Episode Transcript
Qin En 00:00
Hi, I am Qin En and this is the Parents In Tech Podcast. In this episode, I speak to Daniel and Michelle, husband and wife, co-founders of Nimbus Group and office and home cleaning service provider. They are parents to a daughter aged nine. Inspired by their parenting experiences, Daniel and Michelle branched out of office facility services to start a new business unit, Nimbus Homes to support parents through house cleaning, babysitting, and other essential home services. In my conversation with the both of them, we talk about what it's like to work together as husband and wife, their parenting styles, and building a business to solve your own problems. Hey, Daniel. Hey Michelle. Welcome to the Parents In Tech Podcast. Really excited to have you here today. To begin with, could you tell us a bit more about your family?
Daniel 01:07
Yeah, my name is Daniel. She's my wife Michelle. We met shortly after I started Nimbus, which is my startup. And Michelle was... when I met her, a single parent, so I have a stepdaughter and she's nine, and that's our family, basically.
Qin En
01:25 Awesome. And we'll get into that a bit, but first, I know both of you work together. Now, how is it like husband and wife to work together in the same company?
Michelle 01:38
So we've had multiple attempts at working together very transparently. I think the first time round we kind of stepped in on each other's toes quite a lot. And, I think working directly is always challenging, especially when you have to report to the other person. So in our second attempt, which went a lot better, we kind of just worked on different areas of the company and I think that reduced a lot of conflicts while also still keeping all the good aspects of working together like spending more time together, being able to understand each other's experiences more without getting into each other's way and crossfire that often.
Qin En 02:18
Okay. So, I wanna unpack this a little. What was different the second time as compared to the first time you said the split? Like tell me a bit more, what does the split look like in terms of the division of roles and responsibilities?
Daniel 02:29
Just to give you some context, nimbers was founded by myself, and we basically do commercial and residential office and home cleaning and other facilities services. So, when I started the business, obviously being in a young company, you need all the help you can get. So when I met Michelle and when we got married, I told her to help me out with the business. At that point in time, we were mainly serving commercial clients, like officers, and I just needed help with sales, which Michelle said was right, so that we were basically directly involved in the same KPIs because I was also the founder and CEO, so revenue is my big target, and she was helping me do sales and new sales and all that kind of thing, which meant a lot of crossfire in terms of the fact that basically I had a lot of inputs on what she was doing. And that didn't go so well in the sense that because, couples, when you all work together, you get more sensitive over criticisms or feedback, et cetera. And that was why, we mentioned that the first attempt did not go so well. I think the second attempt was a lot better because as the business grew, we also expanded into home services. This was during COVID where people stopped going to the office and we saw a need to pivot and deliver service to the homes to keep our workers employed. So our housekeeping team started to run during COVID, and that was when I needed a fresh perspective on how to run the business from a consumer lens from what a home requires. So when we started experimenting with housekeeping, and the fact that Michelle had background, with our daughter, she's raised a kid before and we saw a lot of scope to provide other services besides cleaning, like babysitting or elder care or like moving, et cetera. I felt that she had a more stronger instinct and insights there, which is where she started to run the consumer side of things on the product and the services. And that helped because then we didn't overlap and her insights, et cetera, was more relevant for the customer base. And that's how we've been running the two business.
Qin En 04:45
Got it. Got it. It sounds like it's really about having the clarity on where the roles are and really helps that. But you know, one of the things that when I speak to people and, I, myself also actually aspire to be in your shoes one day to run a business together with my wife. But I think one of the biggest concerns is just how, you know, there are challenges that you face at home. There are challenges you face as a founder at work, right? And you sort of how do you think about mixing them together? I mean, the case in point is that of course, right? As with any couple, there are times when there's friction, there's conflict. And then, imagine bringing that to the workplace. I guess that's the concept, the concept that most people have. But whether it's right or wrong, I would love to hear from you guys right on how that happens. Because at home yeah, they're just good days and bad days. As with any relationship, anything, we're staying together. But then now you gotta bring that pretty much both of you are going to the same workplace so to speak. So I'd love to hear about how you manage that dynamic.
