Have you ever wondered how it would be to go into business with your “significant other”? More specifically, whether you could — successfully — build an online business together?
How would you find a topic that excites you both?
How would you share the work?
What challenges would you face?
Would it be good or bad for your relationship?
If only there was a crystal ball to reveal how your future as a business-building couple could look like!
While I’m not a fortune teller, I can give you the next best thing… first-hand experience from Solo Build It! members who are building an online business as a couple.
I devised a survey and sent it to a dozen SBIer couples and to my boss, Ken Evoy (you may or may not know that Ken built his various businesses together with his wife, Janice Isomura).
Hear the answers from the first five couples (more to come):
Gavin and Trudy Roberts, Motorhomehobos.com
Tom and Rhonda Muir, Orkneyology.com
Dave and Mary Morris, FrontPorchIdeas.com
Tony and Aileen (Boo) Peel, Victoriafalls-Guide.net
Ken Evoy and Janice Isomura, SiteSell.com
The answers I received were diverse in both length and content. There are some recurring themes though, which I’ll summarize at the end.
See if you can spot them as you read through the answers!
1. Gavin and Trudy Roberts, Motorhomehobos.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
We were already passionate about motorhoming and van life so we knew our niche straight away.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
We’ve largely shared the work in creating our website, having followed the Solo Build It! Action Guide pretty much to the letter. It took us almost a year to work through on a very part-time basis due to other commitments.
Trudi now does 100% of the blog pages. I (Gav) do a monthly free email newsletter to our subscribers. Trudi takes care of social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook).
I tend to take care of WordPress technical stuff and SEO, though this is something neither of us particularly enjoys.
I have created an ebook which we sell from our website. Trudi is 3/4 of the way through creating a second ebook for the site.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
We love sitting opposite each other at our desk writing our separate pages for the site, bouncing ideas off each other. We sometimes have regular “business meetings” over breakfast or lunch in our RV, catching up on SBIX (SBI!’s weekly newsletter), tips and techniques, and relevant threads on the SBI! forums.
Perhaps the best thing about building an online business as a couple is that none of this feels like work (except SEO, social media, and Google Analytics stuff). We’re often on the road in our motorhome, which doubles as pleasure and content for the website. It feels like a continuous “busman’s holiday.”
Has it changed our relationship? Tough to say. But working together has certainly given us a shared goal. We would have loved road-tripping anyway, without basing a business on it. But now, with SBI!’s help, we’re enjoying van life and creating an additional income as well.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
We have different writing styles and it’s been difficult finding a unified “voice” for our website/business.
Trudi has a more formal and poetic writing style whereas mine is more conversational.
I took on the role of editing some of Trudi’s pages but this was not a good idea!!!
She took offense, understandably, and now has free rein on our blog posts. This was a contentious issue but, in my defense, I was simply trying to create a unified style (known as ‘MY WAY’!!!!).
Can you recall a funny (or awkward) anecdote from your life as business partners? If so, we’d love to hear it. 😊
The most awkward thing we’ve done (so far!) was being videoed by Solo Build It!’s “roving ambassador,” Paul Buckingham. Don’t get us wrong, we felt privileged to have our SBI! story seen and heard (and Paul was a real professional) but neither of us is comfortable in front of a camera.
To this day we still haven’t watched it.
That was two years ago. We’d probably tell a much better story now about all the things we would do differently if we were starting again.
We’ve got 5 tips…
- Identify a niche that you are both equally interested in/passionate about. Otherwise one of you will lose focus and motivation.
- Identify your individual strengths and agree on doing tasks based on those strengths.
- Be prepared to back down or compromise! You won’t agree on everything. But no sulking!
- Support each other. Things will go wrong at times and you need to be there for each other.
- Take time out from the business and simply enjoy life and spend time together as a couple. You can’t always be creating content or thinking about business ideas!
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
We plan on creating more sellable digital products this year in the form of two more ebooks. This will give us a total of three ebooks on the site, with more planned for the future.
Another goal is to grow our email list. Currently we have 280 subscribers with an average open rate of 48%. We’d like to get to 500 subscribers by December 31, 2023, and find ways to encourage more interaction.
