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A Family IT/Tech Business??
adzoox writes "As I have just hired on my girlfriend to help out with some secretarial work in my Apple consulting, sales, and technical service business, and considering having my brother work with me soon; I'd like to know what the /. readers think about family in the 'Tech Workplace.' Obviously things aren't hectic like a restaurant, but my father and friends have all warned me against mixing business and pleasure and family. Do any of you have successful family owned IT businesses, eBay businesses, or programming/software consulting engineering businesses and what's been or secret to success? If not successful what unique problems did you encounter? How can I make it successful? And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"
Oh, dude. You are opening yourself up to all sorts of abuse from the Slashdot crowd, but I will try and make some constructive comments to head off any noise.
I have worked in the past with family on a couple of businesses ranging from molecular modeling and pharmacologic development to health care and real estate and I can tell you sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. You will simply have to find out by jumping in, but make sure that everybody understands that running your own business is hard work. Just in case you did not get that: Running your own business is hard work. Sorry to repeat myself, but I have seen the attitude more than once of people saying "Hey, I will start my own business and it will be cool. I can set my own hours, etc...etc...etc...", but many folks have no idea how complicated or difficult it can be. Beyond your knowledge of the work involved, everybody else in a small start up or small company will have to have strong work ethics, some luck and some insight into the market you are looking at working in. Get yourself a good CPA to do quarterly taxes, have regularly scheduled (but short and concise) status update meetings, and decide before you go in, which people are going to accept which responsibilities. Also, be aware that starting your own business can occupy all aspects of your life including your moment to moment thoughts and difficulties can arise if everybody involved in the early stages does not have the same vision.
Also, I don't know what your relationship is with your girlfriend, but both of you need to establish right from the start whether or not she is an employee or a partner, and you need to decide for your relationship what the future (if any) holds in terms of marriage. Even long term live-in relationships can have "common-law" implications, so if the business takes off, but your relationship does not, how are you going to deal with that? It might also be prudent to establish early on what the investment shares are as well. Who "owns" the business? Is your brother going to be a partner or employee?
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The thing about working with your girlfriend is that she's not yet your wife. If the relationship fails, you're not going to just lose her love but also her usefulness as an employee... if you're ready to commit to depending on her on a business level, there should be a ring on her finger. You can never underestimate the importance of the front line secretary, she'll be first person most of your customers deal with... everything she does will reflect on you and your company.
Your brother, by comparision, can't turn on you as easily. Afterall, if there's ever a problem your parents will end up serving as a binding arbitration process. He might walk away from you, but he's never going to seriously cause problems on the way out like an ex might.
1. Your family may get along exceptionally well but keep in mind that any other employees may view the relationship skeptically and even resent you when you take a long lunch with your brother or promote a family member.
2. Make sure you have a well written agreement between any family members. If there's a falling out, it hurts much more when there's no clear solution to the business interests.
3. What happens if your girlfriend, God forbid, breaks up with you? Can you handle seeing her at work, knowing she's not your girlfriend anymore? The reverse is also true, she could resent you. Have a reasonable employment agreement for this. Be generous up front and you'll save legal fees down the road.
I've found that when the money's flowing and times are good that even big problems aren't much of a challenge. It's when things get tight that even the best friendship can be tested. A family member isn't usually someone you can say goodbye to and never see again.
Good luck,
M
If I had a girlfriend... I would be happy mixing her with anything...
I wouldn't ever consider haveing my gf work with me. I think it is cool for her to have those skills thoug. If she makes a mistake you wont be able to get pissed. I would explain to your family that you will help them start their oen consolting buisness. But if you don't take my advice I will still wish you good luck.
Get paid to read spam
Of course there are some pros, like she knows you and what drives you mad, so she might do the coffee like you want it ;)
Hi Michael,
Its an iterative learning process,
It is OK to mix business with family as long as you don't mind making a mess the first couple of times.
If you really like your girlfriend, I suggest you practice on other less critical members of your family...
Too late! I was thinking about having your girlfriend work at my tech company!
In my experience, it is important to have clearly defined, separate roles for each person, so that there will never be overlapping in terms of who does what.
One problem I had with family members is, it's actually more difficult to void your opinion because you still have a "outside" relationship with that person beyond work.
So the best way is to do different things in the business, as long as everybody has a common goal/mission.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
You all need to go into this on equal footing, or the power relationships of
your little company will screw up the personal relationships you had with these
people.
Get ready to see what you and your family's social skills are made of.
If you all enjoy being around each other and are not the typical types who burn bridges or act like hicks, then everything should work out fine.
Personally, my family and I would never be able to work together due to different beliefs and views on just about everything. Combine that with being stubborn and you have a powder keg waiting to go off.
One thing to be aware of is that hiring family members has big tax advantages. Children can earn 7K+ per year tax free, and so on.
to accept the fact that you may alianate your entire family. I was involved not in a tech business but in a cleaning business with family. It strained us to the point that I had to quit and things were rough between my sister and I for years.
If all of you are mature abd straight enough character wist it may work. I've seen one or two family business's that have worled, more that have failed.
Never work with friends or family. There are, of course, some exceptions.
Will you have the guts to fire your girlfriend if it comes to that? Or will you simply keep paying her? How about your brother? Unless you're able to look your family or friends in the face as a boss/employee relationship, DON'T.
Think of all the bosses you've had. Remember the really bad ones? Do you want that position?
Basically, you just need to keep clear documentation indicating who owns the business and who works for it.
;-)
Additionally, you may want to file for LLC status, so if you and your girlfriend part ways on less than friendly terms, she can't take the business away from you.
If you just barely manage to stay afloat, this doesn't really matter. But if you start making good money (and to support three people, you presumeably can't do all that bad), CYA.
Of course, this only covers the business aspects of the arrangement. If things do go sour, you may end up estranged from family and your GF leaving for completely financial reasons. But you can't really do much to avoid that, short of listening to your father (Gack! Did I just say that? Damn, getting old, I guess...)
PS, IANAL, which for any discussion like this, we could all save time by just sticking that in our sigs.
Just keep them out of the picutre. Family and friends should support your business, refer people to your business, heck, send them a commission check every now and then, but to employ is to destroy.
As I have just hired on my girlfriend to help out
I'm thinking of hiring my gf so I can fire her and outsource her responsibilities to 10 women in India.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Blowjobs.
I am tired of all these slashdot readers pretending to have girlfriends and rubbing it in "how do you do X with a girlfriend ?", "how do you get a girlfriend to do Y".
Stop it. We all know.
I've worked with my brother as well as other family members over the course of my managed services
business, and the most important thing I found was to make clear who was the boss and who had the final
word on important decisions. I love my brother but we almost came to blows over some strategy and
purchasing decisions. Being family, those kind of problems inevitably spill over when you go home.
Once we worked out authority issues things got much easier.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
- Employees, not partners. Unless you need the equity, it's a lot easier to get out of employment arrangements that go south than out of partnerships.
- Maybe you treat them nicer than employees, but treat the *paperwork* just the same. Everyone gets an offer letter that spells out salary, benefits, hours, expectations, etc. Everyone gets reviews. Everyone has to document their time. Is it likely someone will sue you? No, but it *is* likely that disagreements will turn nasty if things aren't down on paper.
- If you can grow your way into it, have someone outside the family in a management role. Things go better if there's someone unrelated in the middle.
- Ask yourself: Do you really need the help? This is true whether you're hiring family or Joe Techie off the street. Employees are a steady expense in a world of uncertain cash flow -- make sure you're stretched *damned* thin before you commit to the expense.
Good luck! Oh, and noodle around my weblog for advice on business development and promoting your business."It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
In general, I am against mixing family and business. I am a partner in a network computing consultancy. For one, I never sell or do work for family and friends. Its not the fact that they always want the "family-discount-plan", so much as the implied lifetime warranty that pursues.
/.
In regards to working with family, I've seen it fail more times than it works. Having seen my wife work for a friend, and the subsequently starting her own business and hiring other friends...I've seen many relationships too easily soured by the friendship-employment misunderstandings.
Anyhow, with that said, I'm a partner in a company, 14 years, with my brother and mother. Now the key to our success is that we each brought unique talents. My brother is business sales and marketing, while my mother is business finance and accounting...me? of'course, I'm technical...why else would I be on
So my secret, if I had one...but I don't, because I openly share it, is don't mix if you bring similar skills. I think unique skills are required...then the family factor adds some value to it.
-mgeneral
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
You know, To many of us, that's a GREAT idea.
[1] An actual, real girlfriend!!!
[2] Not only that, she "helps out".. that too in the middle of work!
This can certainly be a challenging situation.
My wife and I worked at a tax software company at the same time. I was a member of the development team...she was a member of the quality assurance team. The relationship between a developer and a tester can get chippy at times since the relationship is somewhat adversarial. However, having your wife write up defects in your code can be VERY stressful!!
We had quite a few lovely exchanges, let me tell you! We are still together. And though we no longer work at the same firm, we have started a software company together. I'm the developer...she's the tester. I must be a glutton for punishment. Maybe this is some strange sort of S&M relationship, eh?
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of her sleeping her way to the top? I mean, if she's already sleeping with the boss/owner, where else is there for her to go? Especially just for secretarial work. She should have held out for more...
Think about it, the only sexual escapades you'll have at work, are with your girlfriend.
Oh wait, you'll also have to make sure your brother is not around. Darn.
Yea. I know.
It just might not be a great idea to work with family. From what I have seen in the past with other places, it usually causes rifts in relationships. It just will, because in work you will do things to other people that you might not want to do to a family member, but you need to, or need them to do something in order for something to work.
I love my wife but I would never work with her, because work is work, and in work we do things we dont want to do, and I dont want her to ever blame me for something or me blame her for something or for me to blame myself for anything.
yeah its long winded and dosent sound right, but dont hire family, work only causes relationships to crumble. I bet there is exceptions, but I bet there is a lot more divorces then exceptions
My wife and I have worked together for 9 years in a small consulting business (we've been married 20 years). It works very well for us because we have complimentary skills, mutual respect, and agree on many issues of business straetgy and tactics. She can do things I can't do, and vice versa.
If you try to have a boss-employee relationship with your girlfiend or family, things might get ugly when you have to make an executive decision that they do not agree with or respect. You could try establishing "ground rules" but I'd bet that any asymmetries in the relationship, even if prearranged, will lead to grief.
This is a high-risk, high-reward issue. If you make this family business work, you will have the best time of your life. If you can't get along with family/coworkers you will have the worst time of your life.
Good Luck!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
My family was involved in a business through most of the last century. Eventually it went bust handing over from one generation to the next. They all lost their jobs and the elders lost their pensions.
I kept out of it, reasoning that a business that big would end up owning you. Sadly it proved to be the case as nobody talks to each other any more. I'm not saying dont do it but be aware that relationships can come second to business. Also remember that relationships can change over time. Depends on the people involved, many cultures handle family businesses very well, but they tend to be the ones with very clearly deffined social heirarchy. The best bet would be to set out very clearly the rights and responsibilities of everybody involved - employment contracts right from the start. Then expect to adjust as time passes and the business changes.
A final suggestion is that the number one rule is dont lose a friends or family members money if they invest.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Your enterprise currently sounds like this, and if it's just employment/contracting your relatives, and not equity in the business, there's probably less at stake. Be fair, be impersonal (ie no "you're fired because you beat up on me in the 8th grade") and treat them like you would any other worker. If it comes to a close call, be prepared to have to work out whether the business or the person is more important to you, and sacrifice the other.
However, if there's any question that equity is or might be involved, then anything more than a trivial enterprise needs to be set up right from the start. Otherwise, there is a very good chance of a falling out, and if there aren't procedures in place to handle it, it can get very messy -- not just acrimonious, but litigious to a point where the business itself cannot operate and falls apart, and everyone scrabbles over the still-twitching corpse. Especially if someone senses $$$$ in it for them...
I'm a lawyer now, and it may sound self-serving, but if there's any chance your relatives might work for any serious amount of time, or this business might make a serious amount of money, get a lawyer to settle the basics, in a binding form. Now, *before* there may be big money at stake, and before any disagreements have arisen. Put in place a process to deal with disputes (eg one of you wants to expand, the other wants to consolidate). Put in place a mechanism to handle what happens if one person wants out, or if you all want to go your separate ways. Do they just get cash, or do they get to take a chunk of your assets out too?
If it's just employment, you may feel that even asking for an employment (or consulting/freelancing) contract might be considered offensive. But you may want to check with a lawyer about ownership of IP created by your brother or girlfriend, though, if that's relevant...
There are two views on this, and both have validity. If you do it right, it'll pay in spades. Do it wrong, and you'll end up pretty lonely.
Personally, I'm all about doing business with my family. Simply put, they are the people that I know and trust. If you hire someone, you really don't know them beyond what their resume says and what you can learn in an hour or two of interviewing, which is not much.
Money magazine had an excellent article on the subject last year, here it is in the archive:
Silver Spoon - In Praise of Nepotism
The article is an interview with the author of a book called "In Praise of Nepotism", and makes some excellent points.
Do you have ESP?
For instance, if the federal minimum wage law was amended to allow undocumented workers to be paid $2-3/hour, employers could afford up expand their operations up to 75%! Imagine creating HUNDREDS of thousands of jobs with the stroke of the pen, at NO EXTRA cost to industry! These are numbers George W. Bush could only dream of with his well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective tax cuts. Hopefully the upcoming election will highlight this important issue.
thinking slightly more long term.. let's say your business goes really well and you decide to hire someone else, someone not in the family. It puts that new person in a very akward position because they have to deal with typical office stress with the added dynamic that everyone else in the company is in the boss' family. not cool.
"And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?" Cut her off. They always do it to us, like they have all the power. But it's an illusion. It always works. Unless they slap and dump you, of course.
