Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Adam Fishman (author of a top business newsletter on Substack with 11K+ subscribers) interviews executives, entrepreneurs, and company leaders in technology companies who are also fathers. They discuss the tough aspects of work, parenting, family, the mistakes made and lessons learned along the way. All episodes at www.startupdadpod.com.
[00:00:00] Ben Norment: I think that parenting is simultaneously the most challenging and the most rewarding thing I’ll probably ever do. It’s cliched, I think, true, but I 100% think it’s true. I think no one is going to challenge you and make you question whether you’re doing a good job like your own children and yet nothing is going to warm your heart and make you feel like this is all that matters in the world, like your kids will.
[00:00:29] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep in the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I’m your host, Adam Fishman. Today I’m joined by Ben Norment, Founder/CEO of Stork Exchange, a company that helps parents access high quality baby gear at affordable prices by working with retailers to resell all their returns. What makes Ben’s story particularly compelling is that he started building this parenting focus company right as he and his wife Cindel were expecting their very first child. Talk about giving a headfirst look into your target market. Ben is now the father of three kids ages five, four, and seven months, and his parenting journey has included some incredibly challenging moments that have shaped his approach to both business and fatherhood. In our conversation today, we talked about his team first approach to parenting and how he and his wife support each other through the ups and downs.
[00:01:28] Adam Fishman: How surviving NICU trauma with his second kid built resilience that extends far beyond parenting, his philosophy of letting kids be bored as a way to foster creativity and independence, his intentionally anti-tech approach to childhood that prioritizes analog experiences, why he believes that difficult parenting seasons always pass if you can just hang on and the importance of letting your kids see you as a full person beyond just being their parent. We also discussed his embrace of imperfection over rigid parenting frameworks and how that served his family well. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube or Spotify so you never miss an episode. You’ll find it everywhere you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation with Ben Norment. Welcome Ben Norment to Startup Dad and thank you to Tyler Moore, AKA the Tidy Dad for introducing the two of us.
[00:02:20] Adam Fishman: Ben, how did you and Tyler come to know each other?
[00:02:23] Ben Norment: I can’t remember exactly. I think our VP of marketing was like, “Hey, look, you should go talk to Tidy Dad. There’s not a lot of dads that are operating in the kind of parenting space and I think you guys should have a conversation and yeah, it was great. Great talking to him.
[00:02:39] Adam Fishman: Well, we won’t spend too much time on this, but I did want to start by asking you about your company, which you’re wearing a very cool shirt. It’s called Stork Exchange. What is the problem for parents that Stork Exchange is solving?
[00:02:57] Ben Norment: Yeah. Well, I think anyone who’s been shopping for parenting gear in the last year can probably tell you that parenting products are just outrageously expensive these days. I think a lot of stuff gear was already pretty expensive and then after tariffs last year, you’d see the prices of strollers jump 30, 40% basically overnight. And so what Stork Exchange does is we work with retailers and manufacturers to bring their returns to resellable condition and we sell them through to parents at a discount. So parents get great high quality gear from the brands they know and trust and want. At a price, it’s a little more palatable on your wallet. And as I think any parent could tell you, wherever you can save a few bucks along the way, it’s much appreciated.
[00:03:48] Adam Fishman: Cool. So if I wanted to buy a return SNOO, could I do that on Stork Exchange or like a Doona stroller?
[00:03:57] Ben Norment: Yeah, you can do it with a couple brands with a lot of rents. We work with a couple of big retailers. So we have products from brands like UPPAbaby, Stokke, Thule, not SNOO. They actually have their own resale program with
[00:04:10] Adam Fishman: Props
[00:04:10] Ben Norment: To them for coming up with ways to get their products to parents because those are really expensive.
[00:04:17] Adam Fishman: They are very expensive. And so you guys are not buying and selling between humans. You’re not like a marketplace for like, I’ve got a thing, I want to get rid of it. You are working with the retailers themselves to take what things that were maybe like open box or somebody who’s like, “ I didn’t need the two kids stroller. I thought I did, but I’d be happier with that $1,000 back in my pocket. “And then you guys are sort of like working with them to make sure that it’s up to snuff and then selling that through the website. And then the retailer gets a piece of it, you get a piece of it. Is that how the economics work?
[00:04:55] Ben Norment: We’re basically a marketplace for the retailers and manufacturers. So rather than parent to parent where parents can go on and sell their used gear, which is actually how we started, we’ve decided to work on the supply side with the retailers and manufacturers. So we do all the kind of verification and inspection part of it. That’s where our expertise is. And as you said, a lot of this, 75% of what we get is the box has been open, but the product’s never even been taken out of the packaging. Someone got it, opened it, maybe decided that it wasn’t quite the right color they wanted or they got two at the shower and so that just goes right back. And brands or retailers, they don’t want to take the time to actually make sure it’s safe. It’s not a T-shirt. You can’t just fold it back up and throw it on the shelf.
[00:05:40] Ben Norment: This has got to be used with someone’s child. They don’t want to do that, resell it unless it’s gone through a rigorous inspection. They don’t have the time to do it and that’s where we come in. So they can recover some of their costs from working with us and we can make sure these products end up going to a home where they’re going to get used rather than a landfill and parents get to save money. So everyone’s winning.
[00:06:02] Adam Fishman: Everyone wins. I love that. Okay. So as far as I can tell, you started this company before you had any kids. If LinkedIn is to be accurate, the oldest child that you have is younger than your company. Is that true? Am I generally in the ballpark there?
[00:06:20] Ben Norment: Yes. They would concide to the around the time that we found out we were about to have our first. So started working on Stork Exchange right around the time my wife found out she was pregnant with our first and we launched the website about two months, just over two months after our first child was born. So there’s a lot of work that went before the website went live and stuff got in selling.
