# Welcome, Startup Baby Greyson Lorang

Source: https://bartlorang.com/blog/welcome-startup-baby-greyson-lorang
Date: 2014-05-11

![](https://bartlorang.com/images/blog/welcome-startup-baby-greyson-lorang/1*b6bao-AbqqKTgHW9mukbdQ.jpeg)

#### Thoughts on a great first week.

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It’s Mother’s Day. Sarah is getting her nails done for a ‘newborn photo shoot’ tomorrow and our newborn son Greyson is sleeping (for now).

So I figured I’d squeeze in a blog post about his first week. It could be quite short, depending on when Greyson wakes up. Here goes:

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On Friday, May 2nd, 2014 at 3:11 PM, Greyson Michael Lorang was born in Boulder, Colorado to me and my wife Sarah.

It was a seminal moment in our lives, and we are thrilled to have him in our family. For photos available via a public iCloud stream, [click here](https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A85nhQST9Rktl;381A52AE-03DD-48A7-BFB8-9703DEE6D458).

If you are friends with me or Sarah on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or iCloud, you have now been inundated by numerous photos every day of Baby Greyson — or “G-Lo” as I like to call him.

I know. We’ve turned into ***those*** parents, and we’re strangely at peace with it.

But about nine days in, it’s pretty clear to me that having a Baby is a LOT like running a Startup.

The metaphor goes something like this:

1. The baby is the startup itself.
2. The parents are the startup founders.
3. The grandparents are the investors and board of directors.
4. The parents / founders have initially no idea what they are doing with the baby / startup.
5. The parents / founders overcompensate by doing everything together, all the time (just like playing kids soccer — they all are crowded around the ball)
6. The parents / founders operate on very little sleep and are under emotional duress.
7. The parents / founders work extraordinarily long hours and give superhuman, insane effort.
8. The parents / founders tweet/share/like things on social media about the baby / startup at every opportunity — annoyingly so to everyone else in their lives.
9. The parents / founders constantly worry that the baby / startup is going to die.
10. The parents / founders put the baby / startup ahead of everything else in their lives, including themselves.
11. The parents / founders often grow exasperated with one another around job duties, roles and responsibilities, and effort given.
12. The grandparents / investors like to pop in for an hour or two and give tips and advice, but in the end, they (hopefully) trust the parents / founders to make the right calls (or in the worst case scenario, they lose faith in the parents / founders and take control of the baby / startup)
13. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is going to CHANGE THE WORLD.
14. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is beautiful, regardless of whatever everyone else thinks.
15. The parents / founders believe that their baby / startup is truly ‘special’, and the problems faced are unique to the baby / startup.
16. The parents / founders want other people to hold / test out their baby / startup. Some people are willing holders / beta testers, others are not for fear of ‘breaking’ the baby / startup (I’m looking at you, Brad Feld)
17. The parents / founders are proud of the name they’ve chosen for their baby / startup. Nobody else wants to tell them it’s a stupid name, even if it is.
18. Nobody enjoys it when the baby / startup inevitably shits the bed.
19. The startup / parent world is full of people that will give unsolicited advice — including folks that have never had a startup / baby or messed either up completely. ***Thanks to*** [***Dharmesh Shah***](https://twitter.com/dharmesh) ***for this one ;-)***
20. Getting your baby into the “right” preschool is a lot like getting your startup into the right accelerator. It’s stressful, highly competitive and at the end of the day the preschool / accelerator is investing in the parents / founders. **Thanks to** [**An Bui**](https://twitter.com/anwith1n) **for this one ;-)**
21. As much as the parents/founders think that they can completely steer it, the baby/startup has its own unique personality and character, which will take it on a journey they cannot ultimately control. **Thanks to** [**Mark Frank**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdfrank1) **for this one ;-)**

That’s all folks, Greyson just woke up and sounds hungry. If you’ve got any more analogies, email me: bart@fullcontact.com