70, 80-year-old self on, Christmas if you happen to celebrate is like, the, uh, husband's like, what do you want for Christmas? And you know, the mom is like, I want this scenario that we had when we were 35 and we had three kids and the house was a disaster, and maybe there's like a puke experience involved, but now you can never have it,
[00:53:33] Mike Rome: the hardest thing about having young kids, especially like my youngest isn't sleeping through the night yet, Like you can't wait till you can sleep through the night. But on the other hand, it's like, we know like, this is our last kid and it's the end of an era, like when a lot of things happen, right?
[00:53:46] Mike Rome: He just rolled over. It's the last time we're going to have that experience. And I think, you know, whenever these crazy times happen with kids, like hopefully there's not vomit involved, but any of these crazy times where it's just like, it's stressful as a parent. Like I know to be true that at some point I'm going to be longing for that experience again.
[00:54:04] Mike Rome: And so you just try to enjoy the ride.
[00:54:06] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Oh, well that sounds like an almost great spot for us to stop before we get into lightning round. But there's one more thing I wanted to ask you about, which is, tell me about the letter to Nirvana. So you mentioned this in our prep, and I'd never heard of this before,
[00:54:22] Adam Fishman: I did take a look at it and you said it's a huge. Influence in your life and a lot of the things you do and how you operate. So what is the letter to Nirvana and, and how might other people like, you know, be influenced by it
[00:54:37] Mike Rome: Yeah. So I guess, uh, a little bit of context here. I, I love music. I used to work in music when I was in college booking bands. And for a while I thought that's how I was going to spend my career and. I play music and I've always been around it, and I've been inspired by music and, you know, other people in music.
[00:54:51] Mike Rome: And there's this guy, SteveAlbini, he, uh, produced Nirvana's last record
[00:54:57] Mike Rome: In utero. there's a letter that was floated around out there. Gosh, I, I don't even know, like when this became public, I probably found it like seven, eight years ago. it's basically a letter from this guy, Steve Albini, who ends up producing the record, to Nirvana, basically pitching him, producing the record.
[00:55:14] Mike Rome: But I'm reluctant to use the word pitch because it's the exact opposite of a pitch. you know, if you think about Nirvana at this time, I mean, it's like on the cusp of being one of the biggest bands in the world and kind of has their pick. And there's a lot of people. Maybe telling them what they think they wanna hear in terms of like what they should do for the next record.
[00:55:35] Mike Rome: And, uh, yeah, if you just google Steve Albini letter to Nirvana, First of all, he's, he's delayed in getting back to him because he's like heads down producing, uh, another grunge band's record. And he immerses himself so much in the experience that like, you know, he doesn't get back to these guys for a week.
[00:55:51] Mike Rome: When you can imagine everyone else who's a candidate for producing the record is like, you know, Hey Adam, sorry, I gotta go. We gotta cut this podcast short. I just heard from
[00:55:58] Mike Rome: Nirvana
[00:55:59] Adam Fishman: I mean, I saw that his opening salvo is basically like, yeah, you guys are important, but you weren't that important. I was doing this other thing.
[00:56:06] Mike Rome: Yes. And he basically writes a proposal. It's like the most unconventional proposal you've ever seen where he's like. You know, I think if we do this record, like, we bang it out in a few days. If it takes longer than a few days, someone is screwing up. And you know, he just talks about like, if you wanna do the opposite, like really overproduce this thing and like involve all of the like, talking heads at the record label.
[00:56:28] Mike Rome: Like, I want no part in it. And I think some people might read this record and be like, gosh, this guy's an asshole. But I think other people read this record and be like, again, it just, it bleeds authenticity where it's like, here's a guy who, you know, I think about my performance marketing shop and it's very small expert only, and like we try to be as high craft as humanly possible.
[00:56:50] Mike Rome: And I have no interest in scaling to something much bigger, even though if, like financially that might make the most sense and. When I said this was a huge inspiration for me, a lot of the values we have at my company were like born out of this letter where it's like, here's a guy who's just so intentional about how he does things, and there's a level of conviction letter where he clearly knows what he's doing, but it's also clear that like he's open to learning more.
[00:57:16] Mike Rome: He's open to collaborating with the band, but he has conviction on doing things a certain way. And if you wanna do things a certain way like this, great, let's do it. But like, if you don't, I just wanna make it vividly clear what it's like to work with me. it kind of bleeds into the highlight real stuff, right?
[00:57:32] Mike Rome: Where it's just like everyone's talking about the wind and you know, so many people are pitching what you wanna hear, and it's like, I just love these people who just are so comfortable in their own skin and, and really care about doing great work. like everything else. It's like, if you're not doing great work, what's the point?
[00:57:50] Mike Rome: anyone who. Cares about craft and, you know, getting better and, being true to who they are. Like, go read this letter. because uh, gosh, I probably still read it like three, four times a week and every time it, it makes me smile.
