 Welcome everyone back to the serene stage. I'm Sophie Edelman, and I am delighted to be joined by Eleanor and Marcello here today to talk about being a Founder and a parent people asking me whether or not I was nervous about coming on stage today after having given birth to two children I have to say nothing is scary So we are here because we're all founders of companies and we're all parents and between us We have six children under the age of seven so lots of experience with the juggle Now today, we wanted to share with you the good the bad and the ugly of being a founder and a parent What we're going to cover today is everything from starting a company and the decision to do that and combine that with a family fundraising fears and Making sure that both your family and your company get the best out of you so that you don't burn out And we all agreed when we were talking about this session that we wanted to be really real with you today We want you to be able to come away with an understanding of what we and what we think of the challenges and the joys of being a founder and a parent and We want you to come away and leave today with some really practical tips of how we make it work that you can hopefully apply in your own lives So first of all Delighted to have you guys Let's hear your stories. What were your journeys to becoming both a founder and a parent? I'll start with you Eleanor Sure, so hi everyone Eleanor Crespo co-founder CoC of pigment. We started the company in mint 2019 and I had twins 18 months ago. So actually Approximately in a year and a half after creating pigment. So I'll tell you all about it Twins is a whole other story What about you? Yeah, so I'm CEO and co-founder remote and my kid was born Four months after we started this company. So January 2019. We started remote and April my kid was born So I've been raising two kids at the same time Well and also in the middle of a pandemic as well, which has its own complexities So the first thing is you decide that you're going to have a family. How do you tell people? Maybe you you get in Eleanor in my case you get pregnant the decision to tell your your co-founders your investors your team What was your journey on that? How did you do that? Yeah, so for me it was very natural I think the only thing I may be regret is that you know, there is something when you're pregnant that you have to wait Three months usually before telling everyone and I think it's just sort of common practice Which I find a bit ridiculous because I was telling Sophie that unfortunately during the first three months of my pregnancy I was sick, but like I wanted to throw up every single minute and I was in meeting all day long and I wish that I was really able to tell people because at the end of the day I don't think it's you know, maybe something bad will happen. Yes, but maybe something bad can happen after three months as well So I told my co-founder straight away and I had to wait obviously two other months to tell To tell for instance my investors etc I found it very natural And I remember that some people that I speak with as I spoke with at the time were a bit freaking out like oh How are you gonna? How are you gonna manage that? And I found it a little bit I didn't really like that idea of Freaking out because I realized that you know my co-founder has three daughters and does he age of nine No one ever asked him like how do you cope with three kids? So I was like look, you know, yes, I'm gonna have twins But as everybody else, you know, I will just deal with my twins as as much as all the other founders do So that was my easy answer But yeah, I think other than that everything went super smoothly in terms of announcing their diverse Yeah, I I understand that that fear of being pregnant and not knowing, you know when to tell people I remember with my first child I waited until I was five and a half months pregnant And I'm pretty sure everybody knew that I was pregnant by this point because I was really scared I was really scared that people were gonna judge me differently that they were gonna think I wasn't gonna be able to perform So it is a really difficult decision, but I I don't know about you I felt a lot of relief once I told everyone And hopefully it didn't affect anything I did so Marcelo, how about you? Well slightly different for me, of course because my wife was the one being pregnant the the best part about it is, you know Even though it's your own company But it is a job. It's the job for literally everyone in that company. And so you should Also set the expectations and what is the reality that people should expect on the day today? And so as a founder if you also make a big fuss out of it, you know So you're gonna be leading others to think well, you know being pregnant or become a parent is You know sort of a hush-hush thing So, you know super open about it in my case I had to go through sort of two moments one less positive because my my kid was born with a club feet Which is a not a great thing to be born with his feet were Turned inside inside out outside in and so I had to tell people look We discovered mid-pregnancy. We're already ongoing with the company and I said look It's gonna be crazy At best I'm gonna be out for a few days a week because it requires a lot of You know, I googled everything that you could possibly Google during that period. I told people look I'm gonna have to go out for therapy a few hours or even days per week And that's that Yeah, such as life Well, one of the big things it's not just announcing but it's how do you handle parental leave right the decision of what you? Communicate to your team to your investors. I know for me my fear was around what the investors would think How did how do you both think about the parental leave process and and how long did you take where you involved that kind of thing? Marcello, what about you? Yeah, so one of the big reasons why I started this company with with