Daniel 05:43
Yeah. I think one of the things that we try to do a lot is that we, and of course sometimes we fail, is we don't talk about work at home. I think the first attempt, when we tried it off, there was just a lot of confluence and mixing of work and life until the point where Michelle started telling me that this is too much, we don't talk about work now it's 7:00 AM and we're trying to exercise. I think that the cognizance of separating it is important because if you bring too much of work into the home, every dinner conversation and morning walks, et cetera, starts to start to become this giant work talk, right? And it can be very well demoralizing from your partner sometimes if she just wants to de-stress. So I think we got more cognizant of it, and we are getting better at separating that. And I think that helps. Right, Michelle?
Michelle 06:35
Yes. I think some simple methods we use are really trying to frame it in a work versus personal time. So it can be things like the time of the day, right? We try to avoid talking about work maybe like before 9:00 AM and also if you want to have a serious work conversation or like giving feedback, serious feedback to each other. We make it a point to sit down in a meeting room and have a proper conversation instead of having it over breakfast or while trying to do some chores or something. So I think framing it in the right context, making it a serious sit down work, talk at the right time of day, leads to better separation between work and personal life.
Daniel 07:15
Yeah. So, so as the founder of the business, and you're right that most of your viewers, and also yourself, we are all thinking of building big companies or businesses, but the hardest partner startup is getting off the ground and talent is a big part of it. You cannot find good enough talent to work in your business, right? So I think at some point you must realize that your family and all the help you can get is an asset. And I think that helped me to become less like the more chill on the general fact that at least you got help, at least you've got talent working on it. Michelle is of course a talent cause she's also very capable. And I start to realize that, look, if we're going to [inaudible] and all that doesn't help the business. But one thing that we actively try to manage now is that of course when we started out and now we've grown to the home space and we are getting bigger and bigger and we're able to hire more employees, we actually make a more informed and aware decision to actually make Michelle less operational day-to-day because we've got new hires and it just makes more sense that she's more advisory, more less involved in the day-to-day operation and just being rewarded with the fact that the business is now pretty good and she can do things that she really wants to whether be her dream job or recently, she managed to take part in a competition that she really wants to do. That is the part that we would try to work out because as founder you realize that it's still your baby, but yes, the baby... as the baby matures into a teenager and all that, it can slowly take care of itself and it doesn't need that much involvement from both parties in that case and your most quarrels.
Qin En 08:57
Yeah. Makes sense. Let's maybe also sit right on the relevant note of work-life balance as a founder, especially at the start, I'm sure it was pretty much no work-life balance like firefighting and everything.
It sounds like and I'm glad to hear that numbers are at a stage where debt has definitely improved, but keen to also hear that, right? Because how do you keep yourselves checked and balanced to make sure that you take the rest that you need and you are there for your family?
Michelle 09:24
I think it's very challenging at the start. I think it's inevitable that you have to get past that stage of dedicating your whole life to something. Even at the start when I joined. I think it was also a lot busier. There were a lot of things to develop, a lot of things to grow, especially when we're launching new services like babysitting and the home services, it was definitely very busy and balancing that with a child it's difficult. I think that we rely heavily on each other as well. So we try to share responsibilities. For example, there's two days that we send our daughter to swimming. So we take one day and he takes one day and sometimes we have to lean on our parents, and of course, family is a very great help, even if not directly in the business, but also to support family life. I think that as the business matures a little bit, it's a bit easier to step away when needed and take a breather, have a better work life balance. But ultimately I think it's inevitable at the start, there is a period where you have to put in your all and suffer through it, but it does get better.
Qin En 10:33
Got it. Got it. And I have to ask, it is a bit of a sidebar question, because you said earlier the numbers moved from commercial to residential, right? Or like retail. And that got me thinking, doesn't that create a lot more emergency situations, so to speak? Because I feel like a commercial is straightforward when people know the services are provided generally during office hours, offices are closed during weekends and all, but as also a customer of Nimbus Homes, when I... let's say use the babysitter or get someone to clean, like it's almost 24/7, right?
Daniel 11:07
Yes.
Qin En 11:07
And weekends things do happen. You're just in the business of that. Yeah. How has the experience been actually, like going from say, commercial to really getting into people's homes?
Daniel 11:16
Yeah, so I think the pivot to homes came about when... just to give some context, we mainly provide a service to help the best leading world brand, build the most inspiring officers. And that was the vision, right? To help these brands, you know, build nice swanky officers and maintain them well and take care of all the employees. But COVID hit and that was a crisis which affected the commercial more so than the homes because people are allowed to stay home, but they're not locked in the office. And from that crisis bond, innovation and scrambling that we have to go to where the customers are. And it is a very personal space and it means that, like, you're right that you need 27 days a week support. Because on weekends as well, our housekeepers there, we don't provide 24/7 housekeeping services, but we provide them from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, 10:00 PM right?
