Tuesday, August 25, 2009

So I Married an Entrepreneur

I can't say I wasn't warned. Within an hour of meeting my very drunk yet still very charming future husband, I heard all about his plans to start his own business one day. He was rambling and had just attempted to walk into oncoming traffic, but he spoke with such conviction about his entrepreneurial dreams that I knew he was serious. Over the next four years of our courtship I kept telling myself he'd grow up and come to accept the practical path of a steady, benefits-providing job and all this talk of starting his own company would stay just that- talk. I discouraged his ideas (which in my defense, were generally ill-thought out, impractical, or already existing) and enthusiastically helped him prepare for job interviews. By the time he graduated with his B.B.A. in Finance he had a job with a major oil company in Houston, we were planning to get married, and I was thrilled to see him on a traditional career path.

I was wrong. Wrong to think he'd given up his entrepreneurial dreams and wrong to wish he would. For the most part my discouragement was well placed. He needed a heavy dose of practicality, something his mother never introduced in his life, and I think the lessons he learned while working for larger companies will help him in starting his own. He also never had a business idea worth pursuing. But I still feel bad for how much I hoped he'd stop trying to come up with one. After four years of working, he set out to get his MBA purely to get out of a desk job and "find someone with a good idea." Last September, over a dinner of hamburgers and pasta salad, one of our close friends and ex-UT teammate provided him with just that. He had just returned from the Beijing Olympics and was retiring from professional swimming. He had some money and an idea, and he needed a business-minded partner to put everything in motion. He looked at JP and said "Let's start a swim school."

After seven years together I had accepted that JP's career needs were radically different from my own. While the financial risk involved with starting my own company terrified me, JP found it to be a source of excitement and motivation. However, I still thought he'd work a regular post-MBA job for a few years while we paid down our loans and he figured out what his hypothetical company would be. I most definitely did not think he'd be starting this company while in grad school, immediately after I had started my demanding new career. After all, it was his turn to be the flexible parent. It was my turn to occasionally come home to dinner and folded laundry. I was a full-time associate at a major law firm- I was supposed to be the busier one.

But for once, I could think of nothing obviously wrong with the idea and soon found myself lending a supportive voice to the meetings at our kitchen table. After several business plan revisions, he and his partners have formed a swim school to teach kids of every age, from initial water safety to the finer points of stroke technique and training. They have a pool, experienced instructors, and an enthusiastic fan base. JP has done all the business work- forming the LLC, meeting with lawyers and tax advisers, keeping the books, managing payroll, scheduling lessons, and answering the phones. Everything. It has been difficult, to say the very least, to balance all of this with business school, my job, Landon, and our family life, and there have been some late nights and tense conversations between the two of us. But it's working. They're doing so well and this is such a perfect opportunity for him- combining his passion and knowledge of swimming with his skills as a businessman, negotiator, and coach.

I still get scared about the uncertainty of it all, but with the recent economic turmoil and law firms conducting mass layoffs, I suppose nothing is certain. I do believe in their idea and it's been fun to play the part of cheerleader rather than dream crusher, as JP used to lovingly call me. And of course it helps that I make enough to support our family for the foreseeable, carefully budgeted future. As co-head of a hopefully growing family, JP couldn't pursue this without me and my paycheck and that makes me feel proud and slightly less guilty about my old nickname.

After some debate, JP's returning to U.T. tomorrow to finish his MBA. It's going to be hard- even harder than last year when they were planning their business, because now they're operating one. I spent a while dreading it, but after lots of talks, including one alone with his business partner, I'm... well, not at peace, but at least not dreading it as much. I know we'll make it work and we'll be fine, I just don't want to be irritated for 8 months. I don't want to blame him for not having any free time when it's all necessary work and he still manages to be an amazing husband and father. It's not like he's out with some drinking buddies or golfing on the weekends- he's building a business and earning a masters degree. But I still get mad (or "prickly" as JP has dubbed it). I hate when his phone is constantly ringing and he's up until 2 a.m. doing the books and payroll. I can't sleep without him next to me, and since I can't yell at the insomnia I end up yelling at him. I don't want to do that. Sometimes I think bitterly that I would never do this to my family- add the pressure of a new business along with school, but then I remember that I'd never want to and if I did JP would support me 100%.

It's going to be a difficult year, but we've had others. Part of me still wishes JP would be happy in a normal job with predictable hours and without regular evening and weekend commitments, but all of me knows he wouldn't and most of me is okay with that. And I'm tremendously proud of all the work he's done and the praise their little company has already received from parents and swimmers. Eight years after a drunken conversation on the sidewalks of 6th street he's living his dream and I'm so happy for him.