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Well your family is pretty much responsible for your future - everyone rides on the success of their parents etc. Just look at bush, hes a nothing, a no-body, he hasnt a decent thought to his name, but hes the president of the USA, why? because of his father and family and their history. There are many examples of the same thing with past presidents and the same goes for business. Unless you're one of the very very lucky few who make their own fortune (no bill gates isnt one his family were rich) then you gotta band together as a family and make sure you make it big.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'd be worried about the way family members trust each other rather than have formally signed contracts and business agreements. This is great until something goes wrong then its horribly horribly messy.
I've actually provided evidence in one case where that happened and the halves of the family were sueing each other in court including some Linux related matter.
So stick it all on paper then at the end of the day if bad stuff occurs everyone knows where they stand.
The other arguments I've seen about family business are really about diversification - if you and your girlfriend both work for the same company you can both lose your job at the same moment much more easily.
In the UK lots of people employ family members just to improve their tax position. Hiring children to create tax efficient ways to provide university funding, hiring wives to use their tax allowances etc.
I guess the US has similar "opportunities"
My wife and I have run a home-based consulting business together for three years now. The business is going quite well. I have a few suggestions that seem to make a difference.
First, it isn't going to work to have your significant other as an employee. She'll need to be a partner. A power inequality in the business side isn't going to work well with what should be an equitable relationship otherwise. This doesn't mean that everything has to be done by consensus - each party can have their area of responsibility (for our company, my wife does the books and infrastructure, and I do the sales and actual consulting. We supervise marketing jointly, since it isn't something either of us is that strong in).
If your SO is really an employee, how are you going to be able to negotiate a raise, or vacation time, or whatever? You won't be able to treat her "just like an employee" at work and then not elsewhere, and even if you could, you wouldn't want to.
Also, if you work and live together, you'll need to make sure to get some time apart in your lives. It can be rather hermetic to spend all day with the same person in the same place. This has gotten a lot more complex for us now that we have kids.
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It's important to think about why you hired her. Was it because she's really good at secretarial work? or was it because she's your girlfriend and she'd love to help out. It may not seem like it makes a big difference, but if you hired her because of your relationship, you are effectively extending your relationship boundries into the workplace. If you see her job as a perk of being together it may also cause you to devalue her position when you have a fight.
I'm not saying you shouldn't hire her, but just make sure she is loyal to you and your company.
And like others have said, a ring would be a good idea. If you want business commitment from her you probably need to promise her a future as well.
i wouldn't want to have to fire someone i'll be seeing at family reunions for the rest of my life. that is, assuming you get invited.
My wife and I have run a tech consultancy business together for about five years. She does database work and I do just about everything else. The key to avoiding conflict has been for each of us to let the other manage his/her own client relationships. (More recently, she has a regular job and just helps out occasionally.)
.com bubble made for strange career paths. But lest you think I'm a jonny-come-lately to tech, I feel compelled to add that I've been programming since I was 12. I didn't major in CS for the same reason I didn't take English as a second language.
I think an arrangement in which one of us reported to the other would not work nearly as well.
As an OT asside, we met as students when she was working on her second masters degree in an Engineering field and I was in my seventh year as a sociology undergrad. Little did we suspect that we would some day be running a business together! The
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
Do not hire anyone you are not willing to fire, with the attendant consequences.
Unless you are a master at dealing with people, non-family/friend potential hires or employees will view such a situation with extreme skepticism at best. Me, I spot a business owner one family member to handle the money, but beyond that I never go to work for a company that has more family/friend employees unless I'm desperate.
In the three or so situations where I didn't realize ahead of time the situation (and one very early startup composed of a set of friends and one brother who was a brilliant programmer), I had very bad experiences, but then none of the managers were very experienced.
Bottom line is probably "how big do you want your company to become?" If you go the route of nepotism, you'll be very lucky if it ever gets big (unless you have a lot of talented relatives you can hire! :-) You simply won't be able to hire or retain "outsiders" as you need.
Note this is somewhat akin to "high trust" vs. "low trust" cultures. E.g. (not to single them out, but they're a familiar example), Chinese tend to keep a company inside the family; this limits the type and scope of their companies, and in cases like Wang putting his son in charge of R&D, can (help) kill a company. (It's not likely Wang the company would have survived the transition to PCs, but this sealed its fate (I had a friend working in their R&D at the time)).
Just agreeing with the parent post. When you own your own business, you are not your own boss and you do not set your hours: your customers are and do. At best, you can choose when you will work your extra hours and what customers to pursue. However, you will find that you can't really turn away customers, just determine which to actively pursue (going door to door allows you to determine which doors, etc.).
One has *more* bosses when one owns a business, as all the customers can tell you what to do. At least when you work for someone, only that person determines your salary. On the bright side, you do have more flexibility when one of your "bosses" fires you, as you have others to pick up the slack. However, if that happens too much, you won't be able to find new customers.
Well, I guess at least you can have sex with your secretary on your desk, and it's not going to be a problem...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Employing a family member is a mess. Full partnership is the best thing there is. You may fight like mad but you all know that you're fighting for the same thing. It doesn't make the fights any less intense but it does remove the poison of office politics.
I say GO FOR IT. Do you like and trust your family (I do mine)?
:). Shut the big portion down last year and pretty much went out separate ways -- not big business like the corporate setup before, but ironically we all still work together in one manner or another and of course still have a couple of other spawned family ventures in the works.
:(). I've even seen a friend fired from one job (working part time) that was another business from another branch of the family tree (bar tending and drinking the product doesn't work well :). His main job was no issue (and drinking at lunch was warned as a no-no :) ... and even though he's a borderline alcoholic -- he's still a friend (and employed again :).
Coming from working at the major portion of the family business I had no issue working across the hall from my brother. Father running it at the other end of the building. Mom down the hall handling personnel. Heck, the admin assistant to the VP of sales is now my wife.
Dad started it and we all fell into it over the years. $250,000 to start and grew it to a 20 million dollar little biscuit over the 15+ years we all worked together. The good times were great and the bad sure didn't rip the family apart.
Economics of it just were not worked -- and what ticks me off is that we weren't getting RICH. I saw many business' come and go over the years with the owners having boats, race cars, jets, too many houses, etc. Sure, there was a nest egg being set aside in various assets -- but the business was MAKING money (then
No, it would not have been possible without all of us working _together_ -- both in the thick and thin.
Heck, I've hired friends into the business over the years (and even had to lay off some of them -- including myself and my wife
Who are you going to trust? Keep your enemies nearby and at arms length. I wouldn't want to hire them though. I'd hire my brother or my wife in a heart beat. I trust them.
ok, working with family can be great, but sometimes, things can be far from what you expect. I come from an indian background, so families working together is not uncommon - in fact, most rich families are set up in this way. But then again, asian families tend to be more closely knit, so such ways of working can succeed.
One problem comes, when you have to pay people etc.. it is difficult to pay someone less and someone more, especially within your family, as you are controlling their economic development - you feel as though you are resposible for their earning. This often leads to people feeling sorry for one another etc (as one is not earning as much as the other) and really complicates relationships.
The second problem is that you will soon run out of things to talk about. Your life will revolve around business. You wont be able to escape it. You need to understand how to balance family life with work... and believe me it can be hard.
Also, swindelling in family businesses can be a problem. Often, those who you trust can turn around to be something else... The closer the person is to you, the more chance of fraud! And then what can you say? After all that person is family!
Ok, now that I have scared you >-) , maybe I should tell you some good stuff:
You can really develop successfully, if you are willing to compromise and work together. Your company can be much bigger than you can imagine if you play your cards right...
Basically, if you are going to work with family, you need to be able to handle situations well, and be able to lead. There is a lot of pressure on you if you are running a company that your family is a part of.
Hope that helps.
Vaibhav (i am not an anonymous coward anymore!!)
Have you opened a can of worms. I really, really, BIG can of worms.
But look, here's the base of the issue. You have to decide, right up front, what your priorities are. The business, or your girlfriend.
When it comes down to crunch time, which do you ditch in favor of the other?
If you ditch the girlfriend, under no circumstances allow her to work for you. It's that simple. You will lose both otherwise, and the process won't be what would generally be called "fun." You could even end up in jail. I've seen it happen. Vindictive girlfriends/wives know where all the bodies are buried. Even ones you don't know exist. They find 'em. They call the cops/IRS/SEC/Whoever.
If you ditch the business and keep the girlfriend, well, then you have to realize your working relationship is a direct extension of your personal one. You will never seperate the two, and if you try you'll end up spending a lot of nights sleeping on the sofa, or creating the above mentioned vindictive girlfriend/wife. Thus you have to treat all works issues as relationship issues.
Because, under these circumstances, they are. No way around it.
You are life partners, making your living together, not employee/employer. You harpoon the whale and handle the line, she handles the oars.
Please note that the person at the oars is always actually in control of the situation, no matter what the harpooner thinks.
KFG
I've worked in three different industries for family businesses. One, construction, was my family. The business was started by my grandfather and his brother, who both learned their trade from their father. My father and his brothers now run the business.
:
Notes from that experience: If the related people in the business really do pull their own weight, no one will really mind. If they don't, thats when resentment sets in. In that case you have to somehow seperate the family member in question to a position they can manage, or carefully extricate them. Case in point: When the business was passed to the current generation, all five brothers were involved. One was found to be a bit lazy over the years, and did some questionable spending with his expense account. The other brothers bought his portion of the business and he now sub contracts for them on occasion. Another brother is a very, very, very nice guy... but he's not very competent. They give him the jobs he's suited for, i.e. payroll, etc. They put him in "can't fail" positions because he is their brother and a cool guy. The remaining three brothers are all good at different areas, and to alleviate in-fighting they simple run the three portions of the business as seperate entities with shared resources. This has worked very well for them and has fostered a good competitive environment. My brother and cousins have also worked for the company at times. We had to put up with a bit of ribbing in the start, but my father always treated me like everyone else, and I worked just as hard. Basic point, related employees start from a deficit in the respect department. No one can deny how they got the job, they just have to prove that they deserve it by being very good at it.
The business I work for now is a restraunt. All the family members are very good at what they do. Again, compartmentalization is the rule of the day. The wife manages the menu, payroll and dress code enforcement type things, the husband manages the day-to-day stuff of ordering, managing the managers, etc. They have survived by hiring the best in the area and giving them a hands-off approach. The family owns two restraunts right now, and is opening a third. New restraunts seem to open because of a long-standing disagreement that is handled when money exists to expand. One of the disagreeing family members opens their own location.
The other family business I worked for was a tech-based company. The wife did the book keeping, the husband ran the actual tech stuff and their son ran the repair shop. This worked out quite fine. Everyone realized that the husband was really the only one entirely capable of his job, and part of that was having the guts to veto his family members when they were wrong.
So, to summarize
1. Compartmentalize.
2. Hire short term people. (girlfriend)
3. Consider being partners with very qualified family members who have capital to put on the table.
Jared
I'm working with my two best friends in the whole world and it has already turned into a disaster (i've known these people since grade school). They came up with a great idea, started the business, incorported, got 3 clients, got stuck on a technical hurdle, needed me, I worked 12 - 16 hour days for a month to solve their problem. Problem is we never discussed partnership/employee, now Im holding the software ransom until I get what I want (partnership, they sure as hell can't afford to pay me) and the business and a 17 year and 10 year friendship sway in the balance.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
if she breaks up with you because you fired her then you should have never hired. If she does not break up with you then she is a glutton for punishment and cannot be trusted. if she whips your geek ass and then lets you date her again, you know you made the right choice, hire her back and gve her a raise. she deserves it!
IMHO, if a relative is QUALIFIED to do the job, it may be worth considering. The question is can you be objective enough to make that determination. I've seen cases where the bosses kid was put into a position that he definitely wasn't right for. Now, we're stuck with him. What's worse is that non-relative employees can't comment on the guy's effectiveness for fear of family retribution. Still, some family-owned businesses have done rather well.
If you're hiring people you know very well (e.g. relatives, girlfriend), why are you already anticipating discplinary problems? Shouldn't you be certain that they will be good co-workers if you know them as well as you should? It's not like all you have are a resume and 3 references to go from...
-- Fratz, human
The more family members get involved, the higher risk that your family will run going backrupt if the business goes under.
About 10 years ago my parents opened a computer school together. My mom has some education in Human Resources, my dad was a programmer/DBA. They split the tasks so that everything involving people went to my mom, while all things computer related went to my dad. Whenever there was overlap (hiring teachers, which subjects to teach this semester, which computer hardware shop to trust etc..), horrible arguments ensued.
After a few years of fighting, my dad gave up on having his say, and just started doing whatever my mom told him to. The business functions smoothly now, they've expanded to a few new locations, and are becoming moderately successful. My mom runs the show, my dad fixes broken stations in his hidden-away office.
I guess the lesson of the story is that if both of you are strong-willed (as my parents started off), be prepared for some changes in the relationship. Either one of you will "break", or you'll live out your relationship in a constant state of bickering.
"Do any of you have successful family owned IT businesses, eBay businesses, or programming/software consulting engineering businesses and what's been or secret to success?"
What does eBay have to do with this? Even though it uses technology to function, it's still an auction business, not an IT/tech business. That said, I know of some people who make a living off of eBay and they have a pretty relaxed way of working. It usually involves lots of shopping (something most women would do anyways) and then a couple hours of taking photos and making a description of the item for the auction page. It's a good way for compulsive shoppers to put their habit into good use.
It probably varies by state, but community property only applies to the increase in value. If the company is woth $100K when you marry, and $120K when you divorce, community property only splits the $20K increase.
My own divorce showed up this and one other oddity. She provided the down payment on the house, I provided the monthly payments, yet her down payment counted as a gift to community property because it was BEFORE the marriage, and would have counted as her own money if we had bought the house AFTER marriage. Two lawyers told me the same thing.
Community property is not at all intuitive.
Infuriate left and right
Running a business together can be TOO close sometimes.
I started a business with my brother, and became very resentful when I was putting money in from my pocket and he was spending it on an overpaid assistant who happened to be sleeping with him. It made get togethers with his wife and kid awkward too.