So we have slots available all across. You're right that at the start, there is no work life balance because we have to demand the phones, we have to take care of that customer experience, and we have to swap the phone lines around with staff. But I think to your point on work life balance in general's building of business, I think you and I both kind of familiar with the fact that we have to build business owner systems rather than a business that is heavily, heavily reliant on peculiar people. So what I mean by that is that I've always thought about businesses as something that needs to be systematized. I think if you read the “Image Revisit”, that's a great book by Michael Gober, you know, you need to build processors and systems. While it depends on people. It's not necessarily anybody can come in and learn how to do it, right? So whilst we were building our customer support tech and processors on what to do, what to say, how do we do refunds, how do we do, how do we promote service, we document those things down, and then from there we build more structure towards it. And that's how we started to hire people to then solve those challenges along the way. And then as the business grows, you are able to hire people to help you, and that's when your work-life balance starts to come in. So I think it's important for founders to acknowledge that because if a founder is basically the one inside the business providing the service, basically there's no work life balance, right? And there is basically no system. It's just you and I think actively when you build a business, you have to think about the fact that the company needs to run, whether or not you get hit by a bus. And then from that perspective, how do you build an operating manual or documentation? I'm sure you've done this a lot of times, as in your previous work, right? As an operations guide, like how do you create processes where people can learn and get up to speed in one week and do the work that you need them to do? And that makes the operations better as a service business or tech business systems based, and not just completely people reliant. And that's what we did that helped us to achieve a better work life balance than what was originally at the start. And allows Michelle to then free up a time to do now the things that she wants to do, travel, go competition part the business whenever she wants, because there is a system in place and there are people in place doing those jobs. So, yeah.
Qin En 14:30
Got it. Thanks for sharing, Daniel. Michelle, I have heard this competition thing being mentioned a few times. Tell us more about what this hobby, this passion of yours.
Michelle 14:39
So in the daytime, I work in Nimbus. At night, I am a pole dance instructor. So there was a pole dance competition just a few weeks back, actually in early May. And I wanted to go for it because it was on my bucket list of things to do before I die perhaps. So I took a little bit of time off. I worked part-time and I trained for it and went for the competition.
Qin En 15:05
Very nice. Very nice. That's awesome. Now, I wanna also come back to what you mentioned, which is the whole getting together and also the parts where basically it's integrating existing family together. Yeah. Maybe tell me a bit more about that process, right? And what was that journey like for Daniel for you to interact, not just with Michelle, but also your daughter, and also Michelle for your daughter to meet Daniel. So I'd love to hear from both perspectives. Either of you can go first.
Michelle15:35
I think that it's important as a single parent to ensure stability in relationships for my child. So initially, you know, only when we felt like we were getting quite serious, then I did the introductions because I, I don't think it's good to have too many figures float in and out of a child's life. So when we were getting serious, I introduced her to Daniel. And I think that initially she was not very welcoming because I mean, she has seen a couple of other men who perhaps left too soon after a short while. But I think after a while, they really warmed up to each other. I think it really helps that Daniel was a very good father figure. He's definitely a fun parent. He has introduced her to things like that are essential to any childhood like Disney movies,
Daniel 16:26
Just generally. So...
Michelle 16:28
Theme parks. Yeah. Things like that that maybe I'm not fun enough to do .
Daniel 16:32
No. So when we met, we knew that we would have to tackle this very important relationship at some point. And it was important like Michelle said to have a degree of confidence in each other before we get familiar with our daughter as well and try to [inaudible] her, right? So I think you are right at the start, there was a bit of like, who's this guy? And as a stranger--
Michelle 17:00
Is he staying?
Daniel 16:28
So is he staying? And then there's sort of the kind of you can see the child frowning when I first met. But you do what you need to do to be consistent, to have fun. Yes. But consistency I think is key. And I think that... I think also the fact that she's a really well behaved goal. I think that that has also helped me, to be honest with you. I think if it's a rebellious child, it might have been a different story, but her personality as well, Camillia is very easy going, easygoing, quite pleasant. So that helped. And the fact that she was, I think when I met her, she was five or six so it's a good age. I think I've heard from single parents that have met kids that were like 9 or 10. It's a lot harder. It's harder for the child to be affectionate with you already at like 10 or 11 years old. Yeah. So I think, I think we were lucky and blessed that, she was at an age, you know, where she's still young and you can still develop this bond where they can still be like, okay, you know, I can kiss daddy goodnight kind thing, right? Yeah. So that's good. But it depends on age and we're lucky that it was early.
