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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?"
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
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.
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?
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
Make sure that any family members included in contracts are specifically aware that tthis is a business relationship, and include that in the contract. In Australia, you can run into all sorts of problems with family members and contracts unless you specifically ensure that it is a business realtionship. In some circumstances contracts can be voided between family members because it is implied that family members don't consider the contract as a business relationship rather thaan a family one.
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!
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.
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 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.
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I'd go further than this. I didn't see mention of current living arrangements, but, whether or not you and your girlfriend are living together, it's probably safe to assume you spend a fair amount of time together outside of work (evenings and weekends). Being with someone a majority of your waking hours is hard. People are just different, and we rub each other up the wrong way. It happens, even if you are madly in love.
But most couples have some downtime when they're not around each other. Husbands and wives typically work at different companies. Forget about whether work sucks; it's time away from your beloved which can sometimes provide a much-needed break. Doesn't say anything about your relationship that a break for a few hours during the day is helpful; it's just part of being human. Plus you get to go home and bitch about Matt at work to someone who has no insight, no knowledge except for what she gets from you, so she's (almost) always taking your side by default. (Except if she can tell from how you're describing it that you were being unreasonable, in which case she can tell you and you know it's from an unbiased point of view.)
On the other side of the coin, if you've worked at a typical company before, you know how people's habits get on your wick. Over time, that builds up. But the reason most of us don't go ballistic on our work mates is because (i) we have self-control, and (ii) we don't have to live with them. See, it works the other way around, too! You spend a heck of a lot of time with people at work, and they also rub you up the wrong way. So going home at night gives you a break from them.
You, on the other hand, are immediately going to lose that enforced break time. Both ways. I seriously hope for the sake of all concerned that everyone is mature enough to deal with this. The potential is there to negatively impact your relationship with your girlfriend, your relationship with your family, and your business. (Quick question: what happens if your brother has to chastise your girlfriend at work and she comes crying to you?)
So, having just written a very depressing post (sorry), let me offer my best wishes for your success and encourage you to read every post in this article and think long and hard about all the comments offered.