Ep01: Startup Mom - Tamara Hinckley
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Adam Fishman: [00:00:00] Hey, so today we're trying something new

Adam Fishman: We are welcoming Tamara Hinkley to the Startup Parenting Podcast family, and this is our inaugural episode of Startup Mom. Today, the two of us are gonna interview each other, and we're gonna go deeper into your journey as a startup mom and why you agreed to join me on this podcasting adventure, which, you know, requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief.

Adam Fishman: But to start, we're gonna turn the microphone around and put your hosting skills to the test right away, and, you know, you get to talk to me a little bit about Startup Dad, and then we're gonna kinda bandy back and forth. So let's do it and see how that goes. So without further ado, take it away. The microphone is yours.

Tamara Hinckley: Thank you. You get to be in the hot [00:01:00] seat, so get ready. Ooh. I wanna start with your origin story, Adam. So you've done over 165 episodes of Startup Dad now. When did you first get the idea for your show, and how did that evolve to then thinking about maybe there needs to be a version focused on moms? 

Adam Fishman: I had the idea, like a lot of podcast origin stories, during the, the peak of the pandemic.

Adam Fishman: I had a lot of extra free time. I was stuck in my house. I was working in my bedroom. I had a terrible setup, and I was like, "Oh, you know, maybe I'll do this whole podcasting thing and give it a shot." And so I actually recorded a bunch of episodes with mostly friends to, to start with, 'cause it's hard to know who is a dad and a startup person.

Adam Fishman: A lot of people don't talk about that very publicly, which is, you know, the reason for the show. And then I sat on all these episodes for a long time because I didn't have anyone to edit them. I thought I would do it myself, and, and it turns out that's [00:02:00] actually not my strong suit, editing videos. So but the, the idea of doing the show, one, I am a startup dad.

Adam Fishman: Two, I felt like there was a, a gap in what men were talking about on podcasts, e- especially men in the, like, tech and startup world. Like, most people interview a successful male founder, and they don't talk anything about what happens outside of work. And the opposite is true, I think, for successful female founders.

Adam Fishman: And so that kinda bugged me, and so I wanted to, like, change that around and do the exact opposite. And so yeah, so that's the idea for Startup Dad, and I also wanted to give people l- who were much younger than me advice on similar things that I struggled with when I was kinda coming up in that world.

Adam Fishman: And so Startup Mom, like, very shortly after I started publishing Startup Dad, I had a bunch of people reach out, and they were like, "Oh, are you gonna do this show for moms?" And I was like, "Well-" [00:03:00] I would love to. I just can't host it. That just doesn't make any sense in my mind. And so I sort of sat on that idea for a long time, and then eventually when Startup Dad was, like, stable and I feel like I know what I'm doing, like 165 episodes in, I was like, "Oh, it's time to maybe figure this out."

Adam Fishman: And so I found you. And we're gonna talk a, a little bit about that. But, like, I've had a lot of women on the show. It's not the focus of the show, but lately I've had a lot more sort of experts in parenting or topics, and they tend to mostly be women. There's something interesting there about that. But I've also had husband and wife teams on.

Adam Fishman: I've had working moms and stay-at-home dads. So I just, I just feel like there's another version of this show that needs to exist. And so yeah, here we are. Startup Mom is born. 

Tamara Hinckley: Beautiful. And I love what you said about the types of questions moms typically get who are leaders versus dads, [00:04:00] and I'm so excited to flip that narrative for moms too, and talk more about them as leaders and not just how they get it all done and who's watching the kids and all of that too.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: So you had this idea. It felt like the right time. And I'm just curious, 'cause I don't think we've ever talked about this, what were you looking for in a host? Like, are there criteria that you had, and how did that lead to finding me? 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. Broadway stage presence is number one on the list. No. I, I, I'm just kidding.

Adam Fishman: I mean, I wanted somebody who was, like, interested and excited to do this. Doing a podcast is not the most glamorous thing. It takes a lot of work. The likelihood of success, like, who knows? And so, you know, I don't think that I would still be doing Startup Dad ... I'm not doing it for the glory. I'm doing it because I'm passionate about that topic.

Adam Fishman: And so I wanted to find somebody who was passionate about that topic on the other side. And you're pretty perfect for that given what you do professionally, given your, like, lived experience before you started Momentum Rising. And [00:05:00] so yeah, I don't know. That's what I was looking for. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so how did you find me, and what did you think when you first reached out and sent that message over LinkedIn?

Adam Fishman: Yeah. I saw you on another podcast, I think, Full Stack Moms, which is a great podcast run by two awesome women. They had you on the show, and then you were in this Slack channel, and I was like, "Oh, why do I feel like I've met you before?" Like, I feel like you and I had crossed paths, but I couldn't quite figure out where.

Adam Fishman: And I think it was maybe, maybe when you were at Pinterest or something like that. But I just, like, feel like we've been in each other's orbit at some point, even though we'd never met in person. But anyways, yeah. So I, I just sort of was like ... I don't know. I think I just DM'd you on LinkedIn and was like, "Hey, so I'm trying this thing out.

Adam Fishman: I wanna do this. Like, are you interested?" And I, I don't know what your reaction was other than probably like, "Who is this weirdo?" Um, but yeah. That was like ... I was this very sort of like, [00:06:00] "Hey. Y- you know, would you, would you do this thing?" And then I was, like, very excited that you said you wanted to explore it.

Adam Fishman: So yeah. So I don't know, what was your- reaction like when you got that message from me on LinkedIn? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. It was Very serendipitous- Mm ... because I think I shared with you, the week before you sent that message, I had been thinking about taking on a new creative project, and had been thinking like, "What am I good at?

Tamara Hinckley: What do I like to do?" I did this exercise called the Zone of Genius, and the concept of storytelling came up, and how I love telling women's stories, and also how I think there's a big need for elevating role models. And so I had been thinking just the week before, "Oh, maybe one day I'll start a podcast," and it kind of like floated through my mind and went away.

Tamara Hinckley: And so then I got this DM that was like, "Would you like to start a podcast?" And it felt like, oh, maybe the universe is friendly and has my back, and I said, "Yeah, let's talk about it." I didn't really know who you were other than through the Full [00:07:00] Stack Moms thing, but something just felt like I should explore it more.

Tamara Hinckley: And then I think what I found really interesting was I actually had a pretty compelling vision for how I would wanna do it, and you know, you had some vision as well. And as we've talked and kind of molded it, it feels like there's a fit there. So that was exciting, and I, I'm so excited to be doing this because it's been really fun so far.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. I loved it. Uh, like our first set of interactions, you were like, "All right, what's the goal? How are we gonna measure the s- success? If we're gonna do these pilot episodes, like what are we gonna do?" And I was like, "I guess the goal is that you like doing this?" Like, m- maybe? Which is funny because, you know, my whole life, eh, like professional life is around goal setting and things like that, and I was just kind of like, "I don't know, let's just YOLO this and see how it goes."

Adam Fishman: So I do appreciate that you were much more like precise and, and diligent about this, and it'll probably make for a much better show as, as a result. So, so can I ask you some questions? Because I wanna get to [00:08:00] your story, like your origin story. Cool. Okay. You were born in the Ukraine, if I recall correctly, and you've described yourself as being raised to hustle.

Adam Fishman: So I hear this from a lot of like immigrants who come to the US, like hustle and sort of drive and being like an immigrant in the US is, it's sort of like ingrained in you. But what did that look like in your house growing up? 

Tamara Hinckley: So I moved here from Ukraine when I was seven. I didn't speak a word of English, and I still remember my first day of school, showing up and kind of being like, "What, what is this?"

Tamara Hinckley: It was very disorienting at like a pretty pivotal time where I still remember a lot of it. And those first few years, it was kind of like a typical immigrant story in that we moved here with nothing. It was all about starting over, leaving the Soviet Union. And the mindset in our family for a long time was survival [00:09:00] mode.

Tamara Hinckley: We gotta start over and make this work. And my parents worked super hard. My mom went back to grad school nights and weekends, like they were always working. I, I always had two working parents. They ended up both working on Wall Street, and their goal was always kind of the American dream of giving me better opportunities than what they had.

Tamara Hinckley: But the ride from when I was seven to where I am now, it was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. 

Adam Fishman: Wow. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so there was a lot of stress about money growing up, and especially with the recession and the economy tanking, and my parents just really wanted to give me a good education because they wanted that as a way to open doors for me.

Tamara Hinckley: I come from a long family of people who work in education. My grandparents were professors at the, like, Harvard of Ukraine, so their goal was send Tamara to a really good college and pay for it, and they did, and I'm super grateful for that. But I think there was never a safety net. Like, it was clear that I [00:10:00] didn't have any sort of trust fund, like, I had to make it on my own.

Tamara Hinckley: And so hustle meant, like, I gotta work super hard, get good grades, get a good job. There was no other option in terms of survival. And so for me, I think hustle is ... It's kind of like there was no other choice. It's what my parents did when we came here, and it's what was ingrained in me, and it's what led me to do all the things that earned me the gold stars.

Tamara Hinckley: But it was, it was just the only way. And so I... Part of why I think about this a lot now, now that I'm a parent, is like I think there's a lot of benefit to being raised in a family where there's this, like, role model of what it means to be working parents who are striving. But also I think this survival mode mindset can be really limiting, and so I'm thinking about- How it helped, but also how it now may be limiting me and, like, really grappling with this immigrant identity.

Adam Fishman: That's really interesting to me. It's also interesting that you [00:11:00] ended up... And we'll kind of go back in time a little bit, but I wanna jump forward. Like, you ended up at a place like Pinterest and then sort of working for yourself, which is, you know, joining a startup and then working for yourself's a pretty big risk-taking behavior.

Adam Fishman: And when I've talked to a lot of, like, immigrant folks in the US, like, coming here is a risk. But once you're here, it's like s- stay the straight and narrow, put your head down, grind it out. Like, don't take a lot of risks. Do the... You know, I talk to a lot of immigrant folks who are like, "Well, my parents wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or a," whatever very, like, tried and true profession.

