I Launched a Kids’ Company Before Even Having Kids

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lauren Levy, cofounder of Magnetic Me. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Back in 2008, I was putting a bib on my baby nephew when his tiny red baby hairs got caught, and he cried out. Later, I was changing his outfit. It was a frigid day, and he must have been cold because he was screaming at me. Soon, my sister was screaming at me, too. I thought, why couldn’t this be magnetic? That would be so much less stressful!

At the time, there had been no innovation in baby clothing since the zipper, nearly 50 years before. But even zippers weren’t common: most outfits had snaps. I wasn’t a parent yet, but I knew there had to be a market for easy-to-close magnetic fasteners for baby clothing.

I was working in investment banking at the time, but I wanted to run my own business. I’d been interested in entrepreneurship since my mother started a bakery when I was a child. I knew my college best friend, Lawrence, would be the perfect person to go into business with. He was working as a lawyer at the time, but his parents were shop owners, and he was as frustrated with the corporate world as I was.

We spent 2 years researching before launching

Neither Lawrence nor I were parents at that time. But we had seen our parents grind as entrepreneurs, and we knew how to do the same. There were lots of nights and weekends working on Magnetic Me after we finished our day jobs. For two years, we dove into research and development.

As co-founders, we found a natural rhythm. Lawrence is color blind, so I took over design. He handled the more boring stuff — the legal side of establishing a company and late, day-to-day operations. We launched the company in 2010, and it has grown steadily and rapidly since. Now, we have 46 employees.

Lawrence and I share an office so we can talk all day

Magnetic Me occupies the whole floor of a building in New York, but Lawrence and I still share an office. Even if we had a whole building of our own, we would still sit right next to each other. It’s great to be able to bounce ideas off each other all day.

Officially, we share the same title: cofounder. But in our org chart, Lawrence reports to me. That’s mostly a formality, since we talk about everything, but it helps keep things clear. At the end of the day, he wants to deliver excellence to me as his boss, and I want to deliver excellence to him as his cofounder.

We’re still best friends. When we’re not together at work, we’re often spending time together with our spouses and kids, who are of similar ages. I rarely get comments about having such a close relationship with a male cofounder. Lawrence is like a brother to me.

I want my kids to learn about hard work

Three years after we launched Magnetic Me, I had three kids in 15 months, including twins. Finally, using our products as a parent was the most validating experience of my life. I understood that all our preparation had paid off: I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the products.

Today, my kids are 12 and 10. I regularly get them involved with the business, whether it’s putting inserts into an order in the warehouse or straightening out displays at boutiques around the country.

I have very high expectations that my kids help in meaningful ways. Growing up, I saw incredible grit in my mom and learned that myself. My kids have it easier than I did, but I want them to understand hard work. I work incredibly hard for our family, and I want them to know that they’ll have to earn their way, too.