[00:58:01] Adam Fishman: Awesome. Well, we will link to it in the show notes and then also people can Google it if they don't wanna root around in the basement of the show notes to, to find it. But thanks for sharing that. because I'd never heard of it, and now I've read it like a couple times
[00:58:13] Mike Rome: It
[00:58:13] Mike Rome: fires you up, right? Like, you're just like, yeah, like, I
[00:58:16] Mike Rome: wish I, I wanna hang out with this guy.
[00:58:18] Adam Fishman: okay. Well before lightning round, how can people follow along or be helpful to you?
[00:58:22] Mike Rome: you can just find me, Mike Rome on LinkedIn. that's really the only place I'm active. I post like five times a week, kind of a combination of, uh, performance, marketing growth type stuff and, and then some stuff that's a little bit more general. And just to your point, like people, you know, just like this podcast, like, just be authentic, I kind of like am half building this thing in public, so I've gotten a lot of feedback that.
[00:58:43] Mike Rome: People like how transparent I am around the things I'm sharing. So that would be the best place. And my site is just moonwater.co. if for some reason anyone's interested in performance marketing services,
[00:58:53] Adam Fishman: Cool. Well, everybody check out Mike's LinkedIn feed. There was an awesome photo of your newborn, uh, not too long ago, maybe four months ago. along with that post about, you don't have to start things at an early age. you can make big leaps when you're older. So, great advice. thank you.
[00:59:09] Adam Fishman: Are you ready for lightning round?
[00:59:11] Mike Rome: yeah, I'm ready. Just real quick, Adam, just shout out to you for doing this podcast. There's so many wonderful podcasts about like the actual work in tech and startups, but there's already a lot of those and
[00:59:21] Mike Rome: The older I get, the more I'm just very intrigued by not just people doing good work, but people who are like thinking differently. And I think where you're going with this podcast is like, it's a breath of fresh air and especially, you know, it gives dads an outlet to talk about something that like there really isn't many outlets for.
[00:59:36] Mike Rome: So yeah, man, just keep going and I'm honored to be here and I'm excited to keep following along.
[00:59:40] Adam Fishman: okay. Lightning round, let's get to it. what is the most indispensable parenting product you've ever purchased?
[00:59:47] Mike Rome: So my wife and I paid for a sleep consultant. I think we did two sessions with her to get our kids sleep trained and sleeping through the night. I thought it was bogus when she first brought it to me, and it's like, hands down. I never give parenting advice because I'm still a young parent. What do I know?
[01:00:01] Mike Rome: But when I see like tired parents, I'm just like, call this woman. pay her like a couple hundred dollars not even close couple of sessions with someone who really knows what they're doing there.
[01:00:10] Adam Fishman: Awesome. So aside from one and a half meals that your youngest son at the time consumed at a restaurant and then promptly threw up, what is the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?
[01:00:22] Mike Rome: I think it's probably like, just like decent clothes for me,
[01:00:25] Mike Rome: Especially now having a really young one. I mean, all my clothes are wrecked.
[01:00:28] Adam Fishman: Yep. true or false? There's only one correct way to load the dishwasher.
[01:00:33] Mike Rome: A hundred percent true. there was a question on the pre-read of like, what's something you and your wife disagree on? Which we didn't get to, but we just got to it.
[01:00:40] Adam Fishman: it is the loading of the dishwasher. So
[01:00:41] Adam Fishman: she has a way and you have a way.
[01:00:43] Mike Rome: am I right? do you disagree?
[01:00:45] Adam Fishman: there is absolutely only really one correct way to load a dishwasher. It is not the way that anyone else in my house adheres to it, but it is, there is one way, so,
[01:00:54] Mike Rome: think it, I Let's just, uh, we'll stop here. I'm pretty sure, like we can think we have the same idea in our head,
[01:00:59] Adam Fishman: okay, great.
[01:01:01] Adam Fishman: what is your signature Dad's superpower.
[01:01:03] Mike Rome: like I said, my oldest is into sports. I grew up playing a lot of sports and I can still like, hang with all of his, him and his friends. Like if they wanna play football for five hours and it's the weekend and my wife lets me be outside for five hours, like I'm, I'm in
[01:01:16] Adam Fishman: awesome. what is your least favorite parenting task?
[01:01:21] Mike Rome: I don't like reading books to my kids at night. May maybe that sounds like hardcore and ruthless, but hopefully people have a decent perception of me as a dad after listening to this, so I can say it. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I'm just like cashed. Like I, I usually will bathe my two older kids, like get 'em ready for bed.
[01:01:36] Mike Rome: But I was like, I bring my wife in to read the books. I
[01:01:40] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:01:40] Mike Rome: I'm not that interested in doing
[01:01:41] Adam Fishman: Yeah. I, get it. We can't, it can't be on all the time.
