Copreneurs: Do You Really Want to Go Into Business With Your Spouse?

My husband often says he'd like to work for my next company. I can't imagine anything worse. But I know what he means: we don't have much time together, and he thinks it would be more fun if we did. So the answer's simple: build a business together. Right?

Maybe. Many couples do find this the ultimate solution to the eternal work/life balance questions, and there are nearly 4 million copreneurs in the United States alone. Estee Lauder was started by a husband and wife; the world would be short of a lot of handbags and shoes if Kate and Andy Spade hadn't followed suit. I've interviewed copreneurs who are richly satisfied with their lives -- but I've also interviewed former couples who feel that, if they hadn't worked together, they might still be married today. The first bunch see copreneurship as an ideal blending of work and life; the others see it as a catastrophic risk. Which are you?

Happy copreneurs tend to follow a few simple rules:

1. Have separate, clearly delineated areas of responsibility. That way you have two real employees instead of just one for the price of two.
2. Make these clear to all employees -- and never deviate from them. One big risk of copreneurship is that employees think you're inter-changeable. If they don't like the decision they get from one, they'll try the other. This is what I think of as the "Dad, Mom said I could go to the zoo" problem.
3. Never disagree in public. The minute you do, all your employees will get confused and disheartened.

The unhappy copreneurs weren't so different in the way they ran their companies and their lives. But their perspective was. When you share a marriage and a business, they said, it's like an undiversified portfolio: all your eggs are in one basket. When one starts to fail, the other follows suit. Each makes the other worse. No one can get out. One couple I interviewed found dividing the company even harder than dividing their home and sharing the child care.

Personally, I love the fact that my husband's work is completely different from my own. I think we both benefit from sharing different perspectives. (He's a scientist.) And financially I think we're less exposed to economic volatility by working in separate sectors. But that's all highly rational. I suspect the joy -- or misery -- of copreneurship is fundamentally emotional. Just because the decision about whether to work together focuses on a business, doesn't mean it's a business decision.