Well I guess this means that I finally get to know what my mother thinks I do. And other than shamelessly trying to use the company blog to get me a date, I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with what she had to say. It’s fascinating to me to see what someone with her perspective thinks about what we do.

Here are some responses to a few of the things my mother brought up:

• “Metric also has other interests which, of course, I don’t have a clue about.” — Well Mom, in May 2016 Metric launched a new corporate strategy. You can read about it here. It’s true that we are still in the tablecloth business, but it’s not really the focus of what we’re building moving forward.
• “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what Eli does, but I know he does it well.” — It’s interesting. When I think about the stereotypical protective parent, they usually want their kid to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Maybe one of the reasons that this is true is because it pairs predictable income with an understanding about what your child actually does. Having a son who’s a COO of a tech startup (or should I say “startup technology company”) doesn’t really mean anything to you.
• I absolutely love that my mom calls out some of my co-workers individually in this musing. If you haven’t been exposed to the cliche, you’re probably living under a rock, but Metric’s best part is our people! The fact that my mother has trouble pinpointing what we do on a daily basis, BUT she can tell me about people I work with is simply amazing. This shows me that she has the same appreciation for what make Metric work as I do.
• Super funny, but how awesome is it that the only feature of one of our businesses that she calls out is that Union Square offers free shipping over $100! The mind of the consumer continues to fascinate me!
• “ BTW- I follow USQL on Instagram.” and “Pace follows FranchiseHelp on Facebook.” — We don’t often value unpaid social media around here. We’re clearly aware how powerful it is, but I wouldn’t say that we’ve ever cracked the nut on making it work for us on a sustainable basis. It’s so cool to see that someone as close to me as my parents use social media as the primary way to keep up with our companies. Makes me feel like there’s even more here that we need to think about.

Finally, I just want to say how thankful I am that my mother volunteered to be the guinea pig on this new crazy idea. In a way only she could, she got me her draft not three hours after having the original conversation with her.

She continues to be someone who I absolutely admire. And the fact that she can even help me succeed in my late 20’s professional life is simply more than I could ever ask.

Love ya Mom.