It’s Not Rocket Science, But It Is Hard to Do


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Remember when the Mars Climate Orbiter disintegrated in the Mars atmosphere because some part of the trajectory was calculated using English units instead of metric units?  We think this is the perfect analogy for what can happen in a relationship.  It takes a lot of arithmetic to make a successful flight, and being involved in an entrepreneurial endeavor can cause an enormous amount of external atmospheric pressure on a marriage.  Human errors and failures of communication can be fatal.

We’re hoping to create a community for people to share their own successes as well as tales of crashing and burning.

We want to say at the outset that by marriage we mean any committed relationship, and that we fully support the right of our LGBT friends to have the same legal benefits afforded by the marriage contract as we do, even though we’re not certain why the government confers any benefits at all.

We cared so little about the legal part of marriage that we didn’t actually get a marriage license until three years after we eloped to Alaska.  We didn’t claim any tax deductions, insurance benefits, or even free spousal rental car privileges during that time, but it didn’t change the essential nature of our connection to have a piece of paper from the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.  We will discuss all of the nuances around the definition of marriage as we go along.

There are a lot of big juicy topics that we’re planning to cover, such as:

    • Work and Love (Hat tip to Dr. Freud)
    • Core Values, or What Compatibility Really Means
    • Communication
    • Gender
    • Identity and Intimacy
    • You Can Have It All, Just Not All at the Same Time; or “It’s easy for you because you don’t have children.”
    • Priorities – Actions Speak Louder Than Words
    • Talk About It, But Not Too Much
    • Cardinal Virtues (Patience, assuming good intent, benefit of the doubt)
    • Introvert / Extrovert
    • Early Bird / Night Owl
    • You Knew What You Were Getting Into; or How to Renegotiate Initial Expectations
    • Nice Guys Finish First / Try a Little Tenderness
    • How Public Do You Want to Be?
    • Health and Fitness: Moderate vs. Maniac
    • Cheerleader / Critic
    • Work / Play
    • Success / Failure
    • Happiness
    • Tales from the Edge:  Near Misses
    • Calling It Quits
And that should get us started.
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  • wapping99

    Startup Marriage is an excellent idea. If one was to condense the stream of start-up / tech blogs, in my view one is left with the notion that family life / marriage will have to take a major back seat from Day 1 until Exit. It will be a great help to many people to open this subject up for more nuanced reflection and debate. Perhaps this will even save some marriages and in the process save the emotional well being of business team members / founders / VC’s. It think the anecdotal evidence shows that it takes around 4 years to get over a divorce and get back to a fruitful work life. Perhaps there is some more scientific data on this that you can bring to light. Even if this is half right, it’s a big hit for any company to take if a team member is off their game for so long. So for good humane reasons and for pragmatic business reasons, the aims of this project are sound and timely.

  • @carrie_kane

    I have not been involved on a start-up; however I have been involved in a failed marriage. Amy and Brad, I look forward to reading each post. I really enjoy your writing style. -Carrie

  • http://meometer.com Geoffrey

    Love this list!

    In fact, I grabbed Colette to share.

    She nodded and “ooh”ed as she read.

    Can’t wait for more.

  • http://twitter.com/tevslin Tom Evslin

    Hi Amy:

    How do Mary and I join the “community for people to share their own successes as well as tales of crashing and burning”. We’ve had a 32-year startup marriage (2d for both of us); were doing startups before the marriage and didn’t stop. Topics we’d add to your excellent list:

    . Sleeping with the boss (and what to tell the sexual harassment consultant about it)
    . No one to bitch to
    . It’s nepotism, get over it
    . Kids (we have three and made lots of mistakes. they’re startups, too)
    . Staff meetings with spouses at the table
    . Business travel alone and together
    . Solo endeavors for the startup couple.

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      Feel free to write anything you want and email it to me to post on the blog (brad@feld.com). We are going to include a bunch of stuff in the book from other folks so I encourage you to draft up anything on any topics. You can also put it up on your blog and send me a link and I’ll connect to it that way. Whatever is best for you – we are just getting as much stuff out there as we can right now.

