Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 3: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 3: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is.
Speaker 2: Airing in early June of twenty twenty five. Sarah is
Speaker 2: going to be interviewing Vanessa Quickly, who is the founder
Speaker 2: of Chatbooks, which I know is something a lot of
Speaker 2: our listeners have used as part of their memory keeping
Speaker 2: in the modern era. Vanessa will talk about starting a
Speaker 2: company all that goes into that. She also has seven kids,
Speaker 2: so definitely living the best of both worlds lifestyle there.
Speaker 2: So Sarah, let's talk about your photo lifestyle right now.
Speaker 1: What are you hunting photos? What are you doing with
Speaker 1: your fool photos?
Speaker 3: And I also wanted to mention, like other memory keeping
Speaker 3: maybe because.
Speaker 4: I want credit for something.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to like physical items that I
Speaker 3: want to keep, and they're not many of them, but
Speaker 3: like of the kids, so that rare piece of artwork
Speaker 3: that you're like, oh, or like that Mother's Day thing
Speaker 3: that was so creative that you just like want I
Speaker 3: do have. This was inspired by Gretchen Rubin, but I
Speaker 3: got like Banker's boxes for each kid. Actually correction, I
Speaker 3: have two Bankers Boxes for three kids because Cameron and
Speaker 3: Genevieve are sharing a box, because that's what happens.
Speaker 4: But that's okay.
Speaker 3: It's worked out so far, and I would say I
Speaker 3: put like two to three things per year per kid
Speaker 3: in there, so it's like really sparing. But I think
Speaker 3: that's going to be really fun when they're done and
Speaker 3: I can hand them these folders or I can keep
Speaker 3: them and they can look at them, because like the
Speaker 3: goal is not to have a giant pie, like it's
Speaker 3: very space limited, but it's kind of fun to have
Speaker 3: some actual artifacts. And I don't mean artifacts like hair.
Speaker 3: These are all like pieces of paper.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, does Annabelle have more of an
Speaker 2: artistic output than the other two or it's just that
Speaker 2: they were younger.
Speaker 3: No, it's just that they're younger, so they're going to
Speaker 3: each need their own box eventually. But because Genevieve's really
Speaker 3: only been like in school and making things for a
Speaker 3: few years, I'm shoving them in the back of Cameron's
Speaker 3: box right now, but ultimately she'll get her own box.
Speaker 3: And then in terms of our photos, so in theory
Speaker 3: we print out photo books, but my last one is
Speaker 3: from twenty twenty one, so maybe we don't print out
Speaker 3: photo books. However, I am still thinking there was hope
Speaker 3: for catching up, and I used to do one per
Speaker 3: year via Shutterfly. I did the super easy version where
Speaker 3: I just like told it to AI auto do it
Speaker 3: and then I would like make slight adjustments. But I
Speaker 3: didn't put a lot of work into it. The hard
Speaker 3: part for me has always been the curation of like
Speaker 3: which photos will go in there, and I could put
Speaker 3: a kid to work on that task. I am well aware,
Speaker 3: so I think we may catch up someday. And then
Speaker 3: the other thing has been that I just do the
Speaker 3: auto upload thing. We use Google Photos. Both my husband's
Speaker 3: pictures and mine auto upload to there, and it's great.
Speaker 3: I mean the other day, Laura, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to go to this restaurant with Josh.
Speaker 4: Did I go there with somebody? And I was like,
Speaker 4: I think it was Laura, And.
Speaker 3: I looked up I found the transaction in You Need
Speaker 3: a Budget, I saw which day it was, looked up
Speaker 3: the day, and then found a picture of us holding
Speaker 3: drinks at this restaurant.
Speaker 4: It was awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really Yeah.
Speaker 4: Google Photos is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's a lot more searchable now than it used
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: I mean I've had the like, Okay, I store my
Speaker 2: passports in a place in the house that is not
Speaker 2: near my desk, and so then I've had to enter
Speaker 2: information for a few things recently. But I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I have a picture of it on my phone and
Speaker 2: so then you know, I'm like, well, who knows when
Speaker 2: I took that picture. But all I do is like
Speaker 2: Laura passport, search for that and it comes up right, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it knows what that is, which is great, so,
Speaker 2: you know, useful. But anyway, yeah, I have I have
Speaker 2: a lot of photos on my phone that are just
Speaker 2: sitting there, and I pay for extra storage because I
Speaker 2: don't really feel it going through and deleting stuff.
Speaker 1: We do have photo books from just about every year.
Speaker 2: I think we're at I do think we got to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. I'm not sure that twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: has been created yet. But the key in recent years
Speaker 2: has been having Ruth take over this project. She has
Speaker 2: access to my photos through my Apple account that is
Speaker 2: also running her iPad, so it has not even been
Speaker 2: a problem for her to just go through them and
Speaker 2: put them directly into a Shutterfly and make a book.
Speaker 2: So I've strongly encouraged that. But you know, we do
Speaker 2: and I got to say, obviously people take lots of
Speaker 2: photos on their phones. I will still put a plug
Speaker 2: for paying a professional photographer to take real portraits of
Speaker 2: your family. We've done this pretty much almost every year
Speaker 2: with a couple of different photographers whose work we like
Speaker 2: around here, and I.
Speaker 1: Am so happy to have them.
Speaker 2: I mean, partly, it's just then look nice on our
Speaker 2: Christmas card photos. It doesn't look like you know, I
Speaker 2: just randomly took it in the kitchen while everyone was
Speaker 2: sitting there. But then we have printed them up nicer
Speaker 2: and framed them. We have a photo wall, like a
Speaker 2: gallery of all the kids. They have a big formal
Speaker 2: portrait of all this. It's just good to have. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I like it. I like seeing the photo.
Speaker 3: We did that last Thanksgiving with my parents and sister.
Speaker 3: And I will say actually, the bigger the group is,
Speaker 3: the more affordable it can be, because if you're in
Speaker 3: a big family but you want like smaller family portraits,
Speaker 3: you're generally paying for the photographer's time and you can
Speaker 3: get a lot of pictures taken if you assemble a
Speaker 3: decent group, and then you can kind of share the costs.
