Lessons From a New Mom in Tech, 3 Months Post-Launch

There's been much press lately about women in the workplace and in particular about challenges facing women in male-dominated Silicon Valley. Half of women 30 and under say they still view their gender as a disadvantage at work. Many women worry that getting pregnant and having a child will set their careers back. As a female tech startup founder and new mom, I’d like to share my story in the hopes that it can help the others of you wondering whether it can be done (the answer is yes).

I was fortunate in my pregnancy not to have had any complications. I didn’t feel nauseated, become forgetful (at least not that I remember :)), or have to go on bed rest.

Yet I was anxious. The truth is, I already had a baby: my startup, Hearsay Social. For the last six years since I founded Hearsay, I had thought of and spent time on little else. I had hired and felt personally responsible for our 170 employees, had raised $50 million in venture capital, signed up 120,000 customers, and flown 1,000,000 miles for Hearsay on United Airlines alone (they sent me a plaque last year). I wasn’t sure there was room in my life for anything else.

In tech, especially in a startup, every day is a hustle and all-consuming. Everything moves at a lightning pace and you feel pressure to deliver because you know all of your co-workers and customers are counting on you. 

Then, three months ago, Baby B came into the world. Being his mom has been every bit as wonderful as everyone said it would be -- but of course being told something and then experiencing it are two very different things.

I went back to work recently and am happy to share that I have never felt so energized by my work life AND my home life. My co-founder Steve, management team, co-workers, partners, customers, and board of directors could not be more supportive at work. My husband as well as family and friends have been wonderful at home --especially as I’ve already gone on six work trips, hosted our Customer Summit, and am co-leading our Company Sales Kickoff this week! 

I was inspired to write this post for the others of you who may be feeling like I did -- anxious about how to live the startup life while becoming a first-time mom. Each person's experience is different, but I hope these lessons can be helpful.

> T-9 months

• Suss out your company's leave policy. Sadly, the US is the only developed nation to not legally require employers to provide paid maternity leave. Leaders of other tech startups which are pre-revenue or pre-profitability sometimes tell me they find it difficult to justify generous policies, and most don't have any maternity leave policy, period. Having a baby is stressful enough. To the extent you can, try to be at a place where you feel supported. If you aren't sure, ask. If you don't feel comfortable asking, then you might not be at the right place. At Hearsay, our People & Culture team put in a generous 16-week family leave policy, which gave me one less thing to worry about.

T-6 months

• Share the news so you can collaborate on a plan. Don't be apologetic. Once I had made it safely into my second trimester and everything looked healthy, I told my co-founder, then board, management team, and rest of the company, in that order. Giving them an early heads-up was critical for getting their feedback and collaboration in coming up with the right plan for my transitioning out, being out, and transitioning back.  
• Map out key projects and focus areas, then work on assigning clear interim owner(s). Once I shared the news, I asked everyone I work with closely to let me know what the most important coverage areas were from each of their perspectives. I combined this with my own list of what I felt were the most important things I spend time on. Next to each focus area X, I penciled in an interim owner and then talked to her/him to make sure she/he felt good signing up to fill in for me on X. 

T-2 months

• Communicate your plan. Once I got closer to my due date, I shared my list of projects and interim owners with a broader set of people so that everyone would know who to go to for what. Knowing I might go out at any moment, I pre-wrote my "Out of Office" message and asked our IT team to be ready to turn it on (along with email-forwarding to my co-founder) as soon as I went out. 
• Figure out your child care plan. I had received great advice to do this early rather than wait until after the baby came. Once Baby B arrived, even though I was on leave from work, I had zero time and zero energy to research and put a plan in place. What each family chooses for child care is a deeply personal decision, but looking back, I'm really glad that I figured this out beforehand because it has made going back to work much easier.

T-0

• Let go and try to enjoy every moment. Once Baby B decided to come, he kind of just took over. I had been a bit aggressive in scheduling meetings up until three days before my due date. Baby B came nine days early, so those meetings got delegated or pushed out. It didn't matter. Now, to be clear, being a first-time mom is hard. There are many trying moments which are not exactly enjoyable. But these moments are even tougher if you are worrying about work at the same time you are learning to change diapers for the first time. 

• Try to fully disconnect. Since starting Hearsay, I had never been away from work for two weeks, much less two months. Even when I was away, I still thought about Hearsay constantly. In retrospect, I'm incredibly glad that during my maternity leave, I was able to stay disciplined and completely unplug for the first month. As a CEO and/or founder, this can feel impossible. But try hard and trust your team to cover for you.
• Set the right example for your employees. I realized that other women at Hearsay would be looking to me to set the guidelines around what would be expected of them when they went out on leave. Knowing this made me feel proud rather than guilty about being out on leave, as I knew it would only make the company stronger to encourage a more diverse and supportive work environment.

T+whatever is right for you 

• Do what you have to do, and don't feel guilty about it. Depending on your role, you may be able to unplug for the entirety of your maternity leave. As CEO of Hearsay, it was important to me personally to host our annual Customer Summit, which took place nine weeks after Baby B's arrival. This was a decision I made, and I never second-guessed it. But I didn't want to be away from Baby B for an entire day, so I brought him. 

• Consider phasing back in. It can be somewhat of a shock to the system to go from home mode back to intense, GSD tech startup mode overnight. One thing I really appreciate about Hearsay's leave policy is the phased transition back, the specific details of which each new parent works out directly with her or his manager. In my case and given my role, I started six weeks before my return with 1x1s with my co-founder Steve, who is also a close friend. Steve brought me lunch (which was so appreciated!) and visited me at home once a week to fill me in on what was going on and ask my opinion on important decisions. Three weeks before my return, I set up 1x1s with my board members, direct reports, and management team members. We met outside the office (at Starbucks, of course) to catch up in a more relaxed environment. I was so happy to see them and appreciated getting each of their perspectives on what had changed since I was out and what I should spend time getting back up to speed on upon my return. Then for the last few weeks, I came into the office initially twice a week, then added a day a week until I was back full-time. It has been a surprisingly smooth transition back thus far.

• Embrace that your role might be different. Even before I had a baby, my role at Hearsay evolved every six months, if not more often. Constant reinvention is just the nature of being a founder or employee of a fast-growing startup. While I was out, my co-workers stepped up in a big way, which was not only helpful for me but also great for their growth and development. I don't want this to end now that I'm back, so I'm taking it as an opportunity to once again evolve my role. For example, I used to do the majority of C-level sales meetings and conference keynotes. Now, others have stepped up to take on some of these. I'm thankful I can travel a bit less, plus this is freeing me up to think about product, spend more time on company culture, and work on a new book. 

Thankfully, it turns out my anxiety was unfounded. No doubt my life is different now, but I feel no less capable, ambitious, or passionate about my company. Are there trade-offs? Of course. Life, especially tech life, is full of trade-offs. But being a mom and running a company are not zero-sum. There's mounting evidence that children of both sexes benefit when they have a working mom, as written about in this recent New York Times article. 

Three months in, I can say that becoming a mom has given me a new level of focus, motivation, and restorative reflection. I've gotten to know some of my co-workers in fun new ways, as many have provided helpful working-parent tips and tricks. I have a newfound respect for moms and dads everywhere, and am so thankful and proud of how my co-workers have continued to step up in their roles to support me as a working mom in tech. With Hearsay and now Baby B, I really do feel like I have two babies -- as well as two jobs. The thing is, I have no more doubts: each makes me even better at the other.

Special thanks to my fellow female-tech-founder-mom friends Leah Busque, Rashmi Sinha, Pooja Sankar, and Selina Tobaccowala for their thoughts on this post.