The Wall Street Journal and this columnist offer equally vacuous tips

By Ed Goldman

C-Suite Strategies,” a special section of the Wall Street Journal—a fine, fine newspaper and, on occasion, a humorist’s most reliable source—ran an article recently with the headline “The Pros and Cons of Starting a Business with Your Spouse.”

While I never had that exact experience, I do feel qualified to join the discussion. Many years ago my spouse joined the marketing consultancy I’d started a decade earlier (she came in as a full partner, natch). And in the seven years we worked together, revenues grew by a third and were solid enough to suffer no slackening when she stopped to become a full-time artist.

To recap, my experience at working with a spouse was beyond positive. Not everyone’s will be or currently is.

Here, then, are some considerations the Journal brings up, followed by some observations of my own. Feel free to share this with your business-partner/spouse or your business-partner/significant other—or, more expansively, your ex-spouse or formerly significant other.

1. The WSJ suggests, for example, that “there are definitely dangers with having everything—and everyone—important at work and at home woven together.” This is followed by the subhead “Too much togetherness.”

Let’s be clear about this right from the start: If your marriage includes weaving yourself and your partner together, perhaps you shouldn’t be running an online crafts store and should rebrand your business as a sex therapy consulting firm. With a re-sale license, this will allow you two to enjoy serious discounts on needles, threads, oils (both essential and just whimsical) and instruction manuals. I imagine it would allow you to at long last write off your bedroom as an office without raising a red flag for the IRS. But do check with your tax adviser. If he or she is also a customer, just make an anonymous call to the U.S. Treasury’s answer desk. To ensure anonymity, use a dinner guest’s phone while he or she is in your bathroom.

2. The Journal warns, “Having a couple committed to a business…can at times make things less financially stable if all of the family’s eggs are in one basket.” A sentence or two later, the article advises, “It helps to have one stable job or side gig in the relationship while the business is getting up and running.”

Okay, let’s take off the bubblewrap. How did this couple go from starting what I presumed was an urban company to a foray into the ag sector? Why are we talking about eggs all of a sudden? And taking care of horses (the reference to holding a “stable job”)? The trouble with most new businesses, in my mind, is a lack of focus. (Note to couples: a “wandering eye” is not the same thing as a “lack of focus,” though certainly, neither will contribute to your success.)

I also found it odd that one half of a couple starting a business together was being advised to go out and get a job. This is a discombobulating conundrum to say the least, but with big words.

So perhaps it isn’t surprising that the story’s penultimate paragraph contains this gem: “What’s more, business survival can fall prey to divorce—something other companies generally don’t have to worry about.”