Michelle 18:12
If I may say something also slightly controversial, I feel that I should go for it. You know, she's a girl and Danielle is a guy. I think it's harder for the same gender to create that affection in my opinion. So I think it always helps to have the opposite, especially for girls and men. Like there is just more affection both ways. Like it's easier to love a cute little girl.
Qin En 18:35
Well, as a father, I have two daughters, I can attest to that. But I also wanna talk about parenting styles, right? Like Michelle, you have been a parent for four to five years before, but yeah, before introducing Daniel. Whereas Daniel, for you, it's almost like you jumped, it's like a jump start, right? It's like you, you jump in right away, there's no ramp. You're just into it. So let's maybe talk a bit about that. I think Michelle, from your point of view, would love to hear about how you kind of align parenting styles with Daniel. If Daniel loves to hear how you just dive right in, right? It's like, you know how they say for founders, you jump off the cliff and you assemble the plane on the way down. I feel like that's a bit like your story in parenting. So, you know, having gone through that, what kind of advice would you give?
Daniel 19:18
I think it helps that we are already quite aligned to begin with in our general values. And therefore also in parenting, I think that we believe in things like reasoning things out. We don't believe in... it's like waving the cane around all the time, but we still believe in discipline and being strict, but like firm, but fair with children. So it was not very difficult to align. And I think it definitely helps because when you see your partner deal with children, you also kind of understand who they are as a person and that can also reflect on your own relationship with a partner. So I think it helps, it definitely enhanced our own relationship through looking at each other's parenting styles. But in general, I would say that we try to be open-minded and we try to be modern parents. We don't force them to... we don't force Camilia to do piano, [inaudible] the traditional set of Chinese parent things. And we try to grow her other diverse interests. Like she actually likes artistic swimming, which is very niche sport, but we still try to make sure that she does her best. So also, we always try to sing. It's about doing your best. It's not about... they're always getting first or getting full marks. Yeah. But it's important to be able to do your best.
Daniel 19:18
For me it's like when you come into a situation where your partner is already a mother, right? And she's already been doing certain set roles from my perspective. Yes, we align on values and all that, but for me it's like, as a true partner, you're trying to compliment where potential gaps are, right? So of course, father figure is one, but I think more importantly, we also took stock of where are certain things that maybe Michelle has not been able to do when she's the only so parent, right? And so what, what I try to do is to add value in those areas. So for example, like Michelle say, the just going out and having more fun is one. But I think the other things are also like certain values that the, for me, I care a lot about the values that we impart to children.
And I thought that, that in that domain, I felt that I can contribute a lot more. And so we discuss and say that, I say that, you know, I'm quite okay with how you dress her, feed her or send where generally the schools, these are fine, but I would like to play a big role in shaping her moral values, right? So those are how I think I as a so-called outsider when I came in, I try to add value in that area. So yeah, maybe it's an entrepreneurial lens, right? Like you try to look at where the gaps are and then you try to propose how I can better fit in the structure. And I try to consult Michelle as well. The other thing is, my advice is that when you, not the like, yeah, I'm a stepfather, right? So when you come in with a child, it is very difficult to speak from a authoritarian perspective. Like you should do this, you should do that, because firstly, they may not recognize your authority. Secondly, it's just basically me telling you what to do. And and a lot of the techniques that I try to do, given I run a lot, a higher lot people, right? One of the things that I learned a lot, and it's very important, is the way we try to approach the person is important. So I tell you that you must do this, you need to do this. Versus I'm trying to understand you, I'm trying to understand why you're behaving like that, and then how does that make you or me feel? And how I think you could try basically more of trying to get the person to be more self-directed or to realize that, oh, I shouldn't do this. What's important for me, especially at the start. Cause you can't go in and basically, you know, tell you what to do, right? You really have to kind of go from the perspective of I wanna understand you, I wanna understand how... what makes you happy, what makes you sad, why? And then go from there. So that's really something that I also think I brought to Michelle in that way, right? Like trying to instead of dictating to the child, you must do this versus why it's important, right? So yeah. So, so that's really one of the ways that we try to parent actively.
