Double income, double traffic, explore starting a second site — those are some of the main goals for our three entrepreneur couples you’ll meet today:
James Stuart and Grace Doctolero, Best-of-Oahu.com
Elyssa Bernard and Alessandro Bisceglie, Romewise.com
Jill Loeffler and Aram Sohigian, SFTourismTips.com
While running a business with your significant other does present its challenges, the rewards are truly remarkable.
Curious about the pros and cons, and wonder whether you could do it, too?
Grab your favorite beverage, sit down with your partner, and let’s dive into the experiences of these three inspiring entrepreneur couples.
1. James Stuart and Grace Doctolero, Best-of-Oahu.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
I encouraged my husband to start the website after discovering Solo Build It! online when researching how to build a website business. James was looking for a way to share his passion about Hawaii, where he grew up and lived when he was younger. SBI! was the perfect platform to do it.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
James is the content publisher and creative director. He writes and publishes new web pages and posts on social media.
I analyze our website analytics and research new advertising opportunities and monetization ideas.
We share responsibilities doing the things we like best and are each best at.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
We enjoy watching our website grow and we love going to Hawaii for “content research.” 😁
It’s been extremely rewarding being able to have a small business that we love working on and earn income while we sleep. Our children love participating, and think our website is very cool.
Editor’s Note: Watch our interview with Grace and James to hear the full story behind Best-of-Oahu.com and why the kids think it’s cool!
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
The most challenging is finding time to sit together to implement more ideas and projects.
We both have demanding full-time jobs, and have a very active family schedule.
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
Our top advice for any couple planning to start a website and business together is to know what tasks each of you are good at and share the responsibilities in getting those tasks done.
Remind yourself that it’s a learning experience together, and you must devote the time necessary to do everything you can to create a successful online business.
Most importantly, have fun every step of the way!
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Our most important goal for 2023 is to continue to publish more content on our website and across various social media platforms.
We are also exploring starting a second website.
2. Elyssa Bernard and Alessandro Bisceglie, Romewise.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
This doesn’t apply to me as I started the site on my own. My husband Alessandro joined in later.
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 each have different strengths and gifts. There is one part of our business that I don’t want to do and Alessandro loves doing and is good at, so he takes care of that.
For managing our content creation, we use Trello (a simple project management tool with a free plan). In Trello, we have a board of content pages we want to create. We discuss when one of us will start working on a page and use Trello to keep track of our progress.
People write to us all the time asking for help with their trip. We don’t advertise it, but we do offer trip planning services. That’s something Alessandro is really good at and likes doing.
So when people ask for help, and are willing to invest in this service, we can help them. That’s an additional part of the business we would not have had if Alessandro was not working on it.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
We complement each other so it works well. There are things each of us is better at, and it helps that we can each focus on a specific task.
We had a B&B together for 17 years. Working together isn’t new for us, even though building an online business is of course different from running a B&B.
Because we’re entrepreneurs, we’re able to manage our time, both apart and together, so that we get things done — without being on top of each other.
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
Finding time to get everything done that we want to get done!
Or, to be more specific, trying to prioritize what to work on. We have a lot of projects (we just purchased www.florencewise.com and are going to launch that soon), so trying to decide what we should work on is a challenge.
But it’s not a challenge we have as a result of working together. I’d say that we work well together, thank goodness!
Sorry I don’t have anything a bit more dramatic. We’re both quite focused and passionate about our work, and we do well together!
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
Come up with a business plan and goals before you start. Know what you’re trying to achieve, and make long, medium, and short term goals.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Double our income over 2022!
3. Jill Loeffler and Aram Sohigian, SFTourismTips.com
How did you decide about the topic? Was it difficult to find a niche that excited you both?
This doesn’t apply to us as I started SFTourismTips on my own (with zero technical know-how at that time!). Aram joined in later.
How do you share the work between you and your partner? Did this happen naturally over time or was it clear from the beginning?
Since I launched my online business a few years before Aram and I met, I am the “director,” so to speak. I create a list of things we need to get done.
We use Trello, so we both know exactly what needs to get done, who’s working on it, and where we each are in the process.
Below is a screenshot of an example board from Trello’s user guide.
They offer free and paid plans. For working on your website/online business, the free plan should be sufficient.
An alternative tool would be Asana. That’s what my colleagues and I use here at SiteSell.
What do you enjoy most about working together on your business? Has it changed your relationship?
The fact that we get to be together all day. We can strategize together and determine what we need to do in order to move the business along.
Another thing we both really enjoy is that we can celebrate our victories together! 🙌
What do you find most challenging about working together on your business?
Staying on task as we share an office space. We are pretty good, but if one of us doesn’t want to work, it’s difficult not to interrupt the other person.
Perhaps our ultimate list of work from home tips can help.
What’s your top tip for a couple planning to start a website and business together?
Know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and play into those. Hire out what neither of you is good at or interested in doing.
And finally, what is your most important business goal for 2023?
Double our traffic from 2022.
Summary: What Can We Learn From These Three Entrepreneur Couples?
In a similar roundup post with insights from five other entrepreneur couples, we had identified three “golden rules” for building an online business together:
- Find a topic that you both enjoy
- Play to each other’s strengths
- Strike the right balance between business and life
Rules number two and three emerged here as well.
What else did we learn? One of the biggest challenges for growing a business as a couple is exactly the same as it is for every solopreneur… there’s never enough time to get everything done that you want to get done!
As we can’t increase the number of hours we each have available, we need to find other solutions to alleviate the time problem, like prioritizing tasks and using a project management tool like Trello.
Another way to get more done is to outsource parts of your work, especially those that you aren’t good at or don’t like doing. You might even consider hiring a virtual assistant.
The most important takeaway though, and the one that’s easy to forget, is to have fun while building your business as a couple. Take the time to celebrate your wins together, big or small!
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