Thicker Than Water: Family First or Not When Starting A Business

<p>Guests:</p> <ol> <li>Thalia Lyn: Founder and CEO Island Grill</li> <li>Josh Baron: Co-founder BanyanGlobal, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Harvard Business Review,&nbsp; author, and thought leader.</li> </ol> <p>Welcome to Your Business Matters, a podcast of EXIM Bank Jamaica where we bring thought leaders together on thought-provoking ideas and methods to help grow your business</p> <p>Seasoned investors and entrepreneurs alike strongly warn against going into business with kin. Many have witnessed first-hand relationship fallouts and deals gone south but others have told the tale of leveraging family businesses for benefits such as cost-savings, etc. So how do I decide which is better for my business? In an article by<a href="http://media.com/"> <u>media.com</u></a>, the writer purports that the main street is filled with the corpses of family relationships that ended in lawsuits.&nbsp; The driving force behind this reality is the inability of the family members to separate their business aspirations from their actual ability to run a profitable business. Research has shown that only 13% of successful family businesses last through three generations and less than 2/3 survive through the second generation. While it is suspected that the loss of growth beyond these generations is due to comfort and complacency, there are exemplary family businesses that are still thriving despite the alarming statistics. What is the glue that keeps the business and the family together? Does the glue even exist at all?&nbsp; For a business to be profitable, the owner/s must be able to think logically and make headstrong decisions, forgoing emotions as their main driving force as a business strategy and with family comes just that, emotions. So is it blood before business?</p> <p>Some of what we discussed include:</p> <ol> <li>Is it a plus or minus to go into business with a family member?</li> <li>What are some nuances with working with family members?</li> <li>Why is it important to separate emotions wh