Ask HN: Do any HNers work with their significant others? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do any HNers work with their significant others?

1 pointCoreSet2 comments

Learning to code, I've come across more than one boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife pair that possessed complementary web skills (some overlap of development, design, and copywriting).

I'm currently a writer in a tech-ish field learning development, while my girlfriend is finishing her MS in Information Science on the UI/UX track (she's also big on design). Of course it's crossed our mind to start looking for freelance assignments together, or start billing ourselves as a mini-agency, but we're not sure about whether it's a good idea in practice.

It has its drawbacks (money, stress of freelancing, etc) and its advantages (shared vacations, schedules, etc.).

Has anyone on HN tried it, for better or worse? What's it like to run a little mini-agency, found a company, or just work together freelancing with your partner?

View on HN

I finished my job three months ago, and my wife and I are working on a startup together. I'm learning to code, she's about to start, and we're planning the business together. Since we're both lawyers, we're also planning our law firm together (extend our runway).

I figure cofounders are practically married anyway. You might as well actually be married.

Suppose we were both in the same company, but only one of us in the company leadership. It would be a little funny, maybe, to have an "in" with the person in the leadership. I like that my SO is also my co-founder. Fewer lines of influence to keep track of. Larry is now CEO of Google, but they'll always be Larry and Sergei - the cofounder relationship never goes away.

I've heard people say to "keep your money and your honey separate", but sex isn't magic and girls don't have cooties. Lots of friends aren't suitable to work together, lots of couples aren't suitable to work together. We met on a project in law school, which was a hint we'd be cool working together.

I've met at least one other couple who runs multiple enterprises together and has done for many years. I find that encouraging.

Right now, I'm further along with coding. She's got great networking skills. We're enjoying the advantages of seeing each other a lot. When the startup takes over our lives, I think it'll be helpful that we share it. We have a very calm, open way of communicating, so I think we'll do okay with all the stresses of high-speed, low-info decision-making and other crap that comes with starting a company.

I dunno, don't really have any negatives, but to be fair it's early days. We like it though. Good luck!

Great post. Thanks for responding! Very encouraging.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com