Speaker 3: So obviously, also photographer's rates very widely. If you want
Speaker 3: some well known person, you're probably going to be paying
Speaker 3: a premium. But I found that this there's like a
Speaker 3: gig economy in photos, and you can get some really
Speaker 3: great artistic photos taken for not a ton of money.
Speaker 2: And this can also be a great gift, like for
Speaker 2: a grandparent, if you are getting together as a family,
Speaker 2: for instance, at some point this summer, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: all each other at a wedding or at a graduation
Speaker 2: or some sort of outdoor party that you're having, if
Speaker 2: you hire a photographer to come and take photos of everyone,
Speaker 2: this can be a wonderful thing to give to, especially
Speaker 2: older adults who don't really need anything like this is
Speaker 2: something that they might want. I will say, you have
Speaker 2: to prepare everyone ahead of time for this, and because
Speaker 2: people often don't want to stop what they're doing in
Speaker 2: the middle of a party to pose for formal photos,
Speaker 2: to just make sure everyone knows that they will need
Speaker 2: to be taking thirty minutes out of the fund to
Speaker 2: do this. But the memories are great, you know, It's
Speaker 2: a small price to pay for being able to look
Speaker 2: back on it forever. All right, Well, let's see what
Speaker 2: Vanessa has to say about photos and memory keeping in general.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm so excited to welcome to the show Vanessa Quickly,
Speaker 3: the creator of chatbooks, a product a company that many
Speaker 3: of you guys know and love. But just in case
Speaker 3: you are not familiar with our chat books, go ahead
Speaker 3: and introduce yourself.
Speaker 5: I hope many people know and love it. Yeah, my
Speaker 5: name is Vanessa. I am a mother. I have seven
Speaker 5: kids and two grandkids. I'm the oldest of twelve, so
Speaker 5: big families of kind of my thing. I love a
Speaker 5: lot of chaos and creativity and all that comes with
Speaker 5: having a big family. Started the company ten years ago
Speaker 5: because in all that chaos of phrasing kids and having
Speaker 5: babies at breakneck speed. I had gotten behind to my
Speaker 5: scrap booking. I was the scrapbook mom with my oldest
Speaker 5: and my youngest was going off to kindergarten without a
Speaker 5: single printed photo besides the annual Christmas card. And so
Speaker 5: chat Books is a solution to that problem that I have,
Speaker 5: and I've been building it for the last ten Oh man,
Speaker 5: we're going on eleven years now with my husband and
Speaker 5: it's been a wild, wild ride.
Speaker 3: That is amazing. So where exactly, because you have seven
Speaker 3: kids and you sort of mentioned how all the oldest
Speaker 3: was like, where were you and your parent journey when
Speaker 3: you decided to start a brand new company.
Speaker 5: Well, my oldest had started his freshman year of college
Speaker 5: and my youngest was going to kindergarten. So quite the
Speaker 5: range there, And if I'm being honest, there were years
Speaker 5: before we started Chatbooks that my husband had been trying
Speaker 5: to build a company to solve like helping families hold
Speaker 5: on to organize and enjoy their family memories. He has
Speaker 5: a career in building enterprise software and was kind of
Speaker 5: tackling the problem from that lens. And we basically drained
Speaker 5: our savings trying.
Speaker 1: To build a solution.
Speaker 5: From a guy's point of view when we all know
Speaker 5: it's the mom's right, the chief household officer that is
Speaker 5: doing most of the memory keeping, and so I don't
Speaker 5: have the Harvard MBA. But I finally spoke up and
Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't think this is going to work.
Speaker 5: I'm not using it, my friends aren't using it, my
Speaker 5: sisters aren't using it.
Speaker 1: Will you just figure.
Speaker 5: Out how to print my photos? And so with that
Speaker 5: idea came like a volunteer to join the founding company
Speaker 5: and build this business, even though I had no background
Speaker 5: in business at all, but I was very passionate about
Speaker 5: the problem to be solved.
Speaker 4: That is awesome.
Speaker 3: And by the way, slight parallel here because your age
Speaker 3: spread of your kids is almost exactly the same as Laura,
Speaker 3: my co host. She's got a five year old and
Speaker 3: then headed off to college as her oldest, so kind
Speaker 3: of similar on the up of seven and she has five, so.
Speaker 5: No, hey, it's all the same after three, it's a blur.
Speaker 3: So I can only imagine since I only have three.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: I also read a little bit about your background before
Speaker 3: all this and found it, well, maybe not equally fascinating
Speaker 3: because I want to hear more about like the whole,
Speaker 3: like what it was like to start a company from
Speaker 3: the ground up with all those kids in various ages.
Speaker 3: But you also had an unusual upbringing. In fact, there
Speaker 3: was an article that I think was part of your
Speaker 3: preskitt that said why growing up weird can be good
Speaker 3: for your career. So, Vanessa, how did you grow up
Speaker 3: weird and was it good for your career? Well?
Speaker 5: I mentioned I'm the oldest of twelve kids, and we
Speaker 5: grew up in Orlando, Florida, and we right now live
Speaker 5: in Utah, and Utah historically has been known for big families,
Speaker 5: and in Utah, I mean in Florida. Though like twelve kids,
Speaker 5: we were freak shows. We were in the newspaper at
Speaker 5: least once a year doing an article on some aspect
Speaker 5: of like me my mom being supermom, or we had
Speaker 5: like a gentleman's farm in our backyard and a pine
Speaker 5: tree nursery. My dad had got my got going so
Speaker 5: that my brothers could help have actually have a healthy
Speaker 5: outlet for all of that big boy energy, but also
Speaker 5: to help raise money for college. I came from a
Speaker 5: wildly entrepreneurial family, and my mother, who was the primary
Speaker 5: caregiver for the twelve kids. She was so creative. She
Speaker 5: was an artist, she was a script she would write plays.
Speaker 5: She constantly built dream up business plans like that's what
Speaker 5: she would do. So I was like a coping mechanism.
