Today we're joined by Ashley Chang, co-founder and CEO of Sundays, an innovative executive assistant service for working parents. Tune in as Ashley shares how Sundays aims to give parents the time they need to balance meaningful careers and family life. From discussing the gaps in workplace support for parents to innovative solutions like Sundays, this episode dives deep into reshaping work culture for the better. Stay with us to learn how businesses can adapt to be more parent-friendly and why this is crucial for the future of work.
Connect with today's guest:
Ashley Chang is the co-founder and CEO of Sundays, an executive assistant service for working parents. She’s on a mission to accelerate parents in their careers while creating more quality time for family. Before starting Sundays, she worked in the technology industry across all stages of companies – she was the first employee at developer tool company ReadMe and helped scale Carta’s Venture Capital business from 10 to $100M+.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymchang/
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Note - This transcript is automatically generated and has not been checked for errors.
Welcome to the NextGen Work Culture podcast, where leaders learn to support working parents, because being a family friendly business isn't just a nice to have anymore. It's essential for businesses that want to stay competitive, and it is critical for the next generation and those who are raising them. I'm your host, Courtney Ross, and I am so glad that you're here. Welcome back to the NextGen work culture. Today I'm here with Ashley paying, the co founder of Sundays. So, Ashley, first of all, would you just tell us a little bit more about you and what you do?
Yeah. So I am co founder and CEO of Sundaes. It is an executive assistant service for working parents, and we are on a mission to make it so that more parents can have meaningful careers and families. Before this, I worked in the tech industry for a little bit over a decade, mostly as a product manager in a whole bunch of different areas, and saw how quickly companies move on, innovating in other spaces, but was a little bit disappointed by how quickly they've been moving in, changing culture and how we think about balancing family and work.
Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of, like, rapid change happening and, you know, AI and technology and so many other spaces, but then it seems like catching up on the family side is taking a very long time. So I love that you're creating something to kind of help with that kind of took the leap into making your own thing. So is there a bit of a story there? Like, how did you decide to start an executive assistant company for working parents?
Yeah. So the root of it for me is my own mom. She was a computer scientist in the eighties, also in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she had a super promising early trajectory to her career. But then when she started having kids, she really felt like it was almost impossible to balance family and work and that she had to make a choice, and she decided to stay home with us, which I'm super grateful for. But I also think she missed out on a little bit of personal fulfillment that she could have had outside the home. And also, our society has missed out on generations of women and what they could contribute. And then I ended up entering the same tech industry about 30 years later, and I was on kind of, like, the product and engineering side, working in teams that already had very few women. But then, as I've gotten older, even the women who were there started to drop out because they felt like as they had kids, they still are making the same really tough decision.
So I left my job. I was kind of exploring what I wanted to do next? And I just kept coming back to this problem of, how do we support women in the workforce, especially once they start to have families? And. And I just interviewed as many parents as I could. I talked to, like, 300 parents in the first few months of starting Sundays. And I was originally looking for more of a tech product to build. I was like, oh, I'll build an app and it will solve a problem. But the more people I talk to, the more I heard from them that it isn't necessarily like, an app or a system that people need. It's just that there isn't enough time in the day.
And so we started thinking about, how do I give people time back? And that's how we got to this executive assistant service that we have today.
That is so awesome. So I talked to a lot of female founders on here that have started companies because of, like, a personal struggle. Struggle for many of them. They were already a mom. They had a problem as a mom, and they just found a way to fix it. But I love that. Like, you kind of had this out of, say, outsiders, but not in, like, a negative way. Like, you weren't a mom yet, but you see this problem around you happening, like, in your own family and your upbringing and your coworkers, and you're, like, noticing I'm already in this very male dominated position, and it's becoming more and more male dominated as I get older.
And it's because so many moms are quitting. Like, you've kind of got this perspective of seeing it happening and then still decided, like, I want to fix this, and I love that, that it's not. It wasn't even necessarily a personal struggle for you, but you just saw it and think, like, we should be able to do better as a society. How can I help? Because I do feel like there's really not a lot of support out there for women in the workplace. I mean, I made that decision myself. You're talking about your mom leaving. I basically felt like I had to choose between work or family. So that's a big reason why I'm doing what I do now.
Because I left full time work, because it just didn't work for me. After I had kids. I was a teacher, and I tell everyone it was great fun until I had my own children, and then it was impossible. And you think that, like, being a teacher, that that's a super family friendly position. Like, that's what I always thought growing up anyways. Like, I'm going to be a teacher and have a family, and it's going to be perfect. And it was actually really, really difficult. Your schedule, I guess, matches the kids, but everything else about it was really hard because you spend it all day long with everyone else's kids, and by the time you get home, you're just drained and there's not enough time to do anything.
