Many of us know how much a partner can help with creating a great business. Apple had Jobs and Woz. Google has Larry and Sergey. Basecamp has Jason and David. And for years, I’ve had the help of a really awesome partner: my wife, Lynette. We’ve been together for over 16 years. She’s been there for tons of hard decisions about work or life in general.
One easy to point out example is Draft. A project I’ve been blessed to receive an incredible amount of praise about. But, I had a secret weapon, Lynette.
She was the biggest reason I created Draft to begin with. I needed her help editing my writing and blog posts. She’s the best editor I’ve ever met, and I was sick of passing Word documents back and forth with her. Of course, then she was the first person to tell me when something was wrong or confusing. She helped me prioritize. She had great ideas how to improve the product. I could get her help with anything. But we’ve had a setback in our work relationship. This little one, Addison, entered our lives. :)
Addison is everything to us. But as most parents understand, she comes with complications. Everything has become harder. Leaving to go outside? That takes planning and unforeseen obstacles. You thought you were ready to go? Here, take a dirty diaper. Now are we ready? Nope, needs to nurse. Now are we ready? Damn, now it’s nap time. Maybe we’ll try to go somewhere tomorrow.
Another complication is that it’s been harder to get Lynette’s help with anything related to my work on things like Highrise. Lynette’s swamped with her own job and being an awesome mom. And we’re too busy to deal with work when we’re together. We have filled any free time with new, incredibly rewarding things: teaching Addison to talk and read and share and everything.
But it does impact the quality of what I’m able to accomplish at work. We’ve gained an incredible amount, but in the process I’ve lost my work partner. It’s frustrating, but you know what? I have the resources to change this….
I’d like to introduce to you the new Chief Operating Officer of Highrise, Lynette Kontny.
We’ve debated this for awhile, making sure it was the right move for us and Highrise. Given our ability to collaborate over the years though, and the attention Highrise needs, this was a pretty easy decision.
Lynette was both excited and sad to announce she was leaving her job, as she enjoyed a ton of it it. I overheard her phone conversations with colleagues as she announced she was leaving. They were sad too, letting her know she was doing the job of 5 other people. But now, Highrise gets to benefit from having Lynette in its corner.
If you are a Highrise customer, you are lucky! Lynette started this week, and you’ll begin to see her work all over Highrise and our ability to get impactful things done quickly. Even being here two days, she’s taken a ton of important things off my plate I was having trouble getting done. If you aren’t a Highrise customer, now would be a great time. :) Things are really getting interesting.
We are thrilled to have Lynette. I can’t describe how awesome it is to get my work partner back.
P.S. There’s a lot going on at Highrise. Lynette isn’t the only new addition. We also have had some more really great people join the team, and we’ll make introductions in the near future. If you want to follow the Highrise journey, my Twitter account is a good place. You should follow me: here.
Tim
on 18 Aug 15Not to sound rude but isn’t it fairly extreme to hire a persons spouse for an executive position – regardless of the size of the company … and especially at a company I assume Nathan doesn’t own.
Leslie
on 19 Aug 15@Tim – Nope. :)
@Nathan – Love the story and good choice. My wife & I do the same thing, going on 12 years now through 3 different companies, working on a 4th. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Kim
on 19 Aug 15Awesome. Hope the relationship & the business just keep growing & improving. Congratulations!
Devan
on 19 Aug 15@Tim – Nope. Nathan calls the shots at Highrise and can hire anyone who can do the job required. There are two full time people in MY business: Me, and my wife. Actually, yesterday, my 12 year old son also ‘contracted’ to me to do some data entry work for a project. Basically, anybody who willing, able, and cares enough about my business to help out gets a job :)
Working with family has its ups and downs, but over the years, the ups have far outweighed the downs.
Nathan
on 19 Aug 15Thanks @Leslie!
And thanks for the comment @Tim. Not quite sure what you mean by extreme though. Maybe you mean:
Heck yeah it’s very great! :)
But I feel like you mean something else. Maybe you mean unconventional? Also heck yes it’s unconventional.
Just to provide a bit more context. About a year ago, Basecamp spun off Highrise as a separate company. It was a spin-off without a team. I had to create one from scratch from outsiders who had no history inside Basecamp or Highrise. You can imagine some of the challenges we have taking over a business like this with a brand new team, and product that at once was in a blue ocean where Highrise was doing some very novel things people weren’t doing yet in 2006. Now the CRM space is nuts. A bloody red ocean with lots of great competition. And we need to bring this company back to new glory. But I need to do some unconventional things. Doing whatever everyone else is doing isn’t going to work. How we build things, how we communicate them, and how we build this team.
So yeah, I’m looking to bring some new momentum to this company as fast as possible. And I know how hard and well Lynette works. It would be silly to pass up an opportunity to get her talent here just because most people don’t hire their spouses.
But let me also share a few more things:
We didn’t enter this quickly. We’ve debated this for many months. Talked it over with a ton of people. Especially with Jason and David.
Also, most people running businesses who I asked this of actually said something like this: “I wish I could hire my spouse, but we just don’t get along on things like that.” Oh man, that’s too bad. But I also know Lynette and I do an awesome job with things like this.
