I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to join some of the most advanced and influential WordPress community this week. The 2012 WordPress VIP workshop in Napa was a really interesting and inspiring event. I think it was well worth the money.

I had been really wondering what to expect. I had thought that we might guide the agenda through some sort of collaborative process. Maybe even setting it when we arrived. I was surprised to learn upon my arrival that the schedule was in fact a fixed agenda.

The Scene

The receptionist asked us if we’d like some wine while we signed in before shuttling us to our room in one of the shinny new cars provided by their sponsor, Audi. I think Andy Skelton said it best when he pointed out that The Carneros Inn, where we were staying, felt like the set for The Prisoner. Eerily perfect and enclosed.

The Carneros Inn is a base camp for wine lovers. It is a village of high-end cabins and villas with several on site restaurants, a cafe, a 24 hour heated luxury pool and hot tub, a spa, and a deluxe gym. You can literally walk from there to at least a dozen wineries.

I was giddy when I entered my villa to find that it came equipped with a bright orange Francis Francis! X1 espresso machine. Though, somewhere between the heated tile bathroom floors, the indoor / outdoor shower system, my luxurious fenced in back patio with space for 20 people to lounge, and the enormous and supremely comfortable bed, I couldn’t help but wonder if this room wasn’t a bit overkill. What a shame that I never really had time to do more than sleep in it. I would have loved to have spent a day lounging.

The People

Sara Rosso threw this shindig together. Hmm… actually, that doesn’t really do it justice… This must have been at least as complicated as a wedding. Sara Rosso would make a heck of a wedding planner!

All in all, there were about 50 attendees including the 17 “Automatticians”. Sadly, only 4 of the attendees were female. And in terms of ethnicity, while there was some variety, about 70% of the group was comprised of white guys. I’m not sure why, but there definitely seem to be a lot of white guys (about my age too) in the WordPress community.

Aside from the Automattic team, the people attending the workshop were pretty high caliber in terms of knowledge and business size. I was honored to count myself, and the folks from my team (Jonathan Brinley and Joey Kudish) among a group of people representing the likes of Time, CBS, MAKE Magazine, and All Things Digital. The most amazing thing on top of that was the fact that we all were so open and giving with each other. I’m not sure if that’s a WordPress thing or if that was because of the environment, but we all were completely excited to share our hard earned innovations.

The Automattic team in particular made themselves very approachable. I never got the sense that I was on the outside of a clique. Instead, I felt that I had been given a free pass to hangout and be a part of the internal workings of this stunning company (as though I had a golden ticket to Mr. Wonka’s Website Factory). The team did an excellent job of setting a tone of mutual respect and exchange. The result was an easy environment where everyone was eager to learn.

The State of the Word

It was really exciting to see Matt Mullenweg open the sessions with a summary of his view on the state of WordPress and with an intro to VIP in particular. One thing that he talked about that I am particularly interested in is the evolution of WordPress from a blogging platform, to a CMS, to an application engine. I’m especially interested in this because our own Events Calendar Pro is a step in that direction. In fact I later talked with Raanan about the prospect of putting our Events Calendar plugin on wordpress.com so that the greater WordPress user community could easily access it. I got the sense that it’s not totally out of the question.

Shortly after Matt wrapped up we had the pleasure of hearing from the Automattic CEO / “Band Manager”, Toni Schneider. Toni kicked it off with some mind blowing numbers to give us some context. WordPress powers at least 16% of the entire web! What’s more, WordPress is credited with running 53% of all CMS powered sites. It is leagues ahead of every other platform. Given that context, I suddenly felt like I was at a summit of world leaders. Actually, more than anything, I felt empowered. That reaffirms my sense that I’m in the right industry and that we have the power to make an impact in the world (or at least the western part of the world)

Matt and Toni are both wonderful speakers. If you haven’t had an opportunity to attend one of their talks, I highly recommend it!

The Sessions

All the sessions were great. They all had useful information. Some were not quite advanced enough for me but I am pretty sure that there were other folks who got a lot out of those sessions too.

Some of my favorite sessions included Mo Jangda’s debugging session, both of Mike Adam’s performance sessions, and Nikolay Bachiyski’s code standards session.

Mo’s debugging session was a real eye opener. He started with a pretty straight forward agenda, walking us though various basic approaches to WordPress debugging. About half way through the session, he presented us with a nasty image uploader bug and then simply told us to solve it. Many of us were completely unprepared to put our coder hats on and dig into it. I personally was having trouble mounting the drive for the Virtual Machine they gave us and didn’t bother for at least 15 minutes before I realized that people were seriously struggling with this bug. Joey and Jonathan (both representing our team) were the only people in the entire room of WordPress experts to solve the challenge! Go team! In terms of a lecture to learning ratio, that was probably the most efficient and impactful session I’ve ever attended.

Mike Adams wins the prize for preparedness. His sessions were 150% thought through. He gave us powerful examples of caching both in WordPress AND in Javascript. Did you know that rendering elements to the DOM has significant overhead? His solution: render the nodes to a variable and then when you’re done, render the variable to the DOM. He did this in a demo, that we all could try, where we could see a consistent and dramatic result.

