Love And Entrepreneurs: Guide Posts For Keeping Peace At Home
Wall Street Journal Blogs:
Anyone who’s started a business knows it can strain the best relationship. Even working together can be tricky. The New York Times wrote a story yesterday about the challenges of men working for their wives in entrepreneurial ventures. To smooth egos on the home front, many women made conscious efforts to give their hubbies ample recognition, sometimes switching who got the higher salary.
To keep peace, here are a few tips business owners and their spouses recommend:
1. Set timelines: The person starting a business needs a cushion before they’re expected to make money. But nonentrepreneurs needs a reasonable expectation of when that’s going to happen — or if it doesn’t happen, when their partner will pull the plug. Having a plan with financial and nonfinancial milestones (number of new customers signed, licenses obtained) will ease this transition period.
2. Have financial limitations: “Just another $5,000 and we’ll turn the corner…” Setting financial-investment limits is crucial if the start-up money is coming from your collective savings. That counts for credit-card debt and the number of times you return to family and friends for investment. You don’t want to get so far in the hole that if things don’t work, you’ll have no one left to lend you a hand.
3. Vacation: Take one. Starting a new business can be like cheating on your spouse, at least when it comes to time. Put aside a small amount of money each month just for this purpose. And carve out a week or even a weekend away and stick to it like it was a meeting with a buyer at Wal-Mart.
4. Don’t bring a spouse on board at the first sign of growth: As a firm gets bigger, it can be tempting to pull everyone in the household into the fold to help. But that means paying for health care when significant others quit their day job, or child care if they’ve been a stay-at-home parent. Run the numbers to make sure this move is cost-effective.
5. Know your ego: If you both do play a role in the company, try to spell out defined roles where you don’t compete. Deal with the salary issue up front: Do you both always need to make the same amount so no one feels threatened? Can you switch it up?
6. Starting a business isn’t the only dream that counts: Everybody lives once. An entrepreneur’s mission can be all-consuming; that’s often what helps it succeed. But your husband or wife’s dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or taking a three-month sabbatical on the Amalfi Coast should carry equal weight, too. Plus, technology means you can often work from anywhere in the world. Use it.
Also Read
- Tips To Save Time & Money In Your Small Biz And At Home Open Forum: These are difficult times and every small...
- Home Biz Ideas That Thrive During Recession PowerHomeBiz.com: 1. Food business. Food is one business that...