These are not big goals — and we’re not looking to become millionaires. We enjoy sharing our vanlife knowledge and turning this into a steady income stream for years to come as we (eventually) transition to retirement.
2. Tom and Rhonda Muir, Orkneyology.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
Our niche was pretty obvious from the start, although it’s definitely continuing to evolve. I (Rhonda) moved to the Orkney Islands, Scotland, from America to marry Tom, an Orcadian.
The combination of Tom’s expertise as a local historian, folklorist and storyteller and my unique viewpoint into Orkney life as an “incomer” felt like a good dual-view approach for a website about Orkney history/lore and everyday life in the islands.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
I created the website (with a great deal of help from the good folks at SBI!) and wrote many of the pages by myself at first, with Tom writing other pages for me as he had the time.
Until recently, I’ve been the one handling the technical details of building the site and learning other related tasks like email lists, recording audio and video, and making our first ebook.
About 5 years into it now, and with additional projects growing into fruition, Tom is planning to learn how to make and add new pages and other basic tasks so we can keep growing the informational part of Orkneyology.com while also working together to learn the newest part of our business.
As long as Tom is working full-time outside of our business, it’s natural that I’m doing more of the website work for now. We’re both looking forward to his retirement!
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
Our vision for creating Orkneyology Press to run in tandem with Orkneyology.com grows with us as we continue to discuss our dreams for the kind of life we want to enjoy in the future, as well as the kind of meaningful work we’d like to leave behind us.
Building an online business as a couple and working together on this evolving passion project has brought us closer in many ways.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
We’re learning another aspect of Orkneyology these days: we’re building an indie press!
I think the most challenging thing at the moment is finding time to do everything that we want to with our business amidst the normal challenges and blessings of everyday life and family responsibilities … while keeping an even keel emotionally.
It’s a challenge to focus on goals that feel meaningful to us while also remembering to take time to enjoy just being alive and together.
Can you recall a funny (or awkward) anecdote from your life as business partners? If so, we’d love to hear it. 😊
For me, the most awkward part of the kind of business model we’ve chosen is that it almost necessitates being more in the public eye than feels comfortable for me. Tom is used to being interviewed in every conceivable manner because of his decades of work in the Orkney Museum as their outreach person.
Live TV with internationally famous personalities? No problem. Just show him where to stand.
For me, learning to speak while knowing I’m being recorded has been very cringy. I’m usually the one hiding at the back of the room, watching everyone else.
Eventually, I realized that most people think they sound silly when being recorded, so I decided just to do my best then forget about it and get on with life. That’s one nice part about getting older: you stop caring as much about what “they” think. Who ARE “they,” anyway?!
I’m sure you can sympathize, especially if you’re an introvert like me. But did you know that introverted entrepreneurs have an unfair advantage?
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
Find the kinds of tasks that you each enjoy and are good at doing, which might have to be discovered by trial and error, and divide up the work accordingly.
Hopefully, you’ll find a niche that will keep you both interested and engaged for the long haul.
Be prepared to give it the time it needs to grow (which might be longer than you think) and be willing to let the vision transform as you go along.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Having just published our first book from Orkneyology Press, we hope to publish three or four more titles in 2023. We’ve been studying and figuring out how to implement our independent publishing plans for the last couple of years, so the website has stagnated a bit.
So we have some new material planned to spruce up the main site, as well. Along with the new books, we hope to launch a complementary podcast.
And most importantly, we want to enjoy our life together.
3. Dave and Mary Morris, FrontPorchIdeas.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
At first, deciding on a topic was challenging. We both wrote a list of things we enjoyed and liked to do. At the time, Dave listed woodworking, hiking, canoeing and fishing.
Mine included quilting, calligraphy, walking, piano and grandchildren. Not much was in common between our lists. So, we kept thinking and digging. To be honest, we got a little frustrated initially.
We considered a site about aging parents, as we were caregivers at the time. But after thinking about it, we decided we wanted a more joyful topic, one we would enjoy writing for a long time.
Throughout this time (several weeks) we used the SBI! brainstorming tool to help us determine whether our ideas were worthwhile.