The big take away from Mikes sessions… the best way to get a feature to perform is to not have the feature at all. But if you have to include it, then use the green waste mantra:

• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle

Nikolay presented a number of workshops. In general, that guy is pretty damn funny. In particular, he presented on WordPress coding standards. Fortunately, we had also just started a significant company effort to standardize our code for WordPress so we were primed for this talk. In fact his talk answered many of our questions. I learned that the spacing habits that we inherited from Nick Ohrn are being applied in all new Automattic code.

It’s lovely because it makes things so much more readable. The only gripe I have with it is in the case of actions and filters. If you add a space arbitrarily between the parentheses and the quotes, then it makes it harder to text search the WordPress code base. In other words, if I search the code for
do_action('wp_head", do_action( 'hp_head' ); will not be returned. Instead, I now have to regex search for do_action\(\s*'wp_head.

The other thing that was pretty exciting was being present for JJJ and Beau’s announcement that WordPress.com is going to be launching a JSON api. I just really like being present for big announcements. It makes me feel special.

The Night Life

Photo courtesy of Adam Tow

Of course every night was spent swapping tales at the open tab bar (Is it wrong that I fell in love with a beer in wine country?). To some degree, this was more important to me than the day sessions. I found that at night, while we were all loose and receptive, we could have the most interesting and unconstrained conversations that varied from Crosspost Architecture and Coding Standards to Krav Maga and the pursuit of a satisfying life.

And of course, the last night was my birthday. After the bar closed, Raanan and Sara busted out the store bought vodka tonics in plastic cups. #feelingthelove.

The Learnings

After an intensive week of submerging myself in the WordPress discourse, my biggest take away is actually that our team is pretty awesome. We know this stuff. I personally realized that I am more savvy than I thought. I didn’t really learn anything new. In fact, I felt like I could have taught many of the sessions myself.

This is not the first time that I have done something like this only to realize that I know more than I thought I did. And it is by no means a waste of time or money. On the contrary, it is very empowering. It inspires me to work harder and apply my knowledge and share the fruits of my efforts. And that… is priceless.

Talk: Planning for the First Year of Freelance

I started freelancing full time out of necessity during the dot bomb in 2001. There were no blogs on freelancing, no conferences, but I was deeply blessed to find a mentor who helped me avoid the worst mistakes my first year. While you shouldn’t get paralysis by analysis (just get started), certain key tips often make the difference between navigating a successful freelance career and a lot of sleepless nights. Whether you are dreaming about freelancing or in the thick of bootstrapping, be practical and be intentional about running a business and you will be successful.

At the heart of my talk I will cover: How to make money, How to keep it and how to still live the life you want.

* Why you ALWAYS get a deposit
* What to spend money on and what to skip
* How to get a business license and what form of business to choose
* Don’t be a cowboy, get input from the right people
* Why you should clock your time, even if your aren’t paid for it
* Contracts matter – finding a template you can use
* The IRS is watching: separate bank accounts and track your finances
* Planing makes you real money: think about deductions and expenses now
* Avoid the bad projects and evil clients with a project checklist
* 6 months in the bank = freedom to define your terms
* And so much more…

And if you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 discount we asked for Modern Tribe friends with promo code “CSP12”.

The most common question I get when speaking to new, and even experienced, freelancers is “What should I charge?”

How should I set my rate?
Hourly or Fixed?
How much will I make this year?

I have a formula I use to raise or lower my rate, as well as some key strategies you can use to set up a good game plan. The key is to be intentional and strategic.

This talk was given at International Freelancers Day 2011.

It took me 5 years to realize that applies to my business even more than to the problems I solve for my customers.

What are the biggest problems in your business? Are you out of time? Team unreliable? Can’t seem close the right deals? For over 5 years straight our income doubled. I can tie each of those growth spurts to internal operational decisions. Working on our business as well as our products & services has proved the most profitable expenditure of time and resources we have made. We improved and systematized project management. We standardized our approach to certain projects. We set actual goals. We identified and propagated culture intentionally. Each of these paid off handsomely.

Work on Your Business: Tracking

The day I realized I had a business marked a significant change. While many people start a company intentionally, I started doing technical services on the side. It took me two years and an argument with Boeing Co’s HR to realize I was a company (of 1) not just writing code. The interesting challenge with being in business without realizing it is that you don’t work on the business itself. Thanks to some good advice, I approached the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and asked for some help. They set me up with a bookkeeper (for free) who guided me through the process of putting together a financial plan and accounting books.

I clearly remember the questions she asked, mostly because I had no idea how to answer them.

“What is your most profitable service? What are your time and expenses associated with building new customers? How much of your time is not billable?

How are you supposed to make any decision on the direction of your business when you have no idea how things are going?”

She sent me home with a basic task. Start by tracking everything. You don’t know what is important yet, but if we have the data, we can begin to tease out the answers once you figure out the right questions. I clocked ALL my time, not just the time spent on projects. I became serious about tracking and entering finances. When we met three months later, we dug through my data and rapidly doubled my income by removing a few major distractions and unprofitable services.

Where Did All Our Money Go?

