So there’s a small problem with running a company with your friends and family.

Friends, close friends, know a lot of intimate things about my life whether I want them to or not. For one, our Operations guys know my salary. They know the salaries of my brothers. Heck, I know THEIR salaries. Also, because I work with my brothers and my dad, there’s a lot of ::ahem:: “Family Dynamics” on display in the company. Basically, a lot of airing out of the dirty laundry.

As I get older I think more and more about how valuable it is to have privacy for me and my wife. Which is why it’s ironic I write this out in a public blog post. Loss of my privacy came gradually as the company grew. At some point, it was more valuable for me to manage than to run payroll, so now we got a guy to do that. At some point, I stopped doing HR activities. Now someone handles my 401k and investments. The list goes on and on.

This trend of “more people know my life” is only going to pick up steam as the company grows. Nuthin’ to do about it.

Nothing really actionable about this, just griping.

 

Well, seriously, there’s a few clues. When Dom and I paused to reflect on the core reasons for success, we realized that it came from a lot of wrong-minded decisions early-on.

Start-ups are organized experiments of a theoretical businesses or products. If the experiments produce a successful product or business model, you have a winner. Oftentimes, it’s a null result.

This company was founded by Dom and I.

Dom and I were running a business for the first time, and we made a lot of mistakes. A LOT OF MISTAKES, and having friends and family work with us gave us the relationship latitude to bounce-back from those mistakes where complete strangers probably would have quit a long time ago.

Moreover, it allowed our new employees to grow and take on way more responsibility than they ever had, and in doing so they “proved themselves” able to tackle the massive tasks in a growing company.

In the end, this company’s foundation is based on friends and family coming together, and the new folks who join us experience that sense of camaraderie and friendship. It’s not Michael Scott, but it’s close.

3.) Business is Personal

Dom and I have a thin skin on client’s moods and their needs. We never built up a sense of entitlement that we saw a lot of our colleagues had in the space. Every criticism was a personal wound to us.

Those are the things I think helped us get here. They’re not magical – honestly #3 is a little trite and I’ve seen it written dozens of times somewhere else. But that’s part of our motto – “Do Good, Be Good.” When you do good work, you are being good – to your people, your clients, and yourself.

 

Feel free to hit me up anytime. I’m hanging out mostly in the Tribune Tower these days, so come on by.