Finally it dawned on us that we both like porches. We’re not sure how that came to our minds, but we’re so glad it did.
Both of us grew up with a porch. Dave had a big porch on his childhood home and I loved my Grandma’s porch, where I remember time on the porch swing with her. Besides that, both of us are drawn to porches; we often turn around our car when we drive past a great porch, just to see it again.
Then came the analysis to see if it was a good topic to pursue for a business. We followed the Action Guide closely and while the topic of porches wasn’t on the high end of demand, the supply and demand numbers we got from the Brainstorm It! tool fit well within the guidelines that the Action Guide gave us.
We found plenty of porch topics to write about and still do today. When we first started out, we both thought, “How many things could there possibly be to write about a porch?” We found out it’s probably infinite.
We began our website with several obstacles in our way: it was in the middle of winter, we didn’t have a porch on our house, nor did we have a single picture of one. But we learned to be resourceful to get through those early days.
The best part about our topic, beyond the fact that we both love porches, is that we can use our hobbies in our business. Dave loves woodworking and I like painting and sewing. We use all of these talents on our website.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
Sharing the work happened over time and didn’t take us long to figure out. Dave is a big-picture person whereas I am more detail-oriented. Also, each of us tends to gravitate toward certain topics on our site.
In general, Dave writes much of our content, and I am the editor. He writes all the DIY construction articles and I do most of the social media and behind-the-scenes work.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
The flexibility that our business gives us has been a large blessing over the years. After the first 18 months, our business income allowed us to leave our corporate jobs. We have been able to travel together and take pictures of porches across the country.
Being that our business is portable, we have been able to take it with us when we visit family for extended periods. And when we have had less time to work on it, for whatever reasons, our business has still served us well.
Since our site has given us more time and flexibility, it’s been great for our relationship. We enjoy doing projects together that we share on our site, even after nearly 15 years.
Both of us enjoy decorating our porch for the various holidays and seasons. We enjoy most aspects of our business even though some are not so thrilling.
We both agree there are certain things we don’t want to do in our business. We don’t like meetings or schedules, so we often say no to income opportunities that are deadline-oriented or only earn income one time.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
We don’t always agree on what direction we want to take or how much time we want to spend on things. We work through it.
Can you recall a funny (or awkward) anecdote from your life as business partners? If so, we’d love to hear it. 😊
One time when we were walking around taking pictures of porches, a lady sent her dog out to chase us away. On the up side, most homeowners with porches are gracious, friendly people. Maybe except one. LOL.
Another thing we have found funny (to us) is that many people do not understand what we do, although it’s quite simple.
They think we build porches. No, we don’t do that.
They think we visit people’s homes and do consultations for them. No, we don’t do that.
They think we draw up blueprints. No, we don’t do that either.
We get puzzled looks when we explain that we share ideas, tutorials and photos of porches and earn compensation from that. 😊
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
Choose a topic you both enjoy and can see yourselves working on for at least several years. If you enjoy it, it won’t seem like a job, even though it takes much effort and persistence.
Of course, use the tools and education in SBI! to help you make good decisions about your chosen niche.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Updating and improving our best pages, possibly updating all of our pages. While we enjoy writing new content, our focus this year will be to improve the best assets we already have to increase traffic and rankings for our website.
4. Tony and Aileen (Boo) Peel, Victoriafalls-Guide.net
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
Once we had completed the brainstorming process, it was quite obvious to us that there was an opportunity to build a website on Victoria Falls, which was our former home town.
The topic really excited us both as we have a massive passion for the destination, so it was not difficult for us to decide on the topic.
As a side note, because of the website we built, our life has changed dramatically and we actually moved back to Victoria Falls, a decision we are truly grateful for.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
In the beginning it was quite easy as we just chose keywords that appealed to us individually. We both wrote content for those pages. I also did most of the technical web stuff and Boo concentrated on content.
As the site evolved and started to get good rankings with serious traffic, our business model changed from an advertising model to a booking site.
Our roles changed and Boo moved over to managing the booking side of the business and dealing with all the clients. I remained on creating content and website development along with handling the finances.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
We most certainly enjoy working in this business together, which provides us with a very comfortable income, plus we also get to work from home.
