On parents and technology

My oldest is getting near iPhone age, though his school is gratefully resistant to technology (something which, post-covid, I support). That said, Apple seems to be focusing Watch For Your Kids with a new landing page:

Apple Watch For Your Kids
Use your iPhone to manage watches for the whole family — even if the kids don’t have an iPhone yet. It’s independence for them, peace of mind for you.
Apple

I still pay attention to the parenting forums, and to be clear, for some time now Watch has worked independent of a phone, though it's setup as part of a family plan and the adult phone manages the configuration and permissions. This is a big step forward, and in the forums that I read, seems like a good interim step between no phone (or no smartphone) and a smartphone.

Of course, Apple parental controls are still abysmal, and I can't imagine setting up these watches and controlling permissions works any better than it does setting permissions on phones. Hopefully iOS 18 in the fall improves some of this stuff.

On parents and teaching financial literacy to kiddos

Another topic that's close to my heart is teaching kids to build wealth. It doesn't have to be complicated, but you do have to learn how to tune out all the noise and focus on what matters.

I wrote a whole book on the topic that's easy enough for teens to read, digest, and take action on. In fact, I have my kiddos setup, and they're quite pleased with their performance while learning something that makes them money without having to give up their personal time. You can learn more about the book, available on Amazon in print and digital, and on Apple Books, here:

The Elephant in the Room has a Paycheck Book — 🐘💵
The Elephant in the Room has a Paycheck — The Book Lower your anxiety about your long term financial health You need to build wealth, but invest­ing seems like rock­et sci­ence. Talk to any­one and it quick­ly becomes all about the jar­gon, all about the game. Not about you. You just don’t know who to […]
🐘💵

What got me thinking about my book again was this post by Schwab interviewing well known analyst Ben Bajarin. Well, at least well-known in tech circles. Ben also happens to have a couple of teen girls, and his perspective is always that of a parent also.

Apple is not quite a dividend aristocrat (yet), but they have been increasing their dividend every single year, helping payouts keep up with inflation (though in practice their dividends are not keeping up with inflation, though their stock is having a great year). If you think their AI efforts are going to drive a stronger-than-expected iPhone cycle, it might be time to start accumulating $AAPL. If you like Google for AI, Google also offers a dividend (as of last year) and it wouldn't surprise me if they increase it annually too. Time will tell.

The way I started small-dollar investing for my kids is using Stockpile. It remains one of my favorite apps because of the way it implements custodial accounts for the kids and the way it implements dividend reinvesting (a core component of my investing philosophy).

If you're curious, my book is short - about 100 pages - and easy to read with very little math or opaque terminology. Though it was self-published it was professionally edited and laid-out to create a premium product. I hope you have a look. It makes a great gift for any teens in your life, and you can even combine buying the book with a Stockpile gift card and membership to get them started investing.

Interesting product marketing tidbits

I'm a product marketer by trade, and I think some of my recent subscribers want product marketing info. The best thing I've found to share these days is ways to find a new role.

Aside from these four job sites, hit me up on LinkedIn and if there's anyone I can connect you to to help in your job search, I'd be happy to do it.

4 Jobs sites

I also wrote a piece about customer stories that product marketers should enjoy:

Using case studies to elevate your GTM
3 ways to write better B2B case studies and have them work harder for your sales team.
David BresslerDavid Bressler

A fun side-project

My dojo has decided to implement GymDesk to track members and help organize the paying of dues. Of course, I volunteered to set it up and get going. My software brain should make it easier for me than others, and I LOVE playing with new software.

I was not disappointed. It's fantastic software, modern and easy to use, and is accomplishing our goals – helping make sure all members pay their dues on time, and making it easier to track dues payments.

Our dojo has 4 different martial arts practiced, each with its own pricing structure and onboarding requirements, so it was a little tricky to get the ins-and-outs of the software. It's not free software, but it's not expensive at all. If you run a dojo, want to automate, reach out and I'll give you a demo of what we've done.