Be Brave 

Hi there, I’m Jody Swain, founder of the hire and fire your kids, gamified parenting app.
Thanks so much for having me this morning. And before we get started, I just wanted to take a quick glimpse in the audience and answer this question for me. How many of you have ever been let go from a job in the lifespan of your working days?
Okay. All right. Well, I started working at the age of 12.
My first job was actually a dishwasher at a local country club. And then at the age of 16, I got a job at a local byway, which is where I fell in love with retail. And from there, I just consistently worked hard, had a great work ethic, um, delivered on results and that sort of continued throughout my retail career. And I actually never applied for anything. I just consistently got a tap on the shoulder saying, Hey, would you want to apply for this?
Hey, we think you’d be great for this. And you’re that sort of stemmed from byway all the way up to my last role, which was at Holt Renfrew, um, until I actually was fired in 2017 fired at 40.
And I tell ya, that is hard when you love your career, uh, love what you do. And my strength was always with the people, developing the culture and driving the results. And so when this happens to you, sort of, for no real reason, you’re just sort of packaged out, you know, based on the needs of the business, when things are being restructured.

Uh, the ha was hard for me because my job was really like my identity and had been for, uh, 20, 20 plus years. So I found myself, you know, at home without a job. And it was just sort of where I was in my life, um, was sort of kinda the last straw.
You know, we’d lost her son in 2012. I’d lost my mom in 2016. And now here I was with his career that I had lost, um, in 2017. And so when I’m kind of down and out and I do suffer with some mental health issues, um, the one thing that gets me out of it is typically giving back, giving back and having an impact on others.
Um, always warms my heart and touches my soul. And so the only thing that I really had was this program that I created in 2015, called hire and fire your kids and hire and fire your kids, um, actually came to me based on my retail career, because again, my job was to, you know, motivate and inspire teams of people to step it up and deliver on results.

And when I found myself at home with this newborn baby and my new blended family who, you know, the boys were there every other Thursday and every other weekend.
So I didn’t really see them a lot when I was working. But when I was home, I now had 24 7 eyeballs on the home. And honestly the whole was driving me bonkers, like, oh my gosh, every everywhere I looked, there was something that I was doing. I was constantly picking up after them or breaking up fights or, um, you know, doing too much for these kids that could absolutely be contributing more to the home.
And so I had a conversation with my husband and basically said, you know what? We need to change the way things are done around here.
And I sort of looked at the home as though, you know, if I was getting paid to be a stay at home, mom, uh, you know, what would that look like? And what I changed, the way that I interact with the family. And I absolutely would, because if someone’s measuring you on your behavior, you tend to step it up and pay more attention.< BR>I think as parents, we get a little laissez Faire. So anyway, Ted and I sat down one day and we went through all of the things he and I did around the house. So whether it was paying bills, you know, decorating laundry, um, dishwasher, you name it, we named everything we did around the house. And then we put points beside it because we were going to give the kids the opportunity to apply for these jobs. And we would actually reward them with points that they could cash in later for real dollars. And then on the other side, we did, you know, what do we want of this new blended family?
You know, what do we want for these kids and why? And, you know, we loved these kids as our own, you know, why hadn’t we shared with the expectations we’re on this new blended family.

So we went through all of that. What were the house rules? What were our family values? And it was actually a really good exercise for both he and I. And then I went around and took pictures of everything that drove me crazy that these kids and our family was doing. And I call the actual family meeting and we sat them down and I had this PowerPoint presentation and went through all of it and started with these X pictures and asked the kids, you know, you know, who made these axes? And they’re like, we did.
And I said, and who’s been cleaning up all of these messes and will you have, and I just simply asked them, you know, is this fair? You know, do you guys think that it’s fair that you’re making these messes and we’re the ones cleaning up after you? And they were like, no.

So I was happy to hear that. And, and we just basically said that we needed their help. We needed them to contribute. And we really wanted to prepare them for the real world and have them doing their own laundry to have them making their own meals anyway. So we came up with this game of hire and fire where the kids can now apply for these posted jobs. And we were going to push them. We weren’t going to nag them. It was up to them to apply. Um, and it was in their best interest because we had cut them off.
We were not giving them money. So if they were heading to the store with their friends, no, that’s your money. You need to earn it.
If we were at the zoo and they wanted to souvenir no your money, you use your own money. And so it was a really cool program because they very quickly began to understand, um, you know, needs and wants, which was kind of cool.< BR>And then on the other side, for me, especially as a step mom, um, I’ve had a really difficult to communicate with the kids. You know, if they’re driving me crazy, I either wouldn’t say anything. I clean up after them or I’d bitch at my husband about them. And that really wasn’t fair. And as soon as it became a game of, you know, hire and fire, where if they had left their dirty clothes on the floor, I literally would take my phone out and take a picture of, um, of the, the ex uh, when we were playing the paper game, it literally was, you know, you’d have a conversation with them and, you know, put the X on the, on the fridge.So, yeah, so we rolled out this game, uh, and within the first week it was a dramatic impact. And I knew I was onto something.
You know, the kids were engaged, they were having fun. They were being more accountable, trying things they’d never tried before. And they were working together as a team because we had this teamwork bonus in there that ensure that if none of these kids got fired at the end of the pay period, which ours was monthly when we played, uh, the paper version, um, that they’d get this teamwork bonus. So they were turning lights off for each other. They’re reminding each other of the axes. It was honestly brilliant. And for that nine months, our, uh, family bond was really nurtured.