Speaker 4: For the twelve kids.
Speaker 5: It was like just wild creativity and imagining like other worlds.
Speaker 5: But I think all of the experiences with growing up
Speaker 5: with a big family, where like we didn't fit the mold,
Speaker 5: anything was possible, dreaming big, like even when we already
Speaker 5: had a lot of big things going on. All of
Speaker 5: that fed into this idea when I left home at
Speaker 5: eighteen that I can literally do anything that I set
Speaker 5: my mind to. And when I left home, I wanted
Speaker 5: to be an opera singer. I love to sing, and
Speaker 5: my parents always told me that I had a really
Speaker 5: nice voice, and so of course I'm going to go
Speaker 5: off and be a famous singer. I actually thought I
Speaker 5: would be on Broadway, like that's really what I wanted
Speaker 5: to do. I had never seen an opera. I had
Speaker 5: been to a few Broadway shows, and I was like,
Speaker 5: that is a life for me up on the stage.
Speaker 5: And again my parents were just like feeding me into this,
Speaker 5: like you can do anything, and you're so wildly talented.
Speaker 5: And so I went off to college, but I was
Speaker 5: didn't really understand how my university broke up the programs.
Speaker 5: There's like a strict music theater tracked and a strict
Speaker 5: classical music tract. And I just auditioned for the first
Speaker 5: flyer that I saw for singers, and I ended up
Speaker 5: in this opera tract. And after I'd realized what had
Speaker 5: happened and it was too late to drop the class,
Speaker 5: I stuck with it that semester, and my like world changed.
Speaker 5: I fell in love with opera music at all of
Speaker 5: the new challenges that come with that repertoire and technique.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, how did growing up weird in Florida
Speaker 5: with twelve kids and a cow that we would milk,
Speaker 5: and horses and the pine tree nursery and collecting snakes
Speaker 5: and all of that that was part of my child?
Speaker 5: How did that lead me to where I am today?
Speaker 5: I think just I like taking risks. I'm not intimidated
Speaker 5: by fear. Actually fear excites me. And I've learned as
Speaker 5: I've my career has evolved, and as I've been raising
Speaker 5: all of these kids through every wild phase of motherhood
Speaker 5: that when things are scary, it usually means there's something
Speaker 5: exciting or some growth that's on the other side.
Speaker 3: So super interesting, that's all right, I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: hearing it's like you never fit the mold. Your family
Speaker 3: didn't fit the mold, and it was okay, So like
Speaker 3: why I aim to fit the mold to begin with?
Speaker 4: So kind of like your possibilities are limitless, right.
Speaker 5: And being different was something that I felt like was
Speaker 5: a badge of honor. So the first house that we
Speaker 5: bought after my husband finished his graduate school, we lived
Speaker 5: in a neighborhood with a lot of families that looked
Speaker 5: a lot like ours, and moms that were staying at
Speaker 5: home with their kids. And I just was like, if
Speaker 5: I have to sit in the basement and play Little
Speaker 5: Pet Shop for the rest of my life, I will die.
Speaker 5: I cannot do this. And so I was the first
Speaker 5: to kind of start going back to work. Like I said,
Speaker 5: I was a singer and I had kind of hung
Speaker 5: up the dream of being an international opera singer when
Speaker 5: I found out I was pregnant with my first baby
Speaker 5: as a junior in college. Really hard to have an
Speaker 5: international opera career and a young family. But I kept
Speaker 5: up this and after my fifth child was born, I,
Speaker 5: with the encouragement of my husband, went out for an
Speaker 5: audition for a Vida and I was cast in that
Speaker 5: show as the mistress and on the dance core, and
Speaker 5: so I got to leave the house every afternoon to
Speaker 5: go to rehearsal for months, and then the show ran
Speaker 5: for three months, and it was like insane trying to
Speaker 5: coordinate the five kids and my husband's startup schedule and
Speaker 5: all the babysitters and all the help and we had
Speaker 5: a lot of Hamburger helper during the run of that show.
Speaker 5: But I came alive again being able to do this
Speaker 5: thing that I felt born to do, that I had
Speaker 5: a passion for and unique talents for. And I actually
Speaker 5: felt like I was a better mother, a better friend,
Speaker 5: a better wife because I was nurturing this part of
Speaker 5: me that had been neglected for so long.
Speaker 3: That is so cool, And you were absolutely speaking our
Speaker 3: listener's language. We're going to take a quick break, and
Speaker 3: then I want to talk about Chad Folks being an
Speaker 3: amazing workplace for women, and just a little bit more
Speaker 3: about the company and your life ideas. All right, we
Speaker 3: are back and that story is amazing. I mean, especially
Speaker 3: just I can hear the passion in your voice when
Speaker 3: it was maybe a little bit going against it sounds
Speaker 3: like the cultural zeitgeist that you were in to just
Speaker 3: be like, no, this is what I want. I have
Speaker 3: awesome ideas, and you know what, I'm going to try
Speaker 3: the singing thing. Even so, how did we go from singing?
Speaker 4: Two chatbooks?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: How did the journey break off? Here?
Speaker 5: How did the breakoff? Well? Best laid plans right, you
Speaker 5: have a plan of how you want your life to go.
Speaker 5: And it's anything that I've learned throughout my fifty almost
Speaker 5: fifty three years is that making plans is great, and
Speaker 5: I think that keeps you going right. But then you've
Speaker 5: got to be ready to take the pivot wherever it comes.
Speaker 5: And so our family was actually living in Florida at
Speaker 5: the time, where I grew up just minutes from the beach,
Speaker 5: in a beautiful home where I had already imagined where
Speaker 5: I was going to host all the wedding perceptions of
Speaker 5: my kids, like this is where we're going to live forever.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: I had my running friends, I had my theater friends.
