On 2/11/2011 Entrepreneur Magazine ran this article on Peter and Susan. It's short, so we thought we'd publish the full interview with both of us--unedited. 

Susan’s Answers: 

Susan Richardson Design (SRD) was a freelance graphic design company, with a concentration on creating new and updating existing logos, designing special event logos, collateral data, and promotional giveaways. The focus of SRD was to simply and effectively benefit the client through conceptual graphic communication. Founded in 2007, SRD remained a freelance endeavor with clients ranging from those established to those just starting up. Clients included a wide spectrum from KFC, investment banking, home staging, philanthropic, solar and technology. SRD was based in Mountain View, California; however, due to relocating to Greenwood, Indiana, SRD remains on hold. Susan has taken the time to acclimate her children to their new area as well as use her creativity to custom design and make selections for their new home construction. 

Susan:  Peter and I met in September of 1989, in Pensacola, Florida, as freshman in college. My roommate was first to meet Peter at a dinner. His ice shifted in his water glass, making for an embarrassing dinner mishap. My roommate liked his sense of humor as he jokingly remarked about the water turning an awkward situation into a memorable evening. She mentioned to me that the two of us should meet. While socializing in the student commons, my roommate saw Peter and pointed him out to me. As Peter innocently walked by, he immediately received my attention and I was instantly intrigued. My roommate introduced us and Peter and I became the best of friends. I am so grateful for that shifting ice! We dated for four years maintaining a consistent relationship during college semesters and breaks, Peter in New Hampshire and me in Indiana. After graduating college in Pensacola, we were married in July of 1993.

Even back in college, Peter was drawn to entrepreneurial tendencies. He started a hot dog business in his dorm. Due to his growing success, he was shut down for reasons that he was too competitive to the campus-run stores. Little did I know what lie ahead for us! Along with the hot dog business, Peter was the first communications major to have an internship at Pensacola’s local television station. These business startups as well as a full load of classes and working part-time were evidence of his determination and hard work.

Susan: Being married to an entrepreneur has given me the rise to see a challenge and strategize on meeting the objectives. Peter’s entrepreneurial spirit rubbed off on me. It is through his example that encouraged me to pursue my own business. Peter can strategize and he has vision. Finding time together is through scheduled lunches, scheduled weekend dates and learning to “take a break” from work, short texts throughout the day help too.

Susan: The positives in being married to an entrepreneur is the understanding of the feast or famine, the rollercoaster ride it provides in the marriage. It is for the adventurous, those who are content with change and not content to settle. As entrepreneurs get together in a group or even in a marriage ideas are formed and discussed and great things happen when you can bounce ideas back and forth.

The negatives to being married to an entrepreneur are when you both lose a client at the same time. To know that it does not come with a time card that you punch at the end of the day and leave at the office. Your work is your vision. But your work cannot have vision without focus. The focus is with your family and growing a healthy marriage; however, the entrepreneurial spirit follows along side of your marriage. It is a journey together. It takes discipline to engage with your spouse and not have one eye on them and one eye on your incoming email. You have to have a healthy balance.

Susan: The four biggest obstacles to being married to an entrepreneur are immediate change, excessive travel, intense drive, and always pursuing ideas. I could say immediate change four times. That’s a biggie. Overcoming the obstacles in an entrepreneurial family is an ongoing learning process. The immediate change is something that you quickly experience, this does not mean that it is easy, but must be expected. The excessive travel has its pluses and minuses. A plus is when our family can travel with our entrepreneur. Staying connected while traveling is important, we use texting and calls to stay in touch. With the travel, I remember recently, Peter flew home from being in New York for two days, arriving home at five in the evening in time to hear our sons orchestra performance, just to hop on a plane the next morning to be in California. I had to scan the room and wonder what other dad’s had a layover to hear the performance. Intense drive is an obstacle that needs “quarterly meetings.” A time to reflect on the relationship and make sure that things are in balance and the drive does not take over the importance of the relationship. Ideas are constantly being thrown at entrepreneurs and it is key to stay grounded and prioritize which endeavors will get the attention and which will be passed along. No matter what the obstacle, communication together is key to benefiting the process of your relationship throughout the entrepreneurial journey.

Susan: I have no regrets in marrying my entrepreneur. To me, an entrepreneur’s circumstance can change; however, their spirit cannot be changed.

Susan: Our blog was launched in 2009. It is important to us to encourage other entrepreneurial families. It is challenging enough to spell the word entrepreneur let alone live the life of an entrepreneurial family successfully.

Answers from Peter:

Company History

The most recent company I’ve co-founded is Scale Computing. It began in a garage in San Mateo, CA in 2007 and was self-funded until June, 2009 when it received an initial investment of $3 MM from three different VCs and a grant of $2 MM from the State of Indiana. The grant was incumbent upon Scale moving its HQ to Indianapolis and having at least two (2) executives there. Since my wife is from Indiana, we decided to move from CA to help get Scale off the ground. The company has since raised an additional $26MM in funding in just 12 months.