Adam Fishman: But you ended up doing the, kind of the opposite of that in many, in many ways. This hustle seems to have paid off because you went to Georgetown, which is, by the way, not a slouch school. You majored in Spanish, which I find really interesting as someone who di- didn't speak English when you came here. And then you majored in another language, and then you ended up on Wall Street.

Adam Fishman: Like, how does that happen? Was the Wall Street [00:12:00] thing, like, following the, like, tried and true path, like, the thing that would make your parents proud? Or was there another reason that you kind of went down that road? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, I found that languages actually came pretty naturally to me. So I spoke Ukrainian and Russian when I moved here, picked up English, and then Spanish actually is, like, a pretty easy language, so it was something I was good at.

Tamara Hinckley: And the career paths in front of me were, like you said, the stable options, so it was kind of like law, business, medicine. And I'm afraid of needles, so that ruled out medicine. And I was actually thinking about being a lawyer, so I went to Georgetown with that premise. I thought, "I'll major in something I'm really good at so I can have a high GPA and go to law school."

Tamara Hinckley: And then I interned for a senator my freshman summer and realized I don't wanna be a lawyer And kind of came back to square one, and stumbled upon this sophomore rotational internship program on Wall Street. [00:13:00] That I ended up somehow getting into. The, I think there was eight of us that got to spend a summer on Wall Street.

Tamara Hinckley: We got to do both investment banking and sales and trading, and I think I had got it because I, I think my rationale was like, "I can learn anything. I can learn five languages." Everything is kind of a language, right? Like business is a language. So I think I tricked them into hiring me, and that kind of got me on Wall Street.

Tamara Hinckley: So it was, like, also kind of serendipitous because even though my parents both worked on Wall Street, my dad was a software engineer, my mom worked in compliance, like, they weren't really pushing me, but I guess it was familiar, and so yeah, somehow I made it out. 

Adam Fishman: All right. And then you did the Wall Street thing for a while, and then you went to HBS, which, you know, feels like a pretty well-worn path, like Wall Street to, to HBS.

Adam Fishman: But then you went to Pinterest, which is not the thing that a lot of people, I think, probably coming out of an MBA, like an elite MBA program were doing, [00:14:00] although I think it's a bit more popular now than it, than it used to be. But at Pinterest, you had 12 managers in the time that you were there a- across like what, seven or eight years, I think.

Adam Fishman: Nine years. Um, nine years. Every single one of those managers was a guy, probably looked a lot like me. Um, and you know, that was like, I guess pretty eye-opening for you, right? Although I would be curious if you found the same in your time on Wall Street and then at HBS as well. But I mean, what was it, what was it like kind of going through that universe, which is like very male dominated?

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, my time in finance was the same. And so in some ways it was familiar, and I think this like hustle grind mentality helped me be successful. I left finance because I wanted to be operating. I didn't wanna be advising anymore. I wanted to be on the other side of the table, like actually making some of the [00:15:00] decisions.

Tamara Hinckley: And I did join a tiny little startup called Pinterest, and my parents were like, "Are you sure you wanna do this?" This was 10 years ago when no one really knew what the company did, and I just felt like there was a nugget in there, so I, I'm really glad I joined, and I stayed because I got so many cool opportunities.

Tamara Hinckley: So I had 12 managers because the company kept going through change. We went public. We had a new CEO. But kinda kept raising my hand and getting new jobs and getting promoted. And so in some ways I'm just really grateful for that run and everything I learned. I actually started on the finance team and then led our advertiser growth team.

Tamara Hinckley: So my first product role was in growth, and it was super fun. So it's how I moved into product. I had some amazing managers too. I mean, I think until I became a mom, it wasn't really a problem. Mm. Because I had tons of sponsors and mentors and just people who believed in me, and [00:16:00] a couple of bad eggs in there too.

Tamara Hinckley: But for the most part, I didn't really know another way 'cause that's how it had been before. So yeah, I think Becoming a parent changed that a little bit, but for the most part, it was the only thing I knew. 

Adam Fishman: Let's get into that because let's call this, this next sort of segment of our conversation No Mom's Land.

Adam Fishman: 'Cause you alluded to this just now, but basically when you were seven months pregnant with your first daughter, who's now about to be five, you got promoted to director. So you're seven months pregnant, you're director of product at Pinterest, and this is like an incredible accomplishment, obviously. Like, for anyone to become a director at a, you know, a fast-growing startup is, like, kind of a big deal.

Adam Fishman: But it also was your first experience with No Mom's Land. So what does that mean? Why did this all change when you became a parent? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, I think I, I was very [00:17:00] goal-oriented, not surprising, when I was there. I think if you ask any of my managers they would say the first conversation I have with every manager is like, "How am I gonna get promoted?"

Tamara Hinckley: And so I wanted to get promoted to manager before I became a mom, and then I wanted to get to director before I had my second kid. And I was so proud of getting to that place. I remember exactly when I learned about the promotion. We were at an off-site in Carmel Valley, and I was like, "I, I deserve this and I earned it."

Tamara Hinckley: And I also remember all of that day I was, like, very visibly pregnant, and we're having all these leadership decisions and I'm finally getting a seat at the table. I have influence and power, but I'm also really sticking out. Like- Oh ... I'm like, "Hey, can I get a bathroom break 'cause I need to pee," or, "I actually need-" 

Adam Fishman: Sticking out literally

Adam Fishman: "more snacks." Literally and figuratively. 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. Yeah, I like had to stand up during the off-site 'cause I couldn't sit for that long. Oh. And my kid is sick at home, so I'm, like, taking calls b- during breaks. Like, "Do I need to come back 'cause she's sick and she doesn't [00:18:00] feel good?" And I think there were other parents in the room, but most of them were men, so it was kind of like I had a target on my back I felt like because this, like, very big belly.

Tamara Hinckley: There was no hiding it. Mm. That I, I couldn't hide that I was a mom. Yeah. And I think what this idea of No Man's Land to me is this feeling like you're the only one when you look around and you don't see someone who's similar is very isolating. And not having peers around me to ask like, "Hey, is this hard for you?

Tamara Hinckley: How did you do this?" Yeah. But also not having anyone above me, any role models, it was really hard for me to think, "Okay, I got it. I got to director." How do I get to senior director? I just didn't see any women in that position, and it's this idea, like it's hard to visualize how is this gonna work if you can't see that.

Tamara Hinckley: So I think that's when it really dawned on me, especially thinking about having my second daughter at the time, like, wow, this, I fought so hard to get here. Yeah. And now that I'm here, I don't know what to do with this. This, like it's very [00:19:00] isolating and, and I don't know how this is gonna work. 

Adam Fishman: So of course, this is a bit of the origin story for the vision of Startup Mom, but I actually wanted to rewind for a second 'cause I had that wrong.

Adam Fishman: I had in my notes that it was your second daughter when you became a director, but I said it was your f- your first. So that was wrong, but I wanna actually go back because you were climbing the ladder when you had your first daughter. And were you a manager at that point? Like you weren't a director. Was you a manager at that point?

Adam Fishman: When you took leave for your daughter, like were you worried that that was going to reflect negatively on the career trajectory that you were on? I mean, by the way, this is a thing that I think most men don't think about at all. We're just like, "Oh yeah, I'll just do the thing and come back and like bumble my way through it, and I'll be fine."

Adam Fishman: But like I think for women it's a very real concern. I can say that 'cause I've heard it, not because I've lived it. So I wanted to ask you, what was your lived experience like and, and y- the kind of things going through your head when that was [00:20:00] happening? 

Tamara Hinckley: I think the first time I realized that this was gonna impact my career was when I learned I was pregnant.

Adam Fishman: Hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: It was kind of a tough journey to get there, so I was really happy about it, but then I had this moment of panic of like, how am I gonna tell my manager, and will this have any impact on my career? And it was specifically timely because I was interviewing for my first manager role. 

Adam Fishman: Hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so I actually even thought like, should I pull out of the interview process?

Tamara Hinckley: Like, is it fair to get this job and have people report to me and then go out on leave? Like, is that fair to the company and to my direct reports? So that was like a decision I didn't really know how to handle, and again, didn't really know how to talk about 'cause that's not something that most men talk about or, or have to worry about.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: Ended up going for the job, getting it, and telling my manager, who was super supportive. But I, yeah, I think I, I went on leave. I had hired out a team, and then I was gone for five or six months, and so I was worried [00:21:00] that- Like, would my team be okay? But also when I came back, I realized my performance review, I was gonna be compared with the people who had been there the whole time.

Tamara Hinckley: So that, that was a little tricky. There was actually someone who became a dad around the same time who took less leave, and in the performance reviews he had more impact and results, which is how we're evaluated as product people. Mm. And I was like, "Well, I've been growing a human and keeping her alive," but in the calibration room understandably, like, I didn't have as much progress.

Tamara Hinckley: So it felt unfair, but also as a manager, I, I get it. Like, you have to have a standard way of measuring people and, and so that's when I, I got a little nervous. Like, how is this gonna work if I go out again for an extended leave? Mm. And I still struggle with this because I think it's hard. I wanna give women the opportunity, and men, to take time and be with their families, but then when women take more time off, [00:22:00] it creates this disparity and, and I think it can feel like a setback.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. And women don't really have the choice. Birth to human being, like possibly the hardest thing that anyone will ever do in their life. Like, you need some time to recover and adjust to that, and men just don't have that same, that same thing. Okay, so I said I was gonna ask you about this. So how did the no moms experience and sort of looking around the room and seeing nobody else that looked like you, how did that influence the vision that we've gotten to for the Startup Mom podcast?

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, I think my vision is that as soon as someone starts even thinking about becoming a mom and having kids, they have resources and people that they can learn from to navigate some of these career decisions and family decisions that are really intertwined. And so I think about women who may work at a smaller company [00:23:00] where they're the only woman taking the first leave ever, and I'd love for them to hear about others who have done that before and how they navigated it.

Tamara Hinckley: Or women who are in a position like me and are even in- entering for a role, like highlighting all of these tensions that we face and knowing that they're not alone, and others have done it, and there are different paths so that it feels more possible. And I also think the women who are in positions of leadership, in some ways w- I think we, and I felt this when I got to the leadership stage, have an obligation to help the women that come next.