[00:06:43] Adam Fishman: So usually founders are solving their own problems with the businesses that they start. Is that what motivated you? The timing is awfully suspicious. So is that related?
[00:06:57] Ben Norment: We knew we were getting ready to start a family and we went down and visited my brother-in-law who had just had his first and they were living in DC in this town home and they had so much stuff for this tiny little baby. And I hadn’t been around a lot of kids at that point in my life since I was a kid at least. And they were telling us about all this stuff and which products were good. We were interested because we knew we were going to be parents pretty soon, hopefully. And I was just like, oh my God, there’s so much stuff to get and it’s so expensive. And the SNOO is the product that made me really toss me over the edge because they were like, “This thing is life changing. You’re going to actually get sleep. Also, it’s $1,500.” And I was like, “What?” And they’re like, “Yeah, use it for the first six months.” And I was like, “So $1,500 for six months.
[00:07:49] Ben Norment: Cool.” And as a parent who went through the whole, or I’ve been through the first six months of my baby’s life three times now, and I get it when you’re like, “I will pay anything to make sure I get two more hours of sleep a night.” But for me at that point, I was just like, “That is crazy.” And so I got really interested in what about buying secondhand and what are the options for buying secondhand? And so really got interested in that, talked to a lot of parents, found a lot of people want to buy secondhand, are kind of annoyed with Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. It’s kind of like one of those necessary evils. It’s pretty high friction. And I was like, “Oh, there’s got to be a better way to do this. “ And that’s really where the idea came from. And as becoming a parent got more and more real, I got more interested and then decided to take the plunge.
[00:08:33] Adam Fishman: Okay. Well, so your wife’s pregnant and I will … Let me refer to her by name. Cindel is your wife’s name? Cindel. Cindel. Cindel. Yeah. So Cindel. I love that name, by the way. Very unique. So Cindel’s pregnant and you’re like, “I know this is a high stress part of life and I’m about to have a kid. I know what I should do. I should start a company.” That sounds great. So what was that conversation like with Cindel and what was the decision like to basically do both of these things at the same time?
[00:09:08] Ben Norment: Oh, that’s a great question about what was I thinking? I’d like to throw in, we also moved. We also moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina during that time. But I had a friend once who told me, he was like, “You know what? You’re better off just doing all the hard things at one time because it’ll be really hard for a short period of time. Or you could do hard things one after another and stretch it out over five years.” And it’s like, “Okay, that’s a great way of thinking about it. “ She knew this was something I was really interested in. She knew that I was really interested in starting out and doing my own thing. I think if you can perfectly draw it up, you do maybe sequence things a little differently, but sometimes it’s just kind of how it works out where that was the right time for us to start a family and it was also the right time for me.
[00:09:57] Ben Norment: I had an idea. I was ready to move on from management consulting at that time and so it was just kind of like, this is it. I’d gone through a lot of other ideas before that. I’d never found one. I really was like, “Oh, I’m really interested in this. I really think it’ll work.” And that was the one where I was like, “Oh, I really think there’s something here.” And so it was just kind of like, “You know what? Let’s just go for it all.
[00:10:17] Adam Fishman: “ Awesome. Go for the glory. Did building a company for parents prepare you better for fatherhood than not having built a company for parents or not having started that? Were there conversations that you had that sort of clued you into what becoming a dad would be like? Or do you think those two things are completely unrelated?
[00:10:40] Ben Norment: I mean, it did them so much in parallel that I think that I always joke that Stork Exchange is my fourth baby and it was the second baby now and then it was the third baby. Now it’s the fourth baby. But there’s so many similarities in them the way you love them through all the ups and downs and the satisfaction you get. But I think at the same time, personally, I don’t think anything prepares you for becoming a dad. And I can tell I know that too because now I’m on the other side of it and I was the first one of my friends to have kids and now I’m kind of like, “Oh, my friends are starting to have kids.” And I’ll try and give them advice. And now I’m that guy who’s telling you what it’s going to be like. And I can tell your face is glazing over him.
[00:11:24] Ben Norment: And I’m like, “We’ll talk again in six months after you’re in it. “ Because I think until you do it, everything sounds one way and then you experience it and you’re like, “Oh, this is what
[00:11:36] Adam Fishman: It is.
[00:11:36] Ben Norment: “
[00:11:37] Adam Fishman: Yeah. We’ve talked about this on the show, but it’s like Mike Tyson used to say everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Okay. Speaking of which, feeling like you got punched in the mouth, I don’t want to pivot to a downer kind of moment or scary parenting moment, but you did clue me into a story about your second kid and here on Startup Dad, we don’t shy away from tough, challenging parenting moments. And so I will preface this by saying, as far as I know, your second kid is totally fine. They’re almost four now. Totally fine. Okay.
[00:12:12] Ben Norment: Better celebrate fourth birthday.
[00:12:14] Adam Fishman: However, we’re rewinding, just born and had a very chaotic start to his life and was in the NICU. And then you told me that you had to perform CPR on him twice at home in between hospital stays. And so if anyone’s ever performed CPR on an infant, challenging and scary as shit. So what happened? Tell us this story.
[00:12:37] Ben Norment: He was born three weeks early and when he came out, it was very clear that there wasn’t something quite right. He wasn’t taking big deep breaths. The nurses very quickly, you could kind of tell like, “Oh, they knew something wasn’t right.” And they called the NICU team in and the NICU team looked at him, took him away and then we were just there in the delivery room. And a couple of hours later, a
[00:13:05] Ben Norment: Surgeon came in and he was like, “Your son had what’s called esophageal atresia,” which means that his esophagus essentially wasn’t formed fully. So his esophagus just ended and it didn’t connect to the rest of his esophagus all the way to his stomach. And then he also had a fistula, a little tube that connected his esophagus to his trachea, to his wind pipe. Two days after he was born, they performed surgery to repair his esophagus and then cut that fistula. So that surgery went well. There was the start of a two month stay here in the NICU in Charlotte. So we went through that. He kind of healed. He was on a ventilator at start and came off feeding tubes, but eventually he healed from all of that and he came home with us. He came home on oxygen. He had a couple of incidents where he would go and he would feed and he would kind of start to choke and stop breathing.