Qin En 23:39
Makes sense. Makes sense. How old is your daughter's... daughter? Sorry? Singular. How old is your daughter now?
Michelle 23:45
She's nine this year.
Qin En 23:45
Nine years, okay. So that means primary three, right?
Michelle 23:48
Yes.
Qin En 23:49
Now, love to hear a bit more about the transition to primary school, academics and all. I know it's very different from perhaps the time when we were going to school, but what's, what's your take on schooling on grades and I guess in a couple of years? IPSL?
Daniel 24:05
Yeah. This using the... this is the gifted year, streaming year for primary, right? So you can see a lot of kids going through this [inaudible] parent mode where... I think generally, in general, kids are really smart nowadays and for sure because of the technology available of the stuff that they're reading online. But at the same time, competition is a little very intense. And I think what we try to do is just try to cultivate her inherent motivation to learn. She's pretty bright. We're not sure whether, you know, where she'll be streamed, but I would say objectively, I think she's pretty, pretty smart. It's just that she makes a lot of callous mistakes. So those are the things that we try to, like you say, instead of scolding her, we try to reason with her and tell her like wife callous mistakes very frustrating from our point of view because you know how to do it, but you just, you know, leave the question blank or you just don't add properly and then you get it wrong and we try to give her parallels like when she's frustrated doing her art because she wrote the wrong spelling right. And say like, this is exactly what callous mistakes feels like to you, right? And to us. So I think our point of view is always to develop the intrinsic love for learning rather than to force. And I think that's been our philosophy. That's why we, we tried to sign up for a breath of lessons, but not commit to them at the start long term classes until we get a sense that this is something she she wants to do. So Michelle spoke a bit about artistic swimming. We, she started off with looking at the YouTube video and got very intrigued by what it was. We went for a trial lesson. She came back saying, this is amazing. I wanna do this again. And you can see it's genuine. And so we did that versus let's say piano where we tried, and then it was like, I think I would like it. But then you don't see her practicing, even though you give her those tools, right? You don't see her actively in it. So we got to a certain point where we said that, okay, there's sufficient theory and knowledge, but she's really not that into it. Yeah. Maybe we try to go somewhere else. So recently we were trying debate. Okay, this is really amazing world class debater. His name's Ashish. And you can see that from the feedback of the child and that's really how we try to steer the direction of the child keeping it more like, I want to do this. Is what I wanna do. Yeah.
Michelle 26:25
I think one thing to add is that be, being millennials and of course we took a bit of a different path doing our own business rather than climbing the corporate ladder. I think we are more open to different life paths. And I think this reflects in our, in how we think about academics and grades. Because even though I would say that we probably still submit a bit to the castle parent stereotype, you know, where we demand as good grades as they can possibly get and everything. I think we do realize that there's a lot of areas that children can excel in and perhaps even, you know, use it as a career path in the future. And we're not limited to just being good in, in school. Yeah. So I think it's important, especially in this digital age where there's a lot more paths open to us and across a lot of different platforms to make money, to have a career, to make a living, that we explore different interests and not just limit ourselves to the English math.
Daniel 27:22
Yeah. I'm not sure about what you feel as well, because we all went through the Singapore system, right? And I think it's the world is changing quite fast and there is so many things, right? You're talking about, you're talking about AI, you're talking about people's ability to learn online. It's so strong because our system feels very optimized for like getting to a good, so-called good school.
Qin En 27:42
Yep. Yeah.
Daniel 27:43
We just dunno whether this is relevant. Yeah. You know, in the next like 10 years if before they're studying, it's just completely irrelevant, right? Yeah. And so many things have now been displaced, right? Yeah. So you really don't know whether, yeah. So it's something we struggle with as well when we think about the system, but we just keep focused to the fact that we wanted to be intrinsically motivated to learn to learn, have to want to read, to want to acquire knowledge in whatever form she's motivated including sports or including debates, for example, right? And then let that organically steal her path and then we move it in that direction and may not be an academic path end of the day if it doesn't accord with it. I think that's fine as long as there's this motivation to learn. What do you think?
Qin En 28:28
It's just a fun thought experiment. It just came out as you were sharing that, because I fully agree, say 10 or even 20 years from now, would you bring your daughter into the business?