I worked for a small local ISP that wasn't owned by a family but had a lot of family members working there together. They all more or less got along except for some interesting incidents before I got there that caused an ugly rift. But whatever, the company was then bought out and everyone got laid off. It was a good work environment, as everyone got along with everyone else. However, there was a clear amount of nepotism, and once everybody was out on their ass on the street together, that was no good. My recommendation: don't do it. Are you really expecting to stay with your girlfriend with her working for you? Come on. Really.
Watch American Chopper and American Hot Rod.
In American Chopper, Paul Sr. works with his sons. Mostly by yelling at them and slamming doors.
In American Hot Rod Boyd Coddington makes bad ass custom cars with a whole bunch of people, some of whom appear unemployable, and his EX-WIFE.
Rule #1: You are chief
Rule #2: Any challenger must be clubbed with nearest component
Rule #3: Lead hunters to find and bring back the green paper meat
Rule #4: Defend cave from soliciting hunters and roaming lawyers
Rule #5: Tinker with software to gain innovative edge over neighboring neandertal clan
IMHO, mixing your personal life and business is a very bad idea. Your statement And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?" is a perfect example of that. The answer to that question is: You don't. Are you really going to be able to sit her down in front of you and reprimand her as a superior? Even if she takes it without throwing something at you, it will probably go in one ear and out the other. The same goes for your brother. If one of them isn't doing a good job, do you think you could "fire" them? I guarantee that doing so will give you major problems in your personal life, and you just might end up stuck with lots of dead weight just to avoid it.
However, if you insist on having those personally close to you work for you, you can't treat them as employees because of the reasons outlined above. You're going to have to give them a piece of the promised land - That is, they get a stake in your company. If the company does well, they do well.
Now, the problem with that scenario is how you are going to handle it if somebody has had enough and wants out of your business. If it were me, I wouldn't be down with someone jumping ship and yet still being able to get their share of the company in the event it's sold. So, what you'd have to do is buy that person out, and that could get expensive for whoever's left. Do you see what I mean about a "can of worms"?
If you are dead set on this, consult a business attorney, as well as other people who actually run businesses based on this arrangement. Understand VERY, VERY well the implications of having people close to you work under you, or I think you will be in for a toasty walk though hell.
-R
Yes, there are ups and downs situations. The whole family feels the tention when we're approaching deadlines or facing tough situations. We have to take turn supporting each other. Playe roles. Make sure you don't have a situation in which you're both in miserable situations. Don't ever blame each other. Ever. (Blame things on somebody else?)
On the down side, you can't prentend working when you're actually browsing. Like right now. What are you doing reading /.? Go back to work you slacker!
Good luck.
-- br
> And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness,
> work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"
You have to Ask Slashdot about authority & your girlfriend!?!
To clue you up: I usually get her to dress up in latex and black boots whilst simultaneously brandishing a whip and castigating me with unpleasant insults.
Us Brits may handle workplace etiquette slightly differently to you Americans though.
The Machine stops.
If she gives you any lip, fuck her in the ass. That should solve any discipline problems.
You are welcome.
They all share a common trait. The "Family" partners all hate each other with a passion which glows cobalt blue in the dark.
What's even worse, none of the "Family" members feel they can leave to do something else, because it is "Their" business. So they are stuck with people ("Family"!) they have come to despise, hate, and ridicule to other employees (that would be me in this case).
In the long run, it would be less painful, less expensive, and more productive to just mangle your genetalia with some sort of pinching/cutting instrument than to do what you are doing.
I realize that you will not believe me, and that I shall be modded down as a troll for pointing all this out, but 10 years from now, when you and your GF et. al. are at each others throats, you will think back and say to yourself:
That Deacon person, he saw all this before!
I leave you with this link, which I am too lazy/inept to embed.
You will have to remove the extra space after you use leftbutton to copy and middle button to paste in the url bar.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=cassandra&x=0&y=0
No comment.
And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?" Silence. Tumbleweed blows across the empty city streets. The wind whistles in the eves of tall buildings. Wrong question, wrong place mate.
How can I make it successful? And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"
If she really loves you, she'll put up with the tardiness and lack of a work ethic...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I started a small LLC with a good friend of mine about 2 years ago.
... most of our steady revenue came from not-for-profits, and it was the time of year when they had to preserve what remained of their budgets... we got slightly stressed. The business account slowly dwindled, and we paid our selves less and less each week. I expected times like that, I was fine... but my partner/best friend of years and years didn't take it quite so well.
At first things went slowly. We finally made the transition from working full time at another job and part time at our own to part-time at one and part-time at another.
Then we made the jump and quit the 'backup plan'...
Things went well for the first few months, ~$75,000 in sales, lots of random wire jobs, a couple deployments...we were wracking up quite the numbers in the business account.
Then we hit a very long slump of 'no work'
He then picked up a full time job, assuming we'd never work again.
A day after he starts at his new job I get a call with a job offer for us. a 1 month contract for XP upgrades/deployments.
Murphy's Law in action...
That slight spike in our business made him quit his new job, we complete the contract and were okay for a couple months. Then we hit another lull, which I planned for. He claims to have had another job...
It ends up he was taking calls from customers, doing all the work himself and keeping all of the proceeds accordingly. When confonted on the issue he claimed that he had to because splitting the profits wasn't paying him enough to keep his head above water financially.
This was enough to ask him to have our articles of incorperation and tax license rewritten, excluding me.
And this was a very close friend of a very long time. I now refuse to ever deal with him in any circumstance now.
My main point being that certain people under financial or mental duress panic. I would have preferred to have never found this out and kept a friend. Like a previous poster has already said "You can't really eliminate a reletive from your life so easily."
Tread carefully. I have seen it work out before, I have also worked with a handful of relatives before. The accusations of nepotism were rampant. And if you think inter-office politics are scummy now, just try it when it involves girlfriends, friends, and/or relatives.
Jusy my $0.02 Take with an appropriate amount of salt.
...are you SURE they are YOUR family?
You should be concerned about what might happen if you & GF split up and she's your employee. That could be a real nasty situation and should probably be your main concern hiring a GF.
Familiarity breeds contempt. This applies to family owned businesses as well as non family owned. Heed your fathers advice.
As someone who is both incredibly drunk right now AND living through this situation in a worst-case-scenario kind of way I'd advice against it. While you may be bi-polar enough to be able to seperate work from pleasure those around you might not. A friend of mine refers to family businesses as incestuous and until now I never really understood what he meant. The GF is tolerable (you can break up with them in a pinch) but brothers are hard to come by. If there is any chance of failure this is a quick path to hell, if there is no chance of failure then by all means go for it (and I have some lovely property in florida for sale. A bit damp, but never the less.....)
---- which is more fun: computers, motorcycles, or women? ----
Not a wise choice to ask about the situation AFTER you already hired the g/f.
If you are going to mix biz and pleasure, then do it with the idea that you will disolve the biz relationships in favour of the personal ones. The one relationship that strikes me as being a bit dicey is the girlfriend. If this personal relationship is likely to disolve, then your biz will suffer if she becomes irreplacable and decides to move on.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I've not had experience working with family, but I have worked in a small IT business owned and run by a husband and wife. It wasn't fun. Bickering and so forth between the them really stressed up the environment. With the husband telling us stories of his experiences on overseas trips it made it a really uncomfortable place to work.
Think back to the day you hated your girlfriend the most. The one day that, for whatever reason, you just couldn't hardly stand to be around her, and could barely control your tounge enough to not say something you would regret forever. A day where you seriously wondered whether she was really the one for you, and had doubts about your relationship.
Now think about what that day would have been like if you would have had to spend an extra 8 hours with her.
Doing something like this is certainly possible depending on the couple, but the real question is, why would you risk your relationship in this way? Hiring your brother, sister, parents or 3rd uncle twice removed is easier, because you (presumably) don't have to go home with these people at the end of the day. Even hiring your wife is better, as you're legally obligated to stay with her, and (also presumably) have already decided that your love for her is stronger than any argument.
But hiring your girlfriend is just asking for trouble. Not be be condescending, but your girlfriend can be a secretary anywhere. I understand that essentially telling your girlfriend "No I don't want to hire you" is going to be a delicate situation to say the least, but you need to find a way to nip this in the bud.
I've been working with my best friend on starting an ISP. We've been friends for nearly 30 years now, since we were were both in grade school. The biggest plus with us is that we can be totally honest with each other, without hurting each other's feelings. I also think there is an emotional component behind my motivation to help his business succeed. With that said, an APPLE consulting business? I've had apple computers shoved in my face for so many years, I become violently ill when faced with them. According to most Mac freaks,Myth #1 Apples don't break, so how are you going to get any return there? Myth #2: Macs are eaiser to use, once you set them up, so what are they going to need you for after the initial sale? Are your customers such complete morons that they'll need constant assistance? Myth #3: Microsoft is evil. If you think M$'s practices are so bad, how are they compared to the propritary nature of Apple products? Ever try to replace a fried network card in an iMac? (HINT: you must replace the entire motherboard at a certified Apple service center) Ever try to replace a battery on an iPod? I don't mean this as a flame directed at you. I'll probably get flamed myself. But if you were forced to use an operating system that had NO options and treated you like you weren't smart enough to do more than word process or surf, you'd be bitter too.
Brinkster is a family owned business from what I remember
Jared Stauffer
PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Christine Stauffer
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE
And Jason Stauffer(presumably his son?) is in sales!
Apparently they are surviving by the grace of god
and will they accept it? If you think that would be an issue, then don't do. Business is business which is seperate from work, and nothing is worse than having a family member bring down your hard work.
Jealousy.
If I gave a job to a girlfriend, then all subsequent girlfriends might feel that they have the right to work for your company as well.
This is of course, assuming that someone who owns an IT business actually has many girlfriends. For those of us on slashdot, we can only dream.
Sigs are for losers
While evaluating your other questions, here is one more: are you still the right type of business? Perhaps you should be a corporation, or if you are, change to a different type. Lawyers and books can advise you on differences between "chapter C", "chapter S" and others[1]. Remember that what is right now wasn't right when you were alone, and won't be right latter on if when you grow, or laws change, so keep on top of this.
Running a business is hard. There is however charities of retired executives who exist to help people like you. Look into this, and get their advice. It isn't always worth following, but they may have advice that can really help you out. For that matter, you might be better off hiring a good president to handle the business while you do the tech work you are good at.
[1]I doubt that a public corporation is right for your size, but it might be worth checking out if you have an odd situation you didn't tell us about. Or perhaps you are still small enough that the risk of not being a corporation is worth it.
"And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"
I'm really curious how many people will step up to the plate on that question.
"Derp de derp."
Some strange moderation going on here...
The point being don't fish off the company pier, dip the company pen in the company ink, or otherwise mix business and pleasure.
'And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"
...Um, no. I'm 42.)
You get a girlfriend who is better at those things than you, or you DON'T DO IT.
I am so not joking. (Geeze, do I know anybody that went into business together and didn't get divorced?
you are making it clear that she is just helping you out as a secretary and it's your business. Later you can let her take bigger responsibilities and stakes as you see fit (relationwise and her capability wise)
When a post becomes too insightful, it often becomes funny.
Hiring those of your own blood (or close, in this case) is only bad news. Its one thing if someone doesnt perform and you fire them, they just go away. People who you know and love dont go away.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
To simplify it for you - you've just hired the new Managing Director.
The Mothership
My father and I once owned a successful local ISP - We resently sold the business, though due to the offer - not by problems caused due to our working together.
We had one problem with my sister working for us.
We later determined the reason.
It was not caused by her work duties, moreso due to the lack of specifying her duties.
When my father and I started the company we knew exactly (to the letter) what each of our responsibilities were. He handled receivables, billing, banking, and purchasing in regards to available monies, overhead etc.
I handled all administrative duties, patching, programming, upgrades, analysis, determining expansion requirements for growth and current loads, etc.
We evenly divide client support. and jointly decided on possible advertising ventures to increase client base - though the final word in this was his. My final word came in the form of implementation, how to, the means to achieve it on a broad ratio.
Advanced or trouble tech support issues fell toward me to finish them up and bring them to a close.
When my sister came aboard with a wide range of experience, we simple dropped her in the middle of it, had a single current chore that she needed to accomplish, though after that we constantly felt she wasn't doing her part. We later determined that the flaw was that her duties and responsibilities were not defined, nor were deadlines sets.
As long as you specifically indicate what each person has on their 'virtual' plate, what their deadlines are - and what vocal power they have in choices made (whether none or only in certain areas of the business), then I do not see an issue.
Tardiness is something that you should be able to determine ahead of time. Do the family members current work? Have they been previous let go because of missing work? If they been at their job for year, then most likely you won't have a problem. Though in order to curb this, set a mandatory morning meeting every work day. Specify that the meetings are mandatory and missing or being late for more then two a month will mean immediate termination.
Another possiblity, if you perform a lot of on-site work, schedule these service times at the beginning of the day. The customer will let you know if the person is late or didn't show up. Then if you need to terminate you can say because the client requested that they have someone different service their needs. This takes some of the wieght off of you and puts it directly on the shoulders of the offender.
Require you girlfriend to do banking first thing in the morning. Banking statements will have time stamps on them and you'll know if she there on time. Let her know that it is mandatory that the banking be done first thing to ensure all cash and deposits are avaiable as soon as possible.
Working with family provides an immesnse amount of closeness and fun time. I've share numerous times with my father that lead to hours of laughter. Good Luck!
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
I am aware of a small, but growing IT support business where some of the employees are family and friends. It is fairly common in small businesses for the bookkeeper/office manager to be the boss's wife. She has an interest in seeing the business succeed. She's going to be someone that the boss can trust with the money.
If you are going to hire friends, hire them because they can do the job for you. Make sure that the job is a job and the friendship is a friendship and that both of you can handle that. Some day, you may have to fire your friend. It may be for reasons that aren't his fault. Your biggest client, who he is working with, may go bankrupt, cutting a big chunk out of your income.