Speaker 5: I was working a lot in local theaters and with
Speaker 5: a local orchestra. And like I had mentioned, my husband
Speaker 5: had been building out this you know, solution for family
Speaker 5: memories that was not going anywhere, and in a moment
Speaker 5: of like panic, he was like, we have to move
Speaker 5: to Utah. Like this little beachside town, as much as
Speaker 5: we love it, like we're never going to be able
Speaker 5: to build this company here. We've got to go to Utah.
Speaker 5: And I went to college in Utah, and I loved
Speaker 5: my time in college, but I did not love Utah.
Speaker 5: And I know my husband when we graduated, I am
Speaker 5: never going back there. And at the time he was
Speaker 5: like me neither. He was from the East Coast as well.
Speaker 5: I grew up in Florida, but there was really exciting
Speaker 5: things happening in Utah, especially around consumer tech. And my
Speaker 5: husband had flown out to Utah a couple times to
Speaker 5: pitch some investors, and he was like, that is where
Speaker 5: we have to go. There's like so much energy and
Speaker 5: the culture of family is so big there. And this
Speaker 5: was what clinched it for me. My oldest son decided
Speaker 5: to go to BYU and he got accepted and so
Speaker 5: he was going west. I had the hardest time imagining
Speaker 5: sending my baby across the country, just goodbye, go off
Speaker 5: to college. And so that was what kind of like
Speaker 5: finally like tipped it for me, like, Okay, we'll move
Speaker 5: to Utah for the business, also to follow my son
Speaker 5: to college, which he hated. Actually, at one point I
Speaker 5: had to tell him pretend we don't live here, and
Speaker 5: he did. I hardly heard from him. In fact, I
Speaker 5: called him to say, you know, when are you coming
Speaker 5: home for Christmas? Like when's your last exam? He was
Speaker 5: in Florida. He just booked his own flight, went to
Speaker 5: Florida to do his own thing. Anyway, we moved our
Speaker 5: whole family to Utah to try to give this business
Speaker 5: that my husband had been building a chance. And that's
Speaker 5: when I had my idea of like put all of
Speaker 5: that expensive code even building on the shelf, and just
Speaker 5: focus on the real problem that I am having, which
Speaker 5: is the only way my son can see the photos
Speaker 5: from the last five years of his life is in
Speaker 5: the iPad, and I'm constantly taking the iPad and the
Speaker 5: phones away from him. Right, he was just an addict.
Speaker 5: With the exception of one printed photo album that his
Speaker 5: preschool teacher had made that last year of preschool. She
Speaker 5: took photos of their parties and field trips and whatever,
Speaker 5: and she printed them off at Walgreens dropped him in
Speaker 5: this old dollar store album and he loved that album.
Speaker 5: He took it everywhere with him. In fact, the night
Speaker 5: before he went to preschool, I found him up in
Speaker 5: his room bawling his eyes out. He told me he
Speaker 5: never wanted to grow up. He'd been looking at these
Speaker 5: few photos and was feeling all these big feelings and
Speaker 5: it was adorable. But it was also this massive gut
Speaker 5: punch to me that I was failing in one of
Speaker 5: my most important mom jobs, which is to help my
Speaker 5: kids hold on to their story. There's so much power
Speaker 5: in our stories, and it comes across differently scrolling on
Speaker 5: an iPad than it does with a printed photo. And
Speaker 5: so that was the light bulb moment that pivoted all
Speaker 5: of the work that had been done previously. And like
Speaker 5: I said, it was my idea. I knew who our
Speaker 5: customer was, I knew how to talk to them, where
Speaker 5: to find them. And so instead of going off to
Speaker 5: play tennis or get yoga certified, when Deklan went off
Speaker 5: to kindergarten, I went to work. And it was the
Speaker 5: first like nine to five job I had ever had,
Speaker 5: and there was a big learning curve there.
Speaker 3: But it sounds like obviously things went in an amazing direction.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it probably sounds much more easy in retrospect
Speaker 3: and they're playing million humps and little learning points along
Speaker 3: the way. But your idea ended up getting into the
Speaker 3: hands of so many people. I was literally taking a
Speaker 3: walk before I recorded this episode and said I was
Speaker 3: going to talk to the counder of chapbooks, and she goes, oh,
Speaker 3: I have like a hundred of those all over my house.
Speaker 4: So I, oh, man, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I think so often we're just working head down,
Speaker 5: grinding it out, trying to grow, trying to like do
Speaker 5: all the things, and you sometimes forget that this is
Speaker 5: actually making a difference. Those kinds of stories make me
Speaker 5: so happy to hear it is.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about saving memories a little bit. And
Speaker 3: you definitely have me on board with the idea that
Speaker 3: printed is a little bit different than digital. Do you
Speaker 3: have like rituals you recommend around memory keeping, whether that
Speaker 3: involves using chatbooks or another platform. But like, sometimes I
Speaker 3: believe that we focus a lot on like the product
Speaker 3: and not a lot on like the process. Like a
Speaker 3: lot are the processes here that will help people preserve
Speaker 3: their family memories.
Speaker 5: We all take a million photos, right, a gazillion photos.
Speaker 5: I probably take ten times more than my husband. He
Speaker 5: always makes fun of me, But if there's one moment
Speaker 5: I want to capture, I'll just go ahead and take
Speaker 5: five to ten of them, just because you never know,
Speaker 5: you want to get like the right everyone looking whatever.
Speaker 5: And we just have such access to our phones that
Speaker 5: and our kids are so cute, they're always doing something.
Speaker 5: We're just taking so many photos, and I think it's
Speaker 5: amazing in contrast to the few photos that I have
Speaker 5: of my childhood, right, Like, it's such a blessing. But
Speaker 5: that overwhelm just causes paralysis, and a lot of us
Speaker 5: just sort of like, oh, I know I should be
Speaker 5: doing something with my photos. But a process that I
Speaker 5: have I call it my Sunday select where at the
Speaker 5: end of the week, usually Sunday afternoons or Sunday evenings,
Speaker 5: I go through my camera roll just from that week
Speaker 5: and just tackle those photos. Delete all the duplicates, delete
Speaker 5: all the screenshots, either save them or just get rid
Speaker 5: of them. I'm really actually not going to ever cook
Speaker 5: that recipe that I screenshot in, send photos that I
Speaker 5: have of neighborhood kids or of my nieces and nephews
Speaker 5: to them, just kind of declutter and pare down to
Speaker 5: what I actually want to keep that habit alone, and
Speaker 5: that's something you can start today. You don't have to
Speaker 5: feel guilty about not going back throughout the years. Start
Speaker 5: that today a weekly habit. Some people do it every day.
