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https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YxDznpdpwUg6lhvD5NRtQ?si=rLoAHygRTE6RHxbtp0kkJQ Mary & Ann talk about growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley surrounded by tech, wealth and opportunity... and both moving out of the area to start retail/product based businesses. SHOW NOTES : Recorded : February 2021 Mary: Welcome to Boots and Bangles. We are the Small Business sisters. I'm Mary Heffernan of Five Mary's Farms. Ann: And I'm Ann Williams, founder of Yearly Company. Mary: Welcome to the Boots and Bangles podcast, the Small Business Sisters. Today, on our first episode, we are going to talk about growing up in Silicon Valley. Ann: Yes, a lot of people don't know, necessarily that Mary and I grew up in such a tech heavy area. And I think it's kind of funny that we are now product based entrepreneurs. But we take so many lessons from growing up in the area. Mary: And when we were growing up there, it wasn't called Silicon Valley. It was called the Bay Area, it's between San Francisco and San Jose, in Northern California, it was a great place to grow up. It's just has changed so much since we were little. And Ann and I are actually eight years apart. Ann: It's hard to believe Mary: I'm the oldest and we have two brothers in between, James and Jerry, and Ann was the baby. She was ,I was eight years old when she was born. My brothers were six and four. And we callled her Baby Ann. Ann: Still do! Mary: Right from the beginning and still do, literally my phone says Baby Ann. Her Auntie name is Aba for Auntie Baby Ann, because you can't just not call her Baby Ann. But in those eight years a lot changed in the Bay Area. It really between growing up, like our high school experiences were really different. Ann: Very different. Mary: Yeah. We went to the same high school. Our brothers went to one Catholic school. Ann and I went to another. That's true. Jerry did - Ann: A little bit of both. But yeah, the difference in our experiences. I mean, our parents came to Menlo Park, because it's a beautiful town. The weather everyone will tell you is absolutely amazing. Mary: It's like perfect all year long. Ann: It pretty much is. Mary: No humidity, there's no bugs Ann: No humidity, no bugs. It is a lot different from Tennessee. But it was just a beautiful place to grow up and had great schools. Our dad was a lawyer for many, many years at the same firm. So it was just like a very stable and honestly kind of idyllic childhood and - Mary: A lot of the families we were friends with had been there for generations, but it was honestly more like a small town when we grew up there. And that was how we were raised, you know, is everybody riding their bikes around, you know, we lived in the county. So there was no sidewalks. My dad got us a golf cart at one point, we just drove the golf cart around town picked up neighbors and Ann: Yeah we, once, well I was a little but, bought a trampoline from a neighbor and rolled it down the street to bring it home. And I had like no guards on the edges. You know, it's just the springs. Mary: I negotiated my babysitting money, I think I paid 50 bucks. So that trampoline, it was totally worth it. Ann: But I think one of the things I've thought about lately is that the area was so different back then. And we grew up with kids and families who are from different, you know, backgrounds like my friend's dad's, we're all different professions. And you're definitely exposed to a range of incomes and lifestyles. And now it's much more tech based, I think pretty much everyone there's somehow involved in tech. And we've really saw the rise of that happening like throughout our especially high school like middle school, high school years for me. And it was really eye opening and really interesting. And I mean, all of those stories you hear about Google and Facebook and all of these companies being you know, formed in garages, a lot of that was happening in the towns around us where we grew up. Mary: Yeah. So in the year 2000, I graduated from college, I went to school in Virginia at the College of William and Mary, moved back home to take the MCAT and I in 2000, which is kind of the start of the bubble in earnest. And I remember looking for an apartment and it was like $3,000, you know, for a studio apartment even then. So luckily, I serendipitously ran into friends on the sidewalk who were looking for a tutor for their son in exchange for living in their little guest cottage. And that's kind of how I got on the path of starting academic trainers and not going to medical school. But it worked out really well for me to you know, have my own place that I could afford, which is so hard for people, even today. It's just gone up from there. But in 2000, you were, still in high school? Ann: Yeah, starting. I graduated from eighth grade in 2000. Mary: You're a baby. Ann: We always laugh about this because my husband Pat is actually a little bit older than Mary. So whenever we talk about these years, I'm like, oh, yeah, Pat would have been out of college. So I graduated from eighth grade and went, you know, off to the same high school that