Full Transcript for Anthony Eden

Speaker 1

Welcome to the Two Cent Dad podcast, where we interview dads to discuss their journeys of intentional fatherhood while doing work they care about and living a life of purpose. I'm your host, Mike Sudick.

Speaker 2

Be there when your, when your kids need you. Like, be there for those moments that are gonna mean something to them in the future, even if it means sacrificing something right now for you, because they, once that moment passes, it's gone. Like, that's the only, the only thing we don't have anything else more of in life is time.

Speaker 1

Anthony Eden is on the podcast today. He's been running DN Simple since 2010, which helps entrepreneurs with domain name services. As a father of triplets, he's been forced to become pretty efficient and managing his business in time. He talks about raising a family while doing extensive travel, and as well as his practice of having his kids do internships at local companies.

To broaden their exposure to work and careers. Let's jump in to hear from Anthony.

So I don't know, maybe just give a little background of yourself and, and where you're from and, and what you're doing now.

Speaker 2

Sure. So I've been a developer for about twenty years. I grew up in Florida and then traveled around a bit, met my wife in Europe, and then we moved back to Florida, moved to Hawaii, went around to things like that. I have four kids. I have, the triplets that are about to turn fifteen, and then I have a seven-year-old boy as well. so that kind of puts an interesting twist on, on our life.

we have managed even having the kids to be able to move around and, and live in different interesting locations, and, and I, I think that's part of what has, sort of kept us close as a family because it's sort of the one constant that's always there is knowing that no matter where we go, we always have each other to, to take care of and to rely on each other when things, when we need it the most.

Speaker 1

Sure. from the

Speaker 2

bus- from the business side, just to, to, for the background, I've been running D&Simple since 2010, and we're a fully distributed team, of nine full-time people plus two part-time people right now. and,

it's, it's a pretty great business. Gives me the flexibility to travel around still and to be able to take time off to do things with the family, and not feel guilty about it.

Speaker 1

So, you said you've been doing this since about 2010, is that right? D&Simple?

Speaker 2

D&Simple, yeah.

Speaker 1

So is that, is that your first foray into running your own business, or before that were you an independent contractor, or?

Speaker 2

so I, I have done independent contracting off and on for, you know, for a long time, but I've mostly worked for other people. So I've been in different situations. In some cases, working for small startups, and in other cases, I worked for a company that did government contracting work. So I was actually, working for the DoD for a while as a contractor.

So I've had a little bit of experience on both ends. but Danesimple is really the first business where I launched it and said, okay, I, this is, this is my business. I'm going to call the shots now. But I did that after fifteen years of watching other people do it.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So it was a calculated move.

Speaker 2

It, and it was very calculated, yeah.

Speaker 1

So what was, what, what was it that motivated you to make that decision, like to do that? I mean, you'd obviously seen people and learned lessons, but.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think at the, the time when, when we decided to start it, I was just coming off of a sort of a failed startup. We had run out of money, and I had seen a lot of things that I would have done differently, and I was, I knew that I could start freelancing to make enough money to take care of myself, to start with, and then I saw the opportunity.

I was, one day I was using a competitor's product, and I was like, man, this is so painful. This is, there's got, we've got to be able to do this better. And I knew, I know the industry, being in the industry for, for a long time now,

I just said there's, we've just got to be able to do it better. and that's where the incident came about. And initially it was just for DNS, and then we added in support for domain registration and SSL certificates and sort of rounded everything out, and it's been going pretty well.

Speaker 1

So where is your family in all this? I mean, so you started it when, so your kids would have been, the triplets would have been seven or so, is that right, or?

Speaker 2

Yeah, let's see, actually eight. So at the time we, at the time we were in Hawaii, and we knew that we were about to move, and we had kind of made the decision already to move to Europe. My wife is French, and we had never lived over here with the kids for a long period of time. We'd been living in the US the entire time. And we said, okay, we're going to give moving over, to the, to Europe a shot, move back to France, and I was essentially, I'd be working my freelance stuff part of the day and then spending part of the day on DNsimple.

And then after about a year of doing the freelance side, I ended up going to work for LivingSocial, and I made an agreement with them that said I would work on LivingSocial and keep DNsimple separate and continue working on that as a side project, which was great. And then after two and a half years of working for them, I was able to finally spend all my time on DNsimple.