15 comments:

  1. What I hear you saying is that you, like many other people attracted to law, are naturally more risk adverse. I grew up with a Dad who ran his own business. From an early age, I helped with the books and such and learned what a seat-of-your-pants kind of guy my dad was. There was no LLC, no tax advisers, no lawyers for us. I'm happy for you and JP. It *is* hard. But my Dad would have been miserable working for someone else, and I love that you see that its better for JP to live the dream.

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  2. I married Manoj when he had already started his first company (a very successful company that later on, controlling investors would run into the frocking GROUND - important lessons learned there, Oh My God. At least Manoj had already left the company before they ruined it.) While the lifestyle IS scary, I knew what I was getting into and try not to complain.

    If you even need to vent, I am your ear. I support Manoj 100% in his ventures, but it is still hard sometimes. I, too, wish sometimes that he would get a regular 9-5 with benefits. I wish that he would take a VACATION - even our honeymoon was ruined by an emergency at a client site. However, CEOs (at least mine) does not take vacations.

    But I also know that if I asked him to take that cushy corporate job, I would be stunting him mentally, emotionally and professionally.

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  3. I can totally relate to being the "dream crusher". My husband has said a couple of times he might like to start his own business someday and I smile and say "great idea" but on the inside I'm hoping hoping hoping that he forgets about it. It's scary! But it sounds like JP is being careful and smart about it (thanks to your selective discouraging too), so that's good.

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  4. Once again, I can totally relate to this! My hubby has been a student since we met, I have been the one with the steady job, the benefits, etc. He is ALWAYS busy, which leaves me to do a lot of the family stuff - the cooking, the childcare, the laundry folding - while he balances school and a FT job. I vacilate between admiring his determination and ability to balance it all so well and anger and resentment at feeling like I'm the "responsible" one (I know, right? How irresponsible of him to get a doctorate and work full time). I didn't say my feelings were rational. But, I hear you.

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  5. Keep up the great work!! I like your writing style!

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  6. I'm also married to a natural entrepreneur. Something about that restless spirit, always questing for the next challenging thing, is very exciting. (And also sometimes scary! LOL)

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  7. I can relate to wanting to be the dream crusher! My DH is a professor and I can't tell you how many times I wish he would get a well paying job with regular hours. So often, I have wished that he'd leave academia and make things easier for the family. Yeah, he's living his dream etc. etc. but I hate being the primary breadwinner in the family and how that limits my own flexibility. The good thing with a business is that it can be lucrative and the short term sacrafice might well be worth it - and JP always has that MBA to fall back on if the business doesn't work out.

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  8. It IS a great idea for a business (and a positive, practical, and useful service at that) AND they've got the added bonus of being experienced in competitive swimming. I understand the scary parts, but overall it sounds like a good thing. Hang in there.

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  9. How exciting! And how wonderful that he's hit upon something that sounds like a perfect fit.

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  10. I can relate! My boyfriend always wanted to start his own firm and I kind of flipped my lid when he did it this spring. I hate not having two steady incomes right now when before we were sitting nice and pretty with both of our salaries, but I also know his firm was killing him and he's so happy out on his own. I just hope it works - and works well enough he can hire someone else to do bookkeeping soon!

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  11. Good for you and JP. You are wise beyond your years. Your marriage will be better for weathering, surviving and thriving through the challenges. These are the opportunities for both of you to define what you're looking for at this moment. Wish you the best. You will survive the next 8 months.

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  12. I'm sort of the opposite of you. I would love to have a normal 9-5 with benefits and want nothing more, but the legal market is so dismal I cannot afford to scrape by volunteering and doing lower- paying contract work any more. So despite thinking I would NEVER go solo, I did, and my spouse (who is a law student) was completely supportive, even though it is nice to have a stable earner when you're a student (as he was when I was a law student). Yes, it is scary, and no, I am in no way financially stable yet, but I am way better off than I was before (and earning money!). So you never know what position you might find yourself in. I'm glad you were able to keep an open mind and swallow whatever fears you may have had and take the leap of faith that this would work out.

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  13. Man, do I relate to this! I think it must be something about how opposites attract...like butterflyfish said, lawyers seek stability and structure, so maybe something in us finds the risk and uncertainty of entrepreneurship exciting and attractive. Probably because we would never do that ourselves. I'm still crushing dreams, but I actually would love it if PJO came up with an idea that lends itself as well to starting a business as what JP is doing. Good luck to you both this year... it will be hard but that will make the reward even sweeter! I'm so impressed by everything he's done already!

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  14. Love it!

    My husband is kind of the dream crusher, and I'm the stars-in-her-eyes one. Even though I'm the aspiring lawyer! I think it's wonderful, what both of you are doing. That's, er, all I have to say at this point, but can't wait to hear how it all goes!

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  15. Would love to know the name/location of the swim school. I live in Austin and have 2 kids who take swim lessons.

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