As our company continued to grow, tracking became more and more important. In fall of 2010, Peter, Reid & I were staring at the P&L from our agency. Something simply wasn’t adding up. We were working harder than the numbers were showing. We had the feeling all year but simply couldn’t nail it down. We track everyone’s time, the services provided, the dollars in and out.

We stepped out for a business retreat and took the phones off the hook. After 3 days of focus, a pattern emerged and we realized we had been losing a lot of money.

I like to invoice clients by the 3rd of each month. For hourly contracts, I would calculate all the hours worked, and send the bill. Tragically, It turned out that a large number of our contractors were not as diligent as I in entering their hours. Most of their hours would be in, but periodically people would backfill a couple hours before sending in their invoice. Problem was, if I had already sent out the bill to the customer, those hours got missed. We would pay the contractor for their time, but weren’t getting paid for it. It was almost always a small amount, never more than 2-3 hours a person per month. Small enough that we never noticed. When you multiple it times 25-40 people (depending on the month) across many months though, it added up.

We realized over $60,000 of billable time had been given away to our customer in 2010 when we caught this (ouch). The fix was easy. We build “The Clock Blocker”, a little app that put a rolling 3 day limit on time entries. I made sure to wait until the 4th of the month to run my reports. It took a couple hours to solve the problem. Without the data we were tracking though, we would have never have identified the issue.

Now we know, and knowing is half the battle.

I’ve got nothing against Responsive Design. In fact, I think it’s great. This isn’t a critique of responsive design inasmuch as it’s a critique of how we as a community adopt mantras at the expense of our process.

We Love to Love Things

We (the web creation industry) did what we do best with brilliant insights. We wholeheartedly, unabashedly embraced it. New grid systems, and javascript libraries were produced seemingly overnight. For decades we have looked at a 400x500px jpg the same way. Suddenly it’s got a certain allure, a newfound responsive sexiness that we didn’t see before. As with any new web technology, we see it start to pop up in our internal work first. Designers portfolios were flexible. Conference websites looked as slick on my busted ass iPhone 3G as they do on my equally busted 24 inch Dell monitor. We were preaching to the choir and the choir was singing along in perfect harmony.

All is not well in the world

Here’s where I go all Debby Downer on you. Somewhere in-between Ethan Marcotte’s line in the sand and www.mediaqueri.es we went from “Responsive Design” to “responsive design.” The goal became – “make this fat site skinny. Look! it animates as it gets skinnier.” Responsive design became an implementation technique and not a design strategy, the html version of a glossy button. It skipped right over all the things that we learned from “Mobile First” and “Content First” and “Users First” and went straight to the fun part. Design is more than what you end up seeing on the screen.

I love working in photoshop. I love writing code (most days). To me there is no better way to spend a day than designing something and seeing it come to life. We need to remember the core principles of Design happen before photoshop and textmate. It’s not about how to make fat websites skinny. That’s a byproduct, that’s implementation. It’s about how we as designers and builders and keepers of the internet magic fairydust can provide better solutions for our users and for our clients. That, as we all well know, happens before the first pixel comes into digital being.

Back in the dark ages (like 6 months ago), we debated whether or not websites also needed apps and whether those apps should be native or web. We were forced to start at the beginning. What do users need when they’re on their phones? Do people interact differently when they’re on their couch vs their desk chair? If I’m browsing this site while I’m driving in traffic, how can I get what I need without killing someone? Producing device specific code was costly. It wasn’t something that you could just toss off in a week or two before launch. The scope and scale of the effort necessitated the use of our whole brains. We approached it with Design with a capital D. For the record, we screwed it up all over the place. We made some good decisions, and many more bad ones. I’m sure the collective budgets of every poorly conceived and unnecessary iPhone app could feed a small nation for the next decade.

Design with a Capital D

Design is a multifaceted beast. It is UX. It is Content. It is Context. It is Visual. It is even Marketing and Branding . It’s the meat and the sizzle as I like to say (I’ve never once said that, punch me if I ever say anything remotely that lame). My personal challenge is to remember that this shit is complicated and beautiful. Lets not cheapen it by making things skinny, patting ourselves on the back, and moving on. It’s time to go back to our process and start thinking about device and context when we kick off a new project. How does responsive thinking affect our content strategy? How does it affect our advertising (there’s a great discussion of this starting now at markboulton.co.uk)? How does it effect our ongoing deployment strategies and feature releases? How does responsive thinking make our own businesses stronger?

So I’m the guy that asks a bunch of annoying questions and then bails. Before I do, let me reiterate for clarity. I believe much of the thinking on responsive design has been absolutely brilliant. It is Big Think at it’s finest. I love the questions and I love the discussion. Since then, we’ve become enamored with the output and not the process. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon with answers or more likely questions.

There were a few simple pieces of advice that truly helped me. Some were environmental and other behavioral. So I got the team together and here are the thoughts we wanted to share.

From Shane:

You need your own space.

This is simply non-negotiable. First of all, babies are loud. They hoot and holler and cry and shriek and giggle. It is cute as hell, but is an overwhelming distraction if you are trying to focus. Crying can also get stressful at times (that is genetically intentional, are you really such an asshole as to ignore your crying baby?). Add that cacophony as background noise to a meeting and I guarantee your clients will get annoyed and you will feel like giving up.

