Dave’s 3 guests on E02 are co-founders and leaders of startups pioneering the $1 TRILLION FamTech sector – Charlotte Michailidis, CEO of Parenthood Ventures, Jennifer Nadelson, CEO of Scout, and Brittney Barrett, CMO of Kinside.
FamTech is a rapidly growing segment of the Innovation Economy, full of new solutions, products and services that serve the needs of modern families at every stage of life – reinventing wellness, childcare, fertility, aging, activities, education, conception, parenting and many other areas that create stress and difficulty.
As the world’s leading companies face an escalating war for talent, perks like foosball tables and kombucha on tap are no longer interesting; offering new kinds of benefits that address their “whole employee’s” 24/7 work, life + family needs is a differentiator.
Scout – www.scoutitnow.com – is a Boston-based startup helping solve the equation of work + home + family for parents looking for activities + solutions to keep their kids entertained, elevated and engaged. Scout’s app is designed to put productive time back into working parents’ lives by providing fast, easy access to thousands of quality kids’ activities.
Kinside – www.kinside.com – is a LA-based company launched out of Y Combinator whose app helps parents find child care – the most stressful and costly part of being a working parent.
Parenthood Ventures – www.parenthoodventures.com – is a founder ecosystem for early stage ParentTech companies building scalable products, services, apps, connected devices, experiences and businesses that help parents.
Podcast Highlights
3:30 – What is FamTech? Charlotte gives an overview of the $1 TRILLION sector
7:30 – Brittney addresses the $60B childcare sector; parents’ #1 spend
10:15 – Jennifer shares the findings on the massive losses in productivity that companies have – estimated at $10m / year with their employee parents spending work hours looking for activities for their kids
12:30 – Charlotte discusses the sea change in modern families towards more balanced gender roles and co-parenting
17:00 – Jennifer talks about the difficulty of being a working mom; the indirect need to for moms to work harder to overcome gender bias
19:40 – Charlotte shares that 80% of the startups at Parenthood Ventures ecosystem have at least 1 female founder; moms make the majority of decisions but this is slowly changing.
20:50 – Brittney talks market traction and investor reactions, and how the misperception of FamTech is that it is totally geared towards women
25:20 – Women in leadership roles are now role models; each guest shares their path to current role and what they’ve learned along the way
31:15 – Each guest shares their keys to success, as well as people and media that inform and inspire them.
Quotes
“The average US company loses $10m / year in employee productivity with parents distracted by the need to find activities for their children during work hours. As companies are focused on employee engagement and experience, the most progressive ones focus on “the whole employee” – not just during work hours, but with empathy that they have a life, family and home to manage and only 24 hours to do it.”
– Scout CEO and Co-Founder Jennifer Nadelson
“Childcare is estimated to be a $60B market, and the number one spend for (working) parents. Very little of childcare spend is transacted online, and it is a complex space without much technology. Trust is a major problem to solve – “when putting their children into childcare, parents are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best – up until now, not an easy way to get licensing info and transparency.”
– Kinside CMO and Co-Founder Brittney Barrett
“We’re in this amazing transition period where couples are approaching family life in a “genderless” way – 2/3 of them have the aspiration to co-parent, but only 1/3 are succeeding at it. As I became a new mother, my hands were busy, but my mind could look around. I saw parents struggling everywhere I looked. They were looking for solutions and not finding them – a massive market failure.”
– Parenthood Ventures CEO and Co-Founder Charlotte Michailidis
“It’s important to change the perception that starting or having a family has any impact on a woman’s ambition.”
– Jen Rubio, CEO, AWAY