Daniel 28:38
I think, I would, if you look at her aptitude to do business for now, we don't see signs of entrepreneurship. She's more fixated about, oh, does this, you know, learn this, you know, I want to work for somebody. So I'm not sure, but of course we would like it if I would like it personally as a founder that my business has continuity, but my job as a founder is to build a business in such a way where it's like I told you, systems based. The success for me is that it doesn't need the founder to be around for the business to thrive, to grow. It's able to hire it's good people that are, you know, it's not a family business, it's just runs. So that's always been the goal. And I think we are on our way to kind of building a pretty good independent team that that's always been the goal. So whether or not the my children wants to take on my business is something I don't want to impose on them, but it'll be good, of course, if there is an appetite for business in the industry I'm in, which is also something that's not very sexy. And we talk more about that at some point, I guess. But I care a lot about social impact. I care a lot about hiring people that makes a difference in their lives. They may not care about that, and that's fine. I just think that I don't want to impose my business on them, but of course I'll be delighted if they share similar vision or ideas to, to grow on it. That would be best. Because then you can keep compounding your business in a way that is like internal. But you know, any other day it's, you shouldn't. I don't feel like we should like impose this on people.
Qin En 30:09
For sure. For sure. Michelle, any, any thoughts on your site to add of bringing your daughter into the business?
Michelle 30:16
I think it's a good business. It's definitely very fulfilling and rewarding to work in seeing the impact that we have on blue collar workers. I think it also makes people like, it made me very open-minded because I realize that all these blue collar work has a lot of value and I think these are very good values to impart to people as they work in the business. So I have no objections whatsoever. But as Daniel mentioned, I think it's definitely important to look at people's personalities because I don't think own way of like foisting your business onto the oldest child necessarily works in this day and age. I think that it's important that, you know, children want to take over the business and one to, and have a passion to work in it.
Daniel 30:57
Oh. But for sure if she's legally allowed to work, we would make her do some cleaning jobs. So just to share you, when I started the business and I still do, right? I would clean and I would say that it's a really good, it's a really good experience from the perspective of a, you really learn a lot about humility. You learn a lot about service to others. You really learn about how hard it, it takes to earn money and how you're trading time off for money, right? And I think these are values that honestly, a child could benefit from. I think from an education perspective and from solving my manpower perspective, I think this helps. But I wouldn't want her to take all the business. And it helps that she's actually quite organized.
She also show... we helped her to... we teach her to make her own bit, and she's very religious about keeping her room clean. So that there's sign that she's quite organized and she likes to like clean stuff. And so she clean. She should be, because I think regardless of whether a good cleaner or not, it's a very humbling experience, right? When you clean someone's toilet and you kind of just go through that day, you realize how hard it is to earn money. How hard is it to what sacrifice means. These are the things that I think serves as a good foundation for someone when they grow up and achieve greater things if they can. Because I think we shouldn't lose our roots when we fly higher, right? And I think that's something at least this business has given me a lot. And I'm very thankful for that. And I didn't expect that when I started this business, but it has given me so much in terms of that kind of life lesson. And so you don't see us at least bragging, you don't see us like humble bragging a lot. We think that these, this service actually give good values to our workers, to our ourselves to our children. And so for sure, right. I think it's definitely good to do some form of service, helps the child to grow and appreciate their parents better with.
Qin En 32:49
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's really inspiring, right? Because it's not just about giving your, your daughter should she come in just like a nice cushy job, a GM role right away, but really just for her to understand like the realities of the business. And I think, like you said, that's so real, right? Because I think for you, for both of you, you understand that you, you are in the business, you built it for growing up. But I think, yeah, I think really just giving her the exposure that there is very diverse backgrounds out there. That's so valuable.
Daniel 33:18
I think any family run business when they want to bring in their family as well, I think usually the approach, the sensible approach at least is not to parachute to the top straightaway. I've known examples of this and it doesn't work well, right? Cause basically you, you then have this problem of middle management and ground staff not respecting the fact that your legitimacy is not merited. Even though it's a family run business. And I think meritocracy being a very core value to our society, to my company, it's very important that people must see that even though this person is the son or daughter or related, they are equally willing to learn and be, do a 360 and progress from there. Because I think it also helps the person better if you're parachuting straight away as a manager, I think you just have a lot of, create a lot of second order problems for managing a business this way.
Qin En 34:12
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Look, Dan, Michelle, this has been a really, really enjoyable conversation to wrap up our time. What's the one thing that you would have taught yourself? Let's say you had a time machine to go back and tell the moment you became a parent, right? So for Daniel, for you, that was four to five years ago, for Michelle, that was nine years ago. What would you say to him or her respectively?