Tamara Hinckley: And I think a lot of people want to do that, but may not know how given some of the environment around supporting women in companies. And so I think this is a great way to give back and share learnings and insights that will help others who might be facing similar challenges. 

Adam Fishman: I am glad that we're gonna do this together.

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. And what you were saying there about small company and not having like a policy or women not having anybody else that has had to go through it, like that reminded me a [00:24:00] bit of my time at Lyft. Not that this is an identical situation, but I was the first person that had a kid at that company. We didn't have a parental leave policy.

Adam Fishman: So I remember talking to John and Logan, the founders, and they were like, "Oh, congratulations. So what do you wanna do?" And I was like... And this is 2012, so I was like, "I don't know. I guess I'll take like a couple weeks off." And huge mistake, right? Like I've since learned that lesson, but it was a painful one.

Adam Fishman: But we didn't have a parental leave policy of any kind until our general counsel, who was a woman, b- became pregnant, and then she was like, "Oh, we probably need a policy 'cause this affects me now." And then, then they had one. And I, I think I was kind of long gone at that point, but it's just wild how like people were not prioritizing that sort of stuff until it really truly affected them.

Adam Fishman: But anyway, I wanted to ask you about your two different maternity leaves. So you talked about the first one, [00:25:00] and then you became a director when you were seven months pregnant. But your leaves were very different. What was so different about the second time that you went on maternity leave?

Tamara Hinckley: overestimated how hard it would be to do it the second time around. Mm. I think I had this concept of most times when you do something again, it is easier because you know what to expect. So I was like, "This is gonna be easier. I've had a baby before. I can do it again." And in some ways that was somewhat true for the baby.

Tamara Hinckley: I did know what I was doing a little bit more. But what I had never done was have a baby with a toddler at home- ... who was very jealous. So that I forgot about or didn't consider. And every baby, pregnancy, even mom, is different, and I had really tough postpartum depression the second time around, which kind of shocked me because it wasn't something that really affected me the first time.

Tamara Hinckley: So I, I came into it thinking, like I had goals, [00:26:00] shocker, of like I'm gonna learn AI and write my newsletter and do all these things, and then I was really struggling. And my husband went back to work about a month, 'cause he works for himself. I was alone, and I just felt like I was really struggling. I felt like no one talks about postpartum depression publicly, especially at work.

Tamara Hinckley: And so I started thinking like, "Okay, how am I gonna get out of this? How do I manage this transition to two kids?" Which I really wanted, but now feels hard. And I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. It felt really, again, like isolating and especially when I started thinking about going back to work, I think I had a big crisis of confidence about I don't know if I can do my job given how much I'm struggling at home.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm. Right? Like I'm still equipped to do this job that I was just promoted into, but if I'm showing up drained and exhausted and not mentally there on top of all of the brain fog and stuff, like am I able to even do this well? And so it was like [00:27:00] this, this idea of imposter syndrome, but for me it was actually really tied to the postpartum experience of- 

Adam Fishman: Mm

Tamara Hinckley: I'm showing up with like 30% in the tank, and I don't think I can do this. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. And we were talking about this before we hit record, where you were like, "I am the kind of person that needs a certain amount of sleep- ... to feel like capable and confident and good." And like y- that went out the window, right?

Adam Fishman: Like you had two kids under the age of what, three? Or s- like I mean, good lord. And then your hu- like you said, your husband went back to work. It's just like, you know, there's a, there's a lot. There's a lot going on there. I think at some point you maybe had some fertility challenges too at, at part of this journey.

Adam Fishman: But what I find really interesting to, to hear in what you're saying is you'd always been this person that just like was able to hustle and grind, and suddenly hustle wasn't enough, right? Because if you don't have anything in the tank, [00:28:00] like, where do you... What, what reserves do you find? Where do you dig into?

Adam Fishman: So when you realized you couldn't like rely on hustle anymore, like what did you- Have to do instead. How did you start approaching every day? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, I think as someone who has had a lot of professional success, it was hard to admit I was struggling. And I think a lot of parents struggle with this because it's something you're doing for the first time that may not come naturally to you, but people assume that it should.

Tamara Hinckley: And so it w- even, like, this internal battle within myself of admitting this is hard and I don't know if I'm doing it right, and maybe I need help, that kind of emotional experience, both in terms of getting pregnant, having my first kid, having my second ... Like, every time there was a transition, I had to admit this is hard and maybe I need someone else's help.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm-hmm. So both learning to ask for help from my partner at home, from finding other moms who had done this [00:29:00] before, and just being really vulnerable, and this is why I ended up writing my newsletter about this topic, 'cause I felt like I wanted people to hear that they're not alone when they're in this, because I felt so isolated.

Tamara Hinckley: And then to find a way to bring to the conversation resources and solutions, and I think this is how this kind of ultimate career came to be, was I just felt like people aren't talking about this and I, I wanna help myself, but I wanna help everyone else who comes after me so they don't have to go through this again.

Adam Fishman: Yeah, and I think there's this sense of, well, if we talk about this, this makes us seem like we're helpless, but that's not actually what, what you're saying at all. People wanna commiserate with other people, right? They wanna know that they're not alone, because it is really hard. I mean, men never talk about this, right?

Adam Fishman: This is, this is a thing, this is a theme that comes up a lot on Startup Dad is, like, dads don't have a space to talk about this at all, and most of them just kind of power through it [00:30:00] and, you know, be, be macho. But a lot of them struggle. I guess this is gonna be a theme that follows throughout all the Startup Mom episodes, which I'm really excited about.

Adam Fishman: But what is something that you wish somebody had told you back then when you were doing this? Like, if you could have found somebody who is gonna be like all the Startup Mom guests that you will have, like, what could they have said to you that would have been helpful? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, I think I would have wanted to hear that there's nothing wrong with you, you're not broken, and also you're not alone.

Tamara Hinckley: I think those two things Ultimately, or at the core of everything that was, like, driving this internal tension, I actually did seek out advice. I kind of had a mini version of this where on my second maternity leave, right before I went back to work, I was like, "I gotta find some help here." And I interviewed, like, 20 different moms who had two kids, and I specifically asked, "What helped with the transition back to two?

Tamara Hinckley: What systems did you have in place?" And kind of, like, found [00:31:00] people through my community and documented all this. And so I realized there's a lot of wisdom. Like, when you're in it, it feels like you're alone, and you're doing this, and no one else has struggled. But then you realize people go through this transition all the time.

Tamara Hinckley: And so there's some power in connecting people across chapters and both normalizing everyone's struggles and here's what helped. So yeah, I think this idea of loneliness and feeling like there's nothing wrong with me because I'm struggling, unwiring all of this, like, you must be doing a good job at everything you do, that I had grown up with.

Tamara Hinckley: And I think that's kind of something I've been leaning into a lot more as a parent, both at work and in general, of just like, "Hey, I'm struggling with this," and admitting that and not feeling like it means that I'm a failure. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. I wanna ask you a little bit about some of the systems that you put in place to, to be able to manage through this.

Adam Fishman: But before that, I wanted to ask you about a question that you posed to [00:32:00] yourself at, at one point, which is... And I think you wrote a newsletter about this, or at least said this publicly. And this is this idea of ambition. And there's a point that you reach where you can't give everything to work anymore because the pie is bigger now.

Adam Fishman: Like, there's other slices of that pie, and here's, like, you having two kids and a partner and needing to be a human being, right? And so the thing that I think you struggled with is this question of, like, if I can't give everything to work anymore, am I still ambitious? Where do you land on that? 

Tamara Hinckley: I have a sticky note next to my computer that says, "Still ambitious," because I think it's likely the title of a book I'm gonna write about this.

Tamara Hinckley: So maybe that tells you I think I landed on I'm still ambitious, but I think I still don't really know. Yeah. It's still a tension in some ways. But I think what I tell a lot of women that I work with who go through this experience and this idea of matrescence and identity is a big part of it, is if you [00:33:00] simplify it, before kids- My main identity was really as a product leader, right?

Tamara Hinckley: Like the person who works, the achiever. And so that meant it was the number one priority, and I could give my extra time, energy to that. And so, like in investment banking, I pulled all-nighters all the time. I worked lots of weekends. Like, it was normal for me to work a lot. I was doing 996 before it was called that.

Adam Fishman: Sure. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so then when I became a mom, this new priority shows up that is, okay, now I have this person, and actually my most important job is to keep them alive. And especially being on maternity leave on my own for four, five, six months, like that became the thing I was doing all the time. Mm-hmm. And so then where I think this conflict really comes to fruition is the day you go back to work, you're back in a place where you're used to being the high achiever who works all the time, and that is what gives you results.

Tamara Hinckley: And you're leaving this baby who [00:34:00] you love dearly, and maybe you wanna be at work, but you also feel like, well, this is a loss 'cause I spent so much time with them. Yeah. So there's a lot of guilt around that And so then you're like, "Well, what does ambitious mean if I miss my kid and I don't want to stay at 5:00 PM, but I also can't because I have to go- 

Adam Fishman: Right

Tamara Hinckley: pick them up from daycare? What does it mean on the weekend when I'm exhausted and I need to take a nap because my baby woke up and was sick versus putting in the extra hours at work? Like, is this gonna hold me back?" And so I think this tension of these two identities competing for the same amount of time, like you said, not to mention, like, wife, daughter, friend, all the other stuff kind of goes to the bottom- Mm-hmm

Tamara Hinckley: of the list. But if you just simplify to these two, it's, it's the tension of how do I hold both? And even thinking about, like, what does it mean to be ambitious? What does it mean? What does success look like? And I think this is where a lot of people have this identity crisis because they're like, "Well, I, I can't keep doing it the way I used to, [00:35:00] but I think I still wanna work.

Tamara Hinckley: Is there another way? Like, what would it look like to keep going- 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm ... 

Tamara Hinckley: without doing it?" And so that's where I try to write about this, and I'm so excited to hear how women have experienced that because there is a shift, and it's, I think, a lot more about mindset than anything, but there are tactical things around, like, how do you actually fit the stuff into a given day or week?

Tamara Hinckley: But this shift of, okay, how do I measure success at work, or what do I even want from success at work, and how do I think about this tension of wanting to be in two places at once? 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. We're gonna talk about some of this machinery in a second, but I wanted to build on what you just said because you've described this idea of becoming a parent as kind of grieving the person that you were before, which I heard reflected in what you just said.

