The big update, I'm a dad now!

Guess what everyone…I’m a dad now! I already have the overwhelming urge to buy shoes that are functional but ugly as sin. 

It’s already been an awesome experience dadding. It’s only been a short amount of time, but it’s really just an amazing and indescribable feeling to begin this journey. I’m open to any and all dad tips.

I’ve already wasted no time showing my progeny newborn style memes so he can take over the empire one day. 

I have a whole iPhone note about healthcare observations going through this entire journey, so you already KNOW a post is coming soon. Just trying to confirm which DRG was billed first.

But here’s some non-healthcare things I’ve noticed in a sleep deprived state. 

• LLMs and Wispr Flow for dictation have been a game changer when it comes to still being able to do work with just one hand. I wish more things in my life were hands-free.
• There are so many things where I wonder to myself, "How could people have possibly parented before this existed?" AI is obviously one tool to help with basic questions, instructions for assembling or fixing things. But more importantly like Amazon, epidurals, baby formula. All these things that made our lives so much easier. In 10 years what are we going to look back on and wonder how we had kids without X? Artificial wombs where you’re not carrying the baby at all?
• Having friends or family that have kids within a year before your due date is the biggest cheat code. They tell you everything, have lists for anything you need, give hand me downs they just used, etc. It gives you a lot more confidence in having your own kid by being up close and seeing how they do it.
• I think having a kid is undersold as a concept. When I asked parents how things were going, they would tell me about the hard parts or how tired they were, etc. That really made it sound terrible, and honestly probably dissuades people. But the reality is that it’s because it’s…hard to explain to someone else in words why it’s awesome. It didn’t really click to me until your kid smiles at you, but I’m not sure how to describe that to someone else.
• Baby product names are absurd, and we have to buy so many things constantly. We made this game for our baby shower. I really should have gone into selling kids' shit, because it's all so expensive and recurring, and they guilt you into buying the best in class.

• Especially when you're sleep-deprived or you're juggling a lot of things, it's really hard to remember all the tasks that you need to do. I am surprised that smart homes and home automation tools have not risen to the challenge for this yet, especially with new LLMs. I want to be able to, while I'm walking around the house carrying my baby, be able to yell things into a central place that has context. I also want to have the smart home tools proactively flag things that maybe I didn't remember. Why is my Alexa still so f***ing dumb.
• The main thing I've learned is patience. That there are a lot of things just out of your control, and you have to learn how to live with that. It's uncomfortable, honestly, especially if you’re a type A person.
• One of the best pieces of advice someone gave me is that my job as a partner is to “take out the trash”. It’s a bit of a metaphor and literal - everyone offers to come by and help, but no one offers to take out the trash. And you realize how many things in your life are actually things you need to throw out to make space.

The obvious cheat code that underlies all of this is having a partner to do this with. My wife has basically done the hardest parts of this journey by far, I’m mostly here for moral support and sneaking off to write content. 

A few more observations below. But because content today is about oversharing personal details about your life while mixing in certain professional updates while your attention is captured, let me also tell you about a few OOP updates.

Ship It Applications Are Due Soon!

If you’re a software engineer and you’ve never been to a conference you like because they’re all vague or the people seem kind of mid…you should apply to our upcoming healthcare eng conference, Ship It.

We turn the conference format on its head. The whole day is workshops, small group activities, and actually learning tactical things. Plus we heavily vet and curate the people in the room, based on the application.

We’d love to see you there, or tell your favorite engineer. They’ll appreciate you even more.

Our free AI x RCM course! Especially if you’re a provider!

Our free AI x RCM course starts in a few weeks! This will be particularly useful for you if you’re a mid-size specialty group. Your billing is getting more complex, you’re probably aware AI can help but you’re not totally sure how, etc. 

Us and the team at Joyful will teach you + you’ll meet peers trying to navigate those decisions too. And it’s free! Come through.

Healthcare 101!

I will teach you how US healthcare works in 2 weeks in our Healthcare 101 course starting 7/13. You will look smarter in front of clients, you will understand what motivates each stakeholder, you will even understand why we still use fax machines in healthcare.

We’ve had people from the big insurance, hospital chain, actuarial firms, consulting groups, and more that I haven’t gotten permission to use their logos from. But trust me they did.

You should come through, it’s fun AND…informative.

Coworking!

Quick reminder, if you want to work alongside other healthcare people you should join one of our healthcare coworking spaces in NY, Boston, or SF.

We have monthly lunch and learns where we talk about patient acquisition strategies, thinking through fundraise strategy, discuss cool ways people are using AI, and more. Plus throwing down on office decor.

Some more dad observations

Idk sometimes I like to talk about non healthcare things I’ve been thinking about, will you let me cook?

A few more things on my mind since becoming a dad.

• I’ve quickly learned that all advice is guidance and everything has to be fine-tuned to your own kid + their temperament, which is always very different from the median child.
• It’s really incredible how things can go from very chill to complete chaos within 5 minutes. Everything was fine at the pediatricians office and then suddenly there’s poop on your shirt and a lot of crying and now you need to change them.
• Basically, everyone with kids is very sympathetic to your situation and treats you differently when they find out you have kids too. It's a very different shift in social interaction. On the flipside I now feel guilty about whether I was sympathetic to parents in my past interactions.
• I understand now who is listening to these 2+ hour podcasts. People feeding kids at night. 

• Another helpful thing are having parent friends outside of your social circles giving birth in the same time period as you. It’s amazing how close you can get in a short period of time + way more willingness to share more hyperspecific details with people you’re not that close to. Interestingly, dad groups just don’t have engagement like that at all, it’s typically the dads as +1s to things the moms organize (something something male loneliness epidemic).
• It’s been interesting to talk to other founders about what they did re: working/having a kid. One thing I quickly learned is how wide the socioeconomic spectrum is here. One person told me to get an au pair and I had to explain that I write a newsletter for a living. But this really is one problem in life you can throw money against and it will help.  

• In a lot of ways this episode is making me much more aware of my flaws. Part of this is because you realize your kid will watch you and likely pick up characteristics and you don’t want them to take the bad ones. The other part is that those flaws become THE thing you get frustrated about on low sleep. For example I get distracted easily and do a bad job of taking tasks through completion
• Shazam for baby cries, that’s all.
• Ironically because I essentially cancelled all meetings for like 2 months, I have way more heads down time (especially at night where I’m up anyway). It’s given me a lot more time to work on longer term projects, create infrastructure for our team to use AI in smarter ways (e.g. create custom MCPs), and more.
• Our washer and dryer have been running continuously for 3 weeks.
• I have a much deeper appreciation for our parents. The idea of doing this with way fewer resources, less support nearby, and no Amazon makes me realize how astronomically difficult this must have been.

And don’t forget the podcast

Don’t forget we do a podcast focused on ops case studies. You’ll learn everything from why hardware is hard to build in healthcare to how to do patient risk stratification properly.

Get “Ops I did it again” on Apple, Spotify, or Youtube. Our latest episode is on provider directories and the mess they pose.

That’s all, feel free to send your dad tips.

Think…dad out?

Nikhil aka. “I’m about to start sneezing so loud for no reason”

Twitter: @nikillinit

IG: @outofpockethealth

Other posts: outofpocket.health/posts

{{sub-form}}

If you're enjoying the newsletter, do me a solid and shoot this over to a friend or healthcare slack channel and tell them to sign up. The line between unemployment and founder of a startup is traction and whether your parents believe you have a job.