[01:01:44] Adam Fishman: what is a crazier block of time in your house? 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM or 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
[01:01:49] Mike Rome: dude, I have three boys. It's just like, I can't answer that question. It's just like a disaster
[01:01:56] Adam Fishman: Full, full court press all the time. awesome. if your kids had to describe you in one word, what would it be?
[01:02:03] Mike Rome: I think around
[01:02:04] Adam Fishman: Cool. I love that one that I've never heard anybody say that. That's awesome. what is the funniest thing that one of your kids has ever said in public,
[01:02:15] Mike Rome: my wife keeps a note in her phone of this, which I should like really start doing. because like, I feel like I'm sure you know, like there's so many of them recently, my middle child, Gavin, he like still sometimes has like accidents and stuff
[01:02:28] Mike Rome: he had one the other day he like ran upstairs. Like now he's old enough where like he, he just tries to conceal the thing altogether, right? Like go change his underwear and all of this stuff. And, uh, you know, if I see him doing it, I'll be like, what are you doing? Where are you going?
[01:02:42] Mike Rome: I saw him like running up the stairs and I just said, Gavin, Where are you going? And instead of him just being like, I'm going to like change my underwear, he was like, I don't know, dad, it's a mystery. And then he just like walked away up the stairs. And I, that was one of those times where kids you like, I didn't know what to say back.
[01:02:57] Mike Rome: I was like, honestly, I kind of wanna yell at you. But then like, really well played. Very well played. And then that same day, I, I went up there afterwards and I was like, Gavin, I'm going to have to tell mom about this. And no joke. He comes to me and he goes,
[01:03:12] Mike Rome: okay, can you wait to tell her until you're out to dinner? And I was just like, this kid is like, like he's just working me and he's four, you know, like I'm nervous for when he is 16. But I was like, yeah, you know, like, that's thoughtful.
[01:03:25] Mike Rome: I'm going to do that.
[01:03:26] Adam Fishman: future Biz dev. Uh, leader. Love that. that's an amazing story. What is your go-to dad wardrobe.
[01:03:33] Mike Rome: I like to try things on in person. I'm usually in between two sizes, like half the time small, half time medium. So I like going to a store. So we happen to have a a 30 in my town. I also just like, don't like, crappy stuff that you have to throw away.
[01:03:47] Mike Rome: I try to like buy last and keep it for longer, so I really like their stuff. that's probably where I get most of my stuff. And I wear a lot of t-shirts too. There's always like, you know, cool e-comm t-shirt companies making like higher quality, nicer t-shirts that are reasonably priced. So probably one of those too, to
[01:04:02] Adam Fishman: Awesome. Uh, how many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?
[01:04:06] Mike Rome: my wife. she rate limits, like the amount of texts I can send on the family thread, because like sometimes it gets a little outta hand. like literally text I, this happened like three days ago where she's like. pump the brakes on like the family text chain, you know, like no one thinks you're that funny.
[01:04:22] Mike Rome: I'm think I'm pretty funny.
[01:04:24] Adam Fishman: You know, uh, I think your wife and my wife would get along famously.
[01:04:27] Mike Rome: Maybe we can go out to dinner or something.
[01:04:29] Adam Fishman: Yep. Yep.
[01:04:30] Adam Fishman: okay. What is your favorite kid's movie?
[01:04:33] Mike Rome: Gosh, there's, I feel like so many of the Disney ones are so good. my oldest is to the age where like he's starting to like appreciate like real movies, like non-car movies. I've been starting to throw like Sandlot is one that he's just been on a tear with. And then my other, who's like four, you know, classic like.
[01:04:51] Mike Rome: you get more lenient as the kids grow up. Like he's watching Sandlot even though he shouldn't be watching Sandlot I don't know. I, I think that's one that we've been watching a lot. I'm just excited, even though there is so many wonderful like Disney cartoon movies, like, like I love Luca.
[01:05:02] Mike Rome: so many of the new ones are just like, they're so good for parents in addition to kids I'm into this whole, like, they're starting to watch non-car films. Goonies, I'm pumped for Goonies. My kids are a little young for that, but that was one of my favorite movies growing up. So
[01:05:14] Adam Fishman: that you would say that that's a nostalgic movie that you just like can't wait to
[01:05:19] Mike Rome: Yeah, for sure. Do you, do you have any nostalgic movies
[01:05:21] Adam Fishman: you just hit on a bunch of 'em. We actually just recently watched Sandlot, all the Home Alone, Goonies,
[01:05:27] Adam Fishman: we're starting to watch like other stuff, you know, we've started to dip in a little with my older one into some of those like eighties, you know, movies.