your microphone There was you know, there has to be a big shift from Living to work and work to live. It's a very different thing. And so the parental leave Unfortunately, we were still in a We're still catching up with what the reality should be many countries are, you know, very upfront and very, you know real with the needs of Both parents, right? It's tough on everyone And so it should be about what makes sense and one of the needs of people in not like a hey in this country You have three months Get through with shit, you know Kids are completely different some kids need a lot more than three months in order for you to regain some sense of self let alone freedom to work And to that end, you know, what we always try to push for is, you know The time you work is not the same as the quality of what you do and for you to be at your best point You also have to be well. So someone that you know became a parent recently can't go to work thinking 99% of the time How's my baby doing? And to me that is something that's very critical and why we have a policy every month that you know You should really take the time and if you need more time, you need more time and that's it period That's great. I think we're going to talk a bit more about sort of the impact on you as an employer in a minute Eleanor, what about you? How did you approach your maternity leave your parental leave and and how did you handle that with your your partner? What kind of thing? Yeah, so first of all with twins normally you have to stop earlier and unfortunately I couldn't so I had to start to work until the pretty much the last day. So that was a you know it's also something you have to take into account is that The way you can work when you're pregnant of twins and when you're pregnant of one but it's it's not easy in the in the in the last few months as well So it meant that really, you know, I I was already pretty tired before before giving birth But the reality what happened after after giving birth is that we got interest from investors and just to give you some context We are today. We are post series B. We are 200 employees and at the time three investor came to us to her to offer us to raise an early series B and That was last summer and my kids were one month old And I can tell you that the prime is also as you probably all know twins. They are always born premature So there are very small. They were not sleeping at all. They had a lot of stomach issues or you name it So we had like any like really like we were Beyond tired. There is no word to describe But where I got super super super lucky is that my husband works for this American company That gave him five months of parental leave and they have to say that this was a complete Lifesaver I had that on top of that I was very lucky to have my grandparents and my family and and my parents helping But I have to say that being a founder a mother if your husband works It's just not feasible like it's just not feasible because there is no way for me like with twins I have normally in France you have nine months of parental leave So it's a pretty long time It was absolutely impossible for me to take this nine months as much as I would love to lead by example There are certain stage of the company and we're in a stage where I really couldn't let go perhaps You know in three four years from now it would have been easier to say okay Bye, you know, I'm back in nine months. It was totally impossible and I think we will talk more about that But the logistics around you like there is no it's not negotiable It's just not negotiable and you have to think about that way ahead to make sure that you're prepared And I'm not saying that everyone should do fundraising with a one month old kid I'm just to tell you it's also feasible You know it's something I did and you know I did it as a normal course of business And actually it was great because it you know it forces me to like really think about how to be super impactful and super fast And you know we were able to wrap the round in no time and I told the investors Like look I have no time at all. So, you know, I'm gonna give you this day two hours here there and we wrap it up So that was great, but nothing is impossible. You just need the logistics Yeah, I'll share a little bit of my story on that. So with my my second child I was co-founder and president multiverse my previous company. We're about 150 people and I remember when I was pregnant I told the team about my maternity leave my plan was to take about nine weeks and I put together This document this plan of how I was going to ramp up over those nine weeks back to serve 80% Obviously that went completely out the window. I had this either very clear plan of what I'm going to do But I remember saying to my team What I choose to do is my decision This is not my expectation for you and I think as founders particularly To Eleanor's point like we we have a different risk tolerance. We have a different expectation Of ourselves. This is one of our babies To be able to clearly say to our teams. We may only take four weeks Two weeks nine weeks That's not necessarily our expectation of you. You need to do what's right for you and your family I think is a really important message And the right way to hopefully role model to them because as we will believe, you know family is Really really important So fundraising let's go to to fundraising. I know I know you said you were fundraising at one month Did either of you have negative? So reception from investors when when you said you were planning on starting a family or you had kids or you're pregnant So not in my case in my case all of our investors are parents, I believe and you know, I remember we were going through the first Fund raising when my kid was born and We had you know, we are fun really first person raising happened in less than two weeks And I had the scheduled call for over a month To meet that investor which started off as