How to Get Your Partner and Family on Board Your Entrepreneurial Journey

Starting your own business is not for the faint of heart. Not only is it hard work but it can strain your mental and physical health as well as have a significant impact on your partner and family. Before launching into your entrepreneurial journey, it’s important to set out some agreements with your partner. These will change and morph over time but setting aside some time for some thoughtful conversations around the impact of entrepreneurship with your family will set the stage and foundation for future discussions.

Financial Commitment

One of the biggest strains on families during the initial stages of entrepreneurship is financial. Depending on the type of business you are starting, it could take a few years before you start seeing significant profits and revenue. What are you and your partner willing to commit to together financially and for how long? What milestones do you both need to see in order to continue going along the entrepreneurial path and when would you call it quits? It’s important to recognize that a significant number of small businesses will not work out and together, as a family, discuss what risks you’re willing to take. These initial conversations will help you along the way as you ramp up and have a building block for asking for support from your family and partner.

Time

Being an entrepreneur is a 24/7 journey. It just is. It’s your baby. You want it to succeed. You wake up in the middle of the night thinking about new ideas or worrying about the projections. You’re giving this baby your 100% commitment — emotionally, financially, physically, mentally — which is inevitably going to impact the time you have available for your partner or family. It will be hard to feel like you have enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do. So before you launch into your entrepreneurial journey, have these conversations with your partner and families. What can you commit to with your partner? What extra help and support are you going to need to take some household responsibilities off your list to free up time? Remember we always have to say no to something to make space and time for something else. Can you agree to not work after a certain time each evening? Remember, you are not clocking in and out of a job anymore. You have to create these boundaries for yourself.

Sounding Board & Boundaries

As an entrepreneur, and depending on the structure of your new company, you might need your partner to act as a sounding board for you. Each day you will be faced with new successes and challenges and it really helps to have a sounding board to help give you a different perspective or to brainstorm solutions or just to celebrate the wins. Commit to time together each day or week that this can happen. You want to try to avoid having your business hijack all of your time together. Keep some clear boundaries on communication and set aside time to discuss your new business. You will both be thankful that you did.