Adam Fishman: So I- I'm curious, like, what, what did you grieve? But then on the flip side, like, what did you gain in, in becoming a mom? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. I've written about this, and I got a lot of pushback because I [00:36:00] think people hear the word grief and they think, you know, death or loss. 

Adam Fishman: Sure. 

Tamara Hinckley: And it's like, well, you just birthed.

Tamara Hinckley: Like, how could it be true? But I think there's this beautiful book called Transitions by William Bridges, and he talks about the idea of transitions begin with an ending, so the ending of the pre-baby life you had. So for me, grieving the freedom, spontaneity, ability to sleep, like, just all the control that you think you have over your life.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: You have to go through this transition and messy middle and grieve that before you can really begin again, and the beginning comes when you've kind of processed all of that. And so when you get to the other side, then you realize, oh, there's actually so much joy and love and a sense of power. Like, I physically birthed these two people that are walking around the earth now.

Tamara Hinckley: Like, I feel like there's actually a lot of confidence that I've gained. But I think if we don't process the ending, then we kind of skip over that and we don't, like, fully feel the [00:37:00] feelings, and then we're kind of pretending that we're happy at this place that we arrived when we haven't quite- neatly tied up the ending of a chapter that had a lot of good, but we chose to move on from.

Tamara Hinckley: And I don't know if you felt this way. I feel like I talk to many moms who have this experience of, like, loss and grief and holding at the same time joy and birth and, like, that tension. But I'm wondering, does this come up for dads too? 

Adam Fishman: So I think it comes up for dads in maybe a different way. I think a lot of dads feel this, you know, societal pressure to be the provider for the family, and then there's a question that comes up, which is like, can I still be that provider, and where do I spend my time?

Adam Fishman: Some dads just lean way into work, and that's fine. Well, I don't think that's fine, but that's the system that they've agreed on in their household. For me, that didn't really work, right? Like, I'm in a dual working [00:38:00] household with a partner who works incredibly hard, and, like, it just wasn't the thing. If both of us were gonna work incredibly hard, like, we were gonna need a ton of help, and so we outsourced a lot of that parenting, you know, the day-to-day kind of logistics of parenting for many years.

Adam Fishman: And then you have questions of like- W- does that mean I'm not being a good parent? Like, I'm doing great at work 'cause somebody else is taking care of this other stuff, but, like, are my kids being raised okay? Like, you know. So it's a whole, it's a whole thing. I don't know if every dad feels this way, 'cause the only ones I know are the ones that I talk to on Startup Dad.

Adam Fishman: And it's not a thing that people are, like, blasting out on the internet because it sort of comes at, I think, people's sense of masculinity and stuff like that. But I don't know. I mean, I definitely grieved. I think also if you hold on to the life, the full life that you had before, you're always gonna be disappointed.

Adam Fishman: Like, you [00:39:00] have to let something go because your life is different. It's richer in different ways. And again, like I said, the slice is a pie. The pie gets bigger. You can't do all the stuff that you did before. You have to pick and choose, and so you let things go that now matter less. So it's a whole thing that I went through, but it's challenging.

Adam Fishman: It's a struggle. Can we talk about the machinery in your house and what you do? Yeah. 'Cause I'm very curious about this, right? Yeah. So I have read the things that you've written about Fair Play, which we've talked about on this Startup Dad podcast before. You also had a thing you described as the great accounting.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. Weekly office hours, quarterly retreats, like, these are things that you do with your husband. Right. Can you, like, tell me about these different things and what's worked and what's not worked for you, right? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. So it's interesting 'cause it ties back to something you just said about this pressure to provide.

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: So when we had our first daughter, [00:40:00] I was the primary breadwinner. Mm. And my husband had recently left his job to start a company. 

Adam Fishman: Mm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so I took the mat leave that I was very grateful to have, but when I was getting ready to go back to work, I had a chat with him where I said, "Listen, like, I need to be able to provide for our family, and I cannot keep doing everything I've been doing on leave.

Tamara Hinckley: We gotta figure out a way to reshuffle here. Like, you've had a pretty good deal while I was the primary parent." Mm-hmm. "And now it's gotta change." Yeah. And so I had read Fair Play. I- Ignored all the advice in the book and just bombarded him with a spreadsheet because 

Adam Fishman: I love it ... 

Tamara Hinckley: as a former investment banker, my husband also former investment banker, also former product manager, I was like, "Look, here's the data on all the stuff I'm doing right now, and it's a lot of stuff.

Tamara Hinckley: And by the way, you're not doing nearly as much. This isn't fair." 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. "

Tamara Hinckley: And so we gotta talk about it." Yeah. And so [00:41:00] that, as you can imagine, did not go over well. I 

Adam Fishman: was gonna say, I'm sure it went over splendidly in 

Tamara Hinckley: the 

Adam Fishman: house. 

Tamara Hinckley: Uh, did not go over well. And we, he was like, "Let me see that thing" And goes in there and first, like, reformats the colors to make it pretty.

Tamara Hinckley: Okay. But then he's like, "You're missing all the stuff that I do." But I think it was actually a really eye-opening conversation, 'cause it got us on the same page. Like, it's a lot easier to talk about this realistically when you look at numbers versus in theory of like, "Well, I take out the trash, and you do this."

Tamara Hinckley: Right. And so it helped to have that starting point. We kind of updated it and reshuffled it, and he was like, "Okay, I'll take some stuff on 'cause this is a little bit unfair." And so by the end of that exercise he was like, "Well, the, the spreadsheet now says," 'cause we estimated how much time everything takes.

Tamara Hinckley: Sure. He's like, "This says I'm doing more." And so we joke about that as like the great accounting because we accounted for how we both spent our time, and you know, that was like version one, and we've [00:42:00] since- Mm-hmm ... adjusted many, many times as things change at work, another kid, life happens. And now I think we're at a place where it feels fair.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: But I think that one conversation was when our daughter was five or six months old, but then every month, especially in the beginning you're like, "Oh, now we have to think about this new thing. Who's gonna do the baby-proofing?" That wasn't in the spreadsheet, so we kind of like- ... kept updating it. So, so we did this one-time exercise, but then the weekly office hours was our way to have like a status check on both like, hey, are you actually doing this thing, or some things require coordination.

Tamara Hinckley: So actually I feel like the split was helpful, but it's not like you're operating in a silo. As you know, there's a lot of dependencies. Sure. And so even though he owns booking flights, he might wanna ask my opinion on like A or B. So, so we kind of had this rhythm of checking in with each other. But I think the thing that we've been doing since before kids that [00:43:00] makes this all feel less mechanical is that like a good product person, we actually, we started doing these quarterly retreats in 2020 where we talked about our vision for our family.

Adam Fishman: Hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so we both, we went to Napa Valley, I remember for the first one, and we rented out this Airbnb, and we both spent a full day just like thinking about what we wanted our life to look like in like three to five years. Hmm. And we wrote out all these things. And it's funny because now I'm like, "This is what we've done.

Tamara Hinckley: We've achieved that vision 'cause it was for now." Hmm. But we wrote them separately, and then we discussed them, and we talked about- Hmm ... my goal was like I wanted to move up in the product leadership, start a newsletter. Like I had all these things, and I asked him, "How is that gonna impact you?" and vice versa.

Tamara Hinckley: And so we've been doing these retreats pretty regularly. As a chance to stay on the same page about the big picture of like, what kind of life do we want and what's important? And this feeds into like, how do we spend our [00:44:00] money and doing budgeting. Mm. But I think because those conversations even before kids, we talked about the idea of fairness and equality and supporting both careers, then when we got to the level of the spreadsheet, it had that foundation and assumption of like, we're on the same page.

Tamara Hinckley: Our agreement and our relationship is fairness. Not everyone has that, but we talked about what that meant for us. And so yeah, I think if you start with just the spreadsheet, it may not go so well because you don't have that shared success and understanding of goals. So we started with the goals, and then we got to the strategy, and then we had this roadmap- Yeah

Tamara Hinckley: that was prioritized with clear roles and responsibilities. And so it's still a work in progress, and we're always adjusting as life changes. But I think the machinery is necessary when there's a lot of stuff and two careers, which by the way, most families now need in the US- Yeah ... and we don't really have a way to, like, manage that.

Adam Fishman: Yeah. So you and your husband, [00:45:00] both former finance people, both former product managers, entrepreneurs. Do you have, like, um, a Slack channel for your marriage? Like, is this, is this a thing or are we text messages? Like, what are we working with here? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. We're kind of multimedia. We're also both, like, very big on self-improvement and- Mm-hmm

Tamara Hinckley: coaching, and it's a priority for both of us to learn and grow. And so we've invested in things like couple therapy, individual coaching, and so actually a lot of our communication is live because a lot- Mm ... of it is emotional. So like- Mm ... the systems are kind of running somewhat smoothly now, and so, like, I may email him to do stuff, but we just talk a lot 'cause we're both in the house.

Tamara Hinckley: We both work here. Mm. And we don't really do the weekly meetings anymore, but I feel like we don't need to. It was necessary when it felt like a train wreck and everything- ... was broken, but now it's mostly on autopilot. Yeah. And [00:46:00] when I suggest we have the meeting, he's like, "Oh, I thought we were past this." "

Adam Fishman: I 

Tamara Hinckley: don't wanna do that."

Tamara Hinckley: But then afterwards he's like, "I'm so glad you brought that up." 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. You just wrote, like a few months ago, about this idea of, like, marriage 2.0, and you kind of just talked about this a little bit, like the first marriage 1.0 was, like, the systems and the fairness and the great accounting and, like, all that stuff, and marriage 2.0 is what you described as a room to be a couple again.

Adam Fishman: Like, what does that mean? I, I think it sounds lovely. I don't know if I found that for my own life, but I'm curious what does that mean for the two of you? 

