{Today’s post is written by Ryan 1/2 of the EmersonMade team. EmersonMade specializes in hand dyed and hand stitched blooms and accessories with an apparel line coming out in 2010. EmersonMade started as a one woman operation in NYC where Emerson would sell her flowers, sometimes right off her lapel to flower girls and fella’s on the street, and just like that another flower would go trotting off into the world! EmersonMade has bloomed into a full scale Operation where she and her partner BigR man the ship and where Emerson and the ArtistFlowerMakers build the blooms each season!}
Here was the question I asked Ryan:
There are several husband and wife teams in It’s Better Together who have just started or are fairly new into their businesses and I thought you could provide us with some insight on working together. How did the two of you start working together, how did you transition from a couple to a professional relationship and how does that dynamic play out–when you go home is it strictly no more talk of business or is it more fluid than that?
Emerson and I have always wanted to work together in a way that combined traveling and new experiences. So to some extent it was inevitable. When Emerson first started the business she was manning the van all alone. As she began to hire people I began helping here and there, everything from packing boxes, dealing with contracts, hiring, etc so Emerson could stay focused on design, content, and the stylistic aspects. It was really a very natural transition. From our perspective it was more of an evolution than a transition. Frankly its hard to picture it any other way at this point. But I believe a key aspect is that we share interests and taste but generally speaking have different skill sets and backgrounds. So our skill sets are very complimentary which I think is an important factor in making it work.
EmersonMade has been growing so rapidly that along with it being a full time job we spend most of our free time talking and working on the future. Much of the time is exactly that, i.e. work, but the benefit of working with your best friend is you view time differently. Fortunately for us a fair amount of our work takes us on field trips all over the country and world for sourcing, content, and photos. Ultimately you get a reflection of what you put in. Our lifestyle has changed to deal with that attribute. I would not say we have an on/off switch, but it seems natural is working well that way.