Yeah, totally. We have people on our team who are former teachers, and I love that they bring, like, all of the empathy and understanding of what it takes to run a family to the work that we do now, but they also are, like, really burnt out from the work of teaching and trying to balance that with family, their own families at the same time, too. So I've heard a lot of what it feels like to be in that position.
Yeah, it's definitely a constant balancing act. And, I mean, that's not just for teachers. Right. Like, pretty much anybody that's trying to work a full time role, especially if you're trying to, like, move up the ladder, hopefully get into leadership eventually, you know, trying to balance that and the demands of work and then also being a parent. And a lot of times we feel like we're not allowed to do both. Like, you're not supposed to be a mom and be a great employee. Yeah, that's almost like, what society has taught us, which is unfortunate.
Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting. And also setting, like, really high expectations for what it means to be great at either thing where, like, a lot of times we define, or I say this a lot, especially right now with kind of, like, post Covid companies trying to figure out what it means, be flexible or go back to the office. And I feel like we fall back to these definitions of good work that are kind of like, just time based. They're like, how early do you get to the office? How late do you stay at the office? Do you respond to messages late at night which are not actually things that are good work? So I think, and also the same way on the parenting side, where I think now we have a lot more exposure to Instagram and these other models of parenting, where people are setting their expectations at things that are just not compatible with each other. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot that can be done about how we rethink these things.
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the time base. I mean, getting to work at an hour earlier, staying at work 5 hours later to get your job done doesn't necessarily mean that you're productive. Actually, it kind of might mean, like, the opposite. Right? Like, maybe you're not using your time very wisely. Yeah. If you have to spend that much extra time in the office in order to get your job done. Or maybe the job responsibilities just need to be rethought because it's actually the job for, like, three people and you're asking one person to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, how do you think that employee employers can, like, help working parents out now that nowadays, or how can they work, you know, make it more manageable for working moms, especially?
Yeah, I think that, like, it all starts with just, like, talking to the moms that are on your team. I think that, like, I feel like a lot of times people, like, they're scared to kind of get into those conversations because they think it's going to mean, like, all of these changes. But I've had a lot of conversations with parents about, like, what does flexible work mean? And it's not really crazy. It might just mean, like, hey, our team is actually, like, clear about what success means for this role, which is a good thing overall. And then, like, we track that as, like, what means doing good work. And, like, we aren't so schedule based and we're understanding of, like, other things popping up during the day. So I think that's, like, a good place to start. And then obviously, I think there are, like, other benefits that companies can offer.
I used to work in health insurance and healthcare benefits, and that was really interesting about, like, five years ago, that was really interesting because companies were offering a lot more benefits around parenthood, but they're usually focused on, like, the very early stages of parenthood. So they're, like, starting to offer more parental leave, more like fertility benefits or adoption benefits, which I think are so awesome. But I, there's really limited benefits once people have their kid and they're bathroom leave, and they now have, like, 18 years of balancing family and work, or probably more than ten years. And so I think that's a really interesting place to, like, be thoughtful about what it means. And I think it starts with that flexibility. And then I think there are, like, once you get a little bit of flexibility, there are, like, more layers of how companies can support parents, too.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the flexibility really is key. And kind of along with that comes a level of trust. Right. I mean, you have to, like, trust that your employees are going to get their job done without micromanaging their time or micromanaging them. You know, give them the job, what are their expectations? What do they have to do to be a good employee and then kind of give them the flexibility to figure out when that works for them. Yeah, I actually just posted on LinkedIn today. I was at the children's museum last week and the local school district lets out at 130 every Wednesday.
So I had this conversation with a grandfather who goes and picks his son up from school or his grandson, I mean, at 130 every Wednesday and then keeps him entertained until 330 when mom gets off work because he doesn't have a job that gives her the flexibility to like, go and do that, right? To pick up 2 hours earlier on a Wednesday.
Yeah. That's so funny. I actually, my school, when I was a kid, got out early every Wednesday and I remember being like, super excited about it from a kid perspective. But when I think about it now from a work perspective, it's like, it's so hard to imagine that like every Wednesday someone would leave at like, at that time. So it's really interesting. We do that, like, for our. So we have a team of executive assistants that are all based in the US and they're mostly other parents, but we are really, like, we have a couple of core hours during the week and then we ask basically that they check in for like two chunks of time in the morning and like a morning block and an afternoon block. But besides that, we're like, you have total autonomy of when those times happen.
