If you're sleeping with the boss (or the boss is sleeping with you), you need to know about this...

DO YOU OWN A BUSINESS WITH YOUR HUSBAND/WIFE/PARTNER/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
 
If so, you are brave and lucky individual.
 
Lucky because you get to run a business with the most important person in your life.
 
Brave because there's a good chance your relationship will be destroyed when it augers into the dirt like a drunk in squirrel suit hurling himself off a cliff in the Swiss alps.
 
Did you know that 57% of all couplepreneur businesses end in business failure AND divorce?
 
Did you also know that your faithful scribe just pulled that statistic out of thin air?
 
YES, THAT STATISTIC IS A LIE
 
As far as you know.
 
But it brings up an important question: how the hell do entrepreneurial couples make it work?
 
The Fabulous Honey Parker and I are constantly asking ourselves that question even as we run a business together.
 
From our lofty writers' perch here at the Mountaintop Marketing Fortress, we peer down into the world of entrepreneurial couples across the land and wonder, "Does anyone have louder, more vehement, knock-down, drag-out arguments about comma placement than we do?"
 
Professional writers in business together. You certainly can't say that we don't care about our product.
 
CALL US THE BILL & MELINDA GATES OF SMALL-BUSINESS BRANDING
 
No, we're not multi-billionaires.
 
Nor is either one of us a propeller-head overlord intent on ruling the world through domination of zeroes and ones.
 
But like the Gateses, we are a married (ahem) "power" couple who've joined forces to make the world a better place--but through small-business branding.
 
And as Mrs. Gates says about her partnership with Mr. Gates, "We have a collaborative relationship, but we don't spend every minute together."
 
Of course, Honey and I probably spend more time together than they do, engaging in various kinds of lunacy that Bill and Melinda might eschew. It's hard to imagine the fearless leaders of the Gates Foundation training for wilderness endurance races together.

CAN YOU SAY, "BRING ME THE EPSOM SALTS, DEAR"?
 
Anyway, there is a point to all this.
 
Not that both working and playing together is somehow the be-all and end-all of professional perfection.
 
Though, there is something to be said for being able to do all this with your best friend on earth.
 
However, if you do own a business with your significant other--or you know a couple who does so--you know that such an undertaking is a glorious minefield.
 
You think everything's going along swimmingly and then--KABLOOM! Professional and personal body parts everywhere.
 
HOW DO BILL & MELINDA GATES DO IT?
 
Or Brangelina? (Apparently Angelina directed Brad in By The Sea and they found it really difficult. But they survived and are stronger for it.)
 
Or Beyoncé and Jay-Z? (In the wake of rumors about marital trouble on their On The Run tour, they renewed their vows and released a new album. They survived and are stronger for it.)
 
Or any of the thousands of other non-power couples who run little businesses all across this great nation of ours and survive the daily BS and are stronger for it?
 
How do they keep the ship afloat despite doing one of the most insanely inadvisable things in business: sleeping with the boss.

Especially when you're not sure who the boss really is? 

KABLOOM!

(You might think that I'm the boss in this business, since Honey routinely calls me, "Mr. Parker." You would be entirely wrong.)
 
WHAT IS THE SECRET TO A CRACK COUPLE IN BUSINESS TOGETHER? 
 
This is the question that The Fabulous Honey Parker and your relentless scribe have been asking.
 
And knowing how to have a violent throwdown about comma placement is definitely not the answer. Or even part of it. (Though it certainly makes for a good story over cocktails.)
 
We've learned by doing.
 
But there has to be a better way.
 
This is why your relentless scribe now poses this question: what would you like to know about working with your husband/wife/significant other?
 
Are you in such a business/relationship now?
 
Would you like to be?
 
IF YOU'RE NOT OR YOU DON'T, DO YOU JUST STAND ON THE SIDELINES?
 
Are you watching the couples who are doing it and just shaking your head?
 
Do you think they are insane?
 
Do you envy them?
 
Do you wish they had better comma placement skills?
 
What is the single burning question on your mind about couplepreneurism?
 
Send it our way, because The Fabulous Honey Parker and I are grappling with this challenge right now, this very minute.
 
AND THE RESULTS ARE GOING TO BE A WHOLE LOT OF FUN
 
Yesterday, September 5, Labor Day 2016, we officially launched a project called CoupleCo. 

Tagline: It's business...and it's personal.

CoupleCo is an entrepreneur's resource for married couples or significant others who have started a business together. 

And right now, we need to know what a couple (like you if that is you) in business together needs and would like to see. 

And since you know that we here at the Fortress have a very hard time not enjoying what we do, there will be laughs. Frequently there is entertainment. 

Even if you're not in business with your life partner but have flirted with the idea--or think we're all just crazy--talk to us.
 
If you know someone who fits the bill, share this missive with him/her/them.

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