And so the, the nice thing about through all of this was I was always a remote worker, which made it really good for me because I could work on my schedule and then spend time with my kids when they had important things to do. I also tried to minimize travel during that time. That, that's always the worst thing. The one bad side about working remote when you're working for bigger companies is that you often need to travel to see them from time to time, and traveling is a big time sink when it, you know, when it comes from taking time away from the family, because there's just nothing you can do.

You, if you have to go, you have to go, and, and what we would do then normally is I would try to keep in touch with them on a daily basis with Skype. And it's, it is nice that we can talk to each other, every time, every day, and it's, it's not that difficult anymore now that we have, global internet communication, so.

Speaker 1

Right, right. So you said you did some startups in the past too, like, I'm just curious, like, Yeah, having done that maybe multiple times and then eventually getting your own thing, like, where did your, where, did your wife and you always see eye to eye on that? Like, how did you balance that with the family? I know that's always an issue.

No, definitely

Speaker 2

not. There were times early, so early on when the kids were first born, especially the triplets, we, I was, I found a, a job that was really, that was quite stable. I was looking for things that were stable because I, I needed to spend time with my kids and my wife is amazing in the sense that she has, she's very good at, at sort of organizing our life and making sure that, everything is set up, well in advance.

And when you're trying to deal with triplets, that's especially important because when they're really young, there are a lot of, you just, everything has to be scheduled and be pretty rigid. And so I would work during the day and then, come home and we would trade off some. She took care of the kids all day long, which was a challenge for her, for sure.

and then I would come home and, and take over some of that so she could have the time to do some other things, and then we would trade off at nighttime for feedings and things like that. Although, again, she, she was, she's a champ. She works like crazy and, and has always been an amazing wife and mother and has done a lot to raise a kid.

In terms of, you know, do we see eye to eye? Fortunately, she, you know, often calls me out on things. We discuss a lot of things, and then she'll say, "Well, you know, I think you're being silly about this. You're not looking at it this way." And, and I'm really fortunate to have a partner that actually spends the time talking with me and, and thinking about these things with me.

So it's, it's been really good. And in fact, so much so that now she's spending time working on Dan Simple as well. she's one of the two part-time people that I mentioned, and it's great having her on board because it means that we work together some of the time, then we have some time that's not work-related, but we always have plenty of things to talk about.

It's re- It's really nice.

Speaker 1

How was that when she first started working with you? I mean, was it, was it a little bit challenging? Cause, or was it better because you guys could relate on the work issues?

Speaker 2

I think in a lot of ways, she's been working with me and doing things with the company from, even from the early days. I think what's changed now is it's sort of becoming more official, which is actually nice because I think she has contributed a lot and has often not received sort of the,

the praise that she deserves for the work that she's put in. And I think this actually solidifies and says, hey, you know, you're, you're a member of the team. the team respects you for that and appreciates you, and we're glad that you're here, you're here. And that didn't exist when it was just sort of an ad hoc thing.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So what about, you know, moving around with your kids, do you guys homeschool or what do you guys do?

Speaker 2

Oh, no, no. Are you ridiculous? No. Our kids have been in public school since, since they started kindergarten. And yeah, school's a challenge, especially a transition over to Europe was a challenge. fortunately, they have programs for kids who arrive in France and who can't necessarily speak the language as fluently as they need to be able to, and so they, the, the schools gave a lot of extra, extra help to the triplets when they arrived and helped sort of advance them through the, the basics of, of French that they, they needed to get in terms of grammar and things like that.

They could, they could already understand it, they could speak it, but really when you're in school, you, you're taking it to a whole nother level. And now they excel at it. They're, they're top of their class, all three of them are top of the class in, in not just French, but in other subjects as well. I've been blessed with, with very studious children who, who work hard and have a good, strong work ethic, and they take that with them to the, to all their schoolwork and things like that, so I'm very lucky.

Speaker 1

So do they just randomly get that, or what are the things you did to, to give them that work ethic? I

Speaker 2

think, I think a lot of the work ethic comes from, again, from my wife. She has a very solid work ethic. She comes from a military family background, and, and she loves keeping things organized, and it's, that's a big piece of why the kids are well organized and why they do well in school, I think, because they've been trained to do well.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And part of that being the triplets, so you have to kind of regiment things a little bit more so it lends itself to that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, the seven-year-old is completely different.

