Beau Coffron’s life as Lunchbox Dad began with a simple act of kindness, when he sent his kindergartener to school with a Hello Kitty-themed lunch. Nine years later, without any prior training in food or art design, Beau has turned his avid curiosity into two careers, as a social media director and as one of the most sought-after influencers in the online dad community.

Beau’s simple recipe for success has been to start something you love, be curious, work hard, and maintain your relationships. He talks about late nights holding his baby in one arm and researching with the other, his strategies for negotiation, and the reasons why 2019 was his most successful year yet (and 2020, despite the pandemic, is keeping pace).

Plus: Why his daughter still actually eats the lunches that he still actually makes, how the Internet spirals into fractal iterations of nonsense, and our first Klout reference! Remember when that was a thing?

Links:

• This week’s Fatherhood on Friday, where Beau explains how he got 50,000 TikTok followers (wait, make that 51,000) in five months.
• This is what Klout was.
• This is what a VSCO girl is.
• This is where you can find Lunchbox Dad on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Listen on Stitcher, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and above.