Welcome to issue #008 of Unicorn Parents. Each week, I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you're serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.
We love family businesses.
They just feel different.
Trust. Care. Quality.
So why don’t more founders intentionally build them?
Why do we keep idolizing the Silicon Valley technocrats—measuring ourselves against people who scale fast, burn out, and often leave a trail of wreckage behind them?
Maybe what we really need is a shift. In our minds. In our frame.
For intentional parents, those of us building extraordinary companies while raising extraordinary kids, there’s a chance to do it differently. To build not just a business, but a family business.
That doesn’t mean everyone in the family has to be a co-founder. It starts smaller.
A dinner-table conversation where you explain a client win.
Letting your child sit in on a Zoom call and see what leadership looks like.
Giving them a small responsibility, like answering a few customer emails or running a side project.
And yes, it can scale up.
Putting your teenager on payroll.
Letting them shadow meetings.
Giving them the keys to a social media account.
Inviting them to contribute ideas that actually shape strategy.
The spectrum is wide. The impact is the same.
When we involve our kids, the business changes. It stops being just about revenue or cash flow. It becomes about reputation, name, and honor. Legacy.
Family as an institution has weakened, especially in the US. But the moment we hold a newborn, something ancient sparks alive again. No matter our own family history, that tiny child makes us want to build something lasting.
And the beauty? Involving our kiddos in our work isn’t just GREAT education for them. It’s GREAT character shaping for our business.
Family business isn’t a nostalgic relic. For us, it might be the most resilient, most meaningful, and most enduring way to build the future.