I had a friend advise me to replace the door to my office with a solid core door and weatherproofing like therapists do to keep the sounds both in and out.

If you can’t get an ideal space at home, it might be time to sign up at a coworking space or scope out a few trusty coffee shops. You could also spring for the hotspot on your iPhone or one of those verizon cards and then work anywhere.

Don’t wake up the baby or you will pay.

I make noise when I work. I like to pace. I get excited and speak louder during certain calls. I curse when I code. I had to learn to keep that to myself. Trust me, if you wake a sleeping baby, your spouse or caregiver will torture you (and the baby will finish you off if they don’t first). Sleep is sacred and must be protected at all cost. Plan for coffee shop visits, organize your call schedule and do everything you can to ensures a disturbance free nap and good night sleep.

You can tell the difference between a parent and non-parent based upon their response to a missed nap:

#nonparent – oh thats fine, they’ll just sleep-in tomorrow morning
#parent – I’m so fucked. Now they will be all wired and cranky all day and won’t sleep tonight. Today is going to SUCK.

The thing is, sleep begets sleep. Lack of sleep begets lack of sleep. And as most of you know, lack of sleep = emotional, cranky you. Same thing for your kid.

Good work requires good sleep.

You will need sleep. You will need to build strategies with your partner to get some sleep. Trade off based upon who is a natural morning or evening person. Take naps. Make a plan.

The number one thing I can advise based upon our personal experience: your baby needs its own room (or at least not sleep in your bed). Serenity slept in our room for her first 6 months. We were struggling with sleep, so Julie and I debated moving her to her own space starting about 2 months. After some debate, we were worried about SIDS and simply weren’t ready. So, Serenity continued to sleep between us and Julie would wake up about every 45 mins – 1.5 hours to nurse (often waking me up). The thing is, we simply could not sleep well with a baby in our bed as we had to stay aware (or you could crush the tyke if you are an active sleeper like me).

We finally managed to get the baby out of the bed when Julie started to have serious hallucinations from sleep deprivation and the doctor told her she HAD to put Serenity in her own room. Whether you cry it out, or carefully get them down without a peep is up to you, but sooner rather than later, reclaim your sleep.

Honor the calendar.

I loved the flexibility of freelancing. I worked when I wanted, ate when I was hungry, surfed when I felt like it. That had to change.

Happy babies are creatures of habit and your spouse will want you around and need your help. Giving them a specific time on which they can count on you to be 100% present will give you the freedom to be 100% focused on your business at other times. You just can’t be 50% present for long. It will get you in trouble and feeling fragmented.

While I really didn’t want to be a 8-5:30 kind of guy, it became the best plan for my family. I helped a bit in the morning, then got focused. Evenings became family time. I stopped picking up the phone, checking email. If necessary, I could do another night session, but in the early days it just wasn’t that realistic. Serenity did her best uninterrupted sleep in the first cycle (6:30 – 10/11) and I needed to capitalize on that. I was beat.

I had another challenge which the calendar solved. Julie knew and respected that I was working as I had worked from home for close to 9 years at that point. With a new baby came new challenges and new experiences and she just had to share. Often the door would open and Julie would come in to share things. It was wonderful but made it really hard to focus. We discussed it a lot and finally came up with a solution. 2-3 times a day, I opened a 15 minute window to be present with Julie so she could share things with me and so I could help a bit and give her a break. Giving her those windows allowed my office space to remain an interruption free zone.

List making will save your ass.

The more tired I became, the harder it was to multitask and the further my accountability degraded. I forgot things, got confused and my productivity simply fell apart. List making used to be an awesome substitute for my long term memory. After the baby, it became a substitute for my short term memory as well as my long term memory.

Have a list for everything that comes up. The night before you go to bed, review that list and pick the 2-5 key things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Then in the morning you can triage your communications and add a few things as needed, but ultimately focus on the 2-5 things. They will help you focus on the important as well as the urgent. The more sleep deprived you are, the harder it is to differentiate.

Clocking your time matters even more.

You work hard. We all do. When your short term memory is completely shot though, it is hard to get perspective. Sometimes you will feel like a failure and think you aren’t to keeping up. Other times you will think everything is fine (and just haven’t noticed yet that you are hip deep in quicksand).

Clocking is your lifeline. It will honestly tell you how hard you are working and if you are applying your energy in the right places. It will tell you if you working yourself to the bone on the wrong project. It will confirm that you did in fact work this week when you can’t remember it what so ever. There is brutal honesty in time. Take advantage.

Be Realistic

We’ve worked with a few first-time freelance moms over the last 10 years. They were smart, talented and driven. It turns out, their expectations were also unrealistic. When we discussed their plan, it was to work a few hours during naps and then in the evening. It seemed sound in theory. Each time it would start off wonderfully and then they would start to miss deadlines. It became only a matter of time before we got the call that said, “I don’t think I can freelance and be the full time care provider for a baby. The schedule is just too unpredictable. I would be fine if these were small projects with no deadline, but having to operate in the absolute lack of control that is full time child care, I just can’t seem to make deadlines and stay healthy and sane.”