And we do hear a lot of times like, oh, school's out tomorrow, and I like, didn't like that's. It's really nice that I'm able to have and stuff like that, but I think in more traditional corporate roles and especially in like, leadership roles, you don't really see that flexibility a lot.
Yeah. And it can be more challenging, of course, especially in like, leadership positions. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible. It just takes a little bit more creativity sometimes from the company, like how to make it happen. You know, like you said, you have 2 hours of time where everyone is pretty much expected all, you know, to all be there. So I mean, set up some sort of schedule, some sort of, you know, routine that makes it possible to still have the flexibility. Flexibility doesn't necessarily mean you're just letting your team go wild and do what they want. You still have to, you know, structure it somehow, but then just being able to provide them the freedom to do what they need to.
And you said you worked for healthcare, and there are so many things happening in the employee or in like the spaces now helping employees in those early stages, you know, helping them with in vitro fertilization or other, you know, trying to conceive issues, you know, during that time period, and then maybe some help, like, during pregnancy. And then hopefully we're starting to see a lot more parental leave. But then it's like, okay, now you're back at work and you need to be back to exactly the same person you were before you had a baby and the same levels of productivity. And we don't care if you're getting any sleep or not or, you know, it's like they totally cut off any sort of support once you come back to work with 3456 month old baby, however long your paternity or parental leave was. Just like, there's nothing left, nothing for as the child aged. Like you said, you've got another 18 plus years of raising this kid, and the support definitely shouldn't stop after parental leave.
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think, like, I mean, some interesting ways I've seen companies do support is, like offering childcare or childcare, like, on site child care, childcare, stipends. We are working with a few companies who are, like, offering Sundays as a benefit, which I think is really cool. And, yeah, I think the other thing is that, like, the government could do a lot more to support families.
We see.
And also to just, like, set the standards higher. Like, I was looking at a report last week that said, like, 95% of parents think the government could do more to support working families.
Yeah. So I just, I mean, it's voting season, right? Everybody's, like, considering who your candidate that you're gonna vote for, and a lot of people don't realize that that's really, like, a nonpartisan issue. Almost everyone agrees that, like, the government should be doing more for working families and for it to leave and things along those lines, it's really not quite as divided as a lot of people think. It's nothing, you know, a democratic or a republican problem. Like, it's something everyone pretty much agrees on. So, like, why can't we make it happen as a country? Yeah.
And it's even, like, better for business if you think about it, like, when I, as a business owner, when I think about, like, offering leave to people on our team, I'm like, well, if there was more federal or state leave, like, that would actually be much better for our business because we, like, could. Like, we, if not like, we still want to offer that, and that's going to be really expensive. And then the other thing is that I had another point there. But, yeah, I think that there's, like, it is voting season, so it'll be. I'm really interested to see what comes out of this election, if we can. I would love to see, like, bipartisan support, some of these issues.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as you mentioned, it's better for business. Businesses are able to offer a little bit, you know, better leave when there's some government support as well. So if the government, you know, is going to supplement it in any way, whether that's paying for a full however many weeks or paying a certain percentage or whatever for parental leave, well, then the businesses are able to, like, stack on top of that and, you know, try to be competitive with other businesses or whatever by offering an even better parental leave. And if they can't do that, like, at the bare minimum, you know, when you're like a startup, you're able to provide some sort of leave, right. So you're not losing employees when they get pregnant.
Yeah.
Because, you know, otherwise it's really challenging as a small business or a startup to offer anything.
Yeah. And I think that's where it is. Like, the most impactful is, like, for companies like our size, where it's like, okay, paying someone but not having them be able to work for three months or something is like, really, really painful at this point because, like, that's a large percentage of, like, the money that we're making. But, and for big companies, it doesn't, it may be not as impactful. So I think, like, if we want to, if we want, like, more, more startups and more like, small businesses, like, innovating and also just like, providing more local services, that's where, like, this type of help is really meaningful.
Absolutely. I agree. So Sundays helps, you know, people kind of get some time back in their work week. Right. Or in their week, not by helping them with work, but by helping them with, like, the personal side of things. Can you tell me a little bit more about, you know, what. What kind of things does Sundays help with?
Yeah. Yeah, I would love to. So I like to think of it, the work we do as like a pyramid where the bottom is life maintenance stuff. So making sure, like, everyone went to the dentist this year that your car oil got changed. So, like, a lot of these, like, they're small, but like, recurring needs where, like, it takes up some space in the back of your head to, like, remember every few months that, like, you need to get your car oil changed and to make that appointment. And so we love to first, like, take ownership over those things and totally take them off of your plate. Then we do a lot around different phases of life. So we see a lot of like, two year olds who are their parents are going through, like, the preschool application process.