[01:05:35] Adam Fishman: But those are, pretty borderline in terms of appropriateness
[01:05:39] Adam Fishman: they let a lot more stuff slide in the eighties than is kind of okay for kids, I think these days. So I like them still, but I know how to put them in context
[01:05:48] Adam Fishman: and so.
[01:05:49] Mike Rome: Real, quick story there. We were on a vacation this summer and we were at a lake we were jumping in the water off a boat. my son this summer, like just loves Sandlot. I mean, he probably watched it like a dozen times and my wife was on the fence about it because, to your point, nineties movies and then you take eighties movies, it's like they each start getting more and more questionable in terms of like, what, what was appropriate.
[01:06:09] Mike Rome: we had one of these pontoon boats where, you can jump off the top. And so it's like pretty far to the water. And uh, my one son, he jumped off and in midair he is like, oh crap. It was like straight outta the movie. And she just like, looks at me. She's like sitting talking to like another mom on the bottom of the boat and like instantaneously, she's like, no more sandlot.
[01:06:29] Mike Rome: Like, I was like, whoa. Pretty awesome. It was bound to happen, right?
[01:06:34] Adam Fishman: Well, not today.
[01:06:35] Adam Fishman: Uh, we'll see. how long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?
[01:06:41] Mike Rome: I'll still eat it or my kids will still eat
[01:06:43] Mike Rome: it.
[01:06:43] Adam Fishman: mean, let's, let's take both
[01:06:45] Mike Rome: I mean, for me, it, it probably used to be a few seconds, and now it's probably like a minute and my kids like, I don't know that there's any ceiling. I'd have to run that experiment. Depends what the food is, you know, if it's like a piece of candy,
[01:07:01] Mike Rome: gosh, I could probably leave it there, probably.
[01:07:03] Mike Rome: And, you know, most, most of the candy like would hold up for that long,
[01:07:06] Adam Fishman: for sure.
[01:07:07] Adam Fishman: how often do you tell your kids Back in my day stories?
[01:07:10] Mike Rome: more and more as I get older,
[01:07:12] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Okay.
[01:07:14] Adam Fishman: What is your favorite dad hack for road trips or flights?
[01:07:20] Mike Rome: like I said, we're not like huge iPad people, but on flights, there's no better tool, ever invented. We'll use 'em in road trips too, like in the car. But the thing I'm most proud of with road trips is, uh, the trunk car, Tetris, you know, just like mastering the packing of bags, like you put them all out as a family and you're like, physically, it's impossible for it to fit in here, but you go back to dad's superpowers, you're going to make more space than there actually is.
[01:07:46] Adam Fishman: That's awesome. I love that. also I'm going to take away the, uh, toy bag to the restaurants and
[01:07:52] Adam Fishman: stuff. My kids are maybe a little old for the toy bag these days, but plenty of other people listening will not be. So
[01:07:57] Mike Rome: and worst case scenario, if you forget it, just make sure you go somewhere with lava lamps.
[01:08:01] Adam Fishman: Yes. Key, key. I'll have to read that on the Yelp reviews. final question, what is your take on minivans?
[01:08:08] Mike Rome: I don't have one. our family car's a Kia Telluride. but I'm not going to let you off the hook here, uh, on this one. What's your take on minivans?
[01:08:15] Adam Fishman: I'm not Team Minivan. I appreciate their practicality. I will never own one.
[01:08:20] Adam Fishman: I don't mind renting one on a trip though
[01:08:23] Adam Fishman: from time to time. but I do think they're a lot more valuable when the kids are younger and have a habit of swinging a door wide open and slamming it into something.
[01:08:31] Mike Rome: this was my wife's main argument that, and like, it's just too much work to get the kids in the car. And so with the whole kids in the car, I was like, well, whenever I come with you, I'll, I'll do that. which isn't true, like we both do it half the time. but on Amazon, I bought these things for my garage.
[01:08:46] Mike Rome: They're just like little pads, you know, that you stick on the wall. And we redid our garage last year and it, our garage was a mess before we redid it, so there's like holes everywhere. And so I was like, we're not going to redo the garage. And you know, it's 15 bucks. You get these, rectangle like strips and you know, they're probably like an inch thick.
[01:09:02] Mike Rome: And they're like bulletproof, man. Like my kids will rip open a door and they just kind of bounce off of them. So I would highly recommend those too.
[01:09:09] Adam Fishman: So if you're not getting a minivan, get padded walls for the kids instead. I
[01:09:13] Adam Fishman: love that. All right. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure having you here. This was an awesome conversation and I wish you and your family all the best, uh, for this year.
[01:09:26] Mike Rome: Yeah, I really appreciate you doing this and, and having me, Adam, and like I said, excited to, to keep watching you, so thank you.
[01:09:31] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Mike Rome. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes.
[01:09:46] Adam Fishman: Thanks for listening. And see you next week.