[00:14:02] Ben Norment: And every time he’d always clear it. And then one time he did it. He couldn’t catch his breath again. And he turned blue and stopped breathing and performed CPR and the ambulance came and he went back to the hospital and we came home and a week later it happened again and we didn’t leave the hospital that time. And essentially what it turned out was that as part of his condition, the cartilage around his windpipe hadn’t really formed fully. And so when he would drink, the milk would go down in his esophagus and his esophagus would expand and it would expand up against his windpipe and it would collapse his windpipe. So he wouldn’t be able to breathe when he ate. That was the start of another two and a half months in the NICU. We actually ended up flying up to Boston with him to Boston Children’s Hospital where they performed a surgery, kind of a unique surgery that they only do there where they staple his windpipe to his spine to open it so it stays open.
[00:15:00] Ben Norment: We were really thankful we got in, they had a bed for us, they had room for us. The other option would have been that he had a trach and attached to a ventilator, which would have been challenging certainly. And so we were really thankful that we got into Children’s, but it’s one of those things where you’re like, there’s nothing that prepares you for that. I think it’s super cliched, but everyone’s always like, I don’t care what gender it is. I just want to have a healthy baby. And then you go through that and you’re like, oh yeah, I really just want to have a healthy baby.
[00:15:32] Adam Fishman: So throughout all those surgeries, did everything eventually heal and become to normal or does he still have a stapled thing?
[00:15:42] Ben Norment: He’ll have staples forever other than the really gnarly scars he’s got, you would never know that anything had happened. He runs around, he can play sports, he doesn’t have asthma. For the first couple of years they’re like, be careful if he gets respiratory illnesses or anything like that, but he’s never had any stepbacks from that time we left the hospital.
[00:16:12] Adam Fishman: Amazing. And it was really just like the plumbing that kind of connects all the important parts together.
[00:16:18] Ben Norment: And it’s incredible. I mean, this is like the miracles of modern medicine, right? A hundred years ago he would’ve died and now they’re like, “Yeah, we can fix this and make it all work.”
[00:16:31] Adam Fishman: Unbelievable. Well, I’m happy for you. I’m sad for you that you had to go through that experience, but happy for you that he came out unscathed on the other side.
[00:16:38] Ben Norment: Fourth birthday’s in a month or actually, I think his fourth birthday will have celebrated his fourth birthday by the time this comes out,
[00:16:45] Adam Fishman: I think. Whoa. Well, happy early birthday to him. So question, because you now have three kids and this is your middle kid and your youngest is what, six or seven months old, something like that? Yeah,
[00:16:55] Ben Norment: Six
[00:16:55] Adam Fishman: Months old right now. Okay. I’m wondering, so you have this fairly traumatic, stressful, multi-month experience with your son, multiple surgeries, CPR, all this thing. Did that make you hesitant to try for a third kid or were you and your wife actually more confident that you were like, “We can now handle literally anything?”
[00:17:16] Ben Norment: I mean, I think that second point is true. Once you go through that, you’re like, everything else seems manageable, and particularly with running a company, right? I went through that, whatever problems we face with Stork Exchange, they’re small in comparison. Well,
[00:17:31] Adam Fishman: They’re not life or death problems, right?
[00:17:33] Ben Norment: They’re not like … Exactly. No matter what, I’ll wake up tomorrow no matter what happens with this company. With that, one of the first things and I asked the doctor when we were sitting in the hospital before he even had that first surgery in Charlotte was, why did this happen? Is this something that would happen again? Is this something that we did during the pregnancy that would’ve made this? And the doctor was like, “Sometimes yes, this is genetic, but if it’s genetic, it’s accompanied by other things.” And the fact that it’s just showing up this way, it means that you are almost, this is just bad luck. One in a hundred thousand people have this happen to them, you’re the statistic. And it’s like, okay, well, so that made it a lot easier to confront the idea of like, yeah, let’s do it again. And I think in some ways both of us wanted to have another … I mean, I think we would’ve had a third child anyways, but I think it made us want to have a third even more simply because that had been such a traumatic experience and it had been such an abnormal experience that the idea that that would be our kind of last time taking having a newborn would be that way, where the first five months they’re in a hospital bed attached to tubes and you’re not measuring the normal milestones.
[00:18:54] Ben Norment: You’re not like, “Oh, are you crawling or rolling over?” You’re like, “Oh, are you breathing on your own and not on a ventilator today?” And so I think that really made us want to get that more typical experience again. We were just talking about it the other day and I think we both kind of had said having our third and going through the newborn phase again has been really actually pretty healing I think of some of the trauma that we went through. I think it’s been a blessing that we’ve gotten to go through the newborn phase again and have a third and not be going to the hospital every day
[00:19:35] Adam Fishman: Well, another thing that you told me that’s very related to this and then I promise we’re going to move on from the NICU and me giving you PTSD about that experience. So you have this belief that things that seem like a big deal your first time around as a parent really end up being quite trivial. I don’t know that you would maybe include CPR in the NICU on that list, but I have to imagine that after that second experience, of that experience with your son Baker, pretty much anything seems trivial compared to that. Would you say that that’s a fair assessment?
