Slashdot Mirror
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?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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
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
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
- 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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
My video compression blog
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
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.
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
The more family members get involved, the higher risk that your family will run going backrupt if the business goes under.
If you really like your girlfriend, I suggest you practice on other less critical members of your family...
Void where prohibited by law.
KFG
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
that reminds me. Thursday night I have a date with a hot 19 year-old girl. she's bringon along her 18 year-old bisexual sister (they want to have a threesome). Anyhow, what do you think would be the best linux distro to install for them? They need to type papers, im, web cam support is a must, etc.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Familiarity breeds contempt. This applies to family owned businesses as well as non family owned. Heed your fathers advice.
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.
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.
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'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
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
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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."
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 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
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.
Bare-bottomed spankings come to mind.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
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'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 -
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
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 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
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...
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!!
People think a contract is always a written document, but that's not really the definition. A contract happens any time two or more people agree to make an exchange goods, services, and/or money... it's just that the writen document is a very good thing ot have in situations where proof of a contract is needed.
That's a very good point: it's more important to be formal than it is to be written. In reality, most verbal contracts are vague and writing them down tends to make people put a little more effort into specifying them.
In reality, most verbal contracts are vague and writing them down tends to make people put a little more effort into specifying them.
Verbal contracts don't exist. Maybe they did at one time, when a man was as good as his word, but in this day full of deceit and corruption, there's no such thing.
Maybe some lawyer will chime in with "Yes, it's legally accepted" blah blah blah.
The purpose of a contract, and the *only* purpose of a contract, is to show a judge/jury while you're suing or being sued for breaking your word. At that time, the contract serves to define exactly what you gave your word for, and it becomes your best friend or your worst enemy.
You cannot show a judge/jury a verbal contract. If nobody heard it besides you and the other person, it didn't happen. In fact, even if you go and write detailed notes about a private conversation, those notes can be thrown out as lies because they can't be substantiated.
Now, if you don't trust your girlfriend enough that you can accept her word, you've got other issues either with yourself or your relationship. That's my personal objection to prenups. If I don't trust the woman with whom I'm about to spend the rest of my life with my personal finances, which I'm throwing in with hers, why am I marrying her in the first place? Oh yeah, sure, maybe she's just digging for gold and has got me totally swindled, but in a strong marriage a prenup isn't going to be worth the paper it's printed on. In a weak marriage, well, you should have thought it through some more. Marriage is never 'the next logical step in our relationship'.
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
What about an audio recording of a verbal contract? is that worth ferrous tape it's magnetised on?
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
Actually, I think recordings are considered as good as the writing stuff, with the added problem of identifying the parties. In fact, that's why some documents aren't strong in court without being notarized. The Notary isn't anybody special, just someone who checks IDs and makes sure both people are willingly signing the document, and witnesses the signing, that's all.
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
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!
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