We’ve learned a lot about each other over our 16+ years. She was there shopping with me at Hobby Lobby when the two of us came up with the idea we could make our own flip-flops and sell them online. Didn’t get big, but turned into something I passed to my Mom who has fun running it. She was there helping me figure out how to get in Y Combinator in 2005 to create a business that still runs today. She was the first one I called when my second stint in Y Combinator in 2011 was falling to pieces and helped me figure out what to do next. She’s been my adviser and mentor through all of it.
So really, she’s already been a huge part of this company from the beginning just by bringing me on board. Just hadn’t been official.
Nathan
on 19 Aug 15@Devan! Exactly. That’s awesome.
Jackie
on 19 Aug 15@Nathan
Do you own Highrise or is it still entirely owned by Jason/DHH?
I’m confused.
Nathan
on 19 Aug 15@Jackie: Highrise is a subsidiary owned by Basecamp.
Michael
on 19 Aug 15Very cool. It’s a desire of mine to work side by side with my wife beyond managing our family.
Also, I added the Highrise blog to my reader and I love seeing the frequent updates again after so many years!
Nathan
on 19 Aug 15Thanks @Michael! That is very awesome. We’ll be filling that reader up with some news about very cool things soon. :)
Jennifer
on 19 Aug 15@Nathan Congrats to both of you! My husband and I have worked together for 14+ years. It’s awesome. I’m CEO, he’s the Chief Creative. We have a photo and video content creation company. Love using Highrise for our business and can’t wait to see what’s next. Thx for giving it your all. PS: We have a two yo and a 4yo and yes, some days it’s easier to stay home! But it all works out. :-)
Daphne Bayne
on 19 Aug 15Good luck with your new ‘hire’ ! I’m sure it will work, we also work together on our small businesses and over the last 20 years have had assistance from our sons, especially in good at finding services such as Highrise for us.
The new improvements are also great.
Robert Brewer
on 19 Aug 15My wife and I worked together for years, and still do on lots of projects. After years, when it was most intense, we had to declare a “company free zone”, aka..the bedroom. We both slept better when we knew there was at least one place we could just relax without the other partner (the company) showing up…nice to know your closest associate has all of your interests at heart. Congrats.
Keep up the good work, love the product!
Robert
John
on 19 Aug 15I’ll VERY respectfully express a contrarian viewpoint:
If a medium to large company I held significant financial interest in did this (CEO appoints their spouse COO), I’d really consider divesting until I saw how it shook out.
Not saying it can’t work for you both extremely well, (and I sincerely & truly hope for you two & we users that it does) however I think there’s the potential for downside for we users if it doesn’t. This isn’t a mom & pop small business. Per Jason Fried (founder of Basecamp – Highrise’s founder before it’s sale ± last August) “Highrise generates multi-million dollar annual profits” – As such, & especially given the position Highrise occupies in many companies’ infrastructures, I would suspect many of us would ideally want more diversity at the executive level in case something unforeseen happens (eg; life events which affect you both).
Also, while perhaps Lynette was a former COO of another tech company and/or has a track record of success & innovation that would compel clients or investors that this was a move benefitting them? Or some other reason she couldn’t be brought on in a different executive team advisory position & someone else be tapped as COO? And maybe the Highrise executive team is already comprised of MANY executive level positions that offer we users & any investors the peace of mind of diversity? (or maybe what’s in a title anymore anyway?) But I didn’t read any of that here.
Regardless, obviously it’s entirely your call to make & I again sincerely wish you all the best. Congratulations Lynette.
PS: And HUGE congratulations on your baby! – extremely precious. Bless you all.
Tristan Bailey
on 20 Aug 15I wish you and your wife success with the business. I would agree with some of the other comments though. The way you wrote the post which may not be how things happened was that you persuaded your wife to leave a job she liked to support you. That you felt a bit lost with the volume of work without her to sort it for you. Rather than you just needed another business person in your company to help and she wanted to fill this role. It sounded more like you were frustrated at the times when she wasn’t around. I am sure you will work well together as you are married and so the connection is obvious. Just be careful not to fall for the trap of living inside your business as you will not each have so much outside business and home to share, with just one company to work for. Also for many other people if you both work for the same company it can be a money risk. Maybe ask her to write a passage for your blog in the future to follow an update of how you have progressed the business. Wish you both success.
Matt
on 21 Aug 15My wife and I have worked together for many years now. We have our business-on and business-off faces. It’s worked well for us.
DAVID
on 24 Aug 15I am sure you will work well together as you are married and so the connection is obvious. Just be careful not to fall for the trap of living inside your business as you will not each have so much outside business and home to share, with just one company to work for. Van chuyen hang nhat
Anonymous Coward
on 25 Aug 15My wife joined my startup this month as employee #4. My co-founder & I talked it over and concluded that it was a no-brainier. Bootstrapping and family business are a natural fit. Per Devon—everyone needs to have a strong, vested interest in the company’s success.
I can also attest that it’s great for your marriage when your spouse is fully up-to-speed on your company’s Slack chan in-jokes.
Pliny
on 25 Aug 15^ Anon Coward, that’s me
This discussion is closed.