[00:20:08] Ben Norment: Oh yeah, yes, 100%. I think that’s one of those things where you’re like, “If I can do this and we can make it through everything is fine after this. “ So that’s definitely true.
[00:20:19] Adam Fishman: Yeah. A few sleepless nights don’t hold a candle to months in the NICU.
[00:20:25] Ben Norment: No, no, not at all. I think it’s going through it a second time is years or two. I think that first time you’re in sleepless, those first sleepless, well, in our case, sleepless month, it was like, “This is never going to end. This is the rest of my life.” And then now you’re like, “There is sunlight on the other side.”
[00:20:43] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Okay. So what would you tell founders who are thinking about starting a family or the flip side, parents who are thinking about starting a company? I know you said that there’s no real advice that you can give somebody in advance, but what would you tell somebody about this parenthood journey?
[00:21:03] Ben Norment: I think that parenting is simultaneously the most challenging and the most rewarding thing I’ll probably ever do. It’s cliched, I think, true, but do, but I 100% think it’s true. I think no one is going to challenge you and make you question whether you’re doing a good job like your own children and yet nothing is going to warm your heart and make you feel like this is all that matters in the world, like your kids will. And in a lot of ways, it is similar to a startup and running a company and those highs where you get your first deal or you launch a product and to a good reception, they feel incredible. And when things aren’t working and you’re like, “What am I doing with my life and what is happening here?” It’s the same. It’s such highs and such loves. For anyone who’s thinking of doing both, I think figuring out the balance between those is always going to be a challenge.
[00:22:12] Ben Norment: And I think in many ways they become incredibly intertwined. Sometimes with parenting, it’s hard to totally compartmentalize being a parent. There’s always stuff that comes up, kids get sick. The dance recitals at noon on a Wednesday, no one has anything else to do during that time. And at the same time, if you’re running a company, it’s not like you can just close your laptop at 5:00 PM and that’s it for the day.You’re always kind of thinking about it and you’re always on. If something goes wrong, if it’s big enough, you’re going to be the one who’s getting talked to about it. They’re both such all consuming things in a way that it can be tough to do both, but at the same time, it’s really fun. My kids are like, “Oh, you’re going to Stork Exchange today.” We had a warehouse sale here just to clear out our warehouse in Charlotte the other weekend and my kids were there the whole day with me and that was fun.
[00:23:15] Ben Norment: It’s fun to be able to share that with them and show them what it’s like to build something and run a business.
[00:23:20] Adam Fishman: Are your kids in any of the product photography on the website? That seems like very founder mode thing to do.
[00:23:27] Ben Norment: They 100% went. They’re not as much anymore. We’ve gotten to more professional models and photography, but 100% all of our early marketing photos were pictures of my children taken on my phone.
[00:23:41] Adam Fishman: I love that. And I knew the answer to that even though I had never asked you that question before. Okay. So you had a really funny take on parenting frameworks that I want to get to in a second, but I want to do a warmup for that for your parenting frameworks, which is you have this belief that it’s important for kids to be bored. So why is it important for kids to be bored?
[00:24:04] Ben Norment: I think boredom is one of those things that teaches you creativity. And if you can entertain yourself and you can figure out ways to entertain yourself, you’re never going to be bored. So I think being bored is something that really stimulates the mind. You have to figure out a way to entertain yourself. You end up sitting there and thinking with your thoughts. So many people say like, “Oh, the shower is the best place I think. “ Why? Because you’re not doing anything else in the shower. You’re just sitting there with your thoughts. And in a day where whenever you’re doing nothing, if you’re standing in line, you can just pick up your phone and entertain yourself for hours. It’s really hard to be bored anymore. And so I think it’s important to make kids and I try and be bored too. I mean, it’s important to make kids just be like, “Okay, it’s good for you to have time and to sit with your thoughts and think through things and figure them out and figure out how are you going to entertain yourself and process your day.” And that’s kind of where I think about it.
[00:25:07] Adam Fishman: Oh, love that. Love that. And I see the most amazing things happening with our kids when we let them be bored. My son has decided that he has become an expert chocolate chip cookie baker. And so whenever he’s bored, he’ll just be like, “I know how to entertain myself. I’m going to make some chocolate chip cookies.” Great. Everyone benefits from that boredom. So he does eat most of the batter on route to the baking tray, but that’s a different challenge. So your kids will get there at some point when they’re older. They’re younger than mine. I think your oldest is like five or so, right? I’m going to come back to parenting frameworks. And your funny take was that it sounds too organized for how you approach parenting, which I laughed when I heard that, but I also thought it was refreshingly honest and I really appreciate the candor because you’re not just trying to fake a level of organization that you don’t have, which that’s the whole beauty of this show.
[00:26:02] Adam Fishman: So people don’t have to feel bad about themselves as parents, different strokes for different folks. However, all that being said, you do have a couple of, I don’t know that I would call them frameworks, but principles or positions or beliefs that you hold. And so I wanted to talk about those really quickly and just run through a few of them. So the first one is something you said that you try to remember all the time, which is that they aren’t giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time. So what does that mean?
[00:26:35] Ben Norment: I think one of the best pieces of advice I got early on was one of our friends who has kids a couple of years ahead of ours and they’re like, “I have to remind myself that I’m sitting here arguing with a four-year-old.” And it’s so easy to, particularly once they’re walking and talking and you can really understand them to think like, “Oh, you’re just a mini adult, particularly because there are moments where they’re capable of such profound adultness and you’re like, oh, you’re so grown.” And then you have to remember, you are four years old, you are figuring out the world, you are figuring out your emotions, you’ve never done any of this before and you barely have the capacity to explain things when everything is running well. And so if you get a little overtired, you get a little over hungry, you get a little overstimulated, it all just kind of melts down.
