Machaela Clark, co-owner of Tandem Works, jumps onto the podcast to introduce herself and share how she started her own business, merged with Vivian to create Tandem Works, and shares thoughts on having a successful business partnership with a co-owner. 

Unpacking this episode min by min:

1:49 - Machaelas first business selling fabric wreaths out of a wagon
2:22 -Publishing newsletters as kids, clip art, and comic sans
4:06 - First grown-up business as a photographer
4:52 - Pursuing something you love now, not waiting for when you retire
5:55 - Machaela's mom encouraged her and her siblings to go after what they loved
7:05 - An 8-week job turned into a nightmare that pushed Machaela to make them move
8:14 - Waiting for the sign to take the jump
8:42 - Setting yourself up to make the jump leaving your job to start a business
9:55 - How to decide it's time to start your own business - look for the nudge
10:34 - Create a plan
11:27 - Don't get stuck in perfect
12:00 - Straddling a job and your own business
12:55 - What happened after Machaela started her own business (Morrissey Photography)
13:32- Making strategic connections to grow a client base
15:08- Outgrowing word-of-mouth marketing tactics, telling your brand story to people who don't know you
16:30- How we met and started a business together
17:55- How we created a partnership that works and remains friends too
18:50 -24-hour rule
19:55 -Is a partnership worth it? What we have discovered about the huge benefits of working together
22:18 - Using the 16Personalities evaluation and personalities in the workplace podcast with our team
 26:55 - Leaning into your strengths and working on harder areas, flexibility is key to business success
27:52- Some of our frustrations when we first started working together and how we handled them
29:36- Pro tip - Use a separate messaging system for personal and business; we use Telegram
32:18 - Pro tip - Find your people to help prioritize, bounce ideas, and keep you accountable
33:33 - How to prioritize what is important and what is not, even when the ideas all seem important (or great!)
35:34- Playing with ideas, what happens when that confuses the team, being ok with throwing ideas back over the fence
37:32 - Throwing ideas back over the fence or saying no when transitioning offerings 
38:09- Love your Mondays
39:47 -Our biggest takeaways looking back on our business
42:45 - Taking our Fridays off, even though we were incredibly busy. Read more on the blog here
44:54 - Pushing each other to be better
45:29 - What to do when looking for a business partner. Know yourself, find someone better than you at key activities, not a clone of yourself 

 

Reach out! Send your feedback and comments. What would you like to hear about on this podcast? Email me at ridingtandem@thetandemworks.com 

Riding Tandem with Vivian Kvam

A podcast from Tandem Works

Email the team: RidingTandem@thetandemworks.com