He's, he's, he's a handful enough sometimes to match the triplets in, in terms of his ability to, to cause chaos. It's great. That's

Speaker 1

great. hey, one of the things that, Jeff, so one, one of the things that Jeff Kazmier said when, when I was talking to him was that, he said, you know, the kind, the, the, the normal belief is that you should, you know, not get married, not have like a significant other if you're trying to build something, you're trying to start something.

You know, that's the common knowledge, but he kind of debunked that and said, you know, his wife has been one of the strongest, you know, people in his life to encourage him, to call him out on things. That's kind of what I hear you saying, but it's, it's such a struggle to, you know, something that you, you're putting in a lot of extra hours to, you know, start a startup or even just a, you know, a side gig, kind of like you start out with D and Simple.

what do you say to someone that's like kind of contemplating that? Maybe they, they don't have kids and then they're kind of like thinking about this idea or they're thinking about going off and starting something, but then they're like, hey, I also want to have kids and I need to do one or the other or, you know, how do you counsel someone like that?

Speaker 2

I, first of all, I definitely don't think it has to be a choice. I think that,

It's well within the, I think part of the problem is that, that there's this,

this story that's being told by a small group that says startups are only companies that have to grow exceptionally fast, and they must take, you know, outside funding, and they must follow this set of rules, they must, you know, open offices in the Bay Area, they must,

you know, try to get as many customers as they can as quickly as possible, and, and I think that that's a story that's being told, but it's not the only story. The other story is there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the US and around the world where the people don't spend eighty hours or a hundred hours a week working on their business.

What they do is they Set their time wisely, they use their time wisely, they break down these, these bigger challenges into small, discrete tasks. They make a few customers happy, which then leads to making a few more customers happy, and they build good, solid, strong, small businesses. And they often do just as well, if not, if not better than somebody who has a full-time job.

It's still, it's still work. I mean, you're going to have to learn a whole bunch of things, but it doesn't have to be this, you know, I'm putting my entire life into this business.

And I think, I think actually there are some advantages to having responsibilities when you're creating a solid business. The fact is, is that you can't, you can't just throw money away. You can't just, you know, blow through all this because you actually have a family to think about, and you have to think, in the long term, how am I going to be able to pay for this? You know, how am I going to be able to send my kids to college if you have to go to a private college? You know, how am I, how are we going to have a, a time together with a family? And, and I think people are starting to, to hear that story a little bit more with people like Amy Hoy telling the story and,

and others out there as well. The, the, the story has a different narrative, and that narrative involves being smart about how you build a business, doing it in a way where the business works with your life. And they coexist in a way that everyone's happy. You know, there's, for sure there's challenges along the way. Regardless whether you have a small business or a rapidly growing business, or if you're at a big company, you're always going to run into challenges.

And to me, having a partner there who you can talk to about it and encourages you and who you can encourage, I can't, I see that as nothing but a benefit. which means, of course, that all of this has to start from, if you have a partner, communicating with them well, making sure to be open about things, and making sure that, that you consider their opinion in, in those decisions that you're making.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So you think the, the narrative that is being told is, is one that perpetuates this, like,

this fame kind of lust or something? It's like people then want that fame that's associated with this, like, big startup. It's like, or is it pure drivenness? I mean, like, what is, is it, is it just the narrative that's being told, or what's fueling people to think that they have to go after this big wins? Like,

Speaker 2

I think a large part is, a large part is the narrative, and it's the narrative that comes from media and from what you read about these companies.

yeah, there are people out there that are driven to work really hard, but those type of people aren't going, hey, I want to have a family anyway. They're, they are driven to do whatever it is they do, whether it be, you know, build a company or, or Invent something or make the world a better place, they're personally driven. And that's fine.

If that's your goal, then, then by all means foster that part of your life. But I think the problem is, is that the, the narrative that says every startup, every business that is a tech business must be done this way is a false narrative.

Speaker 1

And I think

Speaker 2

that's the one where we're starting to see alternative narratives, which say, no, there are businesses that can be in technology or outside technology where you don't have to throw away the rest of your life and you can still have a successful business. They've existed for thousands of years, you know? It's, it's, it's not like this is, anything new.

