A lot of people tell you not to start a business with your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband and family members and I have to say, I really understand why. In this video, I’ll share with you the challenges of working with a loved one on a business.
My girlfriend and I recently started a business together called Vino Cards. She’s doing most of the work and I’m helping and guiding her along the way. Today, I got pretty upset with her because I asked her about a week ago to get a few different things done and she was not able to carry out those tasks after a week. Ariana and I have very different lifestyles and work styles. We’re like Yin and Yang. I’m all about doing and getting things done while she’s all about going with the flow. This kind of set up works very well in a romantic relationship but this can cause some problems in a working relationship.
What I realized with this is that the way that I talk to her is actually a reflection on how I talk to myself. I get extremely hard on myself when I don’t get a task done. My initial reaction is to get upset and angry and she gets sad. I can see she’s trying her best but sometimes her best isn’t good enough for me.
It has been extra tough for me too because I’m teaching her my method in creating a passion project. I mapped out this formula/course which I would want to share with everyone in the future. The problem is that she doesn’t follow it at times. There are certain things she forgets or she’s too busy to do it. I want her to be successful not just because it does her good but also because if it doesn’t go well, it will also reflect badly on me.
To be fair though, even though she hasn’t done some of the small tasks I asked her to do, she has been working really hard on Vino Cards. She’s doing a ton of work and in fact, Vino cards finally arrived at the BDancewear office. We will pick it up and hopefully ship out the KickStarter orders soon.
Ariana’s frustration in working with me, on the other hand, is mainly about my high expectations. One of the tasks I gave her is to create a launch group and to cultivate that launch group by posting videos updates on Vino Card. It didn’t seem important to her at that time but she realized it is important in retrospect. I got frustrated because I thought made it clear that these tasks are critical but she did other fun activities instead of finishing the videos which can be done in just 10 minutes anyway.
Ariana’s action plan moving forward is to have a sense of urgency, write her tasks somewhere, set a google reminder or alarm and put a central calendar somewhere so she won’t forget that tasks she needs to accomplish.
In summary, there are some things to think about before you start a business with a loved one. Fights like this can spiral into something bigger so my only advice for now, is just be very careful.