Tamara Hinckley: I think 1.0, I'm referring to, like, the transition from marriage between two people to a family with kids. 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And so that adjustment period of two, three, four years of kids one and two and stabilizing the machine of running a household and all the division of labor that that entails and getting to a place where the domains are split, people have their roles- [00:47:00] Mm-hmm

Tamara Hinckley: success is clear, and that foundation- And also a foundation that grows with the family. So I think in the beginning, like, that first spreadsheet was a good start, but then it had to keep getting updated and revised. And so even the process of revision and growth is a s- part of the system. Mm-hmm. So I think we've got all of that in a good place.

Tamara Hinckley: And that, once you have the system running smoothly, and once the kids get older, as you know, you kinda get some time back, and you get out of this, like, survival mode, nobody's sleeping, everyone's angry and resentful, to, okay, we can, like, get a babysitter. We can even go away for a weekend. And the date night becomes fun because you're not arguing about logistics anymore-

Tamara Hinckley: and you get to go to a concert. Yeah. So I think the last year or two, as the kids have gotten older and that feels more manageable and we have more time, now we're shifting the focus more towards this thing [00:48:00] that was kind of on the back burner. And it's a lot more fun. And so it feels like- The marriage has a, a place in the pie- Yeah

Tamara Hinckley: that it didn't before, and it adjusts when people are sick and all that. But for the most part it feels like priority again. 

Adam Fishman: All right. Well, I'm happy for you coming out of the tunnel of darkness and into the light. Um, when you left Pinterest, that was a risk, right? Like, you had a stable job. You now had two kids.

Adam Fishman: Don't rock the boat, right? Like, you were the primary breadwinner for a chunk of time. But then you left and you took on coaching clients, and you wrote a post that asked the question: What if staying at your company is actually the riskier choice? What got you asking that question? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, leaving Pinterest was a big decision given my background and the idea of taking risks not being a thing that was necessarily encouraged [00:49:00] in my family.

Tamara Hinckley: But I think a couple things were happening. First, I was working on the beginnings of AI at the company. It was like, I left in 2025. 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: So the company and the industry was just at the beginning of this huge shift we're going through, where companies that had been successful for a while were now facing this existential crisis of like, are we still gonna be competitive as the industry changes?

Tamara Hinckley: And so the broader industry started going through this big change. We've seen a lot of consolidation and layoffs. And so these companies that felt, especially in big tech, like incumbents, have started to feel not so safe and stable anymore. And so I think when we feel scared, there's this tendency to like contract and stay, and like this idea of job hugging that I'm sure you've heard.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm-hmm. People want to optimize for stability. But the [00:50:00] question I started asking is, is your job actually still stable? Like- Hmm ... it seems stable or it used to be stable, but if there are layoffs happening, maybe it's risky to stay. It's kind of like, do you wanna stay on the Titanic or maybe it's time to find a lifeboat.

Tamara Hinckley: Hmm. And so I think a lot of women that I talk to still who are some of these legacy players- Are worried, like are they qualified for an AI native role? They're thinking about having another kid, don't wanna rock the boat. How do we get this timing right with family stuff? But also from a career perspective, like they're kind of getting diminishing returns by staying.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm-hmm. And so I've seen people reckon with this tension of what's good for my family is to stay somewhere stable where I have good reputation, flexibility, work-life balance. But maybe what's good for my career is to go somewhere earlier stage that there's more growth. Mm-hmm. And so again, this tension of how do you navigate these two things, especially if another kid is on the horizon, is like a question that women [00:51:00] don't know how to answer 'cause we don't have frameworks for these things or resources.

Tamara Hinckley: And, and given the state of the industry, it's just like such a new time to be thinking about this. And so I'm excited to talk to women who are making some of these decisions and highlight these stories of, yeah, I left and this is what it took. Here's what I learned. Here's what I would do differently. Or people who are staying and saying, 'Look, I'm still making this call.

Tamara Hinckley: It's a calculated decision.' Yeah. 'But here's the trade-off.' So like there's never really a right answer, and depending on the company and the set of circumstances, the answer may be staying is the safer choice. But I think it's worth asking because it feels like don't rock the boat is optimizing for stability, but I think the opposite is true now.

Adam Fishman: I happen to know who the first handful of guests are for Startup Mom, which maybe we'll hold that for now. Surprise. But you're gonna talk to some people who have gone through this, like should I stay or should I go? And some people have made one choice, and some people have made the other. And I wanted to ask you specifically, like you've been out on your own for a [00:52:00] little while now.

Adam Fishman: What's been scarier than you expected about being on your own, and what's been like a breath of fresh air and like empowering about being on your own? 

Tamara Hinckley: What's been scary is not having a steady paycheck. 

Adam Fishman: Mm. 

Tamara Hinckley: I think going out on my own has really brought to light my relationship with money. And again, it comes back to the beginning of like that being a fear.

Tamara Hinckley: We're not, we don't have enough. We need more. And just feeling unsafe without income coming in, especially because we've chosen to be in a situation where we have two entrepreneurs. And so I wanna talk about that because I think from the outside it's easy to say, oh, like you can afford to do that. And I'm like, well, no, actually I don't have a stopgap.

Tamara Hinckley: Like this is a really scary thing for our family. We're eating into our savings. It's like a big bet on ourselves at a time where we have two little kids in a very expensive city. So that has been really hard, and that's actually maybe the most work I've had to do on myself [00:53:00] around Feeling like I am enough and we have enough, and I will figure it out.

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And worrying less about worst case scenario and fears and money. And I think I'm at a place where I feel a lot better because of one specific book I read this year. It's called The Soul of Money. I don't know if you've heard about it. 

Adam Fishman: Um- I have not. 

Tamara Hinckley: This is like the book that has changed my life with respect to this topic.

Tamara Hinckley: The idea is that we have this concept of like more is better in terms of money, and we will never have enough, and so we're always striving. And even when people hit their number, they're like, "I still need more." And the book kind of challenges that and makes the point that in any given moment you actually have enough.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm. And as soon as you start forecasting the future, you kind of get out of presence. And so if you like come back to today at this moment, I have enough air, I have enough food. You always have enough, and if you are in a position where you don't, you can figure it out. And so that's actually helped my like nervous system stabilize in this period that's been kind of like unsteady.[00:54:00] 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: But I think what has been easier, in some ways taking risks has gotten easier. I think making the decision was hard, but once I left there were many more risks to follow, like the idea of selling a group coaching program when I'm not a certified coach, writing about myself online, learning how to do sales and marketing.

Tamara Hinckley: Even something like launching a podcast, I think for someone from the outside it might be like, oh, you've never done that before. But I'm like, I've just been running experiments for the last 18 months, so this is an experiment and I'll figure it out. I feel like I've learned to get comfortable taking risks and also built some confidence around you gotta run a lot of experiments, and they're not all gonna work, but the only way you find the thing that works is you've gotta try a lot of things.

Tamara Hinckley: And so that's been really refreshing. 

Adam Fishman: Cool. Well, I think you have a couple questions for me. Yeah. And then I'm gonna... And then we'll go back to you. 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. So I wanted to hear, you know, this idea of how is it [00:55:00] different to be a startup mom versus a startup dad? And we talked about this tension or dynamic of dual income households.

Tamara Hinckley: So we've talked a lot today about what it's like to be the mom from my perspective, but I'm curious in your conversations with dads, what have you learned about their partners, many of whom may be moms, that might have surprised you? 

Adam Fishman: There's a few things that I've learned recently that has also made me want to seek out somewhat different guests for the show.

Adam Fishman: One is- Because I come from a dual working household and I live in the Bay Area, I just assume that like, yeah, that's, everybody's doing that. Maybe not surprising to some, but very surprising to me, I have talked to a lot of dads on the show whose partners do not work outside the home. And I'm like, [00:56:00] "Hmm Should I be seeking to not talk to those folks?

Adam Fishman: Like, should I be trying to diversify to more dual income or even more, like, where the partner is the primary breadwinner or something like that? And so that's made me really question, like, should I be trying to find people who- whose, like, lives look more like mine? And so that- that's just been surprising to me is, you know, and th- all these dads come off on the show as really good and supportive partners, and they pull whatever the definition of pulling weight is in their house.

Adam Fishman: But it's been at some times disappointing to me and feeling, like, a little antiquated, you know? And I'm like, "But I hear everybody's in a dual working household now. Why can't I find these people?" But I think some of it is just the types of folks that I'm interviewing or the role or whatever. So that's sort of one thing that's been surprising to me.

Adam Fishman: The second thing is maybe not surprising, 'cause a lot of people do this publicly, but, [00:57:00] like, many dads are very quick to celebrate their partners as the heroes of the household. And I get the sense in interviewing dads that, like, it works in their house very similarly to what you described, which is, like, at some point somebody sat down with a spreadsheet, and it was probably their partner, and was like, "Hey, we gotta talk about this 'cause it's not quite working."

Adam Fishman: But surprisingly, the number of dads who are open to talking about the things that they got wrong and the mistakes that they made has been great. And I suppose you don't come on a show like Startup Dad without expecting that, like, you're gonna have some conversation about that. But a lot of the partners are, like, really running the show in the house, even if the dad may be the primary breadwinner or, like, they're making all the income or they're sort of, like, gone a lot 'cause they're working.

Adam Fishman: Like, the partners are running the show, and that house would not [00:58:00] be successful, a lot of their lives would not be successful without their partners. And I guess, like, maybe that shouldn't be surprising to me. So that's a couple of things that have been, like, surprising to me is that there's a lot of people whose lives are very different from the, like, dual working, like, kind of somewhat egalitarian household that we have.

Adam Fishman: And yet, and I've talked to Alison Daminger about this and some other folks about, like, mental load and things like that, equal 50/50 splitting is not necessarily what makes people the happiest. It's actually agreeing on what the split should be and sticking to that split. And that might be 60/40, it might be 70/30, it might be 30/70, but, like, the key is, like, stating what the split should be that everyone agrees is the right thing And that might be slight imbalance, but, like, it works, right?

Adam Fishman: If you all agree on it. That's been an interesting discovery too. 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. I [00:59:00] think the other thing I found interesting in hearing some of your latest episodes is the dads who are making the choice to lean in more at home as parents. Mm-hmm. I'm thinking of Peter Yang was a guest you had recently. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: I'm sure many others.

