Mompreneurs and Tech

OK, most people think that startups are done by 20-something guys who sleep on the floor, talk really fast and don't use deoderent. Well, that was kind of true 20 years ago, and that is the type of guy who some VCs like to fund thinking "Wow, they'll work day and night and all I have to do is pay their parking tickets". But what about those "moms" who are also "entrepreneurs"? Well, according to Marianne Costantinou of the San Francisco Chronicle, a women who has kids and wants to run a business "...has it all, all right: the chaos, the stress, the pressures of being mom and businesswoman all at once, all at the same time." Yes, she's a mompreneur!

And I just loved this "Mompreneur" story because it made me laugh. I've always been a mom and an entrepreneur. I married into a Silicon Valley startup (my husband got venture funding) back in the early 1980's. Symmetric Computer Systems. A Unix workstation company with a bunch of Berkeley grads.

While I was pregnant with our first child, I soldered the first five boards and wrote the manual while I was still going to Cal. When my daughter Sarah was born, she napped in the buyers office. Had her own tools and workstation set up for her to play. Loved the highlighter pens in the supply cabinet.

What was my day like? Morning commute from Rockridge to San Jose. Work all day with Sarah around the office. Around 5pm my father-in-law would get off work from Ford Aerospace and drive over to get Sarah and take her to her Grandma's house. Work continued until about 10pm. Drive over, get a sleeping baby, drive home. Sleep.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The company became kind of famous. Even did a talk last year for the Vintage Computer Fair at the Computer History Museum - "Before 386BSD: The Symmetric 375 and Berkeley Unix". Did the story of a startup, and dug up lots of pictures. Boy, did we look Berkeley. Even have a picture of Sarah as a baby held by her dad - lest they think it wasn't very long ago, he commented at the talk "She's in college now". (See A Wandering through the Vintage Computer Faire).

People were a lot more accepting of having a baby around the office in the 1980's than they are now. Must have been because it was a bunch of 20-something boomers creating a new industry. But there still was a much more tolerant attitude towards women - even moms - in tech then, because we all were having fun doing a *hard tech* startup. We were making a difference. And it wasn't odd to see a woman who had kids and worked - in fact, that was very ordinary.

Sadly, I don't see this today with the Gen-X managers and boomer investors. They're very rigid and intolerant of any deviation. Woe to the person who has an idea that his manager hasn't thought of first - that's a firing offence nowadays. Fun means only indulging yourself by using the business - not building the business itself as fun. Vulgarity is rampant - not discretion. Investment means scam - not product. In and out in six months. No wonder moms have to work at home nowadays to get by.

I've had a rule I've stuck with, whether I worked at other companies or at my own - if my cellphone rings and I'm in a meeting and it's my kids, I take the call. Made it clear to my staff and others. And they accept it. As long as you're up-front, it doesn't impact your work. Makes it less stressful, because you are always in the loop at home and at work.

It's crisis and unexpected situations that increase stress - just keep an even strain and it works out.

Glad I have those memories. But you'd think things would have gotten easier for younger women since this time, instead of harder. But it certainly hasn't.

Good thing kids get older - after doing startups in workstations, operating systems and networking, and semiconductors, my kids now work for me.