So we'll help run that end to end from, like, finding the schools in your area, figuring out which ones fits your criteria. If you have to do an interview, like figuring out interviews, and then once they're in school, making sure that that calendar is on your calendar and looking a few weeks ahead to say, like, hey, next Wednesday is a short day, or two Thursdays from now is a day off. Like, we need to find backup childcare.
Or in a couple of weeks, you're going to have to have a costume every day.
Yes, exactly. So taking off a little bit of the mental load of those, like, small things that come up on a regular basis. And I think what's really cool there is we see we're working with a bunch of families, so we see these things, like, repeated across multiple families. So we're starting to get good at predicting, like, okay, two year olds need this type of support. Like, five year olds need this type of support. And so I think over time, we'll get better and better at being, like, proactive with families about that. And then the last areas are we do a lot of seasonal help. So we do, like, summer camp booking.
Right now we're just starting to get ready for the holiday season and, yeah, reducing some of the stress there. And then the last thing is just like, big life events. So we often help people who are welcoming new kids into their family or doing, like, a big cross country move, something like that.
Yeah, that is amazing. And then, of course, that's going to just, like, remove so much of the mental load so they can be a more productive employee when they're at work because they're not worried about all of the other scheduling and calling the dealership to make the appointment for the car and the dentist to change the kids appointment and all of that stuff while they're at work. So I think that that is an amazing service that every parent needs.
Yeah, that's. I mean, I hope so. It's been really. It's really, really fun to work with the families that we work with today. I'm, like, so motivated by just hearing from them on a regular basis of when we're able to make an impact.
Yeah. And I heard about Sundays, I think, because you have a partnership with one of my favorite parenting app, Maple.
Yeah.
So you mentioned that you don't have, like, a tech service or an app, but you do have a partnership with one that is a great organization, tech thing for parents. And then you can kind of add Sundays on top of that, right?
Yeah, totally. So we have been working really closely with Maple. We love their platform. So Maple is the family app, in my opinion. It has the ability to kind of store everything you need about your family in one place, and then you have calendars to do lists, reminders. So we love to work through the Maple app when we can and kind of help families both organize everything in one place. But then also we can actually, like, be in the Maple app. So we usually will have, like, a folder where they'll put, like, to dos that they want the Sunday seem to work on, and we can also communicate with them there, which is really fun.
Yeah. I love Maple so much, and I hadn't really explored the, like, Sundays add on until, you know, I didn't really think much about it until this conversation, but I think that that would be such an amazing help to just have an executive assistant in my Maple app in there, like, doing all the scheduling and everything, you know, like, I just started my Christmas folder yesterday, and, like, if somebody else could have done that for me.
Yeah.
There from last year, you know, it was already there with all the names and all it. So somebody else totally could have just taken that and, like, duplicated it for this year and got it started. Like, that's not necessarily something I had to do because it was all already there. I just needed somebody to, like, go in and delete last year's gifts and update it for things a four year old might like instead of a three year old, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
So, yeah, that is so cool. If somebody wants to learn more about Sundays, where can they find you at Ashley?
Yeah, they can find. Go to our website, which is with Sundays.com, and then I'm also on LinkedIn a lot. So my name is Ashley Chang, and if you put in Ashley Chang Sundaes, they should come up.
Yeah. And I don't know that we mentioned this, but why Sundays? Why is it called Sundays?
Yeah, well, while I was doing all that research with parents, heard from them that a lot of times they have to do lists that come up throughout the week. But because they're working and then usually doing hands on childcare, they don't have time to do those things. They always end up doing them on Sundays. So our dream is to give people their Sundays back to be with family and relax, and we can take those things off their list.
Yeah, that. That is awesome. I know. I do all that stuff on Sunday evening, so the name totally made sense to me, but I thought we might need to mention it to help others understand why we're saying Sundays like that makes sense because it always happens on Sundays. You're scrambling to get the week ahead. That is great. Thank you so much for coming on today. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we go?
No, I don't think so. Thank you so much, Courtney.
Okay, absolutely. Thank you. And I'll be sure that we have all of the links to find you in the show notes as well.
Perfect. Talk to you soon. Thanks.
Kortney00:21:52 - 00:22:190:03 - 22:20
Ashley. If you enjoyed this episode, I know you'll love the future ready work culture framework. Head over to courtneyross.com framework to download your copy and start building a family friendly, future ready workplace today. Don't forget to subscribe to the Nextgen work culture so you never miss an episode. I'd love it if you'd also take a moment to weave a review. Until next time, take care.