being just a saying high call but ended up being hey Well, we're going to be raising and so both of us we only had that slot available I had time off. I thought I was going to be on holiday And he was in travel doing traveling. So my kid decided to come out And you know, you can't plan these things. Absolutely. So he was due like a week from there So it was fine until a certain 6 a.m. And and then you know, he was born And after a while we were in the room like two or four hours later We're in the room and he's asleep next to you know, my wife was you know, always passing out of exertion and I mean I see a number on my phone and like Who's calling me? You know, there was a foreigner number at the time. I wasn't really calling and I always sort of kind of rude to call someone on the phone So but for some reason I picked up I stepped aside from the room and I picked up It was this investor and said hey, by the way, just became a dad Whatever you have to say we should we need to do it in 10 minutes And so we spoke for like 10 minutes and it was it and I felt like Well, you know, if you're fundraising and if you're trying to show the past that was literally the the most rushed elevator pitch ever But honestly, I couldn't care less It worked out well, you know, I ended up not investing because it was too late in the race So we closed around faster, but we stayed good friends So you set expectations and you put your priorities first. I don't know. How about you? Do any any negative experiences in investors? I would say that something I wanted to share is that if one day an investor comes to you and question And ask you questions about that. It's not a good investor Because we are here to build companies in the long term and usually good investors are looking for companies that will build over the next 10 15 20 30 years And it would be completely silly to imagine that us as founders would not have kids during that period of time So we are not monks when we're here to build our personal life In parallel to a professional life. So and means regardless or obviously of whether you're a woman or a man as well So, um, I I know that some investors ask me some questions and straight away I know that these are not people I want around the table because I think a good investor should come to me and say What help do you need to actually be able to run your company while having twins? That's just what I'm expecting. So how can I help you get there? and Luckily enough, you know, the investors that we have at pigment are more than supportive and always here to ask me, you know how things are going how, you know, I'm Actually happily planning my life in between etc So we we are very lucky, but it's also because we carefully pick them in that direction I think that's the the great question, right? How can I support you? How can I help you? How can I make your life easier? Not how are you going to cope which assumes that you're not going to cope right and I definitely had one of those experiences And that person won't be named but um, I think then setting being very clear with them that You know, we decided to start companies we can we can cope nothing is impossible to your point But that's a great segue into talking a bit about work life balance. Marcella, you alluded to this a little bit But let's talk a little bit about the practicalities the logistics Of managing running a company and having a family Like how do you cope? What do you do? Eleanor? Give me some of your your hot tip. Sure. So first of all, I think we are both leading fast fast fast growing companies, right? Like our companies are Growing massively fast. So I don't know if it's an example that everybody should follow But it's probably kind of the hardcore example of what a parent can be and a founder at the same time So warning because it can be very different from one company to the next So for me, I more think about it more that how many hours I work is more how many hours can I spend with my family every day Because obviously we work I wouldn't say 20 for seven but almost like it's really you know, every time I have time I work So it means I have to carve out the time that I want to spend with With the kids and with my husband. So it's very simple I have a very very simple routine that I follow every day It means I have zero time for myself. So let's be clear. It's hard. That's something we share the three of us It's hard. It's not easy. We are always tired. Like there is no day. I'm not tired. Let's be clear Today is my holiday. I'm here alone in a hotel tonight. I can tell you it's like it's like it doesn't happen for a while And one of the one of the trade-off I actually make is to travel as little as possible So usually even for a conference that slush I would come in the morning Live in the evening so that I spend as little time as possible traveling And I also encourage my team not only I think for for for the fact that I have a family but also for Climate change concern to take as little the plane as possible and to fly as little as possible And that also abuse here is amazing for for for kids. I think so that's something I really encourage you all to do But long story short in the day simple routine I spend approximately three hours a day with my kid an hour and a half in the morning an hour and a half Is the evening puts them to bed back to work So it means that's really my life every day and weekend I really try to carve out the time with them But it means that when I'm with them I am with them and I remember this is what my 90 told me because I was a Bit like oh my god. I don't spend enough time. Maybe they will think you are their mother She was like no actually you spend so much time you have no idea so many parents Actually even like people that are employees that companies they don't spend as much time as you do But what is important is that whatever you are with them your phone is away your laptop is away You are not doing washing