It's just, you know, it's easy to get wrapped up with the, the glory, the money, and the, the

everything that comes along with, with doing the startup,

That can be dangerous if that's not your, if, if your goal is not to do that particular thing. And a lot of that is just people sometimes fall into saying, oh, well, that's the way it has to be done. Yeah, I'm up for it. When in reality, their personality does not match well at all with that type of lifestyle.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah, I think the, I think it's a, it's a, it's a continual kind of rat race, like keeping up with the Joneses. Like you just see people, everyone's supposedly winning big and you want to do that. And it's like, no, it doesn't, doesn't have to be that way. But,

so, so let's go back to your kids a little bit. Like what, what are some unique things that you do? You know, you kind of have a, a unique path you've taken with starting your own business and living abroad multiple places. So what other things do you do with your kids that are kind of unique or, you know, maybe that would be outside the norm of the, the usual, childhood raising, if you will? you know, what, what are some philosophies you guys have on parenting? I know French parenting is a little outside of the normal American cultural parenting, but.

Speaker 2

Well, let's see. What are some of the things that we try to do that are different? I, I think it, it, it's changed over time. and I'll, I'll, in the past, and even now, we, we've always tried to, do things like travel on a regular basis with the kids and not, not travel to someplace that's like an amusement park or something like that, but, but do a trip that is truly exceptional.

A couple of years back, we, we did a trip, from New York up to the, the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, and then back down around through,

Through Ohio and Pennsylvania, and we did this over a period of, several weeks, and it was great. It was like a road trip with the family, and this is why we were over living in France. So we, we spent the time to come over to the US and do this, and I, and I think that's the type of experience that is, is really interesting for kids is to see something that's, that they just, it's so completely different from anything they would have, would normally be doing.

we also have friends in, around the world in different big cities, so we've been to Berlin with them and to Rome, and, and we try to do things like that. So traveling is a big part of it, and it fits in with the whole, hey, you know, we've chosen a life which is a bit different than the norm, where we don't stay in one location our entire lives, and so we sort of play off that a little bit.

we have, we long ago cut out television from our house, so we have no TV at the house. we do watch movies and things like that, but we do everything on the computer.

so that's kind of different, I think, than a lot of American households at, at least. And I, and I love it. I, I love not having a television to house. I play podcasts for my kids when we're driving in the car, so that's kind of weird.

Speaker 1

but they seem to

Speaker 2

enjoy it. I mean, and, and things like, like This American Life or Planet Money, you know, it's not like silly, but it's, it's podcasts that are actually interesting and sort of expand their minds a little bit.

the most recent thing that I think we did, which was different, is they, the kids had, each had to do a week of a internship at some company, and rather than taking the easy route and doing something that was, you know, right around our village or whatever that maybe was just wouldn't have been as interesting to them, we, we really helped them find things that were interesting for them.

And so in two cases, we actu- I spent a week, at another city in France called Montpellier, about two hours away from where we live, just so that they could go to do that internship at a company that was interesting to them. And so I think that's different as well. Yeah. And again, that's only possible because of the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere and the flexibility of being able to work at any time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, true. And it's even all, anything that you're talking about, like the traveling and then, just living multiple places is like such a, a perspective expansion for your kids. You know, they see how other people live and they see other places and

Speaker 2

everything

Speaker 1

is really cool. What are, what are some, are there any like, resources or books that you've read or thought leaders, like in, as far as parenting or things that you would recommend, specifically in the area of like parenting or fatherhood?

Speaker 2

Not really. I'm, I have never been, it's not, it's, I don't know, I kind of just raised my kids in a lot of ways the way my parents raised me. So I, I didn't go out trying to figure out if there was somebody who had a better idea how to do it. I just I tried to do what my parents did, which was, raise me honestly. They spoke with me openly about things.

They, you know, they, they were very true into how they raised us, and, and I just tried to stick to that. And then my wife, of course, had a major influence on it, and she, she, I think in a lot of ways she did the same. She saw what her parents did that she liked, and then the things maybe that she didn't like, and she tried to stop doing the things that her parents did that she didn't like, and then do more of the things that she thinks made her a better person, and I think that's been pretty effective for us.

Speaker 1

That's awesome. So what are some things that you hope to kind of impart on your kids as they're, I mean, they're a little older?

