Married to Your Business Partner?

Marci McCue, CMO of Flipboard, has great things to say about her business partner:

“We have a shared mission, are understanding of each other’s work demands and feel successes and failures together.”

It’s a good thing because McCue spends a lot of time with her partner – he’s also her husband, Mike. As the co-founder of an app that has 20 million users, her successful venture requires her to bounce business ideas off him all the time.

About 4 million businesses are reportedly jointly-owned by spouses according to the US Census Survey of Business Owners.

And these couple-owned companies benefit not only from several tax breaks, but also from sharing a vision and goal, trusting in one another and having complimentary abilities.

McCue says Flipboard thrives because of each individual’s strength. “My husband is more of a technologist and enjoys the building of companies,” she says. According to her, she’s always been the “entrepreneur.”

The drawback of co-ownership? The toll it takes on your relationship if roles aren’t defined, or if there isn’t separation between home and work life.

Trouble results when problems at the office are brought home, or if couples give contradictory instructions to employees.

For McCue, the biggest obstacle is “you’re never off-duty, which can be tough when one person wants to just turn off.”

Despite hurdles they had to overcome when starting Flipboard, McCue says it was worth it. “As my husband says, it takes just as much energy to do something small as it does to do something big. So you might as well go big.”

Bonus PINK Link: Get some guidance about picking the right business partner.

Would you partner with your spouse/significant other on a business venture?

By Carmen Harbour

“It is rare to find a business partner who is selfless. If you are lucky it happens once in a lifetime.” Michael Eisner