You're just asking for trouble, having a girlfriend work for you.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."-THG
never work with friends/relatives etc.
when the poo hits the air distribution device it will always affect the relationship
I've had experience of a number of family businesses (I include boyfriend/girlfriend and boyfriend/boyfriend in that category for the sake of this discussion). By far, they have been the most dysfunctional category of businesses I've dealt with.
1. Emotional issues between the partners get in the way of sensible business decisions. This will weaken your business.
2. It is inevitable that one partner will be better than the other, and it may reach the point where the only reason the weaker partner remains is due to nepotism. This will be noticed by both customers and employees, and will damage your credibility.
3. One of the best things about being in a relationship is being able to have a life outside work. By entering a business relationship with your partner, you've given that up. This will lead to burnout and stagnation, and will eliminate what little quality time you might otherwise have spent together.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
i'm surprised the fact of working with the person your having a sexual relationship (girlfriend) with hasn't made you think about sexual harrassment lawsuites. When you break up with her or if somethign else happens it will almost be impossible to seperate the 2 especially if one looses a job or something.
you might as well go ahead and marry her. a divorce in the long run might be cheaper if things go sour.
We try very hard to make sure that the person we're hiring is a good fit before hiring, but you just can't really tell until they're in place. Much of it is our work environment, which is rather self-directed. It's also kind of isolating, just because of us all working on computers. So, it's fairly easy for people not to fit in to the environment.
For example. At one point we hired the ex-girlfriend of a good friend of ours. She hated our work environment, and left within two weeks. She was quite bitter about it, for reasons I don't fully understand. She ended up giving our mutual friend an ear-full, apparently, and we've hardly spoken since.
If everything works out well, hiring a relative could work out great. In most cases you know a relative better than you know random other people you will hire. However, our experience has been that it's much more likely not to work out.
We've found it's important to be able to easily stop the relationship as early as possible when it's not working out. It's hard enough doing this with just random people or aquaintances. With relatives, I can only imagine it's harder and may cause even more problems if there are hard feelings.
Take, for example, a business associate of ours. They hired a person to do sales a year ago. They've been paying his salary during that time, and he hasn't actually sold anything. Literally nothing. The contacts he said he had were all the wrong kinds of contacts, and in the mean-time he's spent a lot of time spinning his wheels trying to sell this particularly specialized ASP service.
You probably don't want this to happen to you.
Sean
I have done what you are trying to do. Over the last 12 years in my software engineering company I have hired family and a girlfriend. Overall it worked out nicely with little complaints. All I had to present and enforce was one simple protocol - The company is ran by a benevolent dictator, who is me. This is key, only one Chief Bufo allowed. Of course, as a loving dictator you must listen to the people, take advice, and when needed put some control into other people's hands. But in the end there can only be one leader. Personally, I'd rather be a serf, its easier. Just make sure who you hired knows the rules and agrees - make a written contract!
Be extremely careful, I learned the hard way how to get burned. In fact, the common-law marriage was exactly what a lot of people warned me about, luckily my now EX-gf didn't get a chance to move in.
You should consider the following:
1) Exposure of trade secrets: After I dumped her (found out she was cheating on me yet again), she went out and told competitors my business strategies, tactics, passwords to accounts etc
2) Blackmail: she refused to give back equipment suck as a laptop + desktop computer or she would expose more proprietary business information to competitors
Your intensions may be good but use extreme caution when dealing with females. They can turn on you in a heart beat.
I have run my own business and know several people who have run successful businesses involving family and friends. It is very difficult if you have to layoff a friend and sometimes it does end the friendship. It is very difficult if you have to layoff a significant other or a family member. It can have long lasting effects.
Or it might be the best thing that ever happened. I've lived through and seen both. My personal experience, as others have said, is that the friends and family bring sufficient complementary skills, share a common work ethic, and are committed to the business, you should run it as a partnership. In all the cases where this happened with my friends, the team at top was a boy/girl friend relationship, they partnered for control of the business, and it turned into a happy long term relationship or marriage.
But I've heard tale of much of the opposite. You have to be prepared for the risk that it will all go south and you will lose the relationships and the business. If this prospect doesn't cause you or your friends to flinch, go for it! Otherwise, don't do it, you are asking for trouble. If anyone expresses serious reservations, odds are they shouldn't be involved.
I don't see this having been mentioned yet -- so here goes.
If your gf is hired by you, then you have a supervisory position over her. If by chance there is intimacy in the relationship (at work or away from work) you have big problems. Should she desire to (!) she can basically control you and your business, since in the eyes of the law everything you do may be part of a pattern of harassment. Fire her and it's because she didn't deliver what you wanted. No raise or raise not big enough? Must be because of that special extra relationship -- and your unfairly trying to coerce her. Give a raise to someone else? Must be because of that special relationship... just think about how it would be played out if you ever went to court for divorce!
Unfortunately many times the harassment extends to volunteers as well. And travel? It's been ruled that hotels, motels, bars, etc are all extensons of the "office" when on business travel.
Consider this *very* carefully. Perhaps you can make her YOUR supervisor, give yourself the stock/control, and enjoy the flip side of the situation (everything she does can be viewed as harassment against you).
I have been working for my uncle for the past 13 months or so, completing a traineeship in network management. While it got me out of a rut and I am greatful for the past year of work, my simple message is this: DO NOT WORK FOR FAMILY. At least... not in a small business environment. While there have been reasonably good times, there have also been increasingly horrible (financially) times of late. I have repeatedly not been paid on time - of the last five weeks I have been paid for 2, several weeks late. Why? Because the company is going through a rough time. It will probably pass soon, but in the meantime, I have to worry about how I am paying the bills, rent, buying food, and how I am supposed to afford the bus to work each day. I am 21, have no savings and no credit card to help me out in the short term. The stress created by this situation has been pretty tough to deal with - to the extent where I think I could now never see or speak to my uncle again in my life and be completely happy with that. To top things off, it has been decided that the company is restructuring around the time my traineeship finishs (end of the month), and surprise surprise - there is no position for me in the new formation of the company (until 2 weeks ago, everything I had been told was to the contrary of this). So in about 2 weeks time, I have no job, no savings due to not being paid on time, one year of experiance as a trainee network administrator (worthless?) and a bit of paper. I also have some very harsh feelings for my uncle and probably wouldn't give him the time of day for how I feel I have been treated. No, I would never ever work for a family member again - work WITH, perhaps, as long as they were as far removed from the chain of command as possible - but NEVER EVER again would I work FOR a family member. Things may go great, but when things go bad, and there WILL be bad things that happen somewhere along the line, then feelings will be hurt and family loyalties go out the door.
Contrary to popular oppinion, London is not burning. It is, in fact, quite nippy.
You can't maintain an authorative position over a family member or significant other. It's a tricky game, and in the end everyone loses. Particularly with regards to involving that 'special someone.' When the relationship gets rocky, the business suffers as a result. And when the business suffers and the relationship is fine, the relationship begins to suffer. You can't maintain a true family life and enforce any authorative position over a sibling or lover. It's a serious mistake to think otherwise. If you are going to involve loved ones within your business, be prepared to lose authorative control over the area in which those people are involved. I've worked in several similar situations. In one situation, I owned a small business (7 employees) that delt in mobile vehicle customization, security, and electronics. I involved my Brother in this venture. Trying to work side by side with my sibling was an obvious mistake that made itself apparent within the first few months. My brother was older then I, and me taking an authorative position over him was something he had a hard time dealing with. As well, him being my brother provided for an atmosphere in which I would behave in a manner not conducive to a professional environment. The solution, I found, was to simply seperate the business into two main areas and seperate our involvement. I placed my Brother in charge of everything 'shop' related, while I maintained control over everything 'office and retail.' I found this to be a positive result. I eventually employed my significant other in a secretarial position. This worked great for her and I, but created discomfort for other employees. Eventually, I cut her position and placed her as the sole employee working with marketing - she works from home. She was happy, employees were happy, and I got 12-14hrs a day away from her. Everyone was happy! *laughs* Later I sold the business. Stress begone! Then, missing the stress - created a new business in a partnership with my Father. Having delt with issues with my Brother in my previous company - I decided to do the same thing. The problem ended up being my Father underperformed and the business suffered as a result. The company eventually went under, and the reasoning is clear. We both lost on the deal, and no feelings were hurt - but it only remained as such because losing $80k wasn't worth having hard feelings towards my Father to me. If you can't stomache a loss as the result of a family member, don't involve them. If you can't relinquish control or behave professionally around those people, don't involve them. The most important point is that YOU will have to be the one to make sacrifices to these people. Your company and other employees may suffer as a result. If you fail to do so, you risk damaging the relationship(s) with family/lover. And probably the most important metal position to take is that of the other parties. Reverse every situation you encounter as though you were the employee rather then the owner. Something you would _not_ do with a typical employee. Essentially, you will be walking on eggshells with these people. You will suffer, they will suffer, and your relationship will suffer. Bottom line, it's a gamble. If your busienss is a complete success and you make your loved ones wealthy - things will probably be great. But, if you suffer the two year lagg time most companies do -- you will likely have some very rough times - and possibly do damage that cannot be mended. It may or may not be worth it. Personally, I do not think it is worth it. Wait until the company is a success - ask family members if they would like to volunteer services occassionaly if they feel the need to be involved. But don't allow loved ones to become dependant on your companies success.
This poor man's buisness will fail! Not because of his girlfriend though, but because of the fact that he is using Apple! He should have learned that Linux is the key to success!
Keep the faith, share the code
One downside which nobody has mentioned is that if the venture goes downhill for whatever reason, everyone in the family is out of a job. Unless your family member has skills that your business can't do without, it may be better for the family member to diversify where they are getting their paycheck from.
On the upside, if a family member might take more care in their work than your average worker, because they have a personal stake in the business. Of course, you have to judge if the family member is deserving of that kind of trust. If you have a close family, this can work out well. If you are just hiring a relative as a favor to your mom, then you might think twice of that decision.
One final observation: if you have non-relative employees, you may need to carefully monitor how they are reacting to working side-by-side with the boss' . They may feel threatened if they perceive that the relative is getting special treatment. It may also hurt your ability to lead if the relative uses their relationship with you as an excuse to undermine your authority.
Personally, I would think long and hard before bringing a relative on board. It may not be worth the trouble.
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
Your father and friends are smart. Listen to them. Yes, sometimes it works out, but it often doesn't and when it involves family or close friends, the results can be devastating to relationships.
This is made worse if you're considering partnering with any of them. I generally try to avoid partnerships, but I'm not particularly good at the business side, so for me, if I do partner up, it's with someone who has better business sense than I do. Otherwise I wouldn't partner under any circumstances.
Here's an example of the kinds of things that can go wrong. In this case, it was a 3-way partnership. My step-mother was partnered with a couple in a chain of stores. They each owned 1/3. Everything was going great for about 15 years. Then one of the partners went full-blown alcoholic and paranoid and decided my step mother was out to get him or something. So, because it was my step-mother vs. a couple and she was the minority shareholder, the couple basically pushed her out of the business. She went to court and won, but in the end, after legal expenses, she didn't walk away with nearly what her share of the business was worth.
Now, to back-fill a bit, this couple was like family to me. I had grown up with them around for 15 years. And in a matter of months, my step mother was completely screwed out of a business she had worked hard to build.
The lesson: Business can be, and usually is, brutal. Bringing family and friends into it can get them in the middle, and that's bad for everyone.
The company I work for is run by my boss and his wife. It seems to work well for them, both personally and professionaly.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
At first I just wanted to say "this guy has already made the worst mistake" but then I realized I knew nothing of him, his relationships, and his brother and his girlfriend. At that point I realized that I know of a couple of family businesses that work and I thought about them. In every case, all of the people in the business are mature, responsible and have a real stake in making the business work.
For you to make this work, you have to make sure they are more than employees, they all need responsibility and need to understand that the business's success or failure depends on their individual contribution to the team effort!
Of course, since you mentioned Apple, I have to assume that you cater to a bunch of creative types and that smells like trouble enough to me.
Normally, If you tell a girlfriend that she looks fat, then you get a slap.
This way, you can make personal remarks about her appearance, in the cause of furthering the business
"Smarten yourself up, we need to impress the clients".
"If do don't lose some weight, then I'll have to find a more suitable secretary"
instead of pay? oh wait, no, you wouldnt get sex anymore.
Error: Id10t detected
at least you get to screw the secretary without all the legal side effects!
Oh, now this is actually funny! LaTeX! Get it?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Never work with friends or family, unless you and a wife run a business (NOT a girlfriend). And they have to be there with you from the beginning. Families that employ their kids usually do so as soon as they're old enough to work, in places like groceries and restaurants, and usually they're immigrants with high work ethics. The kids have more of a subserviant attitude to parents from foreign countries anyway, so it works out. Not among Americans, though.
If you're hiring a relative just to give them a job, well, that's a recipe for disaster. Same for friends. Same for girlfriends.
Marry her first, and if it works out and she's willing to work long hours with you, THEN bring her on.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Before I answer your question, please tell me what is this "girlfriend" you talk about?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Never work with/for relatives.. Or friends.
Its a good way to kill both relationships.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A local resturant only hired family as waiters. This seriously turned up the suck on their service. While the food is great, I stopped going because of this service. You're probably setting yourself up to have to choose between customers and friends/family.
brothers, sisters, uncles, dads, etc = you can yell, assert authority, be blunt without too too much feedback (well, in some families) mothers and girlfriends = assert you're authority and they'll probably laugh, do it again, they'll be pissed, do it thrise no more fresh cookies (from either )
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lost Sheep to Shepard, you got your ears on?
You can't have any emotional ties with your employees. No friends, no family and specially no girlfriends. This is a company we are talking about, not a hobby.
There is nothing more painful than hiring a friend only to have to let her go because you cannot afford her anymore. It happened to me, and more than two years after I still feel guilty as hell. Even if she understood what was happening, and I had given her heads up a couple months in advance, it still affected the relationship.
What you need is a person to whom you are acquainted professionally, but not on a too close personal level. If you are running the company then basically you don't have friends there, period. This is why the girlfriend is a no-no. I have witnessed what happens when you break the "don't shit where you eat" rule, and it is not pretty.
