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Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
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Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#2Promise her riches beyond her wildest dreams?
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#3'... convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs? ...'
Find the union of where your expertise domain overlap and complement and work towards an idea from there. Think SixApart (coder, designer ~ blog tools), Fastgraph (coder, game designer ~ games & engine development tools), Flickr (visual design, communication skills) . Lots of startups have spouses in them. It's a matter of finding and aligning skillsets,
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#4"Let"? That kind of pre-existing power disparity already says it's doomed.
You need all your support systems Go For Launch or it's a no go. They all need to be behind you, pushing you FORWARD.
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#5'... convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs? ...' Find the union of where your expertise domain overlap and complement and work towards an idea from there. Think SixApart (coder, designer ~ blog tools), Fastgraph (coder, game designer ~ games & engine development tools), Flickr (visual design, communication skills) . Lots of startups have spouses in them. It's a matter of finding and aligning ski…
As a married entrepreneur, I would never recommend having your wife work with you. Relationships are complicated enough without throwing business complications into the mix. My "trick" was to have a startup that grew organically out of and enhanced my "day" job.
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#6Promise her riches beyond her wildest dreams?
"So when you're rich can leave me for some younger, hotter model?"
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#7It's a super tough thing. I think the startup founder with a successful marriage and a successful startup is the rare exception. They're both full-time commitments and one almost always loses the battle for attention.
Tom Leykis (much hated LA "shock jock") advises (paraphrasing): Do not get married until you've achieved your dream in life.
I think that's good advice to take, even if it's tough thing to face. I haven't see much evidence to contradict it.
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#8If you're asking this here, I'd say don't do it. Don't presume you have to go for it, especially right now. Keep in mind she may take on about as much of the risks and downside as you do without the personal satisfaction you get out of it.
Colin Powell may not be President of the US right now simply because his wife is not up for it it. But even though he could push her into battle or steamroll her, he doesn't. Just shows that he's a smart guy and model husband -- two traits not often combined in presidents, as it so happens.
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#9'... convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs? ...' Find the union of where your expertise domain overlap and complement and work towards an idea from there. Think SixApart (coder, designer ~ blog tools), Fastgraph (coder, game designer ~ games & engine development tools), Flickr (visual design, communication skills) . Lots of startups have spouses in them. It's a matter of finding and aligning ski…
As a married entrepreneur, I would never recommend having your wife work with you. Relationships are complicated enough without throwing business complications into the mix. My "trick" was to have a startup that grew organically out of and enhanced my "day" job.
On the other hand, I run a little online shop with my girlfriend, that is getting pretty respectable income: I handle the technical things, and she handles the customer services/inventory/shipping stuff.
It surely beats working for somebody else: more time to spend together, less grunt work and potentially more income too.
You do not need VC/Angel funding for your startup... it is definitely possible to grow your business, have a life and be rich at the same time. Don't be ruled by the 'Tyranny of Or'.
Re: Any recommendations on convincing wives to let their husbands become entrepreneurs?
#10Well... there's a broad spectrum of startup "types" - everything from "supplement my income, maybe replace it in the future" to full bore "VC funded, have to grow like cancer or we'll die".
If your idea fits in the the former class of startup convincing a spouse should theoretically be fairly easy - just set boundaries on time spent on your idea and make sure she gets plenty of time too; but I can't speak from experience here.
If your idea is closer to the latter or anything like a "typical" startup, good luck. An environment like that is going to be hard on _everybody_ in any close relationship with you. In my last startup, one of my employee's marriage came very close to failing due to the pressure... and he wasn't nearly doing the hours that the founders were doing.
Are you sure you'd want to do that to your wife?