Sarah K. Peck and Startup Parenting

Jul 20, 2021

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Today’s guest is someone we’ve wanted to speak to for years.

In fact, she was one of the first women we knew who not only worked in tech, but also had a thriving career in it. And this was long before we started Marvelous!

So, it goes without saying that Sarah K. Peck is a force of nature.

She’s the founder of Startup Parent — a company that focuses on the narratives we share (and more importantly, those we don’t) about work, parenting, and motherhood. She’s also the host of the award-winning Startup Parent podcast where she chats with incredible women about business and parenting.

And it’s her mission to make parenting easier in the Startup world.

Because here’s the deal: Silicon Valley cannot figure out kids.

Sarah says it herself, and we couldn’t agree more. In the world of startups where everything revolves around the new and cutting edge, children and paternity plans are still treated like unspeakables.

When Sarah first got pregnant years ago, she was the only pregnant female in her startup and things were incredibly tough for her to navigate — she even had to build her own maternity leave from scratch since her company had no infrastructure surrounding it.

All of that led her to the question - Where are the pregnant women in tech?

That’s when she started interviewing other women about their own experiences with startups and parenthood, which is how her podcast came about.

In today’s episode, Sarah talks about her employment history and how she transitioned to entrepreneurship, how she navigated parenting in an uber busy startup environment, the importance of representing diversity of experiences, and so much more!

Here’s a peek at what else we discuss:

How she worked with her CEO to build a viable maternity program
How she approaches money (and why she’s always had two jobs)
Why you earning money and resources is a part of activism
Why you should be raising your rates in your business frequently
The difference between bootstrapped companies vs. venture companies

And more!

As a society, we’ve been indoctrinated in a culture where hiding kids and women at home is normal. Which is why we believe talking about our unique challenges as working parents in startups is so important!

Resources

This week’s Joy:

We can relate to both of Sarah’s joys - chocolate and swimming pools. She has to eat chocolate everyday and loves getting into the swimming pool to recollect her thoughts and calm her mind.

This week’s Hustle:

Sarah’s hustle is simple and effective - the Control key on your keyboard. She specifically recommends the CTRL+F keys if you want to find something on a webpage and loves using text replacements as a way to save time.

This podcast is brought to you by the Marvelous online teaching platform.

Marvelous is an easy-to-use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Marvelous was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Marvelous.