The only place I have seen where something like that works remotely is because the CEO and President of the company are husband and wife and they hold stakes in the company. They are extremely careful to make sure there is a line drawn between their private and work lives, and we are never left feeling uncomfortable.
We also had married couples when I was in the Army, but 99% of the time the Army made sure they were sent to separate units. If in the same unit, then they were sent to opposite shifts.
The only place where I have seen families consistently succeeding in running a business together is in the food and service sectors. Little mom and pops usually run smoothly but only if the whole family supports the operation. There is a chain of restaurants in North Virginia, Joe's, that has the best inexpensive italian food in all of DC Metro. Small problem: if you want the best they have, then you can only go to the main restaurant location because that is where "Joe" and most of the kids hang out. The other locations have less of a family presence, so they lose some of the touch that drives us to come back time and again.
And of course, remember that girlfriends come and go, but family is forever. Maybe there is away you can make it work with your folks, but the girlfriend is a definitely no-no.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
ditch the girlfriend and get a hot secretary!
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Pay special attention to the part(s) about planning and the division of labor and how contracts go hand in hand with them. A good read all around.
Everyone's relationships and experiences are unique, but for what it is worth I will share mine. (Sorry for the AC posting, but this is pretty personal stuff for me.)
My girlfriend and I have been together for about six years, and for over four of those years she has also been my only fulltime employee (and oftentimes boss ;-). I understood the risks, and I admit that both of us had reservations about adding a business relationship to our list of attachments. That aside, there were things to be gained on both sides. For me, I could have someone I knew well and trusted and someone whose knowledge of our business I respected help me make the business more successful. For her it represented a good opportunity for her particular skill set, and the ability to leave a job and employer that had been very dissatisfying. One other thing to point out is that we both love the business that we are in, in fact it has been an almost lifelong passion for both of us, but we also have unique skills and interests within our industry, which is good since we do not really compete but instead complement each other.
So what has been the result of these years of working together? We have found that we work extremely well together. We rarely argue, and then only on a constructive level, we never get personal in our disagreements. We give each other a lot of space to work in, trusting in the other's dedication to the job. That's the positive stuff. On the negative side, our personal relationship has definitely deteriorated over time. The biggest problem that I see is communication. We have fallen into a pattern of communicating constantly on a business level, and it seems that pattern has marginalized our communication on a personal level. Neither us is a fabulous communicator to begin with, but maybe having plenty of work-related topics to discuss has given us something to hide behind to avoid discussing those trickier interpersonal issues.
Just in the last few months we have stopped being physically involved (her choice), but we haven't talked to each other about this because of (I believe) a mutual fear of the potential consequences for the business. Keep in mind, we still work very well together, and are very good friends, often going to movies and dinner. Of course there is slightly more to this than I am sharing, but the point I would like to make is that working together has had a negative effect on our personal relationship.
Where we will end up I'm not sure yet, but the outlook isn't completely rosy. I have more confidence in a continued business relationship than a continued (or revived) personal relationship. So do I regret hiring my girlfriend? Mostly not. If our personal relationship does end, who's to say it wouldn't have ended at some point anyway, never having worked together? Actually, maybe we're just a married couple without being married - mutual trust and respect without the sex! ;-)
Does my girlfriend regret coming to work for me? I can't say for certain, but it seems pretty obvious that she doesn't completely regret it, nor is she completely happy with the outcome. It is obvious that she still loves her job, but it is also fairly obvious that she has grown a little tired of me over these last years. I don't fault her for that, I think that happens to anyone who spends as much time together as we do. Our friends actually wonder at our ability to last as long as we have, and the funny thing is, they don't seem to get along as well as we do, but that's probably because they actually deal with those tricky interpersonal issues, where we've had a mutual excuse to ignore them for some time.
We will eventually come to that moment of truth; I'm actually working up the courage now to confront the personal issues and see what this means for us and the business. To be honest, I think it comes down to a choice between a business relationship and a personal relationship. I think we can have one but not both, because of who we are and the relationship
We don't believe you. Please post pics of alleged girlfriend.
I believe if you incorporate the business, then there isn't any "owner" of the business. The business is its own entity. The only person who has control of the business would be someone who owned 51% of the shares or more. So the only way for your gf to own half the business is if she bought half the shares.
Incorporating isn't something only big businesses can do. If you're a small business, look at an S-Corp or an LLC. I'm planning on incorporating my small business when I start.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
". . . my girlfriend . . . my . . . business"
Is the business imaginary like the girlfriend is?
I work for a programming firm consisting only of my only friends. It sounded like a great idea: getting to spend more time with people you like, getting to work with people that understand you.
Let's just say that I was terribly wrong. All we talk about anymore is work-related. When we're not working we're talking about an upcoming project and how to manage it. We don't have social dialogue anymore. On one hand we're extremely efficient and know eachother's skills very well, we make a sizable ammount of money (given todays current outsourcing trends, not very much) but none of us have lives anymore. I'm extremely weary about your reference to hiring your girlfriend. I wouldn't expect to be together for very much longer if you were to ask me, work/relationships don't work, especially when you control her income and her work-load.
Read this guy's post again, he makes a very good point. Both you and your girlfriend are going to need to be able to seperate your work life from your home life. You both need to be very realistic about this or you are setting yourselves up for disaster in both the business and the relationship.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
At work, it's work. At home, it's home. Don't ever, ever mix the two. Ever. When you hit the time clock at the end of the day, your work life stays there, and home time begins. A simple rule that was hard to follow was no discussion of work at home, period.
I can honestly say there were days when I would tear her apart (verbally ;) ) in my office, but when I got home, the days events stayed at work. Granted, the next day I would either get the silent treatment or the stink eye all day. But work stayed at work.
Here is why you are biting off way more than you can chew (IMHO) as a small (or any size) business owner, in order to succeed, you can not have any "off" time. There is no line where work time and home time are divided, because if you do, you face a considerably harder road ahead.
You also mentioned that it's your girlfriend...my advice? Consider not working together until your relationship is more solid. (please take no offense)
I'm not so much upset about my liver leaving me. Its really fair enough, I guess. But did it have to take the dog?
Rather than take anyone's advice (which is worth exactly what you paid for it), think through every imaginable future situation and construct a plan for dealing with it based on your own unique situation. Your business life together is going to be a reflection of your current personal life together.
For example, I've been running a successful web based business for years and the entire company consists of myself, my wife, my daughter, and a wee bit of outsourced grunt work. Everything that happens is a direct reflection of how we interact and relate on a personal level.
My wife is our sales person and I'm the inside, back of the house (sitting at the computers) end of the business. In real life, I make the majority of the decisions after first consulting her, determining her feelings on the matter at hand, and checking for views that I may have overlooked. Her input in the fact finding part of the decision making is priceless. Our personalities and backgrounds are completely different so her take on a situation usually provides fresh insight that I wouldn't have had on my own. In business, we operate the same way. The decision is mine, but, I wouldn't dream of making it without asking for her opinion which a.) confirms my own opinion, or b.) is totally irrelevant and misinformed, or c.) prevents me from making mistakes many times. Quite often, her insight provides an invaluable look at the situation from another point of view which coincidentally or not, mirrors our clients' viewpoint. Her sales abilities are second to none and she opens doors for me that would otherwise remain closed. Priceless input, absolutely priceless, but...
While we've been growing, slow weeks are easier to manage since we don't have to make payroll. If accounts receivable are slow, it's no problem as long as we generate enough revenue between us to float the boat. There is a price for this, though. If her services would become unavailable due to her health, either physical or mental, her feelings toward me and our relationship, or simply because of a difference of opinion where she decided she didn't want to play any more, I could be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Truly.
I have contingency plans for this in our business relationship the same way I do in our personal relationship. Presently, I'm implementing sales plans that I run from the office without the use of an outside sales person. In other words, direct mail. The response has been very encouraging and provides a back-up plan just in case. Naturally, I hope we're together forever but I've laid a plan that enables me to provide for our daughter and to continue to pay the bills, come what may. It doesn't mean I don't love her, it just means that "life must go on".
On the same hand, I work with my 14 year old daughter to teach her the skills needed to replace me in case I would be the one to disappear from the picture. My wife could continue to handle sales, my daughter would assume my role in the business, and their lives would go on.
Presently, my daughter handles one important business function entirely with the exception of the small amount that I contract out. This way, should anything happen to my daughter, we already have an outside contractor trained and ready to pick up the slack.
Build redundancy into your business while it's still small. Hopefully, you'll never need it but if you do, hey, no problem...
On the financial side of the business, all three family members here get paid. My daughter gets paid the same as the outside contractor charges for the work and the money is completely hers. She has a life to build and I don't want her to have to try to build it while living under an employers thumb. My wife gets a car allowance so she can maintain her vehicle in a proper fashion and she gets a pay check, also. In the very beginning, neither she or I got a check but as the business leveled out, we both began receiving a check each week. That's how we've solved the financial part and the beauty of it is, sh
Isn't that supposed to be "who's the greatest jew cook"?
If your GF and relatives are always expecting special consideration because of their other relationships with you, the business will suffer.
I used to work for a company where my bosses were the sister and father of the owner. They went from being the biggest Apple dealer in Western PA to being out of business because of these very reasons. They also lost good employees like myself and the service manager before they closed.
It could be good if they understand that the needs of the business must come first. Sure one of them might NEED a raise, but if the business is just scraping along they don't get it.
I worked for another business where the boss employed his sons and his wife. They all understood that even though it was a "family business" the needs of the business had to come first. Because they took care of the business first, the family's needs were met.
You know your GF and family better than any of us here do, so the call is yours to make. Just remember that with family/SO's things can get out of hand quickly.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Working with people you are close to (family and friends) can either be 10x better or 10x worse than working with people you don't know. On one hand you have someone you (hopefully) trust and who knows you and your verbal shorthand and on the other you have someone who knows how to emotionally push your buttons and get under your skin. With an employee if you have to reprimand or fire them you don't have to sit across the dinner table from them at Christmas. However, you don't really need to worry about leaving a family member alone with your valuable gear.
It really is a toss up. I've had it 10x better and 10x worse. Remember all business relationships (esp. partnerships) always end in either death or divorce, in other words there is RARELY ever a happy ending - I'd make sure everyone in the family is aware of that.
-_-
Don't forget that when you work with your girl or boy friend, you loose the huge benefit of seperating work life and home life. I've done this before, and I found that I felt like I was always at work. While we worked well together, it seemed like their was no escape from the pressures of work. It contributed to us breaking up.
Whether you employ a family member or a girl/boyfriend, it can also create a stress management dilemma. On one hand, you are both really stressed about a problem and you'll have a huge argument - I guarantee it. If you can leave a disagreement about a business decision at work, you're a better man than me.
On the other, one will be more worried than the other and this will cause resentment and thoughts that "I'm putting so much more into this than they are". It's probably not true because we all deal with things differently, but try and fight those thoughts.
Finally, the reasons that you'd chose to work with/employ are different to the reasons that you choose a girlfriend/boyfriend or even a friend. You'll have to be very objective and decide if you would employ them if you didn't already know them. This is not the option to use to try and save money.
Hope it helps. Don't be afraid not to do it, you may hurt someones feelings for a day or two, but at least you'll still have your relationship. Remember to work to live, not the other way around.
"The big question in our lives is how to be at the same time a hedonist and in a hurry" - Alain Ducasse (?)
I had a small consulting business that was completely funded by my family. My youngest brother also did a little work. Even when things were going good there were problems that wouldn't have come up if we weren't related. When the business imploded last year it left a very large debt that ended up being attached to my mother and youngest brother as well as myself. Luckily we have a strong family bond and have always been able to get through the bad time as well as the good but this has still put a strain on the overall familial relationships.
Some suggestions I would give would be to have everything worked out in writing before you "hire" anyone. Everyone needs to know exactly where they stand and what they are getting into. Have explicate defined goals and duties and direction. These are all things that you should do for any business but where family is concerned there can be nothing left to interpretation. Nothing inferred nor implied.
Lastly, you will need to make sure that everyone is able to separate the office life from their home life. This is something that is not easy to do but it will go a long way toward keeping things from getting out of hand.
At least that's my opinion... But what do I know anyway.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
This is probably redundant, but at the same time it cannot be emphasized too much. The best advice you can take is four simple words...
Put It In Writing.
Spell out exactly what job duties are, what pay is, when consideration for raises takes place, etc. Make sure to include perks and benefits as well as actual money. Also, make it clear whether these people are partners or employees. And make damned sure, if you're in the US, that you take care of their income tax witholding, Social Security, and so on.
Finally, have a lawyer look over all the paperwork before it is signed. Trust me, you'd rather pay the lawyer now than what you may have to pay out if there is a problem down the road.
Oh, depending on your situation it may also be to your advantage to incorperate the company, at the very least as an LLC. Another thing to discuss with the above mentioned lawyer.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I think you should not sleep with your secretary, this is sexual harassement!
My grandfather founded an industrial diamond business in the mid-1960's, just him and his brother. (Industrial diamonds are just a very specialized industrial abrasive, used for polishing, grinding, lapping, and other abrasive uses. It's mostly a chemical, mechanical, and industrial engineering-based firm) It was started with just two employees in NYC, and when it was sold to DuPont in 1994 (and eventually to GE's SuperAbrasives division) it had just under hundred employees based in South Florida. As the company grew, the key employees were family members. Just like in your situation, my grandfather's wife was one of the first employees - doing bookkeeping and billing - followed much later by his children, my father and aunt. My mother was actually an employee at the business when she met (and eventually married) my father. By the time the business had grown to ~60 employees, every divison was headed by a family, and several more worked at the lower levels (including my cousin and I, who worked doing data entry and network administration during high school).
There were a ton of pitfalls associated with having family members work with and for you, and my family learned as we went. Sometimes work problems strained family relations, even to point where my Aunt was fired just to keep peace in the family. Now, ten years after the original family business was sold, my father has started a new family diamond abrasives business, and learned from the lessons of the previous company. His current wife (my mother passed away in 1998), my brother, and I all work at the family business. (I manage the IT department remotely right now, but plan to move back to South Florida in the next several years, as the business grows.)
