A family affair?

While the first quote is a bit romantic and the second one is intended to get a laugh or two, they bring up similar point about marriage. Whatever the state of the matrimonial bond – good, bad, or somewhere in-between – throw two spouses into something as challenging as starting a business and, well, you’ve got something. What that something is isn’t only determined by the aforementioned state of the marriage. It also depends upon the partners’ expectations of the business endeavor.

All this month, we’ve been putting the term “entrepreneur” under the microscope. We’ve looked at how local organizations help people start businesses and we’ve seen how women go far beyond the role of mompreneur to make their work dreams come true. For this, our final week, we examine what can happen when spouses join forces to start a business. We also talk to one local husband and wife team and get their take on what it takes to be successful at home and at work.

The good and the bad

A recent Workplace Options study stated that 84 percent of Millennials say that they are open to the possibility of engaging in an inter-office relationship, compared to just 36 percent of Generation X workers and 29 percent of Baby Boomers. Therefore, it’s not earth-shattering news that many people who decide to tie the knot have met at work. Having worked together, these spouses probably share similar skill sets and abilities, so it would be a natural fit for them to start a business? According to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), more than 1.4 million businesses in the U.S. are run by a husband-and-wife team - and that number is constantly rising. But even though modern attitudes regarding workplace relationships are evolving, that doesn’t necessarily mean all husbands and wives will be a successful team. So, what are the pros and cons of starting a business with your spouse?

In a word, it’s about space. We can lose that feeling of separation between our work lives and personal lives, which might become an issue. When you’re working with your mate, you share a level of intimacy that’s unparalleled with even the closest business partners. The flip side: you might feel suffocated by the closeness, like you can never get away from your “business partner.” This can lead to problems when it comes to everything from having frank discussions with your partner about how your work relationship is affecting your personal relationship, finances, and even how one spouse’s productivity, or lack thereof, is affecting the other spouse and the business.

So how can we fan the flames of success while sidestepping the pitfalls of starting a business with our spouse? Let’s look to a local couple that is doing just that.

The Sky’s (and Madison’s) the limit

Along with their co-founder and CEO Keaton George, Sky and Madison McClure are COO and Chief Science Officer & Speech-Language Pathologist, respectively, of Cortex Therapy Solutions. It’s a neuro-tech startup company dedicated to equipping those living with various disorders and deficits with highly-accessible and effective therapy solutions in order to improve and enrich their quality of life. Based in Denton, TX, the company is currently partnered with an experienced development firm as well as a major research university, both of whom will be instrumental in helping us develop and test Cortex in clinical trials. “Our flagship product, Cortex, is a mobile platform that provides supplemental therapy activities for speech-language pathologists and the more than 65.4 million Americans who suffer from a communication, cognition, or swallowing disorder from a​ ​stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia,” said Sky McClure. “With Cortex, our goal is to improve therapy progress and sustain therapy maintenance while driving down skyrocketing healthcare costs attributed with traditional therapy models.”

Not only are the McClures married, but added to the mix is that Keaton is Madison’s brother. Add it all up and the three of them working together have made for a very unique backstory for this young upstart. “I think the first challenge that we quickly ran into was learning how to operate effectively as a team,” said Sky McClure. “We have three very strong personalities, and each of us brings our own natural strengths, weaknesses, perspectives, and vocational backgrounds. Fortunately, since we’re family, we had a head start on knowing how each person operates. The ‘team dynamic’ curve for us was relatively short for that reason. It was a bit comical, at first -- you tend to see a whole new side of someone when you work with them, and that holds true even when you’re family. But once we had an opportunity to witness those other facets, address, and leverage them into advantages, things really started clicking for us. Clearly identifying each other’s assets, roles, and visions made all the difference.”

Another big piece of the puzzle that makes their situation work is that the McClures commitment to each other remains intact. “Madison and I have been married for seven years, and together for nearly twelve. As high school sweethearts, we’ve each played a pivotal role in how the other grew into the people we are now. We are two very different people -- I literally think we’re the exact opposite on every psycho-personality assessment. But no matter how much we disagree on something, our love and commitment to each other always remains. We’ve had a lot of practice at this, and because of that, we’ve learned the importance of constantly yielding to one another through love and grace (especially when it comes to regarding someone’s strengths over the other’s in a particular situation). I know that Madison is the realist in our marriage, the practical and responsible one -- and things aren’t any different on our team. She’s the voice of reason, the one who calms us down and brings everything into perspective when my head gets into the clouds or Keaton’s into the weeds. Quite frankly, she’s the rock in our relationship, and the rock of our company, too,” said Sky McClure.

Finally, the McClures know that their business and personal lives will always co-exist. The secret is to manage expectations and take a break every now and again from the work. “With Madison working on her Cortex responsibilities at night and on the weekends, and with my obsessive-tunnel-vision mindset, we have countless late night huddles, car-ride board meetings, and pillow-talk strategy sessions. It’s wonderful and challenging at the same time. Every so often we have to take a “Cortex break”, and intentionally carve out several hours where we’re not talking about anything Cortex related,” Sky McClure said. “But without a doubt, this experience has brought us closer together. We’ve always had a marriage founded on our faith, but Cortex has forced us to put our faith into practice by exercising trust in the face of risk, adversity, and exhaustion -- which has ultimately strengthened our marriage beyond anything we were expecting.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2018 at 12:01 AM with the headline "A family affair?."