Contributed by Lionel Felix, founder of Felix Media Solutions and a member of EO Austin. 

My wife and I both work full-time in our commercial audio-video (AV) company and it’s been very rewarding for our relationship as well as a strategic benefit. Our company, Felix Media Solutions, landed a spot on the 2019 Inc. 5000 list, but getting there came with many, many landmines that could have blown up the business—as well as our relationship.

I started the company in 2015 as a side-hustle with my old friend Mike Watts. We both had full-time IT jobs which paid well, but I wanted to save for a house and he wanted to bring home more for his family. When we found ourselves working through many of our weekends, our vacation days and (ahem) sick days from our main jobs, we both jumped in completely and cut the tethers. Our IT contacts helped us drive sales of video conferencing systems to our IT friends.