Starting A Business With Your Lover — Yay Or Nay?
I have founded 2 companies in the last 4 years, and both of them I started with my husband. I believe couple founders are high-stake poker players. It is a risky game, but if you win, you hit the jackpot. Wether or not it is worth starting a business with your lover has been the most popular question we received at dozens of press interviews. Here I am candidly exploring the benefits and struggles of going for it.
Starting out
Back in 2011 my husband (boyfriend at that time) and I were working as management consultants. The lifestyle was intense, the pay check was very good. What was lacking is the freedom to live and create value on your own terms.
We have many dreams for this world and for ourselves. And the best way to achieve those is by being entrepreneurs. We came to the conclusion that there is no right time to start and we might as well take the plunge.
Our first company EvenPanda lasted only 8 months. The company was bootstrapped with no external commitments and hit good initial traction. We quickly lost personal interest though. Our second company, Clubvivre.com — an on-demand chef service (or Uber for Chefs) is the market leader in Singapore and growing well.
Your relation is your foundation, build it first
By the time we started our first company we felt that our relationship had matured enough to put it on turbocharge.
- Full acceptance of each other. We had nothing to prove anymore to each other. We’ve reached the stage when you are not trying to pretend. You know you are loved, respected and appreciated for who you are. We were well aware of each other shadow sides (those areas in our personality we weren’t proud of) and not only did we accept them but we let each other know we did.
- Leadership starts with understanding yourself. As members and executives of AIESEC, the world largest youth-run leadership organization, we had the privilege of early exposure to leadership. We were no strangers to self-reflection, personal goal-setting, emotional intelligence, effective communication techniques and cultural awareness. Not only we knew what we wanted, but we could communicate it to each other.
- Very early in our relationship, we introduced the principle of open dialogue. This means we can talk about anything. We don’t hide our emotions, we don’t play guessing games about how we feel, and we bring anything to the table. We talk about things and move on.
- HUMOR! We take our work seriously, but we never take ourselves seriously. In moments of joy or trouble we laugh. This is probably the single biggest practice that has helped us relief stress and not to go insane when the going gets tough.
I consider these things to be some of the basics to even start contemplating doing business with your lover. You will probably not reap any of the benefits unless you have those basics in place.
The Benefits
- You understand your co-founder very well. You save so much time to get aligned, debrief or talk out sensitive issues when you already know how the other thinks. Being in-sync every step of the way is great!
- You can have board meetings in the shower! Or on holidays if need be. Yes, it’s very efficient :) You can combine work and pleasure, and design the lifestyle you want.
- The journey is not so lonely. Entrepreneurs always have themselves to blame, nobody else. That’s why it’s such a lonely journey. Your team will never fully understand what you are going through. I am convinced only an entrepreneur can understand a fellow entrepreneur, and the roller coaster ride of emotions: “I am an idiot! — > Everything is going to hell! — > We are geniuses, we solved everything! — > We are the champions! — > I am idiot. I don’t know anything”. Only someone who has been there can fully get it and empathise. Your lover can relate to your emotional experience and be there for you.
Trust is a very unique asset
- You trust each other. You have 100% trust in each other. That trust is a very unique asset, one that traditional business partners envy you for.
- Partnership above Ego. You know you have a lot at stake, you put all your eggs in one basket (personal and professional life are one and the same). It’s unlikely you will sacrifice it for an ego competition!
- Attractive PR story. We’ve got a lot of PR coverage. “Here is the couple who started a business to help you entertain at home in style and with just a few clicks”. It is an additional PR angle to pitch yourself for press.
The Struggles
- Investors are more cautious. If you need investors, know that many investors prefer to avoid couple entrepreneurs. They may have difficulty relating to a couple-founder structure, and the specific risks it entails.
- No work-life balance. Yes meetings in a shower are cool, but that also means your work never leaves you, ever! It takes a lot of extra effort and discipline, to carve out off-time. With our high-achiever drive, this often means we reinforce each other’s behaviour: if one works till late, the other cannot stop. We tried introducing a compulsory off-day on Sunday, but miserably failed after 3 weeks.
- Financial pressure grows. Entrepreneurship is a bumpy road! I have never seen an entrepreneur that hasn’t gone through significant financial lows. It hits double as hard when you both rely on the same income stream, which in the beginning is non-existent or fickly. Get ready for some rainy days …
- Romance can become the third wheel. If your romance came first and is then followed by setting up a business together, it probably means you will have to find a balance between romance and professionalism. To maintain a professional image with your stakeholders and to command respect of your team in a work environment, your relation may start feeling different. The majority of the day you aren’t romantically involved with each other. So you’ll need to find ways to kindle the romance.
Exhaustion hits you both at the same time
- Emotional tidal wave. When you are exhausted from the pressures of your business, chances are your partner is exhausted too. Unlike couples whose work is independent of one another, the tidal waves of exhaustion hit you both at the same time. So you have to learn how to support each other even when your own emotional gas tank is empty.
- Group-think. Beware beware … and stay critical. You invite your relation blind spots into the company decision-making. You need to surround yourself with external advisors to challenge your assumptions so you don’t succumb to group-think.
Are you sure you want to start your business together?
Your relation is great, you understand the pros and cons of doing business together and you are ready to the tie the professional knot.
Just wait.
I find it helpful to go over a simple checklist to make sure you’re ready for what’s to come. This is probably the same list that non-couple founders have to go through, but as couple there is more at stake so you’d better be clear this is what you want.
1. Know your motivation.
Why do you want to start a business? Why do you want to start it together? If you would not be a couple, would you still start the business together? Do you have the same vision and appetite for success?
2. Rules at home, rules at work.
Agree the rules of the game and principles of decision-making at work, so you don’t start playing personal cards. Have some guidelines on how you want to make important decisions.
3. Plan your financials.
Be realistic and think of Plan A, B, C and D. Yup. Save up for rainy days, create an emergency fund and discuss what this fund can be used for.
4. What if things go really bad?
How much are you willing to risk? What’s your tolerance for pain and uncertainty, when do you call it quits? Find an agreement which is satisfying to both of you.
5. Play to your strengths in allocating roles and work.
How do you allocate roles and responsibility? What are your unique strengths as individuals? Who is in charge? Who is the poster boy or gal? It’s critical for any founding team to know each other’s unique contribution to the success of the venture. It took us a while to define our roles, and unbundle the work that we both were naturally drawn to do. For more than a year we just had ‘co-founders’ on our business card. This is far from ideal: it can be confusing for your stakeholders and clear roles make work allocation so much more efficient.
Conclusion
Starting a business is a serious commitment to yourself, to your customers, your employees and other stakeholders. Starting it with a co-founder who is your lover makes it also a serious commitment towards your relation, so you’d better think things through.
The good news is that if you think “this is definitely not for me”, you are right. If you think you should go for it, probably you are right as well. But will you bet on it?
