Starting a business with your spouse is not something that everyone wants to do, nor something everyone should do. In fact, when we tell people that’s exactly what we did the typical response is “Are you both crazy? I could never work with my spouse, we’d probably kill each other!”
Just thinking of the challenges it could involve makes it sound like a totally crazy idea.
Crazy or not, if you have even a fleeting desire, there’s others like us who want you to know it can be done!
We and three other spouse run businesses in the Richmond, VA area had an opportunity recently to sit down with Richmond Family Magazine to share our story of combining a business, marriage, and family for their feature article “RVA Gets Busy” in the September 2015 issue.
Each story is different and they all have some good and at times humorous tips for what you should or should not do to maintain the family’s sanity and keep the relationships strong when starting and sustaining a business with your spouse.
Here’s just two of our tips we shared at the end of our story:
“If you do something wrong, say ‘I am sorry I was a jerk.’” – yes that was a classic Kevin response!
“Your spouse is your spouse first, not another employee. Treat him (her) as such.”
For the full list of our tips and to read each couple’s story, find the full article here.
Do you and your spouse run a business together? Let us know!