Speaker 5: That's overwhelming for me because I take a lot of
Speaker 5: photos for work things, and usually by the end of
Speaker 5: the week I know what I need to keep them
Speaker 5: what I don't need to keep. But just having a
Speaker 5: regular habit of curation is number one. And then it
Speaker 5: honestly is so important to back them up. And I
Speaker 5: think most of us have them backed up on Google
Speaker 5: or Amazon or the cloud, right. I hope, at the
Speaker 5: very least have them backed up in one place. I
Speaker 5: recommend having to. You can get really detailed in your
Speaker 5: curation and backup and use folders and by years. But
Speaker 5: AI has done so many amazing things in photo management
Speaker 5: that something's better than nothing done, is better than perfect,
Speaker 5: like let the automation work for you, especially when you're
Speaker 5: going through the backlog, but going forward, like get those
Speaker 5: photos out of your phone and into the hands of
Speaker 5: your family. We actually have done research with HP and
Speaker 5: with the Bump to measure the impact that printed photos
Speaker 5: have on families, and it's amazing the outcomes. I mean,
Speaker 5: number one, you're going to feel like a better parent
Speaker 5: because you're doing something that you know you should probably
Speaker 5: be doing right. And there's something about looking at printed
Speaker 5: photos that like brings more permanence into our mind, into
Speaker 5: our memories. It helps create this narrative of our family
Speaker 5: story that can be such a source of strength and resilience.
Speaker 5: There's something called elaborative reminiscing that the professor that worked
Speaker 5: with us on the HP study helped us understand the
Speaker 5: power of it's when we tell stories with great detail,
Speaker 5: and kids love to do this. Sit down with the
Speaker 5: photo book or with a printed photo, and you ask
Speaker 5: them what was happening here, and who is with you?
Speaker 5: And how are you feeling? And what happened before and
Speaker 5: what did you do after and what did you learn
Speaker 5: from this? So often our kids experience of that moment
Speaker 5: that we've caught on camera is so different from our
Speaker 5: own experience, and so allowing them to share it does
Speaker 5: a lot of things. It helps them build a greater
Speaker 5: sense of identity, it helps create better problem solving language skills.
Speaker 5: There's more connection happening between parent and child, and they
Speaker 5: are crafting this narrative of their story that is going
Speaker 5: to serve them throughout their whole life. So my suggestions are,
Speaker 5: do a regular curation of your camera starting today going forward.
Speaker 5: I've seen people share on Instauce. One hack is whatever
Speaker 5: day you're doing it, go back throughout your camera, roll
Speaker 5: back the years on that same day and curate those two.
Speaker 5: That's an amazing way to work on that backlog. But
Speaker 5: I just really feel like if we start to think
Speaker 5: about all of the years where we've done nothing, we
Speaker 5: will just feel so overwhelmed that we'll do nothing. So
Speaker 5: I like to just say that's for a later day.
Speaker 5: Maybe when I'm retired, I will get to that, but
Speaker 5: now is the time to start doing something, something's better
Speaker 5: than nothing, and then print your photos, whether it's with chatbooks,
Speaker 5: there's so many companies that do photo books. I will
Speaker 5: say the thing that is different about Chatbooks is when
Speaker 5: we built the app and built the website, I had
Speaker 5: busy moms in mind, like me and I had tried
Speaker 5: making photo books on the other platforms, and there are
Speaker 5: a million different ways to build a book, lots of
Speaker 5: templates and cute fonts and colors and designs and shapes
Speaker 5: and sizes of collages, all of those fun things. And
Speaker 5: if you have tons of time.
Speaker 4: You can make a great book.
Speaker 5: But every book that I had ever started that way,
Speaker 5: i'd never finished. And so we created a super easy
Speaker 5: way to make a chat book where you really we've
Speaker 5: taken all of that decision fatigue away, the very simple layouts,
Speaker 5: not a whole lot of choices to make. And it's
Speaker 5: the ongoing photobook subscription that really is magical because think
Speaker 5: about all the things that come into our homes, right,
Speaker 5: all the catalogs and ads and media. What if you
Speaker 5: had an ongoing, regular delivery of a photo book with
Speaker 5: the memories and not just the ones that would traditionally
Speaker 5: get made into a photo book, like the graduation and
Speaker 5: the big trip and the family reunion, all those things. Yes,
Speaker 5: you should be printing those photos and hanging on with
Speaker 5: those two. But it's the everyday magic of our everyday
Speaker 5: lives that really that is what really tells the story.
Speaker 5: And you know, when I look through the few photos
Speaker 5: that I have of my childhood. One of my favorites
Speaker 5: is a photo my mom took my room when I
Speaker 5: was in seventh grade when I decided my favorite color
Speaker 5: is purple, and I wanted the whole room purple, all
Speaker 5: the things purple. And it was a disaster. And that
Speaker 5: is just such a snapshot into my life as a
Speaker 5: seven year old. I mean it is a seventh grader.
Speaker 5: I make it a habit of taking picture. Anytime I
Speaker 5: see one of my kids rooms just horrendously out of
Speaker 5: control messy, I'll snap a picture, and that goes in
Speaker 5: our chat books because that's part of our story. And
Speaker 5: one day they will be grown adults and they will
Speaker 5: have immaculate homes. Maybe I don't know who cares, but
Speaker 5: they'll have this little snapshot to look back on, and
Speaker 5: I will too. When my house is clean and quiet,
Speaker 5: I'll remember this is where the magic was happening in
Speaker 5: the middle of this chaos and mess.