Scale Computing creates enterprise-class data storage products at prices the small-to-medium-size enterprise can afford. We have .06% market share in a roughly $8 billion market. Our 2011 sales are forecasted to be between $18 MM and $24 MM.  As of January 16, 2011, we have 72 employees. That’s up from seven employees in February of 2009. Scale also has global distribution with offices in London and partners in Japan.

While you didn’t specifically ask this, Scale is third company I have built with this executive team. The others were Radiate, an Internet advertising company and victim of the dot-com bust; Corvigo, an anti-spam company successfully sold to Tumbleweed Communications; and now Scale Computing. I’ve also started my own ventures: Somnig Bjorn, a failed attempt to import cheap Tempur-Pedic like pillows into the United States, Hook Mobile and SolarX. Hook Mobile was a semi-successful, before-its time startup that created the world’s first multi-media trading card. We launched with CBS and Atlantic Records and created a digital asset worth $10,000 that was given away in the first-ever mobile phone sweepstakes. While all that is good, we couldn’t raise more than $1 MM and eventually had to sell for $2 MM to an IDG-backed company. My take (after investors took theirs) was $256. SolarX was a great idea killed by the economic collapse of 2008. I still have a mandate letter from a large bank for $120 MM in solar project funding. When the banking system started to collapse, it took that funding source with it. We were “this close” to kicking off the largest solar project of its type in the United States.

I’ve helped launch, as a consultant, 12 different companies in Silicon Valley.

How we Met

We met at College. Susan’s roommate introduced us. My initial thought upon meeting Susan was that she was too good looking for me. Being a risk taker, however, I thought “what the heck, I’ll go for it” and did. That was the best risk I’ve taken, by far.

I’ve often wondered why she agreed to marry me. In college, I was starting a hot-dog business, worked on campus and even purchased the rights to a custom-flooring business plan. I think she must like risk, as well. I certainly brought a lot of it into the marriage.

Married to an Entrepreneur

Susan also has entrepreneurial tendencies and has started a few businesses on her own, KidKard and SRD. SRD is a funny story. The acronym stands for Susan Richardson Design, Richardson being her maiden name.

While consulting with several companies, I wanted to hire Susan as the designer, but feared clients would balk at the idea of bringing my wife into the launch team. So, we hatched an idea to use her maiden name as the corporate name. It worked. I hired Susan “Richardson” as my lead designer and introduced her to clients as such. I often wonder if people thought I was having an affair with my designer.

The hardest time we had was when Susan became wildly successful as a designer. She had many clients, including KFC and was constantly busy. This put a strain on our ability to parent. My frequent travels didn’t help. After a year of 12-hour days, Susan decided to severely cut back on her design business and have more time with our children.

This decision helped lead to the formation of pioniq, our current blog. Susan created seminars to help entrepreneurial families and they are offered through the site.

The positives of being married to an entrepreneur

By far, the most positive aspect of our marriage is alignment and understanding. We both want freedom to initiate and create our own path and enjoy the flexible schedule doing so affords. I’ve met couples not aligned in this aspect. One wants to blaze a trail to glory; the other spouse desires a 9 to 5 routine and steady job. Usually, the two can’t understand each other and when the economic turmoil hits, the relationship goes south quickly.

I have other friends who are both entrepreneurs and they made a pact in their marriage: at least one of them has to have a decent, full-time job at all times. This arrangement gives each the freedom to try something risky, while knowing they’ll both trade off “taking one (full-time job) for the team.”

Alignment is crucial because economic crisis follow the entrepreneur very closely.  When both spouses understand that poverty is a down payment for freedom, the marriage team marches together. If one spouse is unwilling to make the deposit, the marriage or relationship usually breaks apart.

Negative to Being Married to an Entrepreneur

The positives far outweigh the negatives. However, financial stability is a major negative. Susan has often wondered, “Why can’t he just get a real job.” Honestly, I’ve wondered the same thing.

We usually enjoy a feast-to-famine lifestyle. At times, we’re making money; at others we’re spending the profits we made and going down to zero.  The worst crisis was in 2008. I spent nearly 18 months with no income, trying to build SolarX and then Scale Computing.  That drained nearly every penny we had. At that time, we were living in Silicon Valley with high mortgage payment and a daughter in private school. The burn rate on our capital was very high. At the same time, the economy seemed to be collapsing at a torrid pace.

Four Biggest Obstacles

1. Finances. Like I mentioned, we tend to make money and lose money. We both would prefer a more stable financial situation and, with Scale Computing’s success, are currently enjoying a period of steady income. Christmas 2011 will mark the firs time we have had a paycheck from the same entity three years in a row. Kudos to us!

We didn’t overcome this challenge overnight. It took us a while to realize that we need to have frequent budget meetings and take time out of our busy schedules to keep each other in financial check.

