It was August 2013, when my co-founder of SportsManias called to tell me that we had collected $ 1 million in angel funding . I was a sophomore in college on my way to the library of the University of Chicago; she was back in Miami, where our company is based. That moment confirmed that our vision for sports journalism was not crazy after all. Investors believed in our mission to fuse social media with the declaration sports beat writers.
"Mom," I said. "That's good news!"
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I founded SportsManias with my mother, and it continues to surprise friends, investors and partners. people say, "Vicente, which is really cool, but I do not know if I could ever do that."
When I was 1,400 miles away in Chicago, there was not other I trusted more than my mom to represent SportsManias front of the most respected investors in Miami. in fact, I would say our mother-son relationship is a competitive advantage in the startup game lasts.
resistance
Before making a case for the mother-son duo, let me be honest: I'm not the most willing co-founder, initially. During the winter of my first year in college, starting a business with my mother was absolutely the last thing on my mind. I had not even declared major, but out of nowhere, my mother called with a plan for my career:
"Vicente, I have this idea to start a website for sports fans and pure hard. We must do it together. "
" Mom, you're crazy. Where is this coming ?! "
She refused to back down. She believed that diehard sports fans, like me, were the first recipients of a new kind of multimedia experience. In the true form of mother, she called me every day to talk about starting. Instead of resisting, I began to meet his half. And finally, when I got home for the summer vacation, we hammered vision for SportsManias during a road trip.
I was beginning to realize is that the proposal to my mother was not out of the blue. We developed a business relationship for years. When I was growing up, my mother ran her own advertising agency, Aymara & Associates, and I used to swing by after school every day to do homework and hang out. In junior high, my mother invited me into his world. I began to participate in brainstorming sessions and client work. We learned to be in business together long before we were officially in business.
Family Cross-Training
Before we launched SportsManias, my mother and I had spent 18 years learning to be mother and son. How many other startup co-founders can claim to have the amount of practice the team?
One of the biggest advantages of this story is that we can be frank. When my mom critique my ideas, I know she does not attack me personally. We must not make the verbal gymnastics now talk and subtleties to make a point. Our family education gives us an advantage in communication and teamwork.
As mother and son co-founders, we also share the responsibility for the family that replaces all issues of fairness ego and power. SportsManias inside, we build the new source of the 21st century for diehard fans. Outside SportsManias, we care for the welfare, health and safety of all the same people. Our professional and personal life are aligned, and that's rare in the startup world.
When the co-founders relationships are broken, they make a mess. Friends become rivals; businesses are drowning in their own interpersonal riptides. As mother and son, there is no "break" -. Blood can not be erased and rewritten on as a flash drive
who "should" be your co-founder?
I'm not saying that every mother-son duo will be a good match in business. Some people can not stand to be on the phone with their mother for five minutes let alone run a business with it. Here's the point that matters :. Your choice of co-founder should not be limited by cultural baggage that we attach to roles and identities
Ultimately, you need to find someone with a level of complementary skills and mutual respect. If that person happens to be your mother, father, brother, neighbor, dentist, florist, owner or the guy who crashed yesterday in your car, then what?
A mother-son duo seems strange because we invented expectations about the relationship between mother and son, and between ourselves and everyone we meet. The all adage about keeping family and business separate is based on the assumption that we can somehow separate our personal and professional lives. We can not. They either eat or starve each other.
In SportsManias, work us like family; my mother practically adopted our Millennium colleagues. If they feel welcomed, loved and motivated at work, which is a good thing. When my co-founder brings a cake for every birthday, we grow all around.
Discard any superstitions about who your co-founder should be. If your mom is the right partner, go ahead. My mother, my co-founder and current owner are the same person. I'm ready for the peanut gallery to start a business because my mother is the best career decision I did.
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