Married Type-A co-founders cannot have hierarchical reporting structures
Nellie Akalp · The Couples Therapist Advice That Saved a $1M/Month Business · Jun 8, 2021 · at 15:34
Nellie Akalp, CEO of CorpNet, shares lessons learned from couples therapy on how she and her husband successfully structure their roles as co-founders.
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“As a married couple running a business together where you, you're both alpha dogs, A-type personalities, you cannot work in an environment where one person is submissive to the other person. You have to work in linear types of relationships where both people have equal footing and both people are working but not managing each other or working in the same department.”
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“Even when you go out, you can't help but bring the business into conversations. That's what really, in my opinion, starts kind of creeping in where you have to maintain really strict boundaries as to keeping it out. Because at one point you look back and you'r…”
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“For a married couple who works together, who parents together, who owns a business together, it's really important that you seek therapy together. There's so many issues that come in and they can all be enmeshed. They can all kind of cross. It's important to h…”
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“We grew that company to where it was nearly doing a million dollars in gross sales revenues per month.”
Nellie Akalp's first startup was acquired by a public company in 2005
“Fast forward to 2005, we were acquired by a publicly traded company.”
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“And I think that's really where the magic happens is that he's more the idea guy. He's more the visionary. I'm the one who executes on his ideas because of my background in operations and sales and marketing. It's a really, really good partnership.”
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“And with the first company, I don't even really think we work that hard. The business kind of grew itself to the point where then the acquisition happened. So in my opinion, really where I saw most of my efforts, most of his efforts, most of the struggles, and…”