Strategies to start with your couple and not die trying

Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, there are some who prefer to keep the family separate from the business, while there are others who believe that both should go hand in hand. What do you think? Among the most recurring desires of the people who work, is to be able to spend more time with the family, and specifically with their couples.

Not having to resign to seeing himself only after six or seven in the evening for dinner after a tiring day, but to see all day from morning to night, eat together, plan, decide on what and how to spend together and in short: work together. Does it seem too much to you? Nightmare or dream? How far is it mentally healthy to share this with our couples?

Meet your couple in a Start-Up?

Although for centuries many love relationships have emerged in the workplace, know your one and only in a start-up, or rather, in your start-up, is another story, because undertaking is like riding a roller coaster full of surprises and challenges. All the opposite of a hierarchical and hyper organized work. Working and partnering with your couple in your own business is literal, the epitome of entrepreneurship: “to start a work, a business, a commitment, especially if they contain difficulty and danger” … What a romantic thing, right?

If you are thinking about starting with your couple or if you already did, these strategies to start with your partner, and not die in the attempt will help you:

1. Align careers

It is normal that your couple, and you have different backgrounds, interests, experiences and curricula, although they are dedicated to working in the same field. To be able to take a business forward between the two, it is necessary to be clear what the real objectives and goals of each one are.

It is not enough to have common likes, or similar experiences. It is required that the vision and the way to achieve the goals be common, and congruent for both parties.

2. Change working styles.

One of the most recurrent conflicts and one of the most common causes by which couples working together fail, is the difference between working styles. You are organized and your partner works well under pressure; you are a leader and your partner is interested in the results. Effective communication is necessary in order to exploit each individual’s potential and not to die on the battlefield.

3. Define the boundaries between home and work.

It is a myth that “divide the professional life to the personal one” by 100%, establishing tangible and measurable limits is a strategy that can, in a way, guarantee a more harmonious and effective coexistence between your partner and you.

It is almost always women who carry more workload, because on average they do more housework and nurturing than men. Establish clear boundaries, schedules and a clear and specific division of tasks in the professional as well as the private.

Entrepreneurship involves sacrifices, but if you manage to align your goals and values with the ones with your couple, go ahead!