If you are switching off responsibilities with your partner or only have part-time care, then you need to be realistic. Don’t expect you can simply handle 50% of your load. It is probably less. Only time will tell, but if you are about to start that adventure, I would estimate your ability to kick ass lower than you might guess. Its always nicer to be succeeding than suffering.

From Brad F.

Get some headphones.

Get some good over the ear headphones (especially if you can’t afford
the solid door and weather stripping Shane advised). There is a reason
I wear those funny looking things. That $100 could be your quickest path to sanity.

Give your spouse a break.

Know that as hard as you are working being both a new dad and business owner, your wife is working harder. And often she’s sacrificing her own body in the process. So give her a break as much as you can. Change some diapers, put the baby down for naps, do the dishes, etc. And as soon as you can get your wife out of the house for some time away. As soon as it was possible (not actually that soon) we got Sarah away for a girls weekend, and that was a huge refresher for her.

This IS the Most important thing.

Sometimes it will seem like your kid/family is the most important thing in the world… that’s because they are. Don’t feel bad about putting other things on the back burner. Get your priorities right early on and you won’t have to wish things were different later.

I recently had someone give me some pretty heavy advice. He said, “It doesn’t matter how good of a job you do in your career – if you fail as a husband and a father then you fail as a person.”

Do what works for you.

Shane has good advice here, and so do I and so does Jonathan and Casey… And so does everyone else you’re going to talk to. Take it in and learn what you can. But eventually you’re going to have to pick works best for your family. Be happy with that and don’t feel inferior because you don’t or can’t or decide not to do something like another family. This can be easy to say but hard to really know sometimes. There are millions are ways to raise a kid (and work from home at the same time); know that if you are doing your best then you are doing it right.

It’s all a phase.

As a dad, the first few weeks might seem easier than you would expect. Don’t worry, it will get harder. And as things get bad, don’t worry, they’ll get easier again. But it’s all okay because the main thing to remember is this: IT’S ALL A PHASE.

No matter what kind of hilarious antic your kid is doing or impossible sleep schedule they’re on or weird eating patterns are happening it will surely change. Remember that to help you get through the rough parts and to remind you to pay attention to the good things.

Sunny screamed and cried a ton (especially when we were trying to put her down to sleep) from weeks 6-10. At the time it was insanely difficult and it seemed like it would never end (we had visions of an 18-year-old crying for an hour every night before bed). But looking back it was just another phase in our little kid’s life.

Advice from Jonathan B.

Schedule with intention, not just blocks.

My most productive weeks are the weeks when I’ve taken the time to make the most detailed schedules. Not just “I’m working 9-5:30, and I’m with the family at other times”. Take some time at the beginning of each week to specify when you’re working on which projects (it sometimes even helps to plan out which tasks you’re working on). With no short-term memory and no long-term memory, things are easily missed. The more your calendar can remind you of, the better.

This also extends beyond your work schedule. If you want to commit to helping with child-care, schedule that, too. Schedule the nights you’ll give the kids baths; schedule the nights you’re going to stay up with the screaming baby; schedule some time each week for your wife to be kid-free (and some time for yourself); schedule meals you’re going to cook and meals she’s going to cook. For that matter, schedule a time to sit down with your wife and schedule the coming week. It sometimes seems like overkill, scheduling life to that extent, but we’ve found it to be remarkably helpful. You get things done without wondering if there’s something more important you’re supposed to be doing. You have time–just a bit, anyway–to relax without guilt. You free up your mind to focus on “right now”, because you’ve already taken care of worrying about “later”.

You can multitask (somewhat).

Get a Boppy pillow. For the first 2-3 months, it lets you code and hold a baby at the same time (put the baby’s head on your left arm).

Advice from Casey

TOTALLY agree on the headphones. I’ve also found it extremely helpful to get some headphones with a built-in mic and quick mute button for when on Skype/conference calls. (I use these headphones and they work great)

Be a servant leader.

A wise man once told me about a statement that has guided his life as a father and husband: “Die to Live.” In other words, put your family’s needs before your own, and you’ll experience a richer family life than you ever imagined. It’s not easy to do (and I screw up often!), but it’s worth it.

Create a family mission statement.

Shortly after our first son, Caleb, was born, Mary Beth and I created a Mission Statement for our family after reading the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective Families.” We’ve since hung this on our fridge and periodically review it to see how we’re doing as a family in regards to this mission. It’s been helpful for us to correct our course when we’re off track. I would highly recommend that book and creating some kind of Mission Statement for your family.

Advice from Nick C.

Schedule date nights.

Or they won’t happen. Babies are hard on relationships, you need to stay connected or you’ll disconnect. [shane: Also, if you don't have a support network, spend the money on the babysitter, they are cheaper by the hour than a marriage counselor.]

Don’t do anything outside the house for the first 2 weeks (3-4 if possible).

And I mean anything (besides Dr. visits of course). Don’t go out as a family. Don’t have tons of visitors. Just hang out with your new little miracle and learn the ropes. Overdoing it will wipe out you, and especially your wife. If she gets wiped out, bad things can happen (exhaustion, dehydration, mastitis if nursing, etc). The more you take it easy at first, the better you’ll all do later (and when you head back to work). We overdid it with our first, and were hermits with our second. While everyone wanted to see our baby, invite us to things, etc. We treasured that time with her and my wife recovered much more quickly with the extra rest. Having moms/friends around to help around is great, but they are there to help, not be waited on. Their reward is the precious commodity of baby time

I had to stop working at home, eventually.