[00:27:33] Ben Norment: I struggle sometimes when I’m tired or hungry overstimulated. And I’ve had 36 years to figure out how to at least semi-hold it together during that time. And so when kids are really melting down and we’re in the thick of it right now with our four-year-old, our middle child, who’s really kind of starting to process all those big emotions, a lot of it’s like, I don’t think you want to be laying on the floor here screaming because you can’t make yourself understood. I don’t think you’re not having a very good time here either. So I don’t think you’re doing this to punish me or make my life difficult. I think you’re really struggling right now and you’re trying to figure out how do I express myself and work through this. And being able to, and it’s not easy, particularly if I’m hungry or tired or stimulated, but being able to take a breath and be like, “Okay, this is just something we’re going to work through and we’re going to try and get through this moment and I’m going to try and help him cope with it, “ is oftentimes a good way to present it from becoming that I’m arguing with a four-year-old moment where it’s become an us or them like, “I have to win this somehow.” And it’s really there’s no winning.
[00:28:46] Adam Fishman: I’m glad that you said that. There really is no winning. It’s just like they’re not fully grown humans, it’s just going to lead to everybody having a bad time.That brings up something else that you told me, which is, and we’ve talked about this a few times on the pod, but you try to have this mindset that everything will pass, like everything passes and other dads have referred to this as like, everything in life is a season or I had one dad who said he has a mantra that’s just like, “This too shall pass.” The good and the bad. So tell me about how you’ve tried to develop that approach to having this idea that everything kind of passes at some point.
[00:29:27] Ben Norment: We kind of talked about it a litle bit earlier where it’s like a lot of things feel in hindsight, you’re like, “Oh, this is trivial.” It’s just not that big a deal. And a lot of it comes from that idea that all of this will change and you’ll move past it. And I think that was really interesting, as you said, both the good and the bad. I think a lot of times people talk about how you really need to try and be present and enjoy these moments with your kids because they will go by so quickly. And I see it now with our eldest being five and I’m years or older, so I’m sure you’ve She’s seen that even more. And all of a sudden they go, recently she didn’t want to go to bed and I was giving the baby a bath and she’s like, “Can I help you give a bath?” And I was like, “Sure, fine.” And she’s explaining to me how to bathe the baby.
[00:30:13] Ben Norment: I had never bathed the baby before.
[00:30:17] Ben Norment: I remember yesterday, you were the one in this bath, me giving you a baby bath. And she’s now explaining to me how I pour the water over him and he’ll get the water in his face. And I’m like, oh my God, this is too much almost. So I think it’s so true with the good. And this is true with the bad. It’s important to be present for all those moments that you’ll cherish because they’re going to go by so quickly. But when it’s bad, it’s also going to go by pretty quickly. And that’s one of the things that really got us through those five months in the NICU, was like, “Okay, we’re going to get through this and we’re going to get past this and he’s going to come home with us and that’s all you can keep telling yourself, push forward.” And that mindset is kind of kept up after that.
[00:31:05] Ben Norment: And I do think it’s easier with hindsight with number two or number three, because you’ve seen it. As I said, that first time you’re like, “Is this what my life is going to be like? My baby’s going to cry all night, every night, forever.” And they don’t and you get through it and it changes and it gets better in some ways, harder than others.
[00:31:28] Ben Norment: So when you go through the second or third time, you’re like, “Okay, I know how long this is going to last roughly.” And so that makes it a lot easier.
[00:31:34] Adam Fishman: I think one of the hardest things, all of this sounds good in theory and I’ve talked about this at great length with dads, but I think one of the hardest things is when you’re in the thick of it, let’s say it’s a bad thing that’s going on, not sleeping or kids flinging mashed potatoes all around the house or I don’t even know smashing things on the floor or something. Who knows? I don’t know what kids do these days. It’s really hard to pause and remember that this is a season or I’m arguing with a four-year-old or whatever. Is this something where you and your wife have to have a signal to each other or a way of reminding or how do you try to in those hardest moments, how do you try to ground yourself in the idea that it’s going to pass? Step out and take some deep breaths.
[00:32:27] Adam Fishman: I don’t know what your trick is here, but
[00:32:31] Ben Norment: I wish I had a trick that worked every time. This one simple trick will get you through the next 18 years of parenting. That’d be too good to be true. So I think the partnership thing is really important part of that. I think my wife and I are pretty good at recognizing when the other one’s starting to get a little overstimulated or too bogged down and being kind of like, “Hey, let me step in and take this here.” And I think a lot of times it’s easier to recognize when someone else is starting to meltdown than you sometimes recognize it. And then I think the other thing is as I’ve gone through this, I think my natural personality set is to just keep slamming my head into a problem again and again until I solve it, which questionable how will that works in life more broadly, but it really doesn’t work with a screaming toddler.
[00:33:20] Ben Norment: I’ve been able to mature enough, at least my number three now, where I find it easier to just be like, “Hey, look, daddy needs a minute. I need to leave this situation. I need two minutes to gather my thoughts and then I can come back and we can actually work through this and we’ll all be okay.” And I think the first time when you start out, it’s really hard to do that. And as I’ve done it, I’ve recognized that it’ll often save a lot of heartache down the line if I can just step back for two minutes. So yeah, that’s become a big part of it for me.