Speaker 3: And they can show it to their kids and then
Speaker 3: make them feel better about having a messy room. No,
Speaker 3: I love that exactly. I think one thing, like having
Speaker 3: these printed things around it's good for kids, it's also
Speaker 3: good for us, Like you get to savor that vacation again,
Speaker 3: you get to like remember the cute little thing that
Speaker 3: your kid did on that random class assembly or whatever.
Speaker 3: And I know, yes, like these things are living in
Speaker 3: our phone somewhere, but we're just not going to bring
Speaker 3: them out in the same way than if they're actually
Speaker 3: like part of our environment. So I really do feel
Speaker 3: like it makes sense that there's value there. I saw
Speaker 3: there's research on the kids, and I would like to
Speaker 3: know what the research is also as favorable for the adults.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Like eighty nine percent of moms say that
Speaker 5: looking at photos helps them feel like a better mom,
Speaker 5: and I think it is number one. They've actually probably
Speaker 5: punted them and that's like, you know, gold star, I
Speaker 5: did that thing that I probably should be doing. But
Speaker 5: also it gives you a chance to look back and
Speaker 5: see all the things that you're doing, Like we are
Speaker 5: doing a better job than we give ourselves credit for, right.
Speaker 5: And I know I'm in the thick of teenagers and
Speaker 5: young adult kids and that can be very trying at times,
Speaker 5: and sometimes I have an older child that I'm just
Speaker 5: absolutely losing my mind with. But looking back at photos,
Speaker 5: especially older photos, and being like, oh, yeah, we had
Speaker 5: some really special moments and at the core that really
Speaker 5: difficult teenager is a sweetheart, Like I remember those days
Speaker 5: and so it helps me like reground and reconnect. Yeah,
Speaker 5: there's powerful, powerful outcomes for parents and especially around mental health.
Speaker 5: Like that was what we were really focusing on in
Speaker 5: the survey with the bump that all the things that
Speaker 5: we can do and we have access to for our
Speaker 5: mental health, Like a photo book is like one of
Speaker 5: the most powerful mental health tools that we have at our.
Speaker 4: Fingertips and so simple. I love it.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 3: back with more of Vanessa. Okay, we are back. I
Speaker 3: want to ask you like a slight pivot. I read
Speaker 3: that Chatbooks was actually named one of the best places
Speaker 3: to work for women, and I want to know what
Speaker 3: is your company doing structure wise to make it so awesome, Like,
Speaker 3: because we have a lot of leaders that listen to
Speaker 3: this podcast and if they want ideas on how to
Speaker 3: make their workplace amazing or maybe to present it to
Speaker 3: their leaders if they're not the ones in charge, give
Speaker 3: us some ideas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like I had mentioned before, this is
Speaker 5: my first like go to work nine to five job.
Speaker 5: I had observed my husband and some of his jobs,
Speaker 5: and you know, building software that's a whole nother kind
Speaker 5: of company culture. But here we had an opportunity to
Speaker 5: build a company from the ground up that really reflected
Speaker 5: our values. The mission of Chapbooks is to connect and
Speaker 5: strengthen families, and I wanted everything from the product to
Speaker 5: the company culture to reflect that. And we were in
Speaker 5: a season of our life where I didn't want to
Speaker 5: be absent from all the amazing things that were happening,
Speaker 5: and so we just created a company culture that was
Speaker 5: family first, recognizing that everyone that works for us has
Speaker 5: a life outside of Chatbooks, and we want to and
Speaker 5: expect every team member to come and bring their best
Speaker 5: self to work for eight amazing hours, but we can't
Speaker 5: be blind to the fact that they have full three
Speaker 5: sixty lives with people that depend on them and school
Speaker 5: assemblies that they need to go to and kids that
Speaker 5: get sick overnight, and then you can't come into work,
Speaker 5: And so what is it going to look like and
Speaker 5: feel like to work here at Chatbooks while being a mom,
Speaker 5: being a dad, all of those other responsibilities, And so
Speaker 5: we just center everything around five values. After working, you know,
Speaker 5: those early startup days are a grind and you're just
Speaker 5: trying to like just keep the wheels on the bus, right.
Speaker 5: But when we had a moment to think about, all right,
Speaker 5: how we want to be really deliberate about the kind
Speaker 5: of company we were building. We're building a product that
Speaker 5: serves parents and is primarily moms. We need every level
Speaker 5: of this organization to represent our customer, like we need
Speaker 5: women everywhere. So how are we going to create this
Speaker 5: working environment that will be welcoming to all kinds of
Speaker 5: women at different levels of their career. And so these
Speaker 5: values that we just have heralded, We have them painted
Speaker 5: on the walls in our offices, We use them for
Speaker 5: every interview, for every evaluation, we talk about them constantly
Speaker 5: are five star values. The pinnacle is to be a
Speaker 5: grown up. And this came out of an experience where
Speaker 5: the first little office that we had, and it was
Speaker 5: honestly just a bunch of guys developers, and my husband
Speaker 5: and I would have to put the toilet paper on
Speaker 5: the toilet roll because these guys are used to their
Speaker 5: mommy doing it and I'm like, this is not happening.
Speaker 5: You know, if number one, a chat booker is a
Speaker 5: grown up, so that entails putting the toilet paper on
Speaker 5: the toilet roll, cleaning up after yourself, and obviously, like
Speaker 5: all of the other things that we expect from grown ups,
Speaker 5: be considerate, be kind, be thoughtful, like all of those things.
Speaker 5: And the other other values are being kind and optimistic,
Speaker 5: being willing to ship and do amazing work. Those things
Speaker 5: come intention But we have this all stark culture with
Speaker 5: family first benefits that are at like the top of
Speaker 5: what is being offered here in Utah and including like
Speaker 5: full mental health services for each employee and their family.
Speaker 5: We have access to a platform that allows them to
Speaker 5: have therapy like all those things. As moms, we all
Speaker 5: of my kids are therapy right now. Like how I
Speaker 5: don't know how you live in this life without having help,
Speaker 5: but just access to tools and resources and support from
Speaker 5: the highest level of childbooks leadership to do what they
Speaker 5: need to do to bring their best self to work.