Focus was impossible once my daughter hit a certain age, so I got an office 5 min away. I go home for lunch, but have time to work. But do what works for you

Take parenting advice with a big grain of salt. [Shane: irony noted]

Everyone (and I mean everyone — even complete strangers) will start giving you parenting advice. Take it with a grain of salt, and do what works for your family. Even if something is sold as a ‘sure fire’ solution that worked for them, all babies and families are different. Do what works, even if it seems odd/weird/whatever.

Go with your gut.

You (and your wife) possess the most intimate connection with your child. If your gut says something listen to it, it’s usually right, even if you’re doctor/whoever doesn’t believe you. Corrolary: find a doctor who listens to and trusts you as the parent.

Get some sleep.

My wife has bed shared with both our kids, and she/they were better rested for it. I did not bed share (aka I got kicked out) — which was good because I got better sleep as well. It’s just for a season — and at a certain point, you don’t care what’s normal/what should be, just that everyone is rested and happy.

You’re stronger than you think.

You’ll be amazed what you can accomplish on so little sleep (but get as much as you can).

The kids run the roost (for now).

I was a night owl. My kids are not. Things go a lot smoother when I don’t fight that.

Get a carrier.

Mobi wraps and Ergos are easier on your back than the Bjorns (and similar). At some point you’ll need that arm back, and babies love to be carried.

Hold your baby.

It won’t be long until he/she wants to squirm out of your arms — treasure this time.

Teach your baby to sign.

It does wonders in avoiding tantrums over inability to communicate (start around 6 months).

Advice from John G.

I’m a pretty new dad (my daughter is 9 months old), so definitely still in the learning curve Not sure I have any advice, but here’s some thoughts.

Find your own patterns.

Like some of the other guys have said I’ve found that you have to do what works for your family. Sleep is obviously very important for the parents when the baby is waking up all the time. In our case, however, everyone kept telling my wife that she had to sleep when the baby was napping, and that ended up stressing her out so much that she couldn’t get to sleep to nap because she had herself so psyched out that she had to sleep. Eventually she found ways to get her sleep by getting to bed earlier and sleeping in longer, but my point is that we had to find something that worked for us.

Being home is worth the distractions.

Another thing for me is to enjoy the time as much as possible even when it can be really hard at the beginning because it flies by so fast. I’m only 9 months in but it seems like we just had our daughter yesterday. We’re in a great position that we can see our families during the day and be flexible with out schedules, so I’d just say take advantage of that. I’m really thankful that I can be home to see a lot of firsts (starting crawling, starting waving, etc).

Also, take lots of pictures

Advice from Dan C.

Solitude.

Nick went as far as moving to an office but I’ve found a room with a shut door and headphones works to a degree and Sara taking the kids out all the time during the day is wonderful.

Day trip Vacations.

Take advantage of being a freelancer. We took (and are trying to take) our kids to Disneyland a lot, at least once a month one year; it’s a great day of quality time with the entire family and I found it helping my work a little since I was forced to step back and re-coup.

Self awareness.

Sometimes we get caught up with work and find ourselves rolling at high speed. As a freelancer, we often feels great at first, after all you are earning good money and providing for your family. It is easy for our success can get out of control. It’s your responsibility to monitor your work load and habits. It’s not fair to burden your spouse and sacrifice the time with your kids. It’s all about priorities and knowing money (from working hard) doesn’t raise your kids to be successful and good people in 20 years.

Schedules for everyone!

I was going to bring up the importance of putting your kid on a schedule (feeding, sleeping, etc.) and the importance of not co-sleeping because of the importance self-soothing. Self-soothing isn’t some trick, there’s purpose: problem solving independence, self-awareness, respect, etc..

Sounds bad but don’t let the child control you, I strongly believe if you do it will take a lot of discipline when they’re older. …

Anyway, as you can tell it’s heavily debatable and there’s a ton of exceptions and detail that isn’t good for an email format. While what I said is utilitarian it’s unlikely useful for every child, for example if your baby is sick there’s no way to have a strict schedule…the list goes on and on.

Conclusion

We know some of what is ahead. But your’s will be different. The great thing is that you are not alone. We are here to help, to listen without judgment (and sometimes to poke fun without listening), to give random advice and mostly, to celebrate the journey.

Congratulations you guys and good luck.

[This post will self destruct in 5 second…4…3…2…1]

What’s a business retreat look like?

We set an agenda. This usually takes a solid hour itself. We break things up by “needs a computer,” “fun to talk over beers,” and “we could discuss this while surfing.” We try to balance detail work and high-level thinking so that we don’t burn out too fast.