2. Failure. Someone once said that “failure is our friend and success is our best friend.” When a failure happens, it’s hard to see it that way, but the axiom is true nevertheless.  A failed entity takes with it the ability to plan and forecast your personal life. While we can plan to take the kids on a cruise (and even put down a down payment), a failure in a business can destroy those aspirations. This causes repercussions throughout the home life. As a couple, we’ve both realized that failure will happen. However, we chose to do our best to make sure it has as little an impact on our children as possible.  Suze Orman will shoot me for saying this, but we’d continue with family plans even if we could not fund them with cash. Yes, we’d use a credit card to help keep our commitments to our children. It might be the wrong move financially, but we feel it’s the right parenting decision.

3. Communication. This is a tough part of any marriage and tougher with an entrepreneurial family. I’ve been called on the carpet many times by Susan for simply not expressing things going on in my life or, conversely, not asking her the appropriate questions about her business. We addressed this issue in three ways. First, we have frequent dates and meetings that allow us to discuss important issues. We also try to text each other and Skype when I am away on business.  Second, we opened our house up to my start-up pals. This was a tremendous boon for the family. Our home in California became the meeting place for several companies—including Scale Computing—that were in their infancy. Our kids have a deep understanding of what Dad does and participated by bringing food out to our meeting room, hanging out with the team when we had pizza and even playing video games with some of them when we were taking a break from our meetings.  My children call one of my partners “uncle Alan”. The kids rode the failure of SolarX with Alan and I and understand that business failure does not lead to personal relationship failure. Alan is with us at Scale Computing and will be spending the night at our place this week. Third, we subscribe to each other’s calendars. Even if we don’t have time to discuss the week’s upcoming activities, we can see what each other is doing. This arrangement has nothing to do with distrust; it’s purely a third avenue for increasing communication.

4. Travel. Travel can be a big challenge. Whether its long distance or just having conflicting appointments, we want to create a balanced life for our children and travel can create imbalance. We solve this issue with communication and, when possible, turning a business trip into a personal trip by bringing the kids. Children love being treated like adults and knowing what their parents are doing. We’ve had tremendous success operating as an inclusive team, rather than in siloes. Entrepreneurism is a family business, not just dad or mom’s “thing.”

No Regrets

I have no regrets being married to an entrepreneurial wife.

The Travel Curse

 Q1: Frequent travel is a major curse for entrepreneurs and their families, primarily because entrepreneurs are also in the age bracket that has or plans to have children. In our case, my most frequent travel came after our children were born. For the dad, travel creates an infinite loop of guilt. Take for instance my most infamous travel decision which took place in 1999. Fresh on the heels of joining a new startup, I had planned my trips to coincide with the anticipated birth date of my second child, Nicholas (Nick). He has other plans. Twenty-four hours before my departure to NYC, Nick decided to be born. He started the process at 3 am on Monday and by 10 am that day he had joined planet earth. Naturally, I stayed at the hospital and got my wife and new born settled in their private room. I didn't sleep and at 3 am the following day, left both mom and child in the hospital and took a day trip to NYC. I thought I was doing some balancing heroics, but it turns out I was simply daft. The wife didn't appreciate it a much as I thought and the folks I was building the company with believed I was nuts. Every single trip I take is a balancing act. As a Dad, it seems like everything goes wrong as soon as you leave town and the last thing you ever want to hear is "you weren't there when this tragic thing happened." It kills you. Yet, life chooses to schedule tragedies for when you're traveling. Take this week. I was in Tokyo when the worst ice storm in 100 years swept through Indianapolis. My wife and two children were stuck in the house with the lights flickering wondering if the power would go out. It didn't, but I felt like a jerk nevertheless. There really isn't a time when I've felt good about traveling for business. But, it must be done.

Blog

We launched our blog in 2009 after having founded an Entrepreneurial Family Small Group. We personally believe that God created a purpose for every life born into this world. The entrepreneur is created not made. It’s a passion placed inside people at birth and its better they realize this and embrace it than to try to force themselves into some other mold. Couples who marry may not understand this DNA trait and think that eventually the spouse will “settle down.” Not happening. That desire for freedom, penchant for risk and insatiable drive needs to be embraced and encouraged. If its not, the marriage or relationship will ultimately sour and likely dissolve.

There’s a real need for couples to identify themselves in ways much deeper than a legal contract to live together. Too often, marriages remain siloed. The husband does his thing, the wife does hers and all they really share is a roof. When financial instability or children enter the mix, the marriage can start to fall apart.

Most people who marry never want to get a divorce; it just happens because they can’t seem to see the solutions to sticking together. We think we have some of them and wanted to provide a forum for couples to realize they aren’t alone, the attacks on their marriage are real and routine and that they can overcome them while becoming successful entrepreneurs.

I think Susan’s column has been more help that mine, truth be told. Many people have told me that their girlfriends, wives, or spouses, have a better understanding of them since reading her blog posts.

pioniq (pI-on-ick) is a word I created using the Latin pios, which means “light” or “cleansing” and “IQ,” the acronym for “intelligence quotient.” My own definition of the word is enlightened wisdom. It’s a bit pretentious, I realize, but I think it works. It wisdom gained through experience.

In the site, we make fun of ourselves and share our failures as well as successes.

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