Tamara Hinckley: But, like, a lot of moms talk about, like, "I'm gonna step back," or, "I'm gonna downshift," or, "I'm gonna look for work that is more flexible." I'm wondering if that has been a theme that you've found interesting as well. 

Adam Fishman: Absolutely, and I'm trying to lean into that a little bit more because I want to show that it is possible for both sides to decide to take a step back and that they're equally acceptable.

Adam Fishman: Peter is a good example of that. Like, he decided to bet on himself and there was a big risk there, and he had a really stable job, and his wife has a stable job. They're a dual working household. But the best part of his day is, like, walking his daughter to school now, and he was never able to do that before.

Adam Fishman: I've talked to a couple where the [01:00:00] mom is the breadwinner in the family, and they sat down and talked, and the dad was like, "Yeah, I, I gotta take a step back because your career is on the up escalator. Mine's kinda... I'm not that stoked about my career, so I'm just gonna walk away from it, and I'm gonna be a stay-at-home dad."

Adam Fishman: And that is a dynamic that's worked out really well for their household, and I just really like those conversations because it's normalizing the behavior and making it more acceptable. And hopefully the more people listen to those conversations, the more their thinking shifts, and that can only be a good thing, I think.

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, and I think this is why I'm excited about these two shows kind of being in relationship with each other, because every family's, has their different split or, or version of what success looks like. And so looking at it from both perspectives and seeing what it's like to be the breadwinner on the mother's or father's side and vice versa, [01:01:00] and thinking about this more as this ecosystem of every family's gotta figure it out.

Tamara Hinckley: Let's talk about all the different dynamics. I think it's important for dads to be able to talk about liking being a parent, and the more they do that publicly, I know it's hard sometimes, but, like, de-stigmatizing that and making it okay to leave work early for a kid thing makes it okay for moms to do it, and actually makes it- Mm-hmm

Tamara Hinckley: easier for moms to make the same kind of trade-offs. So I think the only way we're gonna change the societal expectations of moms is if we also have dads part of the conversation. Mm-hmm. And so that's part of why I was really excited to kind of have these two shows be connected. 

Adam Fishman: Same. Same. I wanna ask you a question.

Adam Fishman: So There's probably a bunch of dads listening to this because this is gonna go in the Startup Dad feed as well, and there's some dads listening to this and they're like, "Well, I'm doing way more than my dad ever did. Like, my dad never changed a diaper," which by the way [01:02:00] is true of my life. "So I'm doing way more than my dad ever did, and he did way more than his dad ever did.

Adam Fishman: Like, when is it my turn to get credit?" What would you say to that sentiment from, from a, a dad listening to this? 

Tamara Hinckley: I would say you're right. It's true. Derek Thompson has data to confirm this, as does Corinne Low. The data shows that dads are spending more time with their kids, and I do think there's a human need to feel acknowledged and appreciated, and so it is important to say, like, "Great job," which I do to my husband a lot who told me the same thing, 'cause you wanna feel good.

Tamara Hinckley: Like, everyone wants to get that five to one positive feedback ratio. Sure. So yes, you're doing more. Many dads are doing more, and that is progress, and we should celebrate it. And it's not like the weight has transferred from dads to moms, right? The data also says that the overall load has actually increased, so moms are also doing more.

Tamara Hinckley: It's not like they're [01:03:00] doing less, and they're just still doing more than dads, and so they are overwhelmed and stretched because expectations for parents have risen. There's all this research about early childhood development and, like, you can't just put a baby in the crib with the bottle anymore. Like, you have to interact with them, and now we need to take them to extracurricular.

Tamara Hinckley: So, so parents, like, are burnt out as the surgeon general talks about because the demands on parenting have risen. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: And I think the other thing I like to remind people when they say this is moms are not only doing more at home, but now they're also working outside the home, which many of them didn't before.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm. So before, it was actually so much easier in a lot of families because you had a clear split of one parent earns, the other parent cares, and those are both jobs. And now mom is doing both jobs and dad is doing kind of both jobs, and that's why we're so exhausted. It's like there's more work than people.

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, yeah. And that's why we need the help, and, like, it's not sustainable. So I think that a lot of moms, [01:04:00] and I personally, can get triggered by that statement 'cause it's like, "When do I get the credit?" Yeah. "I'm doing a lot too," especially the ones who are breadwinners. So, like, you can get into this argumentative victim mindset of who's doing more, and I don't think that serves anyone.

Tamara Hinckley: And so I think one of the best pieces of advice I've gotten about marriage and parenting is, like, put the problem in front of you, sit next to each other and look at it, and problem being maybe a spreadsheet in our case. Mm-hmm. But the problem being there's more work than people. How do we tackle this together?

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. Rather than this kind of like you're fighting about who's doing more, who gets the credit. And I think the other thing I'll say that my husband and I have been talking about related to this is there is magic in feeling appreciated. So I try to say thank you when he does something not necessarily that is expected of him, but when he does it in a way that I find special.

Tamara Hinckley: Like- 

Adam Fishman: [01:05:00] Mm-hmm ... 

Tamara Hinckley: he's, like, really funny with our kids, and he's super playful, and I try to, like, amp him up a little bit of like, "You're a great dad," 'cause he is, and I think it helps to hear that because then you wanna lean in more, and I also like to get appreciated. So I think we can acknowledge that the split isn't great, and we can also talk about, like, how can we both feel better and, and just feel like we're cheering each other on, and that's where I think the conversation shifts from comparing.

Tamara Hinckley: Comparing is never helpful, by the way. Right. So, like, comparing to your dad, you can compare to your neighbor who has a different agreement. Like, let's stop comparing. Let's think about what our family wants, and acknowledge, like, how's everyone feeling about the split? Mm-hmm. Does anything need to be different?

Tamara Hinckley: But then let's figure out, like, how do we make this work for our family. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. I love that. I wanna talk about the pink policy in your household. So you are a mom, and you are raising two daughters, and, you know, so you got, like, 75% of the people in your household are women. [01:06:00] And you wrote a post one time called No Pink Allowed Except Sometimes.

Adam Fishman: What's the pink policy in your house, and why did you write that post in the first place? 

Tamara Hinckley: Pink is my favorite color. And it's now my daughter's favorite color despite all my best efforts. I, I think when I was pregnant with my first daughter and I was planning the nursery, as many moms do, I was just really conscious of perpetuating any stereotypes.

Tamara Hinckley: And so before she had a say, I wanted her to be exposed to a variety of things and for her to, like, figure out what she wants because there's data that, like, kids who are girls are treated differently than boys at a very early age. Mm-hmm. And so I just didn't want her to fall into that pattern, and I've noticed even once- as she's gotten older and she went to preschool, she gravitates towards the girls that she wants to wear, like, the tutus.

Tamara Hinckley: I think society conditions kids to [01:07:00] do things, and then they condition each other, and- Mm-hmm ... what I don't want to happen is for her to feel like, "Okay, I'm gonna go play kitchen while the boys are gonna go play engineer," because that puts her on a different path. Yeah. And I want her to figure out what she wants to do and see all the options and possibilities.

Tamara Hinckley: And so- I want her to have options and now both of them to have options, but I want to encourage them to see more than maybe what they're naturally gonna be exposed to. And so I actually was thinking about this. I was just researching gift ideas for them for the holidays. Mm-hmm. And I actually put into my robot gift ideas for five-year-old boys.

Adam Fishman: Ah. 

Tamara Hinckley: Uh, 'cause I wanted to see what came up, and shocker, it's different. And I, like, put things on the list from there rather than the unicorn rainbow stuff, which she likes. And so I think I'm trying to, like, counteract the tendency of society and just, like, give her a better shot at having the options open to [01:08:00] her- 

Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm

Tamara Hinckley: but also letting her decide and have a personality, and it's a struggle. I don't know how you feel about this as a parent of a daughter, too, but I'm conscious of it. And yet I don't know if I'm doing it right. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah, well, a fun story about me as a child, one of my favorite toys growing up was the Barbie pink Corvette.

Adam Fishman: So I had a set of dolls, and I had the pink Corvette, and that was one of my toys, and I turned out how I turned out. Who knows? But yeah, how I think about this for my house, I think probably similarly to you, we tried to do as much sorta gender neutral stuff and tried to give my daughter Legos, give my son, you know, other types of toys that might be construed as more female.

Adam Fishman: And at the end of the day I don't know how much it mattered. Like, you know, society's gonna do what society's gonna do. And so we try to talk to our kids about that [01:09:00] so that they... Now they're old enough. They're obviously older than your daughters, so it's maybe a little bit easier for them to comprehend.

Adam Fishman: But, like, we talk about that construct in life. But my kids have gravitated towards the things that they've gravitated towards, which tend to be a little bit more sort of gender conforming, I would say. And it's, again, not for lack of trying on our part to do it differently, but it's just like the momentum.

Adam Fishman: Society is a force, right? An, an unstoppable force, and so sometimes that just happens despite our best efforts. Can you tell me about hurried mom syndrome, by the way? You wrote about this, and I'm just like, "Oh, I love this so much." So what is hurried mom syndrome? 

Tamara Hinckley: It's the need for speed. It's this idea that I, as a woman, am wired for productivity.

Tamara Hinckley: And so in the first couple years, especially with two, I felt like every minute was very precious. I had this packed schedule that was optimized, and so we, like, needed to move in a certain order and pace, which does not work with toddlers. [01:10:00] But I just felt like, I think this was partially because of some of the challenges I was facing around mental health, but I just felt like I had to, like, rush through everything so that I could finally get a break.

Tamara Hinckley: I gotta take care of everyone else's needs, mostly the kids- Mm ... get them fed, get all the chores done so I could finally relax. Mm. Or so I could have some time for myself, see my friends, spend some time with my husband. But the to-do list just felt so long and overwhelming, and so- It was like this pattern I had of waking up and just immediately going into, like, fight or flight mode of like, we gotta get through everything on the agenda, and by the way, there's no room for error.

Tamara Hinckley: So if, like, someone is sick, buckle up, you're going to school. And I think how this would show up and how I noticed it was I would be getting my kids ready to go to school with my husband, and I would be saying, "Hurry up, hurry up" And my daughter one time was like, "You're always rushing me." 

Adam Fishman: Hmm. 

Tamara Hinckley: And I was like, "She's right.