machine laundry You are with them playing with them laughing with them having fun teaching them things And this is really what I try to apply every day And and with that I have to say that I'm you know having great quality time and I don't feel like I'm not spending the time I want because also you know weekend is long and we have a lot of time to enjoy That's great. Thanks. Marcella you built a company that's all about remote work How do you stretch your day? How when do you see your kids? I start with crying in the shower About 70 minutes Very aggressive So my kid was born, you know You know in soon after pandemic started We our families were in a situation where due to sickness or you know A location they couldn't help and so for you know Over a year. I couldn't really visit my family at all. They couldn't visit us So we had to you know raise a kid work All in a very small apartment and I have a small crazy dog too And that was not adding up as as you wanted to so What to me, you know, my wife was a huge support because she wanted, you know Because my kid was born with a disability You know, she wanted to take time to actually go through all the steps and all the things With him make sure that he had all support So she took she stopped working to take care of him first two years of his life But it it really I really I realized that you know Even in with all the support if you're working if you have a, you know, six-month-old baby crying non-stop My kid would sleep in cycles of 25 minutes and then 45 minutes screaming Because of the cast and all the things So at some point I was living off, you know, a sweatpants and a tracksuit Because I would try to work if he went to sleep for 25 minutes I would try to sit back and sleep for 25 minutes wherever I could around the house And I realized that, you know, after a bit I was also, you know, creating a remote first company people all across the world No one had a working schedule. So at 2 a.m. Someone would be starting their day I ended up in a situation where, you know, I am completely beyond exhausted I'm stressed at all the things I'm anxious about all the things And I realized that, you know, this this is it. This is life And there's not going to be a better tomorrow if you don't build a better tomorrow So I started to do in my personal life what I do at work a lot, which is hyper prioritized Realize that there are a few things that you are not willing to, you know, let go of Like building time throughout the day where you're really with them Throughout the day if he's around, you know, we'll play a few minutes if or, you know, just do a few things together But those are slots that are, you know, unmovable Unless there's a massive fire in which it's not very common, but something happens But they are in move and at some point I was really feeling crappy Because I was not spending enough time with him and I was feeling like he was growing up And I even though I was spending like time in the morning time at the end at dinner and You know, putting into bad and I was feeling really bad because I always felt like, well There's a big portion of his life that is going by without me And probably in vice versa. There was this one day where we're having dinner and I was on my phone And he was like that Put on the phone and he was like Barely three so he could barely speak and that hit me really hard Because I realized that even though I had those slots for him The the ones in the middle he when he's with me. He doesn't really realize What I'm doing for him, you know, my my father asked him what I do and he was like, oh that works like this I'm like I'm in front of a computer doing things So it's important to you know, create boundaries But also understanding that you know life goes by and you have to be flexible and sometimes adapt to whatever comes through Always hyper prioritizing hyper prioritize great great tip boundaries also great tip We're going to come back to some more tips in a second Eleanor and I both Get a lot of help with our families Can you talk a bit about what you do because I mean you've got it down to a T Yeah, well, it's as I said, it's a lot of investment and let's be clear It's it's costly if you want the right logistics around you So and it's something I share with many founders. So it's not my own story And it's really something that I know a lot of founders do and do the same way By the way something to add to what I said do as little networking events in the night as possible. They you know When you look back at your life, you will regret not having spent enough evening with your kids Not at this networking event where you could have met x y undead, right? So but in terms of logistics, so You need a lot of help. So for me Again, it was clear cut. I had twins If I I did obviously many nights sleepless nights with them they wouldn't sleep before they turned nine months And we needed nine nineties Just because when you have twins the problem is they keep waking up one another and they live in paris And you know flats in paris you cannot have like a 500 square meters So you cannot put them one on one side of the ass on the other on the other side So we just couldn't sleep the entire night. So if you can imagine, I don't know for for people that have not been parents It's impossible to imagine how much sleep is the most important thing in your life And having twins made made us realize with my husband that we needed nine nineties So it means we over invested it cost us actually a lot But that was the best investment of my life. Some people don't believe me But trust me it was the best ROI having people that could just take care of them You know giving them food during the night was just like the relief So that really during the day again to the point I was mentioning before I could really enjoy So that was the first nine months then obviously we have this full-time nanny at home And it's actually better to have someone at home