  • http://gravatar.com/stevehallock stevehallock

    Looking forward to this. I am an entrepreneur and my wife is an artist. We run into issues all the time, mostly dealt with smoothly but occasionally not so. It is an interesting topic that is often overlooked.

    By the way, my wife and I share the same story with the wedding license. We eloped a while back, now have a 6 month old baby, and still have no real urgency to go to the courthouse. No back off on it either – it will probably happen one day when we’re having lunch in the neighborhood and stroll over.

  • http://twitter.com/brianylim Brian Lim

    Your analogy is a very valid one: mis-calibration leads to a total mess.

    I’ve worked at NASA-JPL for 8 years, and I have designed hardware currently orbiting Mars, Saturn, and Earth. I think rocket science is much easier than relationships.

    The laws of physics for interplanetary rocket science are stable. It’s a one-sided problem: scientists and engineers just have to figure it out. Planetary movement probably won’t change during our lifetime, and they don’t care what we do. Per your analogy, relationships within teams can lead to proud moments and failures, but logic and reason will lead to solutions for the mission objectives.

    Personal relationships are two sided, dynamic, and with very short time constants. I’ve led my family through 5 startups in 4 cities and 7 houses. We’ve also had a bunch of ups and downs, but the love we share seems to grow. I just checked, and Michelle agrees. In many of our harder moments, I think logic and reason would have made the problems worse because these tools lead to an emotional blockade that prevents effective communications. I’ve seen too many excellent engineers with failed marriages, partly because their spouses were “unreasonable” emotional people.

    During my difficult times, I am glad we both remembered the advice of my mentor, “Build your relationship on trust and respect,” and not try to dominate our relationships based on the tools of technical management. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from my wife and my children.

  • http://www.studio7310.com Cecelia Feld

    Amy and Brad,

    I have high hopes for your book and will eagerly follow your blogging as you work your way through your long list of topics. Good writers writing on a decidedly timely topic. What more could any reader want? Your book will go flying off the bookshelves!

    I know I will not be taken to task by Stan, husband and best friend of 48 years, if I say, that regardless of the nature of the business, start up or not, thinking of your spouse or significant other as the most important person in the world will keep you on track for a long time. To me, that is the constant in this ever changing world.

    An artist (me, http://www.studio7310.com) and scientist (Stan-Endocrinologist) often look at the world differently and have very different problem solving strategies. Being grateful for the other person’s strengths and graciously accepting of the weaknesses can create a true partnership.

    Carry on and best of luck!
    Cecelia aka Mom

  • http://twitter.com/CamiloALopez Camilo Lopez

    Thanks to both of you.

    This is very needed topic to discuss. My wife is a trooper by encouraging me to follow my dreams. But I am sure that encouragement comes with some sacrifices that might not surface until later. This blog will be able to provide a good avenue for discussions before things can get really bad.

    I look forward to reading the blog and book.

  • http://innovationnights.com Bobbie Carlton

    Brad and Amy,
    Am really looking forward to the “journey to completed book” here. I’ve worked with dozens of startups over the years (as an outside consultant and an employee) and now I have not one but two of my own. Meanwhile, my stay-at-home-dad husband (at home with kids 14 years and counting) continues to hold down the fort on the home front and play bassoon with several bands and orchestras. Needless to say, how we’d be paying the bills with some semblance of regularity was a big issue for us when we converted our single paycheck lifestyle to one devoted to building a business.

  • http://kristiholmes.com Kristi

    My husband is an entrepreneur and I’m a writer; we’re currently in the third startup of our marriage, and we have two kids ages 12 and 15. I’m really intrigued by the premise of this blog and book as I really haven’t seen anything out there about entrepreneurship and marriage (and I would really love to hear more about others’ experiences!)

  • http://gravatar.com/stevehallock stevehallock

    Interesting how many of us have an entrepreneur/artist partnering. I often suspect we are two sides of the same coin: sometimes the sameness is very apparent and sometimes we do feel completely opposite.