The most enjoyable part of building an online business as a couple in the niche we are in, is that we get to travel and stay in luxury lodges, hotels and safari camps in our region for almost free.
As agents selling these products, we’re invited to experience the accommodation, so that we can confidently promote the establishments to our clients from first-hand experience. This opportunity has way surpassed any expectation we ever had.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
To be honest we work well together, so we don’t find it that challenging. I guess we do end up talking too much “shop,” so we have to discipline ourselves to leave our business behind when we’re not at work.
Of course, as in any business, there has to be one boss — so on rare occasions, this has created an awkward moment.
Can you recall a funny (or awkward) anecdote from your life as business partners? If so, we’d love to hear it. 😊
Can’t think of one off-hand — except perhaps for the above-mentioned awkward “I am the boss” situations.
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
To understand that this is not a GRQ business. You’ll have to put in long hours, many of them frustrating, so it’s important that you’re both comfortable and compatible with this.
Keep your end goal in sight and don’t focus too much on the “hows” — let the universe take care of that for you.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
To improve the user experience of our website, which will hopefully lead to more enquiries, better conversions and even better SEO.
5. Ken Evoy and Janice Isomura, SiteSell.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
Our first business venture (before we founded SiteSell) was toy design. I (Ken) had always loved games, even designed them as a kid. Between 1985 and 1998 my wife Janice and I invented and licensed more than 20 toys.
Even though I had the original idea, Janice and I ran that business together, as reflected in our company name: Isovoy Inc. is a mix of Janice’s and my family names.
That’s us and our company Isovoy being featured in a Globe & Mail article in May 1997.
Later on when we founded SiteSell, it was again my idea, but Janice has been involved in the company right from the start.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
In all our business ventures, I do the product work. Janice helps with that and does the admin work.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
What I really enjoy while building an online business as a couple is that we both could always be home together and with our kids. It’s been 40 years now, so I don’t remember if it changed things. We traveled a heck of a lot in the early toy years.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
I never thought about this, but there was nothing really problematic. Janice may feel differently, lol.
Can you recall a funny (or awkward) anecdote from your life as business partners? If so, we’d love to hear it. 😊
I hate to disappoint, but nope. Maybe one, but you decide…
On my first trip to Hong Kong to help an American company develop a product of mine for production, a one week trip became one month.
I was missing newborn Nori terribly, worried she wouldn’t know me. After that, I never traveled on business without them — folks in the toy biz knew me for that, lol.
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
If you’re both really on board for this, play to each person’s strengths. You maximize your odds of success.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Integrate Generative AI into Solo Build It! and make it a success for SBI! members.
My best guess for the reason? His mind and time are focused on giving SBI! members another edge over their competition by integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence into Solo Build It!.
Building Your Business as a Couple: Common Themes and Main Takeaways
There’s no foolproof formula for running a business successfully as a couple.
There are, however, some “golden rules,” which will raise your odds for achieving business success together, and — perhaps more importantly — for strengthening your relationship along with it.
Here are three common themes that I detected in the answers — let me know in a comment if you agree or if you spotted something else entirely!
Rule #1: Find the right topic
Choose a topic or niche that you both enjoy. Give it the “longevity” test: Can you see yourself writing about this topic (or producing videos, podcasts, etc.) long into the future?
For some couples, the topic may be obvious right away. For others, it’s a longer process. Take your time. Don’t settle on a topic until you’re both happy with it.
Rule #2: Play to each other’s strengths
Figure out what your and your partner’s strengths are. What tasks are you good at and like doing? In a best-case scenario, you and your spouse complement each other perfectly.
One is a big-picture person, the other one notices every detail. One enjoys writing, the other editing. One is the creative director, the other loves crunching numbers.
In real life, your situation is probably not that perfect. Still, try to divide the tasks as best as possible, playing to each other’s strengths.
Rule #3: Strike a good balance
Building an online business as a couple or solo can be all-consuming. There are so many skills to learn, so many things to take care of, and no regular “closing time.”
Decide together when and how often to take a break from your business. After all, one of your reasons for starting an online business will probably be to have more flexibility and more time to enjoy life together!
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