Tamara Hinckley: Like, I [01:11:00] am." Yeah. And I don't like that I'm showing up this way. It's almost like autopilot, and it's kind of the way I was raised because, again, the hustle mentality, like that's what worked. And so I've been more conscious of it, and I told her, "Any time you're rushing me, you're allowed to say, 'Mom, let's take our time.'"

Tamara Hinckley: Okay. And she calls me out on it. Um- I 

Adam Fishman: love that ... 

Tamara Hinckley: and, and I'm trying to move more slowly. It's like this interesting dichotomy of there's a need for urgency when your time is precious. Also, like, in the work context, we wanna be seen as working with urgency. Yeah. And yet there's also, I think, a space and need for slowing down and, like, not multitasking and just, again, letting the nervous system rest a little bit so it can recharge.

Tamara Hinckley: And so I think I'm a lot better at this in the last couple years, especially as I work for myself and I have more control over my time and schedule. But we fall into this trap of just gotta get through the to-do list, uh, also because we don't [01:12:00] feel comfortable sitting still. Hmm. And so I just try to, like, not do two things at once when I can or to take more breaks, and it's very uncomfortable as- Yeah

Tamara Hinckley: someone who's used to rushing. So it's still a growth thing for me. I don't know if you've ever felt- 

Adam Fishman: Oh ... 

Tamara Hinckley: hurry dad syndrome. 

Adam Fishman: No, totally. I was gonna say I completely, like, empathize with this, with this feeling because I am, like, an efficiency type A, you know, superhero. And, you know, kids, especially when they're younger and when, now even when they're older, that doesn't work for them at all.

Adam Fishman: And so- You can stress yourself out by being like, "We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta get there on time, we gotta..." You know, if you're not early, you're late, like all that sort of stuff, which is kind of how I was raised. Always be on time, like the people who are late are bad, you know, all that sort of stuff.

Adam Fishman: And then you realize that like, yeah, that is one way to live your life, but it's not a very enjoyable way. And so I do still fall, fall victim to this [01:13:00] constantly, but every so often I'll, like, catch myself and be like, "Just chill." Yeah. Like, who cares? You know? Like, you're not driving an ambulance, you have to get somebody to the hospital.

Adam Fishman: I mean, maybe, hopefully. So, you know, I have to kind of, like, talk myself off of that, like, pretty regularly. So yeah, I, I heard dad syndrome is also a thing. I also think bumbling dad syndrome is a thing too, where dad is just, like, Roomba-ing around the house like, "Oh, is it time to go yet?" Like, what are... And the kids are like, "I don't have my shoes on," like, whatever.

Adam Fishman: The dad's just like, "Oh, why are we not in the car?" You know? So yes, I try to avoid that too. 

Tamara Hinckley: Yes. Yeah, I've heard it as deadbeat dad syndrome. Dead... And I think it's, I think I was doing this, where I was like, "Oh, you're so incompetent, like, get everyone ready," and- 

Adam Fishman: Yeah ... 

Tamara Hinckley: I was, like, moving faster so then everyone was moving slower, and it creates this really unhealthy dynamic.

Tamara Hinckley: But what I was gonna say is I think where I'm noticing it is, like, as my kids start repeating stuff that [01:14:00] I say- Mm ... and having the same reactions that I do, and I notice my daughter is hurrying along her sister. I'm like, "Oh-" Oh, no ... "she learned that from me." So then it's like they're little mirrors that remind you you're a role model in the way you do things, even if it's not conscious.

Tamara Hinckley: And so that's actually been even more of a driving force to slow down- Yeah ... 'cause I can't scold her for doing it if I'm- ... showing up the same way. 

Adam Fishman: She's like, "Well, I learned from the best mom." Yeah. I wanted to come all the way back to what we talked about at the beginning, which is that you came from Ukraine when you were seven years old.

Adam Fishman: So obviously your daughter was born and raised, both of them born and raised here, right, in the Bay Area. How are you passing on Ukrainian heritage and culture and stuff to your, your daughters who didn't grow up there and probably have not visited Ukraine, given all the things happening in the world right now?

Tamara Hinckley: I think about this a lot. I remember I was Six, eight weeks postpartum with my first daughter when the war started. So [01:15:00] actually it's been like a big part of my motherhood journey, thinking about where I come from and where, where is home, and kind of struggling with this idea of my immigrant upbringing and a lot of shame about it.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm. And people not knowing where Ukraine was when I would answer where I was born, to now it's like center stage. There's a lot of obviously news, and like h- watching the news is really tough for me. So I've kind of had like a reckoning in the last few years about coming to peace, and now even feeling proud of where I come from and wanting to pass it on, but I was not there a couple years ago.

Tamara Hinckley: So it's been a journey, and a big thing that has helped is this thing called the Hoffman Process. I don't know if you've heard about it. 

Adam Fishman: I have. Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah. It's this like incredible week-long retreat, and I went into it wanting to address other things, but came out of it feeling like this renewed sense of pride.

Tamara Hinckley: And so actually since then, one of my goals has been to think about this more consciously. So I'm reading books to them in Russian. I'm trying to talk about it more. I'm like, [01:16:00] "What kinds of activities can I do with them?" And it's more work, and I'm busy, and so sometimes it feels like I don't know if I have time for this.

Tamara Hinckley: But it is really important. Mm. So I have this, this like vision of finding all the Ukrainians in tech and bringing us all together with our kids and like starting some like Ukrainian awareness center in the Bay Area. I don't know if that will ever happen, but if I can't take them there for a while, for the foreseeable future, I've, I gotta like figure out a way to nurture it here, and I think I can do so much inside my home, but there is this element of like community and being more connected to other people who have similar goals.

Tamara Hinckley: So if anyone is listening and is a Ukrainian immigrant, I'd love to connect. 

Adam Fishman: Well, I do happen to know that one of your earliest guests is from that region of the world. So spoiler, actually no spoilers- ... but people will just have to tune into a subsequent episode to get that hot scoop. I wanted to turn it around to talking about Startup Mom again.

Adam Fishman: So we talked about you a lot, and like your [01:17:00] vision and, and, and your background and things like that. What is a conversation or a theme for Startup Mom that you're really excited to focus on because you don't think anybody else is? 

Tamara Hinckley: I've been thinking a lot about this concept of the change formula. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but- 

Adam Fishman: I am not

Tamara Hinckley: the idea is for change to occur, transformation to occur, you need kind of three things. You need the pain to be really high You need a very clear and compelling vision of how you want it to be different, and you need a first step to take- Mm ... in order to move towards that vision. And so if I think about my goals around the podcast, around ultimately elevating more women into leadership in tech and AI, and making those paths visible, I think that we're doing a really good job as a society now talking about the pain.

Tamara Hinckley: Like, there's a lot of complaining, and in some ways rightfully so, about how hard it is to be a woman in tech [01:18:00] and all the rollbacks and how they're hurting moms, and the media has focused a lot on the problem. But I think we're not talking enough about the vision. So what does success look like, and who is doing this and is happy?

Tamara Hinckley: This is what I hear often is like, "I don't see anyone around me who is happy, who's a mom, who's a senior leader." So I wanna find those people and make it visible. Like, it is possible, and you can do it, and there are different versions of the vision and you figure out your own, but like here's a wide array of people who, uh, for the most part, love their work, love their kids, and are making it work.

Tamara Hinckley: Mm-hmm. So I think elevating the role models is a way to drive that vision for people, and turning the conversation more towards solutions and making it positive. And then the first step is also really important, so you need to see it to believe it, that it's possible, but you need to know, like, what do you do in this moment when you have the decision to make around telling your manager you're pregnant, or transitioning from one to two [01:19:00] kids?

Tamara Hinckley: Like, what are the tools and systems that work? So people want solutions, but I think they also need to see what does success look like in order to keep going down this path versus maybe making a different choice. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much, and I am excited for you to tell those stories and to get guests to tell them.

Adam Fishman: I have this section of "Startup Dad" that I always do called AI Corner, and I wanna ask you about AI 'cause you've been getting pretty deep into this. But I, I wanna ask you something that's actually very, like, right now relevant, which is a lot of AI adoption skews very heavily towards men. It's, like, well-documented.

Adam Fishman: Claire Vo talks about her audience for how AI is, like, 90% men, and she's a woman, like, talking about AI, and still only 10% of her audience is women. But some of the best use cases I've seen of AI and, like, personal usage of AI have come from moms. Like, yes, the household OS, but things that help offload the mental load or keep people accountable, [01:20:00] like, stuff like that.

Adam Fishman: Okay. That's all good. However There was just this New York Times article this week when we're recording featuring former Yahoo CEO and Google exec Marissa Mayer talking about AI usage, and a lot of women were not pleased by how she portrayed them. And I think not pleased is probably a generous interpretation.

Adam Fishman: Pissed is another way that I would describe it. So I wanted to ask you, we don't have to belabor that point, I'm sure you will talk about this in an upcoming episode of Startup Mom, but I wanted to ask you, how are you using AI, and how do you think about talking to your daughters about it over the time when they're, like, ready to learn about it?

Tamara Hinckley: Oh, this could be a whole separate episode. So many thoughts. 

Adam Fishman: I know. 

Tamara Hinckley: I was hesitant to use it at first because I think a story I've told myself my whole career is this concept of I'm not technical enough. Mm. Even [01:21:00] though I worked on Wall Street and, like, built really good financial models. I was a product manager.

Tamara Hinckley: I made it to director. Like, at every promotion I would question myself and have that imposter syndrome feeling of like, I don't deserve it, especially in a male-driven field like we talked about. So it took me a while, and I think a lot of people feel this way of, like, opening up the intimidating cloud code terminal that is all black and being like, "What do I do in this thing?"

Tamara Hinckley: But I forced myself to do it, and I'm so glad I did, and now I think I'm on the path to being AI pilt because I've seen the promise and I've had some of these aha moments where I'm getting the gains. And so I think there's this learning curve of, like, trying something new that's gonna be hard, not knowing if it's gonna pay off, which is hard for people who are so busy and overwhelmed.