Speaker 5: And it's just we have an incredible team, a very
Speaker 5: diverse team. And yeah, getting an award like that was
Speaker 5: just super validating and super grateful for it.
Speaker 4: Well you should be proud.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, and it's these kinds of companies sometimes don't last.
Speaker 3: And here you are eleven years later and my friends
Speaker 3: got your books all over the house, So I think
Speaker 3: you're doing an amazing job.
Speaker 4: Makes me so pemple. On that note, two more things.
Speaker 3: Number one, what advice would you offer to somebody who
Speaker 3: has their own chat books in their head? I mean
Speaker 3: not specifically photo books, but has some idea they're they're
Speaker 3: excited about and they're like, where do I get started
Speaker 3: with this?
Speaker 4: What advice would you offer that young entrepreneur? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think the first thing is that there's seasons for things, right,
Speaker 5: Like I think that if I had had this idea
Speaker 5: when my oldest was going to kindergarten, I don't know
Speaker 5: if I would have been able to do it. My
Speaker 5: husband was in a different place in his career, I
Speaker 5: was literally just babies everywhere. It wouldn't have been the
Speaker 5: right time for me to do it. And so there
Speaker 5: was something there in the timing of our family and
Speaker 5: for me too, like I felt more ready then to
Speaker 5: take that on that I would have earlier. And so
Speaker 5: I hear a lot of people saying, I just really
Speaker 5: want to build a business. I really want to build
Speaker 5: a business, and it's doable to do with a bunch
Speaker 5: of young kids. It is, but it might not be
Speaker 5: right for you just because someone else is doing it.
Speaker 5: So just really look at your situation and with your
Speaker 5: partner talk about what your real goals, long term goals
Speaker 5: are and your values and if now is the time,
Speaker 5: then you just got to find the right support. And
Speaker 5: whether it's a co founder, I am like hot on
Speaker 5: a hot co founder. My co founder is very hot. No,
Speaker 5: my husband is like amazing. I love building a business
Speaker 5: while building a family with the same partner because that
Speaker 5: give and take that always comes, like we're there for
Speaker 5: each other, like with the same goal, with the same values,
Speaker 5: able to help as you go through those ups and
Speaker 5: downs of it all. But the other thing I would
Speaker 5: just say, yeah, talk to a lot of people. I
Speaker 5: think as entrepreneurs sometimes we think that our idea is
Speaker 5: we've got to guard it and keep it secret and safe.
Speaker 5: But the more people you talk to, the better the outcome.
Speaker 5: Like if it's something that someone can rip off really easily,
Speaker 5: let them like find a different idea, Like you don't
Speaker 5: want to have entering a market and being like so
Speaker 5: vulnerable to competitors. But I really feel like when the
Speaker 5: more people you talk to, you're going to learn more
Speaker 5: about the market. That you're entering the way that you
Speaker 5: want to find and sell to your customers. That's how
Speaker 5: you find the best people to come work for you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: just like network network, talk to as many people, listen
Speaker 5: to your customer, really identify who your customer is, and
Speaker 5: then really listen to what they're saying. Because I will
Speaker 5: say one of the things that was the downfall of
Speaker 5: what my husband had built for those years before chatbooks
Speaker 5: was I would actually gather these focus groups of moms,
Speaker 5: you know, to have them do demos, and they would
Speaker 5: politely listen and say, yes, I should do that. That
Speaker 5: is a really great idea. I should totally do that.
Speaker 5: By the way, should is the kiss of death. If
Speaker 5: you hear that, that means I will never Sorry, I
Speaker 5: don't have time for that. But the all question was
Speaker 5: always couldn't I print all of this in a book?
Speaker 5: And my husband at the time thought print is dead.
Speaker 5: All this is going to be safe and sound and
Speaker 5: shareable in the cloud. But I'm sorry, we should have
Speaker 5: listened to our customers say they want this printed is
Speaker 5: It turns out that was the key that is why
Speaker 5: chatbooks finally took off, because we were finally printing the
Speaker 5: photos that they cared about and we're curating. So yeah,
Speaker 5: that's so funny. Make sure this is the right season
Speaker 5: for you, and then talk to as many people as
Speaker 5: you can and learn as much as you can, especially
Speaker 5: from your perspective customer.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 3: I love the story of like, well, no, we can't
Speaker 3: do that, or we don't need to do that, like
Speaker 3: over and over again. Then finally you realize, wait a second,
Speaker 3: they know exactly that is great.
Speaker 5: I know, well, it's it's tough sometimes as such an entrepreneur,
Speaker 5: you're like, no, I need to be really dogged about
Speaker 5: my vision. That's what's setting us apart. Yes, and you
Speaker 5: got to listen to the market and listen to your customers.
Speaker 5: So there's tension there too, and it's it's.
Speaker 4: Tricky, super helpful.
Speaker 3: So our final thing we do this on every episode
Speaker 3: is that we have a love of the week, which
Speaker 3: can be anything. It can be a show you watched,
Speaker 3: it can be like a scenery you saw outside your window.
Speaker 3: It can be literally everything. And I always have me
Speaker 3: go first. You have an example and you haven't a
Speaker 3: big about it, But my love of the week is
Speaker 3: doing what I call a walk and talk, which is
Speaker 3: just like I'll just text a friend and be like,
Speaker 3: want to go on a walk together at like noonsh
Speaker 3: you know, like they could be in another city. But
Speaker 3: then I'll go out for a walk and steamy South
Speaker 3: Florida and they'll go for a walk in like somewhere
Speaker 3: much more pleasant, and we'll chat and the time goes
Speaker 3: by in like no time, and it's not quite as
Speaker 3: good as walking next to the person, but it's like
Speaker 3: eighty five percent is good, which is awesome. So I'm
Speaker 3: super into walking talks.
Speaker 5: I love that I actually schedule some of my meetings
Speaker 5: as a walk and talk and I'll just go out
Speaker 5: and walk around our officers and a great place to walk.
