Just curious as to whether anyone here works on indie projects with their spouse or domestic partner? I've been moonlighting for a short while, and now student husband has landed a freelance assignment designing a database.

Before I decide to do something drastic like forming a corporate partnership, I was looking for anecdotes covering the proverbial good, bad, and ugly points of working and running an indie business with one's spouse.

Thanks much,

cubiclegrrl

P.S. Great resource, this!

Welcome, cubiclegrrl! My husband and I make up the entire staff of Octopus Motor - by combining both our skill sets, we have pretty much everything we need for a game company (art, writing, programming, music, PR/marketing). We get along well and are very similar in our habits and disposition, but there have certainly been occasions where one of us might have fired the other one if we could! Some things to consider:

- do you both have the same financial goals and feelings about money? Starting your own business together can be a risky financial move, and you both have to feel comfortable with risk.
- do your working styles mesh, or is one of you a procrastinator and the other a get-things-done-now type?
- being in business together can be time-consuming and isolating. If one of you is a social butterfly an the other is happiest working alone at all hours, you can have conflict.

Oh, and invest in good headphones if your musical tastes are not similar. It'll make things much more pleasant around the office :)

Sparky
http://www.theycamefromhollywood.com

Thanks much, Sparky!

Excellent points for me/us to noodle. Husband and I make an excellent team in many other respects, but we also have our respective independent streaks.

Fortunately, we have the luxury of separate offices--albeit one stacked on top of the other in our quad-level house. I usually don't have to crank up my speakers very loud to drown out his... ;-)

Welcome cubiclegrrl! My wife and I each have our own businesses (I develop games, she grows specialty cut flowers), but we help each other out with our businesses to the extent that we are practically partners in each other's ventures. During the winter months, when there's not much to do outside, I work full-time on games and my wife pitches in with brainstorming sessions, playtesting, market analysis and other non-technical stuff. During the growing season, games take a back seat to flowers, with me helping out in the fields, doing manual labor, etc.

This arrangement has proven to be good for both of us because we're each aware of what the other is doing business-wise (and as a result we can get advice from each other about business decisions) but we each have the final say in our own company. Also, having two unrelated streams of income makes for a more stable and secure financial picture. However, both of our companies are quite young (less than 2 years old), so I can't claim that this approach is a proven path to success! :)

Good luck!