Mary had gone to the little Catholic school in our town. That it was a sacred heart school. But you know, a California version of a Catholic School, which is pretty easygoing, co Ed, no uniforms. And I had an amazing experience there. But looking back, I realized just what was really going on in the world of tech at the time, I mean, I had, we had everything we could ever need as kids, we were very fortunate. But there were families with multiple homes and planes, and, you know, just living a very different lifestyle. And so we were exposed to that I was exposed to that very early. And it was such a good lesson, because our parents were so just friends with everybody, did not care who did what, you know, didn't focus on, Mary: They never got wrapped up in it Ann: Never got wrapped up in it. And if any of us had gotten wrapped in it - wrapped up in it, they would have very quickly, kind of, you know, told us that we couldn't hang out with those kinds of people anymore. If we're acting like, you know, wealth was more important than integrity, and just being good people and good friends. Mary: Yeah, and growing up. I mean, we were very fortunate. But you know, we still, my dad worked really hard to provide for us. And it must have been hard for him. I mean, to like, feel like he had to compete, because there were so many people that were just all of a sudden, like, the world was changing. And you know, there's a lot of income levels in Silicon Valley that are crazy. But I think that's what we saw is my dad's work ethic was, you know, he was up at five in the morning, every morning, his car was the first one in the parking lot at work every day, he would still come into all of our rooms before he went to work and give us kiss goodbye. And you know, you'd get home in time for dinner, but he worked a lot. And he really instilled in us that like nothing is going to be given to you, you know, there I remember there were times asking for something. And we just look at me like, "yeah?" like, "you're gonna pay for it?" And it's like, yep, I need a little, I need to work a little more. Ann: I had maybe a little less of that being the baby. Mary: That's true. Ann: By the time they got to me, there was a little more, you know, spoiling going on but there were plenty of times when you know, I had a job in sixth grade sweeping hair at the local hair salon, and I remember loving it like being like, I can make my own money. And my b rothers, our brothers, were coming in stealing money out of my drawer constantly. Because I had a little you know, Mary: You had a bank! Ann: They called me the Bank of Ann. Mary: They had told my mom for weeks that they're just getting their lunch money from the B of A and she's like, "oh, there so responsible getting their own money out of a debit card." And she thought the B of A was the Bank of America, but they actually meant the Bank of Ann. Ann: Yes. And they owed me a lot of money. So that was the earliest days. I wonder if I charged interest? Mary: Our brothers worked at the gas station. Ann: Yes, I remember begging dad to work at the gas station. Mostly because I thought their uniforms were cool. And he was like "no, you're a girl." I think I was like 14, like you're not going to work alone at the gas station. Mary: You had to work in the dark, like the five am shift and, but we all had jobs. I had two jobs, all of high school, I did my own kind of entrepreneurial stuff. I did Mary summer fun camp in the backyard that and was a camper. My mom was always super helpful. I remember coming up with these crazy ideas. And she would never say like, "that's too much work." But like, I can't imagine how much work that was for my mom, for me to have 30 kids in her backyard all day during the summer. But she was, you know, in there baking bread with them and making lunch and she was always really supportive of, you know, encouraging us and helping us to kind of learn to provide for ourselves. Ann: Yeah, Mary: But we all had jobs, which was not the norm. Ann: No. And I think when we talk about like the good old days, if you think about that, like childhood growing up in that street, I mean, we had neighbors who were best friends, and we just went back and forth between houses. Our mom did the afternoon pick up the other moms in the morning because Jannie sleeps in and we love that. But it was like, we just had a lot of freedom, but also, you know, expectations with the responsibilities that came along with that. But we were so encouraged to try things out and you know, figure it out and solve your own problems. I think that resourcefulness was something that our parents like inadvertently taught us that was going to lead us to this entrepreneurial life. Mary: Yeah, and I think, you know, we - our mom was a stay at home mom, but she was like, the best at it ever. Yeah, but she also had her own life. You know, she loved to socialize with her friends. She was a super crafter, sewer, knitter she was always getting together with different groups and working for the schools. But, you know, our parents like loved to socialize and have dinner parties and see their friends. It wasn't like we were the center of the universe, you