A Family IT/Tech Business?? 398
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?"
Careful planning (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Careful planning (Score:5, Insightful)
However, on the converse, if you make it clear to her that she's getting an ownership interest in the company, she'll have more interest in the quality of the work, and she might be willing to accept lower wages today for the good of the company in the future... since company profits and her own spending money will be very closely related.
Re:Careful planning (Score:2, Funny)
This calls for sensitive handling.
Will you marry me? (You realise you'll still only be an employee, right?)
Not quite true (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Careful planning (Score:2, Informative)
Incorporate the business (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Incorporate the business (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Careful planning (Score:5, Funny)
But sex at the office is always great.
Re:Don't Wait! Sign Now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't Wait! Sign Now. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't Wait! Sign Now. (Score:3, Interesting)
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 brea
Re:Don't Wait! Sign Now. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Careful planning (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Careful planning (Score:3, Funny)
Then again, that might be her plan.
Keep everything on paper and signed (Score:5, Interesting)
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"
Re:Keep everything on paper and signed (Score:4, Informative)
A-freaking-men! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (=
Re:A-freaking-men! (Score:3, Insightful)
If any one in your corporation or business insists that you don't need documentation, meeting notes, or contracts, they're either completely naive or planning to screw you over at some point.
Yes, yes, yes! Starting a business is really exciting, and everybody feels like things are going to go great. It's so easy to say, "Gosh, we can do the paperwork later." I have made this mistake myself, and always regretted it.
Take full advantage of th
Re:Keep everything on paper and signed (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
That's a big problem, where you just trust your girlfriend to do something that you won't let someone who's been with you for 6 months do. It's also a problem when your family member expects 'extra understanding' because 'we're family'.
In my experience, you can't start up a business without your friends and family. They will be your first employees, your first customers, or both. There's a mutually beneficial relationship going on. It's easier to ask your family member to work for less money, for example. They want to help you out. They get some work experience for the job (if it's a new line of work for them, they could be getting a new career). In the long run, if things go well enough that the business grows and you've made mostly good decisions, your family member gets extra pay, or at least competitive pay.
I was in a business not too long ago with my best friend, and before that I was involved with my dad. WIth my dad, the problem was that he didn't trust my wife and wasn't willing to share half ownership of the company with me. I wasn't willing to be a puppet partner, and without half ownership I wasn't getting involved. With my best friend, it was a bit different. We hired his sister, his ex-wife (who is still a good friend of his), and immediately office politics came into play and I was the bad guy (his ex-wife doesn't trust me, and I don't believe she ever liked me, and his sister didn't know me well enough to make her own judgement).
In the past, when I worked with family at various jobs, there were no problems. I worked with my brother for a long time in the restauraunt business, and we lived together. No problems. We didn't have to draw a line between work and play. SOme days we'd spend the evening bitching about work and other days we spent our off hours playing our asses off. At work we didn't give each other any particularly special treatment. In fact, I was in a position of authority at that place, and I had much higher expectations from him than I did most of the others, so he got his ass chewed more and harder than the others. :)
There's no easy answer to this question, as much as we'd all like to think there is. You're right, Alan, that having everything clear and in writing is good. But if everything that is in writing is more than you have for other employees, it can be very bad. It can be bad when you give your brother a loan but the company policy is no loans (there are ways to work around this, of course, but not in a startup).
The way I figure it is this: When you hire somebody, you get to know them extremely well, from one side. You learn about their work ethic, you learn about their standards for living. You don't care about who they date, what they eat, what they read, what they do. You establish a working relationship that works, and frequently pushes cultural boundaries. You agree to have differences with regard to religion, politics, and other heated topics. With family, your relationship frequently depends on all of the things you set aside for the stranger who's working for you. And also with family, you don't know their work ethic, and that's the pivotal point.
The other problem that comes up has to do with the word "partnership". Marriage is a partnership, right? Well, partnership is just a two-person version of "team". One of the problems every couple, every team, and every workplace faces is figuring out how much work each person is individually responsible. In a partnership, it's common to say "We're each responsible for half, no problem, we agree on that, we know it in advance." Then, a few months or years or whatever down the road, you start getting angry because you think you're doing your half and the other person isn't doing theirs. If you've hired your girlfriend,
Setting your own hours (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Setting your own hours (Score:4, Funny)
It's just that they are "the waking hours." As long as I set them to that, though, it's my choice.
Re:Setting your own hours (Score:3, Interesting)
You may not get to set your own hours when you work for yourself
Re:Careful planning (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that when everything goes great, there's no problems, but if she suddenly decides to go shopping instead of working, you can't help but have negative thoughts about it ("Why doesn't she put in as much work as I do?"), and ultimately those thoughts will affect the normal relationship too, you can't just seperate those 2 things.
Also I were put in a situation where my (ex)girlfriend told me she found some new customers, just to make me happy, because I was feeling depressed one day, and I later found out that she had not even talked to them.
Of course this is more of a trust issue, but I found that mixing business and pleasure on a full-time scale, was definately not the way to go for me.
Re:Careful planning (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Careful planning (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Careful planning (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter what employees you need to have, g/f's and family change the dynamic.
I have at times employed my mother, my daughter, my brother-in-law, and a couple of others whose relationship was not so easy to define. The problems you foresee are real. The ones you don't expect are deadly.