And, uh, and then I went back to work. I went back to work in October and we stopped playing. And so it brings me back to where I was, you know, 2017 after sort of being, let go, hire. And fire was just there. And this honestly has such an impact on our family.< BR>And I was like, why am I not sharing this with others? You know, here’s something you could give back to the world that could have an impact on other families, other blended families, why are you not sharing it? And it’s because I was scared and I was a very private person, you know, I, I wasn’t on Facebook. It wasn’t on any social media with the exception of linked in. And I just wanted to sort of maintain my privacy, but for where I was in that moment with loss loss loss, I was kind of like, fuck this world. I’m going to do something that I want to do and have an impact on other families and I’m going to go for it.
And that is what I did.
So I chose the word for 2000 and, um, 19 to be brave, I’m just going to go for it.
But before I go for it, I have a bit of a business woman and I got to test the concept. So it was fine that it worked for my family and worked for, you know, my sister and a few other friends that had tested it and had the same results. But I wanted people that didn’t know me from a hole in the ground. And I lived in Woodby shores since 2001, but not overly social, but of an introvert. And I decided to make up these flyers and put them on everybody’s house that lived on my street. And I heard back from six of the ladies and invited them over to my house for some wine and cheese and presented this program to them to see if any of them would be interested in trying it with their families.
And lo and behold, all of them said yes.
And I had them back two weeks later. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like, what did I do? I’m so embarrassed. They’re all going to hate it. And they were dumbfounded by the results. They couldn’t believe the impact it had on their family in such a short amount of time and how it really was an amazing exercise for the, um, the parents, as well as the kids, but the kids were loving it because they were in the driver’s seat and it was up to them for what they wanted to do versus always being told what to do.
So after that, I decided to start looking for, um, developers and I looked in India and in Peru, and in the end, I decided to, um, land on a company here in wippy in Canada, because I’d never done this before.
I wasn’t a techie and I did need some handholding.
And so, yeah, I landed on DIT here and with the Ontario and off, off we went, we, uh, decided to go for it in the spring of 2018.
So off, we began with our wireframes or interaction flows or designs always going beautiful and well, and then we were actually supposed to launch December of 2018. And, uh, once the coding started that some things kind of slowed down and, uh, that was difficult in itself for me because I’m so used to meeting deadlines and the world that I was in.And so now in this tech space, learning all about it, um, I don’t understand why, why was it taking so long? Like it was supposed to be in stores by December. I don’t have my beta. So that was really difficult for me, uh, as well as, you know, working with lawyers, et cetera, to make sure that we own all the source code that was back and forth.
But, um, yeah. And so, again, you’re just, she didn’t have to continue to go with the flow and, uh, you know, adapt and start to work on different things while this is being, uh, you know, finalize and that’s kind of where Dragon’s den came to be.
And I’d actually never seen a Dragon’s den episode. It’s my younger sister’s favorite show. And she’d always said, you should do Dragon’s den. You should do Dragon’s den. And I thought about it when the product actually launched, but, um, I actually got a random connection through LinkedIn that said, Hey, we’re going to be in Ottawa with the producers of Dragon’s den, interested in pitching.
And I thought, well, why not? Let’s give it a go. And so I went to Asheville, I pitched and a couple of weeks later, got the call saying, Hey, you’ve been selected to pitch on season 14 of Dragon’s den.

And so that was may of last year and just a whirlwind experience. I brought my husband and my daughter and some of our hire and fire kids, families that had played the, uh, the paper version of hire and fire kids and yeah. Pitched on a national TV show, which again, for me, um, is just so I keep saying this way out of my comfort zone, but again, like I just sort of put on this persona of brave, like just anything you normally would do, I’m just going to do the opposite.
And that’s what I continued to do throughout 2019.
Um, and so, yeah, so to breakdown, sort of the timeline of everything. So yeah, we sort of gone through most of these, you know, January was the idea, right? And we purchased actually was a domain name and that’s probably the coolest part of this whole thing is the name itself really gets people’s attention.