[00:33:57] Adam Fishman: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. I will take that under advisement in my own life. No, that has worked well for me too. So I agree with that. Okay. I want to stick on this topic of partnership and marriage and in life. You described that your approach with your wife’s Cindel is this team first approach and I’ve had other founders who have said they take a first team. You got a first team and it’s your wife, your co-founder, first team relationship. What does it mean to take a team first approach with your wife at home? I
[00:34:34] Ben Norment: Mean, I think one of the most important things is remembering that you two are a team first and foremost. I think one of my most distinct memories from childhood of how my parents parented was being told no by my mom and then being like, “All right, I’m going to go ask my dad because I bet he’ll say yes to this and doing it. And he said yes. And then he found out that I’d already asked my mom and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten in more trouble at that point in my life than that. And when your kids are like, okay, there are way worse things I could have done than trying to pit my parents against each other. I could have been out there doing drugs or something. Come on, that’s not that bad.” But as I’ve grown, I think as become a parent myself, I’ve realized that ability to say, “Hey, look, we’re on the same team here and we are going to support each other.
[00:35:29] Ben Norment: We’re always going to present at least a unified Trump. We might disagree, but we’re going to disagree and behind closed doors, we’re not going to argue in front of the kids about, hey, you can or can’t do this is really important because there’s no one else who has your back at the end of the day. You can have great grandparents who come and help you. You can have great friends who will help you, but no one is going to be in the trenches with you except your partner. And if you can’t trust them to have your back, if you’re not aligned on how are we going to handle these challenging moments, then you’re truly going to be alone. And you’re not just alone, but you’re fighting on two fronts.You’re fighting the person you’re supposed to be working with and you’re fighting against the kids and that just becomes unsustainable, I think.
[00:36:24] Ben Norment: So I’m very fortunate. I think my wife is phenomenal and I think she does a great job of embracing that attitude and I try my best to absolutely embrace that attitude as well, but I think it would be so much harder without feeling like I had a partner who I was always working with. Doesn’t mean we always agree. We definitely don’t. Philosophically, I think we generally agree.
[00:36:52] Adam Fishman: Why is it important for kids to understand that you are a person beyond just being their parent?
[00:37:00] Ben Norment: Because I am a person beyond just being their parent. And I think it’s important because your kids learn so much about interpersonal relationships from the way they treat you. I think about that so much, right? We’re in the phase with our two older ones where a lot of it is like, how do you talk to other people? And when you’re kind of in this at home and if you’re just kind of like, “Hey, I need this, I need that, do this, do that. “ And it’s like, “Hey, you have to talk to me like I am a person who feels emotions too. When you say things that are mean to me, it hurts my feelings. Just like if I said something mean to you, it would hurt your feelings.” And so I think teaching that is foundational to teaching your children to respect other people and to treat other people the way they would themselves like to be treated.
[00:37:54] Ben Norment: I also think it’s important because at the end of the day, you are a person and you are not going to maintain your mental sanity if you are in dad and mom mode all the time. I think we’re very upfront with our kids about being like, “Hey, mom’s not here tonight because she’s out with her friends being Cindel or I’m out with my friends being Ben.” And even with bedtime, it’s like, “Okay, it is bedtime because we need time to be Ben and Cindel and not mom and dad for an hour at the end of the day, or I’m going to absolutely go crazy.”
[00:38:27] Adam Fishman: And someday those kids will appreciate it. They will, because I think my kids do now and they’re a bit older. I love that. I mean, also, I think the other thing that you didn’t say, but I sort of is implied in what you said is it’s healthy for kids to know that not everything in the world revolves around them and what they need right in that moment. And so you’re teaching your kids there some boundary setting and stuff too, which is good for them to know. Otherwise, you raise entitled A- holes. So I totally get it. I think that’s awesome. Okay. You are a hard driving founder, right? That kind of comes with a job. And there’s a tendency in some of the conversations that I’ve had for dads to focus and moms too, but I mostly talk to dads in the show, to focus on handling your kids the same way you’d handle the company, like hard driving, super decisive, we’re going fast making a call.
[00:39:33] Adam Fishman: Dad says, “This is the way it’s got to go. “ Founder CEO says, “This is the way it’s got to go. “ But I don’t think you agree with that because you told me that it’s really important to let kids be kids and to not drive them too hard on stuff. So what did you mean by the idea of letting kids be kids and how did you develop that belief?
[00:39:55] Ben Norment: Yeah. So I went to a prep school outside Boston. It was ultimately, I think it was a good experience, but it was very intense. I’d leave for school at 6:30. I’d get home at 6:30. I would have tons of homework. You did a lot of extracurriculars. It was a very intense experience and it was focused on getting kids into good colleges and they’re very successful at that. One of my friends actually ended up going back to work there. He works in the administration now and we were talking the other day about what it’s like to get kids into those schools nowadays and he’s like, “Parents are enrolling their kids at six in math tutoring and starting music lessons and starting full-time sports.” And it’s kind of all consuming like, “Hey, I’m going to start college prep at six, seven years old.” To me, that’s insane and that’s maybe the most extreme end of it.
[00:41:08] Ben Norment: But I see it even here where we have friends whose kids play baseball and they’re eight, nine, and they’re playing travel ball and they’re in a baseball tournament every weekend.
[00:41:24] Ben Norment: I think the kids like it. I mean, I think they enjoy playing baseball, but that also seems like to me, that just seems so structured and so insane. I think back to my childhood before high school and some of my most treasured memories are just running around the woods with my friends and making up games in the retention pond that was in our neighborhood and playing pickup football in someone’s backyard. And it was so spontaneous and it was school finished up and you’d get home and you’d get on your bike and you’d go find the other kids in the neighborhood and you’d play for a couple hours until it was dinnertime. And I think that to me, that is such an important part of childhood and the idea that we’re going to start adulthood basically so early for kids in this pursuit of college and achievement seems really unhealthy and just likely you’re just going to burn people out.