The Effs

We start off every retreat with a little checkin. As you may know, we’re pretty fond of mantras around here. Our retreat mantra goes like this: Family, Friends, Finance, Faith, Fitness, and Fun. You’ll see that these things are not directly business related. We’re in business to enable us to live the kind of life that we want, so our checkin is about us as people. Family, friends, and finance are pretty self explanatory. Faith is an interesting one. It isn’t a religious checkin (though it could be). It’s often followed by the question “Are you happy with your place in the world? Do you feel like the business is taking you where you want to go?” You may be surpised to see Fitness on this list. We’re very aware that our physical health plays a strong role in our business health. I know that when Shane doesn’t get to surf, that he starts to get cranky. I know that if I don’t get out for regular runs, I start to feel sluggish and it shows in my work. This process of running through the 6 F’s is especially important for distributed teams. When you’re working in a traditional office environment, there’s a myriad of cues that you pick at the proverbial water cooler. It’s easier to get a sense that Joe is stressed out, or that Mary isn’t as vibrant as usual. Distributed teams need to be more intentional about watching out for each other.

Excel-lence

We usually follow the F’s checkin with a deep dive into our finances. We detail our pipeline – this is a spreadsheet that we’ve been working on for years now. It takes into account our outstanding projects and invoices, balances in our potential upcoming work, runs it all through our cost analysis and savings and investment plans, and works a little magic. All said and done it’s a strong indicator of our business’s financial health. It’s not the most fun part of our retreat, but it might be the most crucial. We can’t make strategic decisions about our direction without knowing where we stand. You can hire all the accountants you want, but if you’re not neck deep in your own business finances you are going to miss important realizations.

Surf Break

I’m from Minnesota. We don’t have much in the way of ocean here. It’s also pretty darn chilly here. Having partners that live blocks from the beach is a luxury that I enjoy during every retreat. Taking a surf break may sound a little flakey to my fellow midwesterners, but it’s actually really important to keep the business retreat fun. We live, eat, breathe, sleep our business every day. As business owners or freelancers, you know that there is little difference between a tuesday and a saturday – our brains naturally drift towards our work. So we surf, we retreat, we turn off, and we get inspired. We remember why we’re in this in the first place. And everyone gets a good chuckle watching me get pummeled by giant waves.

The Fun Part

Here’s where it gets good. Once we’ve checked on each other, reviewed the previous 6 months of finances, and studied the upcoming 6 months, we are free to talk about what ever we’re passionate about. What should the business look like in 5 years? Do we have assets that could be better leveraged? Are our contractors happy, and are we doing enough to help them succeed? Do we see opportunities in the world for new ventures?

As responsibilities pile up, homes, spouses, kids and soccer practice – it gets easier and easier to stop thinking the Big Think. You become so focused on the task at hand (survival) that it becomes more difficult to see the world at large. We spent an entire evening discussing how we could solve the unemployment problem? WTF does that have to do with running a successful service and software company? Nothing directly, but it has immense value in thinking about problems, process, and ideation. We argued, dreamt, got excited, and disagreed some more. Are we going to dive into the world of employment tomorrow? No, probably not, but these conversations help us to continue to think the Big Think. At some point down the road, Shane’s idea about helping people re-imagine their current skill within a radically different distribution model may boil down to some actionable project that we can take on. And it’s going to be awesome.

I’ve been here before. I actually enjoy a lot of physical activities, so having spurts of fitness coupled with periods of healthy eating isn’t unheard of for me. It’s always been pretty half assed though. The thing of it is, I see this same half assed approach in other people and it drives me bonkers. “I wanna launch a product, but…” “I wanna be a ballarina, but…” or “I wanna freelance full time, but…” It’s the dabbling that’s a problem. You have a dream, and you toy with the idea. You wiggle your little tootsies in the waters a little. You dabble.

I’ve been dabbling. No more. Time to cowboy up. I’m running a marathon.

Go Big

Baby steps are fine. Baby steps are necessary if you’re on your way to big things, but if your goals are only baby step goals you’re not going to get anywhere. The marathon is about as ridiculous a personal fitness goal as I could set. If When I cross the finish line, I’ll actually have achieved something of immense value. There isn’t much sense in setting and achieving goals that don’t have any real value to them. “I’m going to get an article published in my local free paper that publishes every wackjob letter they get” is not a goal. That might be a baby step, but it’s not a goal. “I’m going to get an article published in the New Yorker.” That’s a fuckin goal. That’s the real deal.

Screw Expectations

My oldest friend was a philosophy and theology major in college. He was interning at small indie publishing firm in town. One day, we’re sitting out on the porch drinking a few beers, and he looks over at me and says “I wanna work on motorcycles.” I’ve known this dude for 25 years at this point and never once has he mentioned, rode, or looked twice at a motorcycle as far as I know. At the time he drove a crappy Ford Taurus, and wore socks with his sandals – nothing remotely badass about him. Two weeks later he had signed up for tech school, got himself a nighttime coffeeshop job and his first set of tools. 5 years later he owns and operates the hippest, coolest, most badass vintage bike shop in the Twin Cities. Everyone thought he was crazy. He used it as fuel.

I’m what you’d generously call a ‘Clydesdale’. No one in their right mind would look at me and say “natural born runner right there.” Do I care? Not in the least.