It’s very unique and different people want to know what the heck is hired by your kids. June, 2017, I was fired. We built the website. All of our licenses took place in 2018. Again, tested the program, hire the developer. We incorporated September of 2018, um, beta tested 2019. So we had our paper version families, and then I opened it up to people I didn’t know, um, to play with the beta app. I think we had about 80 families. They were testing the app version before we launched to stores, and then all of the accolades started to come.< BR>And it’s just so funny when you put yourself out there, um, amazing things do happen. And, you know, you push yourself past your comfort zone, which is so difficult to do. And, you know, I may not always work out, but chances are, you’re probably learned from something if you do it.< BR>So I just continuing to make that happen. But we were named as one to watch with mom pretty much Canada, over 17,000 members across Canada, uh, named as game changer of the year with hub, Inc. And, um, and then yeah, pitched on Dragon’s den. And I think the interesting thing with Dragon’s den, so we had the four offers.
I ended up going with lane Merrifield out of Colona, British Columbia, and he had offered a hundred thousand for 20% of the company with the option to buy back. And I’d gone in at a hundred for 15. So to me I was thrilled and it wasn’t necessarily for the money, but I just liked him.
I liked what he did. And I thought he’d be just the greatest partner to sort of help me scale this little app that could, um, but in August, uh, found out during the due diligence that they were out, they were not interested.< BR>And I, again was I, what I had spent the money already. Thank God. But, um, I was just very disappointed because I really wanted some support, uh, someone to lean on. And again, someone to sort of guide me in the right direction that had been in the tech space before. And so again, down and out for a good week. And then I thought, you know what, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try Kickstarter.
And so I put this Kickstarter together was about to like hit, send, like release it to the world. And then my sister actually was like, hold up, hold up.
You know, this may look weird. So yes, you pitched to the dragons, but you don’t know if you have an air date yet and I’ve dragons and gets wind that you’re have a Kickstarter. That’s going to look so strange. Like you walked away with a hundred thousand, why do you have this Kickstarter?
And I was like, oh yeah, maybe you’re right. So I did like an underground Kickstarter and just reached out to, you know, friends and family. And we had a $10,000, um, campaign and we, and we reached the campaign. So we had a successful campaign.
So that was in, uh, August through October. And then we launched a store. So we finally, September, 2019 launched the hire and fire kids app to the app store and Google play and our episode air, October of 2019. And, uh, then I lost my mind a little bit from the time that it aired to like a couple of weeks ago.
Now it was insane because we had to do so much. So we found out that our website wasn’t compatible to handle the traffic. So we had to literally a week and a half before build a brand new website that the traffic would hit.
And then we had a link to go to the original website. And then there’s nothing like this out there, right? Like a game played between parents and kids. And with any game, you need to know the rules. Well, nobody wanted to read the rules on the website. They would just download the app and want to play. I’d be like, well, how do you do this? How you do this, how to do this. And so everything was coming to me through email.
And so my background and retail and luxury retail is, you know, service is of the utmost importance. So I stayed up, I just stayed up and I was getting back to all of those individuals to make sure I wasn’t losing a single customer.
And I was getting maybe three hours of sleep every night. And this was from our air date of October 24th until the end of November until, uh, essentially I say, it’s an intervention that my husband and, uh, eldest daughter came to basically say, who are you?
You know, where’s my wife, where’s my mom. And, uh, really did have to give my head a good shake because you know, it kind of started all this. So I was able to help families and nurture their bond and, uh, and be with my own family too. Right. And here I was doing something that was polar opposite. So I literally took my foot right off the gas. Uh, the end of November canceled a ton of stuff into December and then plan to be with my family during the two week, um, Christmas holidays.
And I did. And, uh, then I had to taking another vacation in January with my sister.
It was the last minute to holiday that we took off together, just the two of us to sort of refresh, get some sun and, uh, came back ready to go and take on a 2020.
And since then I’ve been doing a ton of things like this podcasts, uh, media articles. And, uh, I continue to attack the influencers this year.
Is there a plan for March to see if we can get some more earned media? And, uh, we joined 1855 here in wippy. So I’m excited to, again, I sort of wandered from the get-go to be able to partner with people that are just able to help me guide me, support me, connect me with the right people to sort of help us, um, you know, scale this little app that kit, you know, it’s a very minimum viable product that we launched with.
There’s so much more that we can do with this to be able to help families and help these kids, um, hopefully do things on their own versus constantly being, um, coddled moving forward. So, yeah, that’s a little bit of my journey or some of the media that, uh, that we’ve, we’ve done over the course of the year and yeah. C
urrently 2018 to present hired by your kids, founder of the hiring for our kids. So I guess I’ll just leave you with, uh, life is.
Really so short. Now you hear that a lot, but for me, especially where I was, it just was like, man, like life is short. What do I want to do? What do I want to do? How do I want to be remembered if people were at my funeral and you know, life is so much more exciting when you can be brave. And it is hard fear, oh, fear gets me still to this day, but I have to push past it and just, and just do it. So that’s it. Thanks so much for having me, everybody.