Why I hired my husband
I love working everyday with my husband. It has it’s trials, but mostly I feel relief and support.
I feel like the most common reaction I get to telling people that my husband and I make up 2/5ths of the start up that we work at is horror. People cannot believe that we literally sit in the same room all day every day and then come home to parent together and eventually go into the same room and sleep together.
For a little back story, Renato and I actually met at work. I hired him at a previous company and was his boss for a period of 2 years. We also worked together extremely closely on a number of projects and accounts towards the end of my tenure at this role. That’s actually how we got to know each other and eventually fell in love. Almost immediately after we started dating I left the company that we worked at together - this was partially out of the desire to simplify our relationship and take the boss/employee dynamic out of the mix, but it was also because I had found greener pastures with another company. I was actually extremely torn because I did enjoy working with him so much and I was sad to not have all that time together.
Work is an extremely important part of my life - it always has been. I don’t think you go and work for a teeny tiny start up if you don’t feel that way. Most of my waking thoughts are concerned either with work matters or with things that I need to do for my family. My husband is the same. When I started to get overwhelmed with work in 2018, I hired an intern who eventually turned into a full time employee, but the oversight that a resource like this required was so intense that I found that my workload was actually increasing due to the need to double-check his client facing interactions, look for mistakes in his workflows, and take the time to coach him on how to improve his work style. I know that this usually decreases over time, but when you are running hard and running fast every single day, even an extra ounce of oversight feels like a huge burden. Eventually this intern turned full time employee got tired of the micro-managing that comes along with being so crucial to our day to day operations and decided that he’d had enough. He ended up blowing up at our CEO/founder, yelling at him about what a jerk he was and how no one could live up to the standards that he was setting. During this time, I was working all day and then coming home and working 4-5 hours in the evening after my kids went to bed. My husband would pitch in to try to help me, but I was drowning in work. My husband was also bored and complacent in his role at his previous company and was already seeking other opportunities (albeit slowly). When the opening at our company came up, I could think of no one that I wanted to work with more than my husband. He was a known quantity, I wouldn’t be sacrificing time with my family to train a new resource, I could have a confidant and support system who knew exactly what I was going through, and I had already worked with him and knew he was a badass and multi-talented.
A few years back I read Intercom’s book on Starting Up and one thing that stuck with me from it was that the first 5 employees of any startup have to be able to do everything moderately well. There is no room for specialization at this stage. I have always felt that my lack of deep specialty in any one area was a weakness, but it turns out, I was just always meant to support a startup. My husband is the same. He can learn anything in a short amount of time and be proficient at it. He won’t be the most amazing copy-writer or technical manual creator, but he can get the job done. In addition, he has enough experience that he doesn’t need to be handheld to try something or implement a process. These skills were invaluable to me when we brought him on in November of 2018.
Do not be swayed by someone’s fancy resume at this stage of a company. The more fancy the resume, the less likely that they will be willing to get down in the muck with you and do the real work that makes those initial dollars come in the door.
There are days where I want to shake my husband and tell him to stop bothering me. And there are days when I can feel how agitated and annoyed he is with me. But most days, I feel the huge relief of having a true ally in our business - one who understands on an intimate level what I’m going through, what needs to be done, and doesn’t feel the need to get my approval for every tiny decision. The looks of disbelief that I get from people who cannot fathom spending 24 hours a day with their spouse are laughable when I think about the alternative.
Renato is the best hire I’ve ever made - and I’ve gotten to make it twice. That being said, here are three lessons we’ve learned from working together:
Invest in good headphones - spending all day together does require that each of us still have the space to get into the “zone” - in order to do this, we both have noise cancelling headphones. When they are on, we take the do not disturb approach unless something is urgent/critical.
Make space for other social interactions - each Wednesday I take our son to swim lessons, and my husband meets one of his best friends for drinks at a bar that’s halfway between their workplaces. I am pregnant right now, so I don’t have any standing drink commitments with friends, but I do get a monthly dinner with a close group of girlfriends and also one to two other events each month (for example, I’m going to see a play and have dinner with some friends this weekend).
Continuously view each other as allies - this one is hard to explain, but I know that when I am extremely annoyed by something at work my husband feels exactly the same way. And this is such a comfort for me. In addition, I know that when my husband becomes that annoyance for me that I need to just breathe through it and recognize the underlying issue (which is usually just that I’m overly stressed). We rarely snap at each other, and instead clearly articulate exactly what we need to change in the particular moment. You will never be conflict free at work with your spouse but you can handle it with the underlying current of feeling joy that you are able to work together.
This type of arrangement won’t be for everyone, but I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way.