[00:42:24] Ben Norment: It’s way too young. I think to me it’s really important to let kids have time to just be a child and to enjoy the world and to learn to explore the world. And it goes back to that idea of boredom, right? Because when you’re a kid and you’re just playing with other kids and there’s no parent around kind of telling you, “Hey, these are the rules. This is what you’re supposed to do here.” It forces you to learn a lot of things that I think are actually really important in life. It teaches you how to navigate kind of complex social arrangements. It teaches you how to create rules. It teaches you how to adjudicate disputes. It teaches you how to use your imagination to come up with ideas. And those are all important things because you leave, you can go through childhood and basically almost all the way through college in this very regimented way.
[00:43:19] Ben Norment: And then you graduate college and there’s no rule book anymore. No one’s kind of holding your hand through the rest of life. So I think not only are this unstructured time to be a kid, is it important because it actually lets kids enjoy their lives rather than just puts them on the hamster wheel of success here in achievement at the earliest possible age. But it also teaches a lot of the actual, I think in my opinion, the fundamental skills that you need to navigate the kind of more complex parts of life that are not so structured. That’s kind of my take on it. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for a simpler time.
[00:43:59] Adam Fishman: I mean, I think there is a pendulum swing back to that a little bit. We sort of see what some of the outcome is with kids that are pushed too hard or robbed of their childhood or whatever and they usually end up on a morning talk show blaming everything on their parents. So different strokes for different folks for sure. But I think I tend to align more with your philosophy than the other ones. Okay. We’re in the home stretch here. I did want to talk about something that I find really interesting and this comes up from time to time on the show. So you started a tech company like tech and logistics and retail kind of business, but you told me that you’re fairly anti-tech as a parent and that you don’t use much or really any AI in parenting, although I’m sure you use it professionally.
[00:44:51] Adam Fishman: So tell me more about that approach. Why is that your approach for parenting?
[00:44:58] Ben Norment: I mean, our kids get some screen time, but they don’t get a lot of screen time. We’re pretty analog, I think. I think we’re very far from the like, when do your kids get a device kind of conversation, but I imagine that we’ll probably be on the more very late adoption stage of that. I mean, I think it probably ties a lot to those earlier points about being bored about being a kid. Screen time is such an easy salve sometimes to this idea of like, okay, my kid is crying or bored or needs attention and it’s kind of the easy button. And there’s certainly a time and a place for that. And there are times where you’re like, “I need five minutes or I’m about to get on a four hour plane ride and I cannot entertain a kid for four hours straight.” And so there’s certainly a time or place for it, but I also see how my eldest in particular, our middle child’s kind of still ambivalent towards screens, plus on that four hour plan ride, I really wish she was into screens. She’ll watch a screen and it just captivates her and she’s like a zombie. And I’m just like, that just doesn’t seem bright. It just doesn’t seem healthy to me. This is one area where I can say that Cindel and I are very, very, very much definitely an agreement is that it’s just not great for them. It’s not great for their development, definitely not great for their behavior. We find all of our kids are generally much worse behaved afterwards. So I think that’s kind of our attitude on kids screen adoption, but I think it’s also a kind of feeling that I want to be a parent. And so again, I went to a prep school outside New England. I had quite a few friends who were essentially raised by nannies and they had often had really cool nannies, but they had very complicated relationships with their parents who often because they were pursuing very an intense career, essentially weren’t there for their kids and they outsourced that to another person.
[00:47:06] Ben Norment: And that is something that I really just don’t want to do having seen what that can be like in other instances. And so I think I’ve made it really, I think for better or worse, I’ve maybe chosen a more difficult route of just saying like, “I’m going to be 100% present in my parenting and parenting is going to be something I do myself.” And there’s probably a couple of things I could do with AI that would just make my life easier and wouldn’t really be outsourcing that parenting, but I think it’s that mindset that’s really kind of led to that. I don’t want to outsource the parenting part of it. Am I tired of coming up with a story at bedtime for my kid every night? Yes, I’ve 100% run out of ideas, but I still am not going to let ChatGPT write that story for me.
[00:47:58] Adam Fishman: I think that’s a great thing to end on. I really, really appreciate the sentiment captured there in what you just said. Thank you for sharing that. I think that’s awesome perspective. To end, how can people follow along or be helpful to you?
[00:48:11] Ben Norment: Yeah, so we would love for people to come and check out Stork Exchange. You can find us online at storkexchange.co. You can also, Instagram is generally the best place to follow our social stork_exchange. We are not the one that’s located in the Dublin Airport. We do occasionally get inquiries about stroller rentals for Irish vacations. Can’t help you there. So those are the two best things I think we can have people do for us.
[00:48:40] Adam Fishman: Well, I will definitely link to the website in the show notes, the Instagram handle, and we’ll tag you all over the internet when the show goes live. So thank you, Ben. All right, are you ready for lightning round?
[00:48:51] Ben Norment: Let’s do it.
[00:48:53] Adam Fishman: What is the most indispensable parenting product that you’ve ever purchased?
[00:48:57] Ben Norment: Our BabyBjörn bouncer that thing has gotten so much play with all our kids constantly just having a place you can put your baby.
[00:49:06] Adam Fishman: It is a great one. And the more they kick, the more it bounces, which is awesome. So what is the most useless parenting product you’ve ever purchased?
[00:49:14] Ben Norment: The SNOO. Our oldest two, I mean, Baker didn’t get a ton of time in it, but Elliot hated it and we ended up not using it for the third.
[00:49:23] Adam Fishman: What is the most popular product that is sold on Stork Exchange? The
[00:49:30] Ben Norment: UPPAbaby Vista.
[00:49:31] Adam Fishman: Oh, the stroller. Yes. I think I had one of those.
[00:49:36] Ben Norment: Yeah, they’re great. They are definitely the Cadillac of strollers. They’re great products, but they’re expensive and so people are very happy to save a couple hundred bucks on one.