Here are the key things that I observed my family learned over the years:
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Having more than one relationship with someone is asking for trouble. "girlfriend" and "employee" ranks up there with "friend" and "landlord" in the list of no-nos. IMO.
When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
My parents own a consulting company that my father runs, doing various IT and environmental work. My brother and I work as employees for the company, on our own seperate contracts. It is not a rare occurance that we work on the same contracts.
The key is communication and role seperation. Make sure if somebody's got a problem, its out in the open and fixed as quick as possible. Role seperation in this case is threefold - Boss, workmate, and father. When we're working together, its workmate. When we're being paid (or sorting out the books), boss. When we're outside the workplace, dad.
As far as work ethics are concerned, the individual side isn't really a problem. When you're working as a team however, it might pay to discover whether you really work well together before you jump into it.
Hope this helps.
I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
This may sound weird but ... what cultures are you each from? What is the prevalence of family-based businesses in the generations just before you? If you both happened to be Taiwanese, for instance ... well then family ties is the only way to do business, because the local cultural ethic is that then you don't screw other family members over with the sort of business practices which are standard when you aren't related. But if you are Japanese, the ethical bond between fellow workers doesn't depend so much on blood family, but instead on recognition of each other as a sort of artificial family ... so bringing real family ties into it would just muddle things. As a result, Taiwan has thousands of family firms where Japan has a few large keiretsu. Yet both cultures end up conducting very successful business.
Or perhaps you're both Sicilian, or Jewish, or WASP, or.... The point is, do you share between yourselves common cultural wisdom on a business within the family, so that you'll know what each other is expecting and what you can expect of them? And if it's a cross-cultural thing, are your family-business models compatible?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I work as a government contractor. My father and I have been on the same project for almost 2 years now. I moved out of the house only about a year ago. I was hired on originally since no one on the project knew a thing about linux and I did. For the first year our relation ship got really bad. Since our boss always puts him in charge of me, not only did I have to listen to him at work, but I had to go home and listen to him there. Once I moved out to my own place it got real good. Once in a while we get into it, usually when he wont take my advice. Your going to run into this with anyone though. Now girlfriends is a whole different story. At the last company I worked for my best friend and I were the IT department. He decided to date a girl we worked with and that was the worst idea ever.
It can be fun to watch.
I've had rant posts immediately modded flamebait, and 12 hours later they're up to ++ Insightful. And vice versa.
Guess it just shows the diversity of slashdot.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
My husband and I own a small computer sales/repair shop and we work together most days. I think it really depends on your family because I have seen both bad and good, but I will tell you it is not easy either way. I find that no matter how much you try, you can't keep the business out of your personal life, nor can you keep your personal life out of the business. There are very many days where my husband and I (who have totally different spending habits) argue about how to spend money on inventory & bills, it is difficult to keep the working relationship in a different perspective from your home relationship, and it is very frustrating also having the store as the only souce of income in our home. It puts a lot more pressure on us than those with separate careers. We have also had his mother work with us, and being a real mama's boy, it was very difficult for them to work together, cause he is the owner/operator, but she made herself the boss.
So you have to know you family members well, and be prepared to spend much more time outside the business talking about it than you normally would, because it can take over your whole life when other family members are part of it.
I wish you luck.
LadyZane^
...if you ever want someone outside the family working for you. Favoritism will either exist or exist in the minds of others.
My business partner hired his mother, step-father and neighborhood friend early on when we started the business, at the time I didn't think it'd be a big deal, the company would grow and these people would be irrelevant. I was wrong. 10 years later I am now stuck with my business partners incompetant family members who drag the business down and can not be fired. It completely sucks, I have a big investment in a company which is dysfunctional because there is too much family in it.
I think mixing family and business is a huge mistake for anyone, from first hand, torturous experience dealing with a business that is 75% someone elses family, IT SUCKS.
your the competition that wont be around for long
I work with my father at a small software company, and have since 8th grade (I'm a freshman in college now). We get along excellent, and I'm not aware of any employee that resents our relationship. I think the key is that I am not a typical 19 year old: I don't like partying that much, I could care less about going to clubs, etc. all I like to do is work and train (see sig). Thus, my father and I work really well. The employees there all appreciate my hard work (well, recognize it at least). I'm very close friends with one of them.
Of course, this is not a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. When the company first started, he hired my aunt (his sister-in-law) as the secretary. It worked out alright, but she eventually quit (or was fired, I forget which). So, thats just something to keep in mind.
All in all, I suggest you follow what the law says (about marriage, and who owns what, etc). I'd invest some time and money in a lawyer and CPA. Good luck!
-Vic
My parents run a medical publishing firm over the Internet, very successfully. They work at home, and until my sister and I went away to school, we were all there all day (homeschooled). It continues very well.
On the flip side, my parents had been married for twenty years before this ever began, went through classics grad school at Cambridge together, and made it through some hard times while my father got his engineering masters back in the States. My mother's a workaholic, and my father will slave over anything that interests him. Thus these are special circumstances.
I spent a summer working at a store that was without a doubt the "worst case scenario" for a family-run business. The new owner was an honest, hard-working, trusting woman. Unfortunately, her two sons (and their wives) were a pack of thieves and constituted the rest of the staff besides myself. It was not unheard of for the store's till to come up with less cash in the evening than it started with in the morning. Store supplies, namely food, were regularly eaten for breakfast, lunch, and even prepared and taken home for dinner by most of the staff. Money was commonly withdrawn from the till to go next door to the gas station to get pop or snacks at lunch or at any other convenient time. Money was even taken from the till just as they would be leaving for the evening if they wanted to pick up something on the way home. The timeclock, "mysteriously broken" before my arrival, I fixed, amidst the dirty looks I got from the rest of the staff. (this put an end to their cheating on their time cards)
I realize this is probably not the scenario you're in, but it's worthwhile to keep the ideas in mind. Despite my discussions with her on several occasions, she refused to stop believing in her family, although she admitted she knew the basics of what was happening from day to day. In the end, six months later, it cost her her business.
There's a reason most employers don't let people with "personal interest" in eachother be in manager/managed positions relative to eachother - it's not easy to ignore your feelings and deal out level-handed management to your friends or family. You might want to consider hiring a part-time or on-contract personnel manager. Maybe just someone you know professionally from somewhere that you pay a modest fee to, to act as a manager and reviewer for your staff. Someone whose judgement you trust, and whom you are willing to listen to even if they have something to say that you're not going to like hearing about. Having this person around to conduct evaluations, discuss problem issues, etc., could easily prove worth the cost, considering your circumstances.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
....two things that the slashdot crowd knows very little about.
I'm just proud that you're successful in the MacOS space.
wherever I go, there I am.
Listen to your Father. He knows what he is talking about, otherwise you will live to regret this.
Bare-bottomed spankings come to mind.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Over halfway down the page before we get anything even resembling (no offense) a joke!
/.ers on a Sunday night?
Soon as I read this story I thought "Oh damn, let the hazing begin!!" but alas I've been disappointed.
Where are all the foul-mouthed, bitter, mysoginst
As a person who is finally seeing the end of the tunnel to an unhappy 6-year "marriage" to a corporation a couple of friends and I formed, let me tell you...
Jay (=
I sit through this and later tonight, I get anal. You hear me? No matter how neat I want the house, you have to clean it.
Just remember the plight of Gary Gygax, the original author of Dungeons & Dragons. He gave 1% of his business, TSR, to his new wife (1st?) as a wedding gift. They later divorced, so she got 50% of his share in the business at the time of the divorce. Others had shares too, but she had more than he did, and got him booted out.
[nerd rant] As a 13 year-old reading the DMG, I learned all kinds of important stuff, for instance there is a terminal velocity of the human body. The 3rd edition has better rules, but it's relatively commercialized. I love Harn. [/nerd rant]
So sue me. I don't know how to escape >
I've seen this work really well and really badly. There are some tricks to it, and it definitely has to be the right group of enlightened, well rounded, reasonably self-actualized people to make it work. Dysfunctional families need not apply!
Right now I have my brother, my wife, and my oldest son all working with me and it couldn't be better. We all get along, we all do our jobs, and we are having a great time doing it... Even better, we have a level of trust and companionship and sensitivity that goes far beyond what people ever expect to see in even the best "conventional" office setting. One nice thing that goes along with this is that as a team we out produce every "conventional" group we come up against.
A couple of the "tricks" that seem to make this work (there are really too many to list):
Those are some of the hilights -
1.) Any small companies or small business I strongly disagree having to work with your family members altogether.
2.) If you work in a sky rise building with 10+ floors make sure your relatives are on a different floor.
3.) Seeing the same person 24x7 will hurt any relationship. I don't care if your girlfriend is the hottest stripper and you are the bouncer. It's still no good.
Obviously things aren't hectic like a restaurant, but my father and friends have all warned me against mixing business and pleasure and family.
Biggest problem is that after you outsource all their jobs to India, they don't just go away and find new jobs. They will nag you all day long and complain about your new porsche.
Make sure they aren't computer savvy enough to find you pr0n!
I've always made it a point to never mix pleasure with family. ;)
My Tech Posts on Twitter
Hire people. That's why God invented capitalism. Your friends and family are not cheaper, they are vastly more expensive, in ways you don't yet see.
Good luck, either way.
My wife and I have worked together on two seperate occiasions at two seperate companies. We both moved on, however we worked well together, but then again we are the best of friends before lovers. I think in the seven years we've been together we've only gotten into three or four fights, and two of those were in our first year of marriage.
I'm working for a couple as their CTO. There is two other "full" time people right now, the CEO and CFO, and my wife who helps out way less than part time. I make a decent living for my area. Anyhoo, we get aloung because we all have similar interests. It works out great. I'm almost up to my first year with this company, and not a bad day has happened, and I've never once hated my boss(s). One of the conditions of my employment was that me and the boss got aloung. Its almost an uncle/nephew relationship really. I immagine if we didn't get aloung my job could be at jeopardy, but I don't see any reason why we wouldn't.
However the last company I worked for were married. They bickered constantly since they had NOTHING in common. Most of the time they took their frustrations out on the rest of the employees. Everyone hates it there because the CTO is cranky all the time and the CEO is not very knowledgeable in the companies primary asset. When I worked for them I've had several customer compaints about both their attitudes. To this day I'm not sure how they stay in business, except they have the market pretty much cornered.
I know of an ebay business right now that works out great with three people. The owners are husband and wife. The Wife works during the day and the Husband works at night. They have a less-than-part time employee (their son) who checks stuff into inventory. They work GREAT together, and are one of the more successful businesses on EBay right now.
One of my best friends owns my usual hang-out. Its "the" major comics and tabletop gaming outlets in the Flint Michigan area. Half the people who work there are family, while the other half are employees. They work for obvious reasons: the product is fun. Its hard to bicker and fight over something as enjoyable as comics and gaming, unless of course your arguing over who would win in a fight, Batman or Captain America.
Anyhow, it should work, as long as your all mature and have a good time and a healthy relationship. If you don't, well it won't.
Seems like common sense really, but if your all family, you can't exactly fire your wife, or could you? Just kidding, thats a bad idea. I gotta fly, Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law is on.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
I dunno...this might be exceptionally nice when it's working nicely, but it seems like the times when you have problems are *really* going to suck.
Part of a boss's duty are being an asshole when necessary. Sometimes you need to lay down the law ("No, you can't have Monday off -- we absolutely need someone and we're shorthanded."). That's going to be *rough* if you're talkign to a gf.
Second of all, there's some point in most relationships (especially a gf rather than a wife) where your gf is going to be pissed off at you. Most people cool off at work or away from the other person. You're going to be throwing yourselves together and forcing yourselves together every day, without providing a mechanism for either of you to escape.
Third of all, there are some times when most *employees* get pissed off at or frusterated with their boss. Dilbert is popular for a reason. Do you want your girlfriend to be pissed off at you at home because you let go a friend of hers at work?
Fourth of all, this creates a tough power role problem. In contemporary society, the gf/wife generally has a much closer degree of power to the guy than a boss/worker does. Can you really "change roles" at work and home?
Fifth of all, percieved favoritism from other employees can, I imagine, be bad for a workplace environment. ("Oh, she doesn't have to do *anything* at work because she fucks the boss.") Every tiny percieved favor could be built up.
Sixth of all, the reason your gf is your gf and not your wife is because you haven't yet absolutely decided that you are able to stand each other day in and day out. Why commit to doing so?
Seventh of all, people joke about having sex at work, but honestly the temptation is there, and it's liable to make people feel less comfortable.
Eighth of all, do you really want your girlfriend and you coworkers gossiping about you day in and day out? And what about with your brother thrown into the mix?
Ninth, can you really spend this much time with your gf? Yes, there are people that work at home (I was just reading Jeff Vogel's homepage) and constantly come in contact with a wife, say.
If it works, fine. My own father ran a small business in addition to his regular job in which our immediate family worked, but it was much more of a hobby, to help teach us the value of a dollar, than a primary income source. We had a blast...but we worked in more of a contractor-like manner -- if we did X, we got paid N dollars. I'm not sure that I'd want to work with family in a regular business. I also think that I wouldn't involve a gf if at all possible.
But, hey. Maybe it'll work out just fine, and you'll have a ball. There's an awful lot of companies that have anti-nepotism and anti-relationship rules, though. I suspect that it's founded on at least some grain of truth.
May we never see th
I work for a friend of mine and it goes OK, but it's stressful at times. I would NOT want a family member in the mix.
Maybe you should watch a few episodes of American Chopper...
I had a sucky sig.
You also have to give some thought to how this choice will impact any future employees you hire. I worked for a small Internet company for a number of years. My boss (who was also the business owner) began to date a part time accountant working for the company. Shortly thereafter she became a full-time employee. Then they got engaged and she was promoted again. Soon they got married and she was seen as his office favorite. The gossip was never ending.