You can’t keep it a secret

The first person I told about this zany marathon idea was my wife. It went like this “So… umm… I’m kinda thinking that maybe… I might try… to run a marathon.” She, as always, was supportive and interested if a little skeptical. Later that week we were at a bbq. My wife’s friends’ husband and I are making the kind of awkward small talk that you can only make with your wife’s friend’s husband. He says, “I hear you’re going to run a marathon.” I sheepishly say yes and change the subject. On the way home, I give my wife a stern talking to about telling people my wacky idea. “Honey, I wasn’t really going to share that with people. What if it doesn’t work out?” My wife, ever understanding and supportive gives me a gigantic eye roll and a dismissive, “whatever, you jackass.”

Ya gotta tell people for two simple reasons. Firstly, it holds you accountable. Telling people makes it tangible, makes it real. If you don’t want it bad enough to tell people, you don’t want it bad enough to achieve it. Secondly, if people know what you’re trying to do… they can help you. We’ve got a brilliant designer on our team who also happens to run like a gazelle and toss off a marathon like it’s a walk to the corner store. If I hadn’t told Brad what I was trying to do, he couldn’t share the wealth of knowledge he has on the subject.

Be ok looking like an idiot

After you tell a bunch of people what you’re up to, you’re going to need to be OK looking like a jackass for a bit. I look ridiculous when I run. I’m sweating, huffing, and heaving. While I see these perfectly toned, and tanned specimens of the human race floating down the road, I run like the Hulk. I am at war with gravity, and gravity is obviously winning. Last week I got passed by a toddler on a big wheel. I’m frequently lapped by geriatrics. It bothered me for the first few weeks. It wasn’t until the 4th week that I noticed that these beautiful people are giving me the ‘head nod’ as they run by. They don’t see a heavering mass of jello hobbling down the road, they see a dude working his ass off (or maybe they see both). There is certain kind of dignity in looking like an idiot. It might not be as cool as looking disinterested, or disaffected. *Gasp* People may laugh at you on twitter. Those are the people that can’t see the dignity of putting yourself out there. They are small minded. They’re also the people that I pass after mile 4.

Surround yourself with big thinkers

I spend most of everyday talking to Shane and Peter. It’s nearly impossible to spend 15 minutes with those two and not get inspired. At first it was all business related. “Maybe I can land bigger clients. Maybe I can pitch the VP of a Fortune 100 company. Maybe I can walk into MTV headquarters in Times Square past the old TRL set into a big ass boardroom with a bunch of people I’ve never actually met before and totally kick ass.” It starts with literal parallels – you think big in business = I can think big in business. The mindset that you can be bigger than you are is infectious and it bleeds into all aspects of your life. Pretty soon it becomes your default mindset. Last winter I was complaining about the weather and talking about taking a weeks vacation somewhere warm. Shane’s response? “You should rent a place in Hawaii for a month.” Hell yes I should. And I will (though I might need to wait for Falkor’s 1st birthday). Get to the point where your first response is the biggest craziest boldest move possible. You don’t have to follow through on every harebrained idea you have (nor should you) – but the act of having them is important and it takes practice.

Make sweet love to failure

Running a marathon is hard. It’s hard for those fleet-flooted little guys in their short shorts and headbands, I imagine it’s even harder for a old fat guy like me. Is it possible I might fail? Absolutely. Are there risks involved? Sure. I could get hurt. I could be laid up for a couple weeks. I could invest 100s of hours without finishing. People could laugh and say, “I knew that fat bastard would never make it.” To that I respond, “fuck it.” Failures are my little baby steps. I have one shitty run every single week. I may need to collapse after 16 miles in my first marathon before I can finish in my second one. I may need to twist my ankle in mile 5 of my second marathon before I can finish in my third. If you’re thwarted by one rejection letter, one lost job opportunity, one failed startup, one failed product pitch, one shitty run – you don’t deserve it in the first place.

Progress

I’m in week 16 of marathon training. My race is 6 days away. I broke 400 total miles last week, and have seen all of my toes turn funny colors. I may flame out on saturday. I may hit the proverbial wall, lay down on the side of the road and wait for my wife to come and scoop me into the car. Or… I just might make it.

What’s your wacky crazy secret dream?

My advice. Whatever it is. Run towards it.

Hi. I’m Shane.

10 years ago, I started a company of 1. It was a healthy mixture of dream and desperation. With a lot of love from some great people, and some sweat, it worked out. I solved some cool problems and surfed when most of my friends worked. Freelancing let me make my living from home and coffee shops. I supported myself and eventually a family. What started as a backup plan became a career. It was fun. While I loved being in business for myself, after 5 years, I found myself wishing I didn’t have to be in business all by myself. I wanted to collaborate with other awesome people.

Flash forward and today my partners and I run a service business that thrives for a simple reason: we consistently deliver, time after time. As one of our longest clients recently told me, “I am buying peace of mind. I could give it to someone cheaper, and then either manage it myself or have to worry they might fail. I can trust you guys to take care of it and I will go focus on what matters most to my business unit.” In short, we’re successful, because we are dependable.

Finding a vendor, employee or partner who will consistently play their part is one of the great challenges in business. Want to win in this world? I’ve found that the most simple and effective tactic is to be the most dependable. Unfortunately, that’s a quality that’s often severely lacking in the service industry.

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