that having to bring the kid to a crash just because again like the time You lose by you know setting up the kids bringing them to the crash is again Like it's probably an hour per day lost into putting the all the crap that you need to go out So for us, it's super easy. They can stay in pajamas and then he comes super easy And then what I took recently on top, but don't get me wrong I put the entirety of my salary plus some salary of my husband into that So it's very very costly. So pigment getter Yeah, we hope that everything works well because otherwise it's a big sacrifice but literally the the way we make it work is We have this housekeeper now coming every day to actually do some cleaning at the house in the morning Cooking for the kids cooking for us taking care of the laundry So really again the time I have with them is pure pure pure quality time So it's it costs a lot a lot a lot of investment and it's also some logistics to deal with with with that but it's it's mandatory if you want to create a fast-growing company And I think we wanted to be honest with you guys about how we handle the juggle I think this is really important a lot of people pretend that they do it all And actually if you or if you have Two full-time jobs. I don't know how single parents do it, by the way Kudos to any of you who are single parents But I think if you both have full-time jobs getting the outside help is Mandatory and getting your investors to support you to use Your salary additional support during the early months to get night nannies is really important because sleep is the most Important thing in those early days for you to be able to perform now We've only got three four minutes left So I want to go into some quick fire advice for anyone I'm going to give my advice first and then I'm going to go to these guys So my advice is similar to Eleanor's around getting additional help one of the things that I have is a virtual ea I employ her for through the company to help me with scheduling and some admin tasks And then I also employ her personally to help me with some of the admin around my life So I haven't bought a birthday present for a family member and sent it in the post for years Because dude my amazing ea does that I think one of the key tips here is you have to outsource everything that is not your company and your children And I don't think that having a nanny or that is outsourcing your children Having more people around them who love them is really important. So that's my personal tip I'm going to go to my cello next So Life is unique as far as we know Maybe it's not but let's assume Let's let's not assume things So, you know, it's important to treat this experience as they are unique those those Humans they're going to grow up, but they fully depend on us. All right You can fail in a company. You can start another If you fail a kid, that's it right In and yes, you can try again, but you know, they're going to live with it through all their lives. And so you have that unique Amazing experience to be part to influence them And and and also to learn more about yourself. So hyper prioritization is important and look for For some people having kids is not a thing or having a fellow is not a thing to each their own But hyper prioritization still stands and as far as people go that, you know, if you're thinking about should I have kids or not? There's never a good time ever, you know before a company during a coming There's always something that you think oh my god, but this is this is really going to be hard It's always going to be hard. So you get one shot So have have a family doesn't matter when if you can if you want to a little final tip Yeah, so I could not agree more that life is short. So first of all tell you employees That life is short so that they do the same thing as you do taking as much time as they can with their family Because when you're a fast-growing company your employees also work hard And sometimes they also tend to get drawn into their work And so it's also critical that you really try to inspire them to do obviously to take a lot more time than you do If you if they can because really like you are not a good example And you have to tell them you are the worst example at the company and they should not follow your life The second is sleep as I said so find solutions to help you if you want to do what we've done Third is follow your heart do as you want meaning that you know every person is different We don't have all the same level of energy These are just examples, but I don't think they are for everyone and people might have more energy than us Some might have less some might have different type of energy So just follow your heart into what you think is right for you for your family for the kids Fourth if you're a female and you live in a country where paternity leave doesn't exist Lobby the government Lobby the government and this is what I try to do every day We have actually signed a paternity pact with a french tech 120 Which is a sort of friendship group of scale-up in in in France to actually Increase drastically the time that fathers can spend with the kids Not only because you need help but because it's the best thing that can happen for the kids And I'm so happy that my twins had the opportunity to spend that much time with the dad Because you can still see now today that they spend as much time with me as with my husband and I'm so grateful for that So great advice. Uh, let's all go out lobbying for equal parental leave Thank you so much to Eleanor and Marcel for their wonderful and candor today We're going to talk about this for hours. There are so many more things We would love to share with you about how we handle it But hopefully this was a useful insight into how you can be a founder and a parent It is possible. It is hard involves intentional trade-offs and a lot of investment But it is a joy to have kids and to build a company. Thank you. Thank you