[00:49:47] Adam Fishman: We had the double stroller version of that and it was like an M1 Abrams tank. That thing was so heavy to get up over a curb with two kids in it, but it worked. It was resilient, that’s for sure. All right What is the weirdest thing that you’ve ever found in your kids’ pockets or in the washing machine?
[00:50:05] Ben Norment: I feel like it’s just like this constant nature conservatory. It’s just like sticks, leaves, rocks. I reached into my pocket the other day and I was like, “Why isn’t my coat pocket so heavy?” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s like five rocks I was told to bring home from the park.”
[00:50:21] Adam Fishman: Those are probably the most precious rocks of all time in that pocket. Those keeper collectors edition rocks.
[00:50:29] Ben Norment: Yes. And you will get asked about them. Three months later, you’ll be asked, “What happened to that rock you were supposed to bring home?”
[00:50:36] Adam Fishman: It’s right here. Okay. True or false, there’s only one correct way to load the dishwasher.
[00:50:43] Ben Norment: I’d say that’s true. I have a pretty defined view of how you would load a dishwasher.
[00:50:47] Adam Fishman: Okay. Is this an area, is Cindel on the same page? Are you both marching to the same drum on that one or?
[00:50:54] Ben Norment: We marched to the same drum on that. I don’t know if one of us subconsciously taught the other person how to load it or if we just kind of mutually agreed on it, but we definitely have a compatible style there.
[00:51:07] Adam Fishman: Happy marriage. That may be the secret to a long and happy marriage. Okay. The ideal day with your kids involves what one activity?
[00:51:16] Ben Norment: I love taking my kids to the farmer’s market. We do it every Saturday. They get some donuts and a lemonade. We get some vegetables, eggs, fruit for the week. It’s good. It’s a good morning.
[00:51:31] Adam Fishman: If your kids had to describe you in one word, what would it be?
[00:51:34] Ben Norment: Hairy. I’m getting a lot of complaints about this beard right now.
[00:51:37] Adam Fishman: That may be a first for this pod. What is your go-to dad wardrobe?
[00:51:42] Ben Norment: A lot of sweatshirts, a lot of Vuori like pants, dark colors. You got to be able to wear stuff that is going to get really dirty.
[00:51:55] Adam Fishman: Yep. I look forward to sending you some more Startup Dad swag as part of the special guest gift for this pod.
[00:52:02] Ben Norment: I love swag.
[00:52:03] Adam Fishman: All right.
[00:52:04] Ben Norment: All branded.
[00:52:06] Adam Fishman: Okay. How many parenting books do you have in your house?
[00:52:09] Ben Norment: Oh gosh, way too many. Probably, I don’t know, probably 20.
[00:52:14] Adam Fishman: How many parenting books have you read cover to cover?
[00:52:18] Ben Norment: I would say probably seven.
[00:52:19] Adam Fishman: Wow. That may be a record for this show. But kudos to you. I’ll tell
[00:52:25] Ben Norment: You this though. Were all of those read before I actually had a child? Yes.
[00:52:30] Adam Fishman: Oh, okay. Got it. So now not a lot of parent book reading happens now.
[00:52:34] Ben Norment: Yeah.
[00:52:35] Adam Fishman: Okay. How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?
[00:52:39] Ben Norment: Oh, I’d say like four or five. Yeah.
[00:52:42] Adam Fishman: Would you think that number is going up or down as your kids get older? I
[00:52:47] Ben Norment: Would say probably going up. Going up is …
[00:52:49] Adam Fishman: They’re
[00:52:49] Ben Norment: Starting to land a little bit, which is a little more satisfying.
[00:52:52] Adam Fishman: That’s awesome. What is your favorite kids’ movie?
[00:52:56] Ben Norment: We’re really in a Toy Story phase right now. And I have to say the original Toy Story holds up incredibly. It is a genuinely great movie.
[00:53:07] Adam Fishman: Top-notch. On another note, what nostalgic movie can you just not wait to force your kids to watch when they’re old enough?
[00:53:17] Ben Norment: Home Alone. Easy answer.
[00:53:20] Adam Fishman: That’s excellent. How often do you tell your kids back in my day stories?
[00:53:25] Ben Norment: Not that often yet. I think because they’re a little too young to really grasp it.
[00:53:33] Adam Fishman: Okay. But it’s coming. Oh,
[00:53:35] Ben Norment: It’s definitely coming. It’s definitely coming.
[00:53:37] Adam Fishman: All right. What is your favorite dad hack for road trips or flights?
[00:53:41] Ben Norment: New toys. It’s not a good thing, but definitely new novel things, huge, huge hack and bribing them with snacks they don’t normally get. Look, you got to differentiate. Travel should be different and special and then they’re way more likely to react well to it.
[00:54:00] Adam Fishman: Good, good, good. I love that. Love that take. Speaking of takes, last question for you. What is your take on minivans?
[00:54:08] Ben Norment: Full convert. My wife just got one. It was a year ago now and I was very skeptical and I kind of wish that I had also gotten a minivan now. It’s just so practical. It’s just the most practical car and it’s pretty amazing.
[00:54:30] Adam Fishman: Awesome. Awesome. Team minivan all the way, you and your wife. Team
[00:54:33] Ben Norment: Minivan. I’m
[00:54:34] Adam Fishman: All on board. One more thing that the two of you are on the same team about. I love that. Well, Ben, thank you so much for joining me today on Startup Dad. I really appreciate it. Best of luck to you, Stork Exchange and your whole family, all three of your kids in Cindel for the whole rest of the year. Have a great rest of your 2026. Thank you.
[00:54:55] Ben Norment: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure and I hope 2026 is good to you too.
[00:55:00] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today’s conversation with Ben Norment. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes. Thanks for listening and see you next week.