know, they were kind of taught like, I think it's similar to what we do now. You know, more with work and with socializing, but like, we have our own lives and our kids fit into that life. I remember the pediatrician told us that, when we first had Francie that like, "okay, this baby's coming into your life. You're not walking into hers." Ann: Yeah, that's not the message very much anymore. That's a good pediatrician. Mary: Yeah. That you have to as parents, you know, keep that, first and foremost. And I think it models for your kids to grow up and do something productive not, you know, cater to your kid's desires. Ann: Yeah, there was definitely a message like, obviously, we are the center of their world, they loved us so much. And we're so good to us and gave us everything. But it was not the message that we got to make all the choices like we're the parents in the situation, you guys with the kids, here's some, you know, rope to run around with. But all in all, like, they did have their own lives. And it was more important for them to be able to teach us those lessons and not to do everything to cater to us. And I definitely saw growing up those families where the parents had worked really hard to earn this lifestyle. And then the kids all of a sudden became in charge. It was like, they're kind of spoiling themselves by spoiling their kids. Mary: I think one thing we really noticed too, was you know, as the years went by, and kids were parents really catered towards their kids, and it was really like about everything was like, What activities do you have this weekend, and it's about birthday parties and keeping your kids entertained. Where we were like, here's some dirt and a golf cart, go have fun, for five years. But you know, I think it really sets a standard when kids graduate from college when they've just been catered to the entire time. There's no place to start. There's no starter job out of college, where you're catered to by anybody. And you have to really learn to climb that ladder yourself. And I think you're setting kids up for failure. When it's all about the kids. It's all about you know, entertaining them keeping them happy keeping them engaged. Ann: Millionaire resume Mary: It is yeah. And then, you know, they they flop in the world like wait, who's catering to me and I'm not living in this crappy apartment, like I lived a lap of luxury my whole life. And I think that's really important. You know, when - my parents bought an old house, so I was nine. You were one. Ann: When we moved in, I was three but I guess, was I that young when they were - Mary: When we bought it, yeah. My mom loves old houses and historical things. And she found this old house above blocks. It had 175 broken window panes, and it was set for demolition, which in Silicon Valley is you know, all you do now is demo a house and build a new one. And my mom found this house and was like, "I want the whole thing. I want to restore it." And she asked the guy at the demolition sale if she could buy the house after - she must have called dad at work. "Okay, here's what I'm thinking." - Dad was a saint because he went along with this. They bought this old house, no plumbing, the chimneys had fallen down, the windows were all broke. Ann: There was a beehive the size of refrigerator in one of the attics. Mary: Yeah, because the lady who lived there had eaten TV dinners and thrown in an attic for years. And it was, we call it the haunted house. We were like scared of it. But also thought it was kind of cool. Yeah. And my parents bought that house and then bought a lot on the street and we moved to the house. I'll never forget that day. We got to stay home from school, it was raining, and they're moving this house on plywood and all these wheels and it took us a long time to fix that house up. So we rented a little two bedroom house while we were fixing it up. And honestly that's partly what's kept Brian and I in our tiny cabin is because in looking back on my childhood, those years and a half in that two bedroom house with four of my siblings on the same room was like some of the most memorable days of my life. Ann: Yeah, those were some of my earliest memories, like little flashes. I mean, I was like two or three, but I can physically remember being in a sleeping bag on the floor or watching TV in that living room. And being in - we slept on mattresses in one bedroom on the floor.b Mary: I was always like, using graph paper to figure out how I could rearrange the mattresses. At one point your crib mattress was like at the door and you were rolling into the bathroom floor and dad would come in and pick you up and he's like, Mary, you have to move the baby's bed. She's like sleeping on the cold tile. Ann: Yeah. Anytime I hear about people like renovating a house now. And I mean, I would fall into this category. You know, people think "oh we have to be comfortable and have everything we have." And then I think like my parents did it with a two bedroom house with four kids. I don't know how they did it, but Mary: And we loved it. It was great. Ann: Yeah, kids don't care about space. I mean - Ma…
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