Tamara Hinckley: It's like, hey, try this thing that may or may not work that you may have to spend a bunch of time on before it's gonna give you time back. People are like, "No, I need time back now." And so getting past that and some of the [01:22:00] fears is important, and I, I get it 'cause I was there. But I use it both at work and at home.

Tamara Hinckley: I'm using it related to starting this podcast and have this fun thing I'm vibe coding that I'll talk about later. But I think it's... Like, it's saving me time in ways that- Give me more time to do the things that are human. So like, I'm gonna do all these episodes, but with the research and some of the prep, AI's great.

Tamara Hinckley: So, and I use it in my coaching business of, like, keeping track of things and anything that's automatable. Like, it's helped me think about my business more in terms of workflows and thinking, like, where can I standardize and be more efficient, which actually has been good. And at home, I've tried to lower the stakes a little bit and just use it for, like, tiny use cases instead of this whole, like, let me set up this beautiful system- Right

Tamara Hinckley: for the whole thing. So I, I was like, I am shopping for a trip to Hawaii this summer, and how can I look at [01:23:00] outfits and can I, AI help? And I built this app for a week, which maybe in hindsight was a bad idea. But I, I had fun. Yeah. And so then I had this other idea for a use case, and then I, it felt less intimidating.

Tamara Hinckley: So when my motivation is high, I'm letting myself go for it, and I have the gift of time to do that. But I'm trying to share those learnings with people so it feels like, oh, this is helpful for me, and it can give me the savings eventually and help me, like, shortcut that learning curve. As for my kids, in some ways, because we live in the Bay Area, like, we try to talk about technology in general.

Tamara Hinckley: So my kids are always saying hi to the Waymos on the street. And, And like, we, you know, it's, like, part of our lives, but I, I'm kind of trying to defer relying on it as long as possible. Like, we're kind of low screen in the household. Mm-hmm. It's too early at three and five. But sometimes we'll ask the robot a question, and I'll have them watch me do it, but I'm not having them use it yet 'cause they need to learn how to [01:24:00] learn before they use a technology that just gives them the answers.

Adam Fishman: Hmm. I love that. And yeah, your, I think your kids are probably a little bit young for, like, having any kind of legitimate conversation with them about what is this thing. Like, they don't know, right? They probably barely know what a computer is, right? Like, I know we could have a whole episode on this AI stuff, so we'll...

Adam Fishman: You, you can do that in, in Startup Mom. I'm excited to listen to that one. So you have been the kind of founder person who became a mom, the mom who became a founder. What's one piece of advice that you would have for a woman who's about to step into either one of those spots? 

Tamara Hinckley: The biggest thing I would say is to trust your intuition.

Tamara Hinckley: I think becoming a mom, it's learning a new set of skills, and there's a ton of advice out there. But I think we as parents, and you just had an episode about this, actually have a lot of intuitive [01:25:00] parenting wisdom that can be ignored or someone else might take over and gatekeep. And so I think on the becoming a mom, like we know more than we give ourselves credit for.

Tamara Hinckley: And when we don't know, I would say phone a friend instead of the robots. 'Cause community is helpful and people have been through it, and you'll feel less alone. 

Adam Fishman: Yeah. 

Tamara Hinckley: And same with becoming a founder. Like there's this idea, fall in love with your customer, not your product. And so like if you know your customer well, if you're building for yourself, you probably have a lot of intuition about what's important to them, and that's what has driven a lot of my work here.

Tamara Hinckley: So trust your intuition around what the vision is that you're solving for. And again, get advice when you may not know, but believe that you have some wisdom to offer there. 

Adam Fishman: Awesome. I love that. Okay. If people want to follow along with Startup Mom or you and your journey, where should we send them now?

Tamara Hinckley: We've got a [01:26:00] website for the podcast, and it will be on all the channels, Spotify, YouTube, and more, with lots of guests coming on that are really exciting who will tell you about it too. And I'll be writing about it on my newsletter, Half Moon Hustle, on h- Substack and LinkedIn. So I'm super thrilled. And th- and I think we haven't talked about this as much, but this is an experiment.

Tamara Hinckley: It's a pilot. We're still figuring it out together. And so I would actually love to hear feedback. We'll share an email where you can send that in, but we wanna make this show really useful and helpful, and I invite people to tell us what they love and what they want to hear more of. What e- where else am I missing, Adam?

Adam Fishman: That's pretty much it. I mean, the website's startuppodmom.com. But, you know, we're not too hard to find on the internet. Both of us, I think, are gonna be talking about this pretty extensively. I'm actually gonna be taking a break from Startup Dad for three weeks while we launch this pilot and, and talk about it, because it's super important for me that we launch this thing really [01:27:00] well.

Adam Fishman: And so also I'm excited to take a little bit of a break and lean into something else. So yeah, so that's it. I don't know. You'll be able to find us. We'll link to everything in the show notes, but probably not gonna be too hard to find us on the internet, so 

Tamara Hinckley: yeah. Reach out on LinkedIn like Adam did. 

Adam Fishman: Oh yeah.

Adam Fishman: Cool. Yes, yes, awkwardly. All right, should we do lightning round? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, let's do it. 

Adam Fishman: Okay. I am excited about this. What is the most overrated parenting product, in your opinion? 

Tamara Hinckley: It's that Magic Merlin suit that your kids can wear for, like, three days when they're not wearing a swaddle anymore, but then they learn to roll over.

Tamara Hinckley: Ugh, yes. And maybe they wear it for a night or two, and then they grow out of it. Yes. And it's, like, super expensive. 

Adam Fishman: Yes, like the sack kinda thing- Yeah ... or whatever. Yes. Okay. What is the most indispensable parenting product? 

Tamara Hinckley: Earplugs for the parents so that they can sleep. I 

Adam Fishman: love that. Um, yeah. Love that.

Adam Fishman: Best parenting hack for road trips or flights? 

Tamara Hinckley: I just did this. Have your favorite robot make a custom coloring page [01:28:00] depending on where you're going. Like, we're going to Hawaii. Tell it about the theme, but then have the AI write their kid's name on it- Ooh ... 'cause it's so cool to see a page customized to your kid- Yeah

Tamara Hinckley: especially if they can recognize letters and names, and most kids love seeing that. 

Adam Fishman: Oh, love that. Okay, crazier time in your house, 6:00 to 8:00 AM or 6:00 to 8:00 PM? 

Tamara Hinckley: Hmm. I think the, like, 7:00 to 8:00 AM window is pretty nuts, 'cause luckily they sleep in now 'til 7:00, but then it's, like, an hour to eat, get dressed, brush your teeth, get out the door, and don't hurry them too much.

Tamara Hinckley: So yeah, that's- Right ... that's pretty crazy. 

Adam Fishman: I would agree, morning tougher than, than night at this point. Let's talk about Mother's Day or Father's Day. Would you rather do brunch with the family or get 24 hours alone to yourself? 

Tamara Hinckley: Brunch with the family and spend 24 hours alone at a different point in time.

Tamara Hinckley: So both, but on the day of I wanna be with my family. 

Adam Fishman: All right. The holidays are coming up. [01:29:00] What's on the holiday wish list for your girls? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, she just wrote this list, and it's like everything related to do with Frozen, unicorns, rainbows. But I make a list for them, and I'm putting stuff that looks like toys but is actually educational games.

Tamara Hinckley: Love that. And also on the gifts for boys stuff. 

Adam Fishman: How long does it take you to recover from daylight savings time? Which when this airs will have just happened. 

Tamara Hinckley: Without kids, like not at all, 'cause I could use the extra hour. With kids it'll take a couple days, 'cause they'll be waking up early and everyone will be upset.

Adam Fishman: Not to out your husband here, but does he know that daylight savings time is coming up? 

Tamara Hinckley: Definitely 

Adam Fishman: not. I love that so much. What is your best Wall Street skill that works on toddlers? 

Tamara Hinckley: Nothing works on toddlers. 

Adam Fishman: Awesome. I mean, 

Tamara Hinckley: yeah, they're... When their emotions are high, you kind of just have to wait it out.

Adam Fishman: Yep, yep, just white-knuckle it. Yeah. Okay, what is the one fair play card that you'd pay any amount of [01:30:00] money to give away forever? 

Tamara Hinckley: Yeah, definitely laundry. It never ends. Like, it's also you have to think about, like increasing, switching up sizes as they grow out of things. Mm-hmm. And we even pay for someone to help fold the kids' laundry, but I feel like it's still just never done.

Adam Fishman: That is the, like dirty secret, no pun intended, of kids' laundry. You're like, "Oh, but the items are smaller, so it must be faster." No, no, still takes the same amount of time to fold it and wash it as like any adult sized thing. So okay, true or false, there is only one correct way to load a dishwasher. 

Tamara Hinckley: False, but there are many, many ways to do it wrong.

Adam Fishman: Okay. What is the weirdest thing that you've ever found in your daughter's pockets or left over in the washing machine? 

Tamara Hinckley: My husband's wedding ring. 

Adam Fishman: Oh, I bet that was an interesting conversation. Oh, my God. More than once. Yeah. Oh, more than once? Oh, man. It's not a good look for... His [01:31:00] name's Mike, right? Mm-hmm.

Adam Fishman: It's not a good look for Mike here. If your daughters had to describe you in one word, what would it be? 

Tamara Hinckley: They call me helpful, which I don't know how I feel about that. I feel like it's, it's, like, good, but also, is that really all I do for them? I kinda want them to describe me as bold and brave, so I'm working 

Adam Fishman: on it.

Adam Fishman: Oh, okay. Work on that one. Yeah, yeah. All right, last question: What's your take on minivans? 

Tamara Hinckley: No way, 

Adam Fishman: Jose. That's a hard no for you. Okay. All right. All right. Well, that is it. We've done it. Startup Mom, episode one pilot is in the books. Thank you so much for, one, agreeing to be the host of this, for doing this interview and humoring me throughout the conversation, and for asking me some questions.

Adam Fishman: I had a great time. This was really fun. 

Tamara Hinckley: Me too. Thanks for the random outreach on the internet, and I'm just so thrilled to get this out into the wild. [01:32:00] So everyone, you're in for a treat. 

Adam Fishman: All right. Well, everybody like and subscribe, and help us make this thing a big success. So, all right. We'll see you next week