However, she was a hard worker and would likely have received the same promotions if she was not married to the boss. She was made full-time because the company was growing and needed a full-time accountant. Nonetheless, everyone in the office assumed she slept her way to the top and questioned the quality of the work.
Sure, there was some favoritism, but much of the behind-her-back criticism in the office was undeserved. Maybe your office will be different, but then again maybe not. It would be unfortunate if your girlfriend or brother were thought to be receiving special treatment (by the future employees you hire) when in fact they are just hard workers deserving of such treatment.
>..are you SURE they are YOUR family?
We sing Megadeth's "Trust" for Thanksgiving grace....
You are brought up with the in the same household and there are some things that you have shared that will last forever.
This has nothing to do with making a sucessful business.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
There are a couple of problems with family businesses, and reasons why hiring friends/relatives can backfire. The fundamental issue will be that your girlfriend and brother will now be your *employees*. If everything works out, that's not a problem, but what if it doesn't?
Let's say thier performance just isn't adequate. Can you *fire* your girlfriend? How about your brother? (And what will happen to your relationship with them if you do?)
Maybe they handle thier jobs just fine, but every business runs into slow patches. What happens if the revenue to pay thier salaries just isn't there, and you have to lay one or both off?
And on the other paw, what happens if the company really takes off, and you have to hire yet more staff. Will the new folks feel they won't have a chance at advancement because you'll give preference to family regardless of merit? (You might not behave that way, but convince your employees of it...)
Are you hiring your girlfriend and possibly your brother because you can get them cheaper than hiring on the open market? That's a whole can of worms in itself.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it -- merely that it carries a set of risks you should be aware of going in.
______
Dennis
I first moved to CA and started working for the company I now own in 99. It was then owned by my Uncle and had 7 employees counting me and my uncle. Family employees were Uncle, Uncle's step-daughter, uncle's son, and myself. We all got along "ok" but there were some issues with the Uncle's son (yes, I know my cousin), Uncle, and step-daughter. Soon after I started, about 8 months or so the son left due to "issues". The step daughter left about 2 years ago.
I purchased the business in sept of last year, and I'm also now engaged to one of the employees and we have our relationship, both business and work in clear sight....atleast I get to be the boss 40 hours out of the week heh heh heh. All kidding aside, her and I see eye to eye on almost everything and she has the same work ethic I do. Were it not for that I don't believe it would work out as we do work together and live together.
What it all boils down to is...it's a small business. If you think office politics are bad in a corperation, small biz is 20 times worse. You MUST find people you know will work the way you do, have the same goals as you or will atleast follow your orders without question and can truly understand that regardless of outside the office relationships, at the office you ARE the boss.
My colleagues,
Surely you haven't all missed the inverted coefficient-time relationship inherent in the presented sample? As you know, a major signifier in Coxbury matrix analysis of at-work affairs clearly delineates the role-relationship correlation. Therefore the sample is obviously out-of-bounds, as should be obvious to any first-year student of the discipline. Rather than anomaly, this clearly identifies as an early datapoint in a trend which might lead to future observation of unqualified detachments from societal roles and the subsequent liability reduction.
In other words, the boss gets to fuck the secretary without fear of retribution. Nice!
Yours,
Doktor S. van der Schlong
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I think the idea of hiring a girlfriend has major problems. Let's say everything goes to hell at work - who will you go to for consolation?
"Babe, everything at work has really hit the fan, sometimes I just want to throw it all in...and by the way do you have those TPS reports?"
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
American Chopper
;=)
Man, if your brother is like Mikey, you will probably have to wait awhile before that trash gets thrown out, and if he's like Paulie, then you will have some premadonna issues to contend with. And if you're anything like Paul Sr. then I guess you would be the dead weight in the shop calling all the shots.
Would you work somewhere where the secretary was dating the owner?
If you answered no, the good news is that you have some objectivity left. Make good use of it.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
I have successfully employed almost every member of my wife's family (including father in law). They are the most conscientious, hard working, clever people I've come across, so it has been a no-brainer.
Family employees have a down side -- you (and they) can't be too sensitive, and have to leave work problems at work. But just the security of knowing I can ABSOLUTELY trust them makes up for any negative aspects.
Go for it!
- Ubique, Tom Termini www.bluedog.net - WebObjects / J2EE SOA / iPhone solutions for knowledge workers
if she doesn't sue you for sexual harrassment.
On the other hand, she could get you for neglecting your affectionate duties.
Rock. Hard place.
I was a former business partner with a "supposed" good friend of mine. I invested $20k in cash, and I was burned for $30k... not counting the $12k "estimated" back state taxes, that was the judgement against me. (living "way" out of state)
Rules: Always pay a CPA to do your books *every* month. Hold meetings, and keep track of ALL sales, especially shipping via second address situation. (i.e., charge card to second party stuff) Do NOT sign at the bank for being a CPO or whatever unless you're "TOTALLY" aware of everything. Yep, I got burned... big time, and now that previous asshole partner is sitting in prison for 20+ years, but I still got burned for around $45k.
Results of this: My credit is trashed, had to move out of state and introduce my family to a shelter for the first 2 months. (did get a job right away though, as a janitor vs a systems admin... but it pays the bills) And the other hardships you can just imagine, but it's working out.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
There's always the possibility of drama in the work place and feelings can get hurt. It's not impossible for this drama to leak into your personal life, especially if some of the same things are happening in both places. As a result, you will be forced to deal with situations where you may end up hurting feelings or get hurt feelings. But the complexity of family involvement can result in business being taken in a very personal way. The concept of,"It's nothing personal; just business" could easily be defeated in this kind of situation simply due to you having multiple relationships with the people you're working with. One relationship is family and/or lover. And the other is coworker and/or employee. This juggling of relationships might be aided with a bit of diplomacy. You might want to allow your intellect to override your emotions as well to maintain stability with the relationships. But be careful as intellect can be cold and insensative. The quote "it's all in the family" could be silently echoed by employees who aren't related to you. This could result in potential problems later down the road. There's also the issue of a family crisis and how it could be handled without hendering business.
Best to sign some kind of contract if you're just living together, before you become common-law. This'll certainly set a precedent for the subject of a pre-nup. In fact, the safest thing to do is just sign contracts with everyone in your life, no matter what your relationship. :)
I have worked for a family owned IT company where many friends of the founder also worked for. He killed the relationship with family member and many of his friends.
Like everybody said it works while it all goes well. Especially when it all ends up in a long lawsuit!!
The employee disipline program... witch of course would have to include spankings ;-)$
;-)$ )
(but only for her
HA HA
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
Long story short, my "step-dad" decided that my grandfather, an employee of his, was cheating him--taking on new customers on the side, not reporting new accounts, etc. After severing that tie, you can imagine what happened with the relationship between said step-dad and my mom. Oh, and if you can't imagine, they've since divorced. Of course, that's another story altogether.
Bottom line here is that you're always going to be on rocky ground when trying to be serious and business-like with family members. Be sure that you draw the line clearly between duties and expectations as an employee vs. those of being just a brother or girlfriend.
For what it's worth.
Another poster has said that careful planning will be required; any "pecking order" in the management chain should come naturally and be agreeable to all. Probably based on everyones perceived strengths and weakness, and co-operation.
Another real-world example: IBM was a family company until Tom Watson Jr. retired .
C|N>K
You're a brave soul. That's what business owners are, risk-takers, entrepeneurs, folks that balance risk against potential reward. Me, I've done that myself, several times. I grew up in a family business, dropped back out of college to try to attempt to save it from bankruptcy, then ultimately re-created it from the ashes when it failed... all on credit card loans, 2nd mortgages, etc. At one point, I employed my grandmother, my father, my brother, my sister, a cousin, plus most of the employees I'd grown up with who had worked in my family's failed small business.
The thing is, I didn't do it because I wanted to or because it was a good time to launch a business or because I had a good business model. I didn't really even LIKE that business. I just did it because I wanted to try to replace those peoples' lost jobs, and to help out family. I succeeded in that goal, and the business grew too. My parents retired their bankruptcy, their tax debts, and earned enough to retire from the proceeds within 10 years using that business.
I was lucky to get away alive. Unfortunately, running that business and having to supervise my father's work made me absolutely miserable, and it eventually lead to unendurable conflicts and bad feelings that divided my family to the point that we haven't spoken with one another in about a decade. I achieved my goal, damn near lost my mind in the process, and to this day, I don't know why my spouse didn't leave our marriage.
If you're going to be a risk-taker, I advise you to know whether you're an entrepeneur, a dreamer, or just a risk-taker. Know what you expect to accomplish and what your family/ girlfriend employees or partners expect to do and what their roles will be. Know it by putting it ALL in writing and talking with one another about it. Know that it's almost impossible to keep the personal from business decisions when family and sexual politics are also involved. If you still think this can work for you, you have some absolutely huge brass ones, and you have huge faith in yourself, your family and your girlfriend.
I advise you to write what you will do to resolve the conflict if your business vision gets into conflict with family considerations or the intimate relationship. This especially applies to diverging goals. This plan should include which relationships you would seek to nurture if you found you could not pursue them all. If you can agree on this, you have a slim chance. If you can't plan before the crisis how to deal with it, you are headed toward either a business, family, or personal relationship failure. It's that simple.
Good luck to you. I wish someone had explained to me 20 years ago that good intentions, benign best wishes, and simple faith alone wouldn't do it all. I tried to keep all three, and found I didn't WANT to stay with that business or my family anymore after 3 years, and managed only to marry the girlfriend. We've been married for 19 years now, but I had such grander, naive notions about what family and friends could do with simple verbal understandings and trust in one another. I was so wrong. With family and friends, it's even MORE critical to have all decisions and expectations transparent to all involved and in writing from the start.
Don't do that, you'll be sorry.
It's a really bad idea to work with someone you live with (or are married to). Most people need some time to themselves to think/work/play/breathe.
My experience is not your experience, but my experience screams "Don't Do It!"
In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they rarely are.
Do not employ your brother, girlfriend, uncle, cousin, pet what so ever in your business.
You will have trouble with the authority issues as you explained your self, and there is NO easy way out of it.
When your company eventually breaks you will all be unemployed (of cause, if your businiess remains fine till the end the world that is just good for you, but what if not??).
You will socially isolate you self, only see your self and talk to your self (and the costuemrs, but that is no the issue here).
So my advice on how you handle tie situation is to press the big "Undo Button of Life" and find another secretary and another helper instead of your brother.
Best, Morten
spank her cute buns naked over your knee ...
of IT professional all working together in the pron bizness. Pets too I bet ...
Used to be the basic economic unit. Funny how we are now afraid of it, and the only way to become successful is to work for some large nameless corporation.
Hiring family is just asking for problems, and holds no advantage that I can see.
K
When you `come home` from work it won't finish.
She could go on about things at work after you're finished. No respite.
Having said this, if you're relationship's strong enough (I doubt) it can help you feel less alone.
A blog I run for the wealth
You will be lining yourself up for a whole world of pain in the future. Never do business with friends and/or family.
Does sleeping with your secretary count as "family business"?
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
The best family relationships can be broken by a business environment.
I really love my close relatives, I don't want to spoil that blurring the line between family and business.
If you do so just when you thought the working day and stress was over you may find yourself discussing business during dinner or during family gatherings. Do you need that? I don't.
And what is the point? You can join forces with friends or colleagues to which the emotional attachment is far less strong and with whom you can have properly drawn contractcs without anybody feeling guilty.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?
this is proof you don't really have a girlfriend. you've obviously never had to wait a few hours for her to finish taking a shower. you've obviously never had to wait for her to finish up in the washroom in a mall. and you've certainly never had to wait for her try shoes on. how do you handle it? as you would in normal life... you don't have a choice. bring your girlfriend into the company, and expect her to not only run you, but your company as well.
Just don't.
I worked for a small development firm that had a lot of nepotism, and family money invested in it. I will never ever go there because of that experience. You end up with people that at first were very enthusiastic, but had slightly mismatched skill sets. Then when they got disinterested or simply were lazy, they were family, you really couldn't get rid of them or even say much to them without a big family conflagration. It killed the company.
I started a new company that is going much better, and the only one I will tolerate participating is my own wife, and at that she helps with the books, she understands that the board (of which she is not on by design because of this whole problem) has final say on expenditures and direction.
Also, as someone else has said, you should look into incorporating, there are a lot of tax advantages and it limits your liability in case someone becomes litigious. You think no one will get litigious but it is like health insurance, you never think you are going to need it until you need it.
What do you do? You can't go to the boss and say "XXX is rubbish, get rid of them" because XXX is their spouse! Probably end up getting rid of you instead.
If the business grows and you need to hire more people to get the work done, be sure not to put unqualified family members in managing positions, just because they are relatives. Have seen this to much, and it has several drawbacks.
To be short: the qualified people you have under contract will leave the company.
If they are the right (wo)man on the right place and they are able to prove it in front of you're collaborators, nothing stops you to give family members a managing position.
- And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?
Only one answer there, my man.... spankings, lots of spankings...Does sleeping with your secretary count as "family business"?
Boss "Who told you that you could take three hour lunch breaks
Secretary "My Attorney"
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I am currently in business with my closest friend in the world (besides my wife). We have been in business for 6 years. We are still best friends and will be for a long time - whether the business makes it or not. The key to working with family or friends is to remember that money is valuable but relationships are priceless. Never forget that your friendship or family relationships are more important than any amount of money. Just talk with any nurse or doctor - when someone is dying (either because they are old or gravely ill) they don't ask that their money be brought to them to comfort them and to spend their last moments with. They ask for their family and friends.
Full-Featured GPL Web Hosting Control Panel
I've done the same thing you are considering, prepare to meet the dark side of your loved ones. At least you can nail the secratary and its not cheating..
American Chopper.
