Our co-founders Ignacio and Ale are running two parallel projects that don’t sleep, don’t ask permission, and demand everything you’ve got. One is called Kombo AI. The other is called daughter.

In the episode 56 of our podcast, Ignacio and Ale, our Co-Founders and two new dads, talk about what’s like to start a company and have a daughter at the same time.

The startup is also a baby

Not as a metaphor. Literally. In the early days, a newborn and an early-stage company feel the same: anything you touch might break. Everything is fragile. Everything demands constant attention. Both wake you up at night in different ways but with equal efficiency.

Ignacio and Ale describe the first months as a mix of adrenaline and vertigo. The startup needs its daily feeding of hours just to survive. So does the baby at home. The difference: you can hold the baby. You can't hold the company.

What both experiences share is that they accelerate your personal growth faster than any business school or parenting book. They also generate what the founders call "gut-punch moments," where you ask yourself, with full honesty, why you decided to do both at the same time.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment, it does not exist.

One of the clearest points in the episode: you will never feel ready to start a company. You will never feel ready to become a parent either. Waiting for the perfect moment is an elegant way to do nothing.

What does matter, they say, is the quality of the jobs you chose before taking the leap. Not to stack years on a resume, but to build specific skills you'll use as a founder: selling, talking to customers, managing a product, holding up under pressure. If you want to start a company, the worst thing you can do is wait for the perfect moment. The point is not to endlessly prepare, but to avoid drifting into roles that don’t teach you anything relevant. Ignacio even says he wishes he had started his company much earlier, because the experience you get as a founder compounds faster than anything else. To get that experience, you need to jump into the thick of things as soon as possible.

Is there a perfect way to manage your time?

No, there are only ways to try to manage your time less chaotically.

Ale runs his day in fixed blocks: deep work, exercise, time with his daughter, personal life. Each block runs at full intensity. No extending it. No borrowing time from the next one. Ignacio organizes more by weekly and monthly priorities: when pipeline is short, he switches to prospecting; when there are deals to close, he's on calls.

Both are very active and place a lot of value on sports. They kick-start their days with a morning workout, and every Friday they go to the pool for a game of water polo. They see sports as an excellent way to release the built-up pressure of the week before it turns into conflict. If they did not have this outlet, the stress of running their company could get the better of them.

The fights you don't see on LinkedIn

There's something that almost never appears in founder posts: the real friction between co-founders. Ignacio and Ale say it plainly: yes, they sometimes fight, but that does not mean that their relationship is going down the drain. That happens sometimes because both of them are, naturally, very exhausted. And then the classic idea creeps in of “I am doing more than you” (or vice versa). It is exactly the same for every couple that has a baby, and it is something normal. Exhaustion distorts your perception of how much the other person is contributing.

The answer they've found is not to eliminate that friction. It's to talk about it before it escalates. No ego. No letting things accumulate. No allowing what goes unsaid to take up more space than what's actually said.

AI that multiplies people, not replaces them

The episode also gets into the AI and sales debate, and here Ignacio and Ale are direct: the promise of "an AI SDR (Sales Development Representative) that closes deals end-to-end without human involvement" is, in large part, noise. What it's produced in many cases is more outreach volume with less quality.

The real value of AI, they argue, is in multiplying human capacity. Building a business analysis in hours instead of days. Reviewing legal contracts with support from models like Claude. Preparing sales conversations with real customer context. AI as a co-pilot for humans, instead of a replacement. 

Enjoy the process, even when it hurts

And this is how they define building a startup: eating glass. And it hurts.

Building a startup can be very challenging and finding value in the process of building a startup is very important in order to have the stamina to keep going. Ignacio says that it is “constantly rewarding” but it is NOT easy and in fact most people who have started out on a startup journey will confirm that it is arduous and often draining on founders. However, creating a strong culture within the startup and the work that each team member does can keep you motivated to continue. A team culture with almost no turnover. Go-to-market people who post on LinkedIn on their own initiative because they believe in what they're building. A Friday waterpolo session that looks frivolous from the outside but keeps the team intact from the inside.

At Kombo AI, we have built a solid base from where we want to continue to grow. Our product, team, numbers and work culture are built to last.

Watch the full episode here and let us know in the comments: have you ever built a company while becoming a parent? What was the hardest part to balance?