Speaker 2

Yeah, they, as I said, they've already got a strong work ethic, so I don't think I need to do much more on that. They're, they're, they push themselves pretty hard. I, I've been trying recently to talk to them about some basic ideas of how to manage money. I think we don't do enough of that. you know, we don't talk about things in terms of Of how, you know, assets and liabilities and what they mean to you and what they really mean in life and, and, you know, how, how you can use other people's money in terms of credit and things like that to do good things, but how you can use it to do bad things.

I, I think we just don't talk enough to our kids about that. So I've, I've been trying to do that, for the last year or two, ever since they got old enough to sort of start grasping the concept.

and it's, I think that's one of the things that I try to do. The other is just that they, they don't have to follow anybody's script about their life, so they don't have to You know, go to the university and then get a job at some big company and expect to stay there for the rest of their life, unless that's what they want to do. In other words, they have choices.

They can start their own businesses, they can go freelance, they can do whatever they want to do. they can even go into research, be professors, whatever it might be, but that's, they have to do the thing that actually fits well with their personality and with the direction they want to go in their life. And that's one of the things I've been trying to teach them lately as well.

And it's tough because the messages out there say the contrary. The messages are always, oh, you have to go to the, you have to go to a good university or you can't get a good job. Or now the new message will be, you should never go to university or you can't get a good job. I mean, who knows what it's going to be, right?

Speaker 1

And the

Speaker 2

real message is that you need to follow the path that is best for you, and, and you're going to learn over time what that path is.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, it's so true. That's funny how you say it's a flip-flop. It'll be then like you shouldn't go to university. It's coming.

Speaker 2

It's coming.

Speaker 1

That's right. what, what do you feel like is something that you wish you would have done different when your kids were like younger, like when they were kind of toddler age or?

Speaker 2

That's a good question. I, I think one of the biggest things is I think we may have made a mistake in terms of where we were in the world at that time. I think we would have actually been better when they were really little to be in Europe. There is a much stronger system for, assistance for families that are dealing with things like having triplets and trying to figure out how to navigate through that and health issues, when health issues come up, you know, there's stronger support systems.

My wife's family, it would have been nice to be near them. So I think the one thing I might have changed and done differently is, is we would have flipped things around. So we would have been in Europe when they were young and then maybe gone back to the US a little bit later. But, but that's bridge under water, right? It's already done. So I can't change that.

I always, I was, There's always these, these little regrets about a missed event of something. But again, it's in the past. There's, there's nothing I can do but try to do better going forward.

Speaker 1

So

Speaker 2

now that I can talk to my kids about things that actually upset them if I'm not around for, it, it's easier to be there when they need me to be there. It's easier to see those events and go, okay, you know what? I'm going to cancel this trip because I have something important to do with my kids.

Speaker 1

Yeah. What are some things you want to do with your kids before they hit that kind of eighteen-year-old mark and they're kind of out of the house, so to speak?

Speaker 2

Can't really think of anything other than I just, I want to be with them, travel some more with them. I want to see some things that together that none of us have ever seen. We want to do things like go to Portugal, for example. None of us have ever been there. Cause we're so close. It just makes sense to go over and, and visit. so, but I, I just want them set up so that they understand that they control their future and that they don't have to follow anybody's rule book as to what they do in their lives, just as long as they, they do the thing that brings them joy and hopefully does the same for others around them.

Speaker 1

Perfect. That's awesome. So what's one last closing, closing? I typically ask people, you know, like, what is one piece of advice you'd have to give to, a guy who's about to have, you know, his first baby? Like, what would you say?

Speaker 2

I mean, it's, it's probably cliched, but I think the, the best thing to say is just be there for,

be there when your, when your kids need you. Like, be there for those moments that are going to mean something to them in the future, even if it means sacrificing something right now for you, because then once that moment passes, it's gone. Like, that's the on- the only thing we don't have anything else more of in life is time. You know, we can always have more money, we can always have more things, but we can't have more time.

So you just try not to miss those important moments because you can't get them back.

Speaker 1

Yeah, wise words. Well, hey, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 2

It was my pleasure. It was nice speaking with you, and I hope your podcast continues to grow and does well.

Speaker 1

Hey, thanks, Anthony. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the show. You can find out more about us and sign up to receive updates at twocentdad.com. If you liked what you heard or just want to say hi, you can shoot me an email at mike at twocentdad.com. Please leave a review on iTunes if you like the show. It helps us to get the word out to the most people possible.

The podcast production is done by Maria Van Dyken, and the show is made possible through the support of EC Group International. Building software teams since 1999.