The owner/founder was married to the president. The Pres was the woman, and she was a bitch. Their daugter worked there too. Everyone got along and were good for the company except for the pres. The pres was more interested in perserving her 'way of life' in the office and not really growing the company. As a small company (20 emps), you can only grow or shut down. We were on the cusp of breaking into big time and all she ever did was to work against that. I could completely prove that she was counter productive to the company. I brought it up to the COO, and he was like 'that's nepatism for ya' He was 10x as fustrated at her for limiting him (he was responsible for gorwing the company, but she never wanted to say yes to any of his ideas (and he had some good ones))
So you must be careful about the nepotism factor. You either have to stay small enough for it to never matter or for you to luck out and never arrive there. You can't fire your wife/gf.. well maybe you can, but I bet you'll be on the couch or in divorce court.
I leave you with this:
http://www.despair.com/nepotism.html
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
That is true for contracts that is below $1000 but if you go over then it has to be in writing to be enforceable. Although, a marriage license is a written contract of sorts.
As far as the previous posts talks about common law marriages most states don't honor those anymore. Texas repealed it's common law marriage laws nearly 10 years ago along with it's alimony laws.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
I told her from the beginning, while there, I make the rules, and she follows them, otherwise there's the door. After hours (away from the office), things are normal.
This worked for me, and still does.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
... someone you can't fire."
Sage advice from a self-made multi-millionaire (which, of course, isn't me).
I have been involved in couple businesses with close friends and have almost lost them as friends both times. I think a good rule to follow is keep your friends and employees seperate.
As Tony told a particularly lavascious Italian connection, that he'd 'fuck' her with pleasure but he doesn't 'shit' where he eats. Don't mix business with pleasure. Good advice if a trifle vulgar.
And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?
... and then there will be no question that she's the boss.
But seriously, a girlfriend will either turn into a wife (or equivalent S.O.), or an ex-girlfriend, and working out a relationship is taxing enough without adding a fledgling business to the mix.
Good luck!
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I work in IT, and at three shops where owners have practiced nepotism, it hasn't worked. The firt place it was his Mother and Sister. They, by proxy, are also your boss. W/ The first place, hell broke loose when he was audited (Mom did the books), Mom gets canned, sister lights into him, she gets canned, my workload doubles and pay stays the same. Plus the sister didn't know anything about a computer except how to turn it on. The second place was an ISP, the owners girlfriend, after a couple of fights over the business, she broke up w/him. The third place, Owner hired Sister, Mother, Cousin. Sister was worthless, always f'd stuff like part orders up, very lazy attitude. Has had his mother in tears at times. His cousin... won't even start. The other problems: No matter how hard you as a normal employee work, you ARE NOT family. I find it very disrespectful to the people that are hired to bring family on. I run my own consultancy now, and my wife already knows she will never work for me.
I always pooh-poohed people who said this, but I've been through this myself and I must say...
...Unless...
Don't go into business with family...
1. You have WRITTEN agreements between you and the other members of the business.
2. You define your role (owner versus employee) at the start.
3. You have built-in protections included in any written language that protects you as a minority shareholder from oppression from the majority, with regards to your employment.
I've been through and am still going through a nasty situation working for my sibling, and it has turned from a "partnership" into a sado-maschocistic relationship with the "boss" taking glee in freezing-out, firing, and denigrating his "employees".
If it had been understood at the beginning that I was a simple employee or pawn, I never would have quit my real career job to join the family business which I thought would be a cooperative partnership.
Yes it was my fault and decision to trust him/her, but that's not my point. My point is to warn people to get everything down in writing first, even if it means talking about what the worst thing could be, even if it is family. (especially family)
i would worry about this situation not for the tension it will cause within the relationship but what will happen if your company grows and you have to hire outside employees. my last two jobs have been for companies run by a husband and wife. both experiences have been completely negative with favoritism being shown being blamed for the husbands mistakes etc. also there is a strange situation where since the husband is ceo/cto/lead tech etc. the wife who handles scheduling etc. feels that i am not competent enough to handle x client or x task even though i have proven myself both with experience/certs (the reason i was hired) and with time at the company handling weird situations. i think it is asking for trouble not for the two of you (the relationships in both of these situations seemed solid) but for outside employees you might hire. just my .002$ YMMV though.
Me and my wife own a successful consulting business (www.jconsult.com) for 11 years now. secrets? First rule 1 person has to be in charge. Each person must have their own work and be responsible for it. You have to expect your loved one to not be perfect, thats the biggest problem. You also have to allow them to fail, everyone fails, but its harder to let your family to do it. You have to allow the people you work with to leave and go do other things after work, my wife goes out 4 nites a week to get away from me :)
It hurts starting a business to begin with, doing it with family will be 4 times as worse. But if you make it, it can be much more rewarding.
I wouldn't go that way. Hire your girlfriend if you want, but i highly advise against hiring people too close to you on a "permanent" basis. Hire them if you need the help now, but you should be looking for a a replacement. My parents owned a restaurant for about 20 years. These past 3 years have been filled with BS i would have gone without. FInding out their alcoholics, loosing the retaurant because of lacking care due to marital issues, the marriage going down the drain, the dad finding a "girlfriend", the mother goign nuts and pill popping while drinking, my house burning down etc etc. It may be an extreme unfortune in my case, so take it as such. But i still advise you against hiring loved ones.
"As I have just hired on my girlfriend to help out with some secretarial work in my Apple consulting, sales, and technical service business, and considering having my brother work with me soon;"
Kiss all 3 of these relationships goodbye:- Your girlfriend (unless you are engaged and meant to say fiancee instead of girlfriend, this will never be a good idea).
- Your brother (unless you plan to make him a legal partner; having family as employees always leads to resentment.
- Your customers (when your attention starts to drift and your work suffers because you are distracted by dealing with a personal issue with your GF or brother.)
You're either figuring to get some help on the cheap or you want to work with someone who's background you already know (avoid that tedious interview process) or possibly both at the same time. In either case, it's a recipe for disaster for your business, especially if it's already well-established with your customers. You also suffer on the family side when you lose a GF and alienate your brother.--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
Same issues with any family businesses...good and bad. You can trust them more than the average worker, usually, but disputes are messier. As long as you're a good boss and your family is sane it shouldn't be a problem but go out of your way to avoid conflicts with them and be completely open, honest, and fair with everything. People tend to feel betrayed when they don't understand things you do that they don't agree with much more than when they simply don't agree.
That's easy. Blowjob.
In a word.
:)
My father owned a hobby shop with my uncle - (*decades ago, but I have a point) and my uncle started getting careless with the money. The business almost went under, my dad (to keep things civil) bought him out for an excessive amount of money.
I rented a room to my best friend while he was getting back on his feet (after a particularly bad breakup with his girlfriend). To put it delicately, we're still friends because he moved out. In a year and a half he paid rent 5 times (I did volunteer the first 2 months free to help him get some savings and pay off some other bills). He of course tried to make up for it by cooking (my food - and almost never cleaning), but it put me in a very bad position. My wife and I wanted rent, and we saw him buying toys (literally - toys) when he hadn't paid yet, etc. etc. A couple of times we 'zero'd' his past-due to help him start over, which would get us next months rent almost on time, and then it would start over. Partial rent, promises for next week (and something would come up), not good. It put a real strain on our relationship because I had to collect from him, or kick him out, or ask him to keep the noise down... He started to feel like I was trying to take advantage of his owing me, and I felt like he was taking advantage of our relationship by not paying.
You have to have complete faith and respect for their work ethic - You shouldn't even have to ask them to do anything, they should be looking out for you (and you for them). And you still need to protect yourself and be prepared for losing them as friends if you're put in a position that requires you to decide. Better to keep them separate.
On the other hand, I met my wife at work and we worked together for several years (every day). I'd work with her again in a heartbeat; I just hope she feels the same way...
jake
The entire board of directors are also either family or church of the CEO.
Far as I know none of them hate each other, but there is that probably-wont-get-fired problem. On the other hand, the CEO already laid off his brother a year ago for being a 'leech'.
Follow Leykis 101, Mang.
This is my signature.
Now, if the .com I interned for the next summer had offered me the same choice, I would have gone home early. In fact they sort of did offer the same choice a couple of years later (to me and all the other employees) after I had started with them full time, when the day of reckoning had arrived and they said, "How would you feel about working for stock?" I said no thanks, and eventually found another job.
I was sorry to leave that job, but I had no reason to trust them and every reason (based on some shady practices) to distrust them.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Never
- enter into a business relationship,
- sell a car to,
- buy a car from,
- lend money to,
- lend money from,
a friend, s.o., or a relative.I know, I know, they're mature and trustworthy and it looks like it would help out.
But I cannot emphasize enough: DO NOT DO IT.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I would have no objection to your hiring your girlfriend so long as she is not a FILTHY INDIAN
I work for a 9 person company. The CEO, head of development and lead programmer are brothers and our account executive is the bosses's wife. The brother's little sister works for us part time too, so fmaily outnumbers the rest of us here. As a company we work out very well, but I'm sure it won't work for every company. I think the question of "is it okay to mix business and family" isn't really a valid question because it totally depends on how each of the people behaves in a work environment. While family is a logical grouping of people is doesn't identify any behavioral characteristics, which are a stronger way of determining who can work together.
steal this sig
Tippett, the 3D effects house that did Starship Troopers and Robocop's special effects, is a family run business.
They're also completely fucking insane and tough to work for, from what I hear.
Don't Crease the Weasel!
This got moderated to a 5? :7)
>
> If all of you are mature abd straight enough
> character wist it may work. I've seen one
> or two family business's that have worled,
> more that have failed.
>
I see that "abd" was probably meant to be "and" -- but what do "wist" and "worled" mean? Is "wist" supposed to be "-wise" and the latter "worked"?
This post is _very_ sensible -- my dad, mom, and brother work together, and I've always been impressed that three mature people can be the entirety of a successful company (especially after watching the head of a restaurant where I worked get cut out of the family business because he was such a coke-head) -- but I have to read between the lines to be sure.
Get yourself the credit that your smart posts deserve and Preview, once or even twice. (And yes, I corrected seven mistakes in this, because I suck.
I hired my cousin to work for me as a favor to his father. I did not want to, but since I'm moderatly successful It was expected. My cousin happened to be the laziest piece of shit ever conceived. To top it off, he was ungrateful to boot. I worked my ass off for 10 years building my business. I paid this shitbunny 115k a year to do a job any grunt could accomplish for much less. My mistake was trying to help out a family member.
He decided that I was not entitled to take a few days off each week to play golf or spend time with my family. He started missing appointments and not returning clients phone calls to show me that he felt slighted. He figured that he deserved the same perks as I did. He risked nothing to satrt the business. He did not work like a slave for 10 years growing the business. He had nothing financially invested into the enterprise. He just decided that since I was his older cousin, he should do as I did.
The asshole stopped coming to work one day. He did not call, or send word that he was quitting. I scrambled like a madman to find a replacement. I ended up hiring a young gogetter who's happy taking the 85k I pay him. Where I live that makes you quite wealthy.
My idiot cousin lost his home, has no car and is on the outs with his wife. On top of that, the family is pissed at me for not hiring him back. DON'T DO IT!
on SHOWTIME:
FAMILY BUSINESS
http://www.sho.com/site/fbiz/
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Never hire someone your afraid to fire.
Does your girlfriend like your family and
vice-versa? I'd hire one or the other unless
you want to get stuck in the middle.
Business + Pleasure = Family, especially when it involves a girlfriend.
My family is rather uniform, belief wise, but our problem would be stubbornness. Some of the women that have married into the family have remarked that stubborness must be a genetic thing AND taught from an early age.
That's mostly jest, but the real problem for us would be that there is no strong hierarchy. Among our extended family there is no one "Godfather," or anything like that. We're way to independend and distributed. We would not, probably couldn't, accept directions from another senior member of the family without being convinced of the idea's goodness. In business that's a weakness.
The thing that has kept our small loans and deals straight is a strong sense of fairness, a great sense of shame, and written deals. Even for the small stuff.
The head of the family is still head of the family, but he is no Capo. That could be a weakness. I don't know.
Well this is short and perhaps not very useful to you, but I sincerely believe it depends on the family itself. No one here can make a truly educated guess about you or yours. Dig deep. Know what you know.
BendyMind
This story was actually submitted back in October 2003 - just now approved.
Things are working out well ... never hired my brother.
I wanted to make a couple comments:
1) Why? Those closest to you care about your success the most - at least they are suppose to.k /database
2) Wages - I don't really have to pay them, just support them comfortably - this is a big factor in my infancy as a business
3) My family and friends know me and know how I would handle things in my absence - hired help makes their own decisions (not saying that's good or bad)
4) I'm slowly but surely building the eBay and website portion of my business first (before opening retail) - ebay alone is a lot of work - listing/packing/receipts/mailing/followup/feedbac
Thanks again for all the suggestions and comments.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
You should not do this. The ONLY way that I've ever seen this work out well is if the venture is successful enough to pay out what the participants feel entitled to but without being too successful that they feel entited to more than what they're actually getting.
It's been my experience and the experience of several people that I know, that you family feels ENTITLED to f*** you over. You are just the same old "Bob", "Tim" or "Jimmy" that they've known for ever and so they have a sense of ownership of you. They will justify this by telling themselves that "They made you what you are."
If they bought you a computer in 3rd grade, they feel entited to a portion of the profits of your programming business today.
Strangers are more trustworthy in this regard because they are not related to you and so don't have that sense of entitlement to your gains from your hard work. Outsiders have no way to rationalize that sense of entitlement.
It also helps NOT to hire family if you non-related employees working for you. It's too easy for someone to claim "nepotism" and "favoritism" in an environment where you have close personal ties to one employee but not others. It can also open the door for "sexual harrassment" suits when one of the employee's is your significant other. I know of one business that changed hands over that very circumstance.
2 cents,
The Queen
HDGary secures my bank
An entire thread without one apple bashing comment. Slashdot is slipping.
Girlfriends are scary, but in general a family business can work if it serves to reduce the unproductive level of politics/backstabbing at the top, if the family is disfunctional it can go in the opposite direction as happened in a company I worked for.
Hello Cruel World
unfortunately it would work both ways!
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