Speaker 5: But I work from home three days a week, so
Speaker 5: go walk around the trail. I love that. It's so good. Okay,
Speaker 5: I know what my love of the week is. All
Speaker 5: my kids are in town this week, including my two
Speaker 5: grand babies, So waking up to the sound of happy
Speaker 5: little grand babies is the best. And I've been digging
Speaker 5: in the basement pulling out the few little toys and
Speaker 5: books that I've saved from my kids, and watching them
Speaker 5: play with these now vintage toys is just like forget
Speaker 5: about it. It's the best. But they do leave in
Speaker 5: a week, and I'm not going to be sad about
Speaker 5: that either. So they brought three dogs with them, so
Speaker 5: we had a lot of dogs in our house right now.
Speaker 4: It's perfect.
Speaker 3: You can love the week when they're here, and then
Speaker 3: you can love your piece and quiet on the other end. Well,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for coming on in us. This
Speaker 3: has been a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me all.
Speaker 4: Right, we are back.
Speaker 3: So much fun to talk with Vanessa, And I have
Speaker 3: to say that does kind of makes me think about
Speaker 3: trying chatbooks since I have not been as consistent with
Speaker 3: my other photo methods as I had been previously, So
Speaker 3: we will see if I become a convert. But here's
Speaker 3: our question that came to us this week. This comes
Speaker 3: from a listener who writes, I have a question in
Speaker 3: regards to my resume and work experience as it relates
Speaker 3: to moves we've made for my husband's career. Because he
Speaker 3: works in a specific niche industry, We've moved a lot
Speaker 3: based on the location of companies that he would work for.
Speaker 3: But now that the kids are in school, we are
Speaker 3: not going to work anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't move anymore.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Yeah, we're done working, kids are in Still, we're done.
Speaker 3: We want to stay put, We're happy with the school district,
Speaker 3: et cetera. So I'm in a remote role for a
Speaker 3: large corporate company in which my role has gone completely stagnant.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking for something else. What advice do you
Speaker 3: have for someone like me who's bounced around in my
Speaker 3: career but not because of personal reasons, but because of
Speaker 3: my husband's specific job prospects. I want to be prepared
Speaker 3: for how to justify the many jobs I've had. I
Speaker 3: have nothing to hide, but I'm not sure how that's
Speaker 3: going to be perceived as I go for more senior roles.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought this is a great question, and I think
Speaker 2: this is something probably a lot of people have experienced.
Speaker 2: So you could certainly ask friends and colleagues people online
Speaker 2: about this for advice. But as I think you noted,
Speaker 2: there's nothing to hide. If you need to explain it,
Speaker 2: you can simply mention what you said that earlier in
Speaker 2: your career you moved because of opportunities based on your
Speaker 2: husband's job, but now you are settled and not planning
Speaker 2: on moving because the kids are in school. I mean,
Speaker 2: if your interviewer has children, they will totally understand that.
Speaker 2: And so you're looking for longer term opportunities, and you
Speaker 2: can even talk about that, like, I am so excited
Speaker 2: to now be able to take on a longer term opportunity.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to see myself at this company long
Speaker 2: term and keep working that language into it. And it's
Speaker 2: hard to know how any of this will play out,
Speaker 2: but I have found interviewing is also about getting a
Speaker 2: lot of practice, especially if you're.
Speaker 1: Going to do a lot of this over the next
Speaker 1: few months.
Speaker 2: You will quickly find out what people react positively to
Speaker 2: or what they sort of raise their eyebrows, and then
Speaker 2: you will quickly learn to adjust how you spell it.
Speaker 2: And I think the upside though, of clearly the reasons
Speaker 2: you moved really didn't have anything to do with either
Speaker 2: you or the companies that you worked for in the past.
Speaker 2: It was just a circumstance sort of thing. So this
Speaker 2: means that you've got a pretty warm network I would
Speaker 2: imagine of all those places, because a lot of those
Speaker 2: companies probably regretted seeing you go out the door, and
Speaker 2: you may have been happy to have continued working for them.
Speaker 2: It just didn't work because you needed to live in
Speaker 2: California and they were in Pennsylvania or something. So I
Speaker 2: would start by reaching back out.
Speaker 1: To all of those people.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if anyone's still hiring, but they
Speaker 2: may know people who are.
Speaker 1: They may have moved to other places and have ideas.
Speaker 2: So I would really tap the fact that you have
Speaker 2: a big network from having moved around to a lot
Speaker 2: of jobs and left those jobs, not because there was
Speaker 2: anything wrong with the jobs or with you, but because
Speaker 2: of sheer circumstantial kind of things.
Speaker 3: Totally makes sense, I think one thing, and I haven't
Speaker 3: done a ton of hiring, but have definitely assisted with some.
Speaker 3: You want to hear a story that makes sense, and
Speaker 3: you have one, so like, why hide it? It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is like a very natural trajectory. It'll also mean
Speaker 3: if you're being honest, that you're not going to have
Speaker 3: to like talk around something things will people can kind
Speaker 3: of sense when you're.
Speaker 4: Trying to hide something, and you won't have to worry
Speaker 4: about that.
Speaker 3: And I actually think there's a way you could spin
Speaker 3: this as a plus, like, oh, I've gotten to see
Speaker 3: how so many different companies do things, and I've really
Speaker 3: been able to glean the best methods from everywhere and
Speaker 3: have assembled all these contacts. As Laura mentioned, like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like you've even left on bad terms. So wow,
Speaker 3: what a great network you have to draw from and
Speaker 3: that this could actually be a selling point. So great
Speaker 3: question and great thing to think through as you embark
Speaker 3: on this journey. We wish you the best of luck.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exciting to think about a new stage in your career
Speaker 2: and having a little more options and hopefully finding something
Speaker 2: that feels a little less stagnant than what you're doing now. Well,
Speaker 2: this has been best of both worlds. Sarah has been
Speaker 2: interviewing Vanessa.
Speaker 1: Quigley of Chatbooks.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: This has been the.
Speaker 2: Best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time
Speaker 2: for more on making work and life work together.