The best person for the job is the one you must have. Carrying relations
Re:Careful planning (Score:4, Insightful)
Plan on getting her a ring... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Plan on getting her a ring... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ha! Don't count on it. Family members can be far more treacherous than business partners who just want to move on. There's usually lot's of old baggage in families.
M
Re:Plan on getting her a ring... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Plan on getting her a ring... (Score:3, Interesting)
You should have reminded a friend of mine's brother. This friend ran a small, but successful print shop-type business, and hired his brother on full time. Well, long story short, friend ends up in the hospital for a few weeks. When he g
A few pitfalls come to mind (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:A few pitfalls come to mind (Score:5, Informative)
I think this is the biggest risk. Not only will you have to remain on good terms with your girlfriend, but other employees will resent your relationship with her.
Re:A few pitfalls come to mind (Score:2, Informative)
This is absolutely true. I knew a couple that was living together, and at work one of them was the owner and the other an employee. All the other employees were convinced that the boss favored his partner over them at work, even though he tried hard to be even-handed.
Re:A few pitfalls come to mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's one. Say you break up with her, and then decide that you don't want to see her at work evey day. So you fire her. Which is I think is at least a natural thing to think about.
Now, would she be able to sue for discrimiation? Her case would most likely be tha
You are asking for trouble (Score:2, Insightful)
mix it and have them around all the time (Score:2)
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 ;)
Your girlfriend... (Score:2)
Must have separate roles (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
cooperative venture (Score:3, Insightful)
your little company will screw up the personal relationships you had with these
people.
Get ready.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Get ready.. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Hiring Family Members (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hiring Family Members (Score:4, Insightful)
Better be prepared . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
NO (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:NO (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you're able to look your family or friends in the face as a boss/employee relationship, DON'T.
I really don't think this would be a problem for me. Fire my dad? No problem! Worthless little fuck. Fire my brother? Why not? I threw him out of my house a long time ago when he didn't pay any bills. Fire my wife? Hell yeah! I can't wait to have that make up sex.
It's not as hard as you might think. Fact is, to start a business, you've got to have what Mexicans like to call huevos. You've gotta
Just make owner/employer status VERY clear (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Why struggle? (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting concept (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking of hiring my gf so I can fire her and outsource her responsibilities to 10 women in India.
Go for it -- with caveats (Score:5, Insightful)
- 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 [greg-brooks.com] for advice on business development and promoting your business.It all depends (Score:5, Insightful)
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
What fun! (Score:3, Informative)
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?
where's the entertainment? (Score:2)
IF Compatible(You, GF) THEN Partnership (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
Priorities (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Consult a lawyer if there could be $$ at stake (Score:5, Insightful)
Your enterprise currently sounds like this, and if it's just employment/contracting your relatives, and not equity in the business, there's probably less at stake. Be fair, be impersonal (ie no "you're fired because you beat up on me in the 8th grade") and treat them like you would any other worker. If it comes to a close call, be prepared to have to work out whether the business or the person is more important to you, and sacrifice the other.
However, if there's any question that equity is or might be involved, then anything more than a trivial enterprise needs to be set up right from the start. Otherwise, there is a very good chance of a falling out, and if there aren't procedures in place to handle it, it can get very messy -- not just acrimonious, but litigious to a point where the business itself cannot operate and falls apart, and everyone scrabbles over the still-twitching corpse. Especially if someone senses $$$$ 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...
Go for it (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [cnn.com]
The article is an interview with the author of a book called "In Praise of Nepotism", and makes some excellent points.
and after that (Score:5, Insightful)
Girlfriend (Score:2)
Only works as a partnership (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
business and family don't mix (Score:2)
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.
We've managed it (Score:3, Informative)
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
Two simple rules of thumb (Score:2, Insightful)
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 realiz
Doin' the Secretary... (Score:5, Funny)
Been there, done that (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
My experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)
That kind of heroic technical effort should be admired and respected... when it's not, well, the business could just plain colapse.
Don't put all eggs in one basket (Score:4, Interesting)
Working together may change your relationship (Score:2, Informative)
After a few years of fighting, my dad gave up on having his say, and just started doing wh
Well, here's my experience... (Score:3, Interesting)
Business + Personal = Can of worms (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
You are DOOMED! (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Handling issues... (Score:2)
If she really loves you, she'll put up with the tardiness and lack of a work ethic...
It's just the same as any other business (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Here's a test (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Title? (Score:5, Funny)
To simplify it for you - you've just hired the new Managing Director.
Actual Responsibilities (Score:5, Informative)
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!
I would recommend against it. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
sexual harassment (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
Authority is the key (Score:3, Informative)
Listen to your father & friends (Score:4, Informative)
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.
It all depends on maturity (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
This is a B-A-D bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Bad Practice (Score:4, Insightful)
Its a good way to kill both relationships.
Customer Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Say it with me (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
My family business experiences (Score:5, Interesting)
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:
What are your cultural backgrounds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
I work with my dad (Score:3, Insightful)
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
From experience... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Been there, done that... it _can_ be great! (Score:3, Insightful)
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 -
Depends on the people.... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Seems like the rough spots might be really rough (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Cover your ass (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Advice: don't. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
I worked for a family owned business... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:third time lucky (Score:2, Funny)
Void where prohibited by law.
KFG
Re:girlfriend ? hah ! (Score:4, Funny)