Daniel 34:36
I think for me, what I want to probably emphasize and stress Morgan is more empathy to the child's kind of feelings and go harder at that and less directive in terms of, oh, you need to do this, you need to do that. Or even though I told you that I think I do that a bit. I think more can be done from that perspective because you don't want the child to say that you fail to understand me. I think that's very important. I wish that I would not more actively do that future with if we have more kids in the future, more of trying to really understand the child perspective and building from there, rather than it being. I'm a parent. I tell you to do X. So I think... I think that's one thing that I learned a lot because now that she's older, Camillia also tells me things like, oh, I knew, I feel that I wanna go shopping with my friends, not you. And I say, why? Why is it cause they understand me more or they listen to me? So these are feedback that I take very seriously and I say, oh, is it not, she doesn't feel hurt and I need to probably listen to her more or, or really feel like I'm, make her feel that I'm actually taking advice and inputs. So that's something that I'm actively trying to correct now and probably advice that I'd give to myself if I had a time machine.
Qin En 35:50
Love it. Love it.
Michelle 35:51
I think for me, one advice, something that I know now that probably I didn't know when I first had Camillia was that we should maybe let the child go. And you just can't control a child all that much. I think a lot of parents will get this, especially at the younger ages, you can, because you do control most of their lives until maybe about one stage that I think you start to see slipping away from you. And I think that's perfectly normal because they're gr they're coming to their own as, as people. And I think it's, it's kind of similar to what Daniel said. They have their own ideas, which may not always resonate with you. They have their own preferences. For example, Camilia is really into Taylor Swift now, and I absolutely hate Taylor Swift. And that's just something that we will never agree on. And even though it makes me a little bit sad that I have little Taylor Swift every day, you know, I'm glad that she's coming into her own and she's finding her own path. So even though sometimes the paths may not necessarily be what us as parents and vision or hope for the child even, I think it's fine. I think that most people, if brought up well with good values, they eventually find their own way and they learn on their feet most of the time.
Daniel 37:05
Yeah. So patience is important as well, right? Just letting them become
Michelle 37:09
And find themselves.
Daniel 37:10 Find themselves. Yeah.
Qin En 37:12
Yeah. That's awesome. Well, it's advice that definitely I am taking for myself, so thank you also for that. Dan, Michelle, it's been such an enjoyable time to speak with you. It's not often that I get both father and mother on the podcast and especially a couple of works together. It is building a business together. You are the first of that. To the rest of our audience for them who are curious about Nimbus Homes, what would you say? How would you introduce what Nimbus Homes can do for them? I am a happy customer, so I can vouch, but I think it's always better for you to share.
Daniel 37:44 Yeah. So basically Nimbus Home is our Nimbus brand that services the house. And it does... basically the idea is that we want to provide a good housekeeping, babysitting, elder care, all the home services that probably, you know, people don't have time to do when after a busy day. And basically we want to provide good service for the end consumer to free up their time. But also at the same time, for us, it's more than a cleaning service. It's more than a service. It's about giving job opportunities as well to people that are really working hard to do better for themselves. So it could be someone, a worker that has escaped a water on country that wants to earn a better living here. It could also be people in our society that feels that they've been very undervalued by their resume and they're trying to do a respectful and dignified job. And I think that that's really what we care about. So that's really our mission. And we have, you know, we have a pretty updated Google Review, so please check us out @nimbushomes.com or you can just Google Nimbus Homes, you'll see our service standards there. And I think our app has a good promo code that we would recommend all Parents in Tech to use. And after this podcast, we also created a Parents in Tech promo code. So ParentsinTech, no spacing would get you a 10% discount of our site. So we'll create that after this podcast.
Qin En 39:08
Awesome. More freebies. I love it. I might use it myself too. All right, Dan and Michelle, thank you so much for take your time off for joining us on this show and such a joy to speak with you today.
Daniel 39:17
Thanks, Qin En.
Michelle 39:17
Thank you.
Qin En 39:23
Thanks for listening to the Parents in Tech podcast with me, your host Qin Enin En. We hope you were inspired on how to raise kids and build companies. To catch up on earlier episodes or stay updated with upcoming ones. Head over to www.parents.fm to join our community of Parents In Tech. There, you can also drop me a question, idea, feedback or suggestion? Once again, the website it's www.parents.fm. That's all for this episode, folks. See you next time.
