Family Matters
3 family businesses share tips on how to work with a parent, sibling, or spouse
Words by H. Drew Blackburn
Photos of Katie Mitchell by Faisal Mohammed
Film by REVIVETHECOOL

Watch: Katie Mitchell, who runs Good Books with her mother, Katherine Mitchell, speaks to her family story, the inception of their bookstore, and her advice for building a team. Film by REVIVETHECOOL

Who you surround yourself with says a lot about who you are—both as a person and a business. Your team will play an outsized role in the success or failure of your company, and who you hire will impact how quickly—if at all—you achieve your business goals.

Some founders search far and wide for the right candidates to help steer the ship, while others keep it close to home—literally—by doing business with family and loved ones. Running a family business requires that what’s personal becomes business, and what's business becomes personal—a dynamic that has its fair share of advantages and challenges.

So, what really happens when you mix family and business? H. Drew Blackburn spoke with the founders of 3 different family businesses—Good Books in Atlanta; Ivy Planning Group in Bethesda, Maryland; and Kookie Haven in Dallas—to learn how they make it work and how you can, too.

Good Books: A mother and daughter create the little bookstore that could

The way Good Books came together was just on a whim, on a day like any other day. Katie Mitchell was in her mother Katherine’s kitchen, eating breakfast. There was a lull in the conversation, but not that awkward type. This was the comfortable silence with someone you know and love. This was the type of silence you use to think––under the hum of an AC, the sound of birds singing, and the clang of a fork on a plate.

“What if we started a bookstore?” Katherine asked her daughter. And so they did.

Katie says that while Good Books officially started in 2019, it was always in the works by the way her mom raised her and her brother. “We just grew up with Black books. That's all we read when I was younger,” she says. “I thought white kids didn't have any books to read because there were only Black books in our house.”

Photos provided by the Mitchell family
Photos provided by the Mitchell family
Photos provided by the Mitchell family
Photos provided by the Mitchell family
Photos provided by the Mitchell family
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“We just grew up with Black books. That's all we read when I was younger. I thought white kids didn't have any books to read because there were only Black books in our house.”

Katie Mitchell
Photo by Faisal Mohammed

Naturally, Good Books specializes in literature by Black authors. You’ll find classics like Beloved and Giovanni's Room, and rare printing by thinkers like Dick Gregory. This expertly curated selection can be found online or traversing around Atlanta as a pop-up, but there’s no brick-and-mortar store.

“From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to be mobile and be more responsive to the community,” Katie says. This is in response to a lack of accessibility. Altanta is a sprawling metroplex, and communities like the southside face challenges moving around the city due to a lack of public transportation.

“We wanted to be mobile and go where people were, whether that was a jazz festival or the ATL Wings Festival,” Katie says. The aim is to go where people are and make Good Books as accessible as possible. There are plans to make a physical space in the form of a bookmobile with a reading nook, but Good Books truly wants to go where book deserts might be.

Katie Mitchell, Co-founder of Good Books. Photo by Faisal Mohammed

Some people, as much as they love their mamas, would not last a week working with them. What makes Katie and Katherine so successful at running their business together is that they have so much in common. During the pandemic, they got a little outdoorsy and picked up hiking. But the thing that’s always brought them together is this deep and immeasurable love of literature, which actually runs deep in their bloodline. Katie recently found out that her late grandmother had a manuscript about the death penalty in Mississippi that she was shopping around to publishers.

If there’s any advice Katie would give to someone starting a business with their mom, it’s this: be best friends. “We’re always together anyway, so it's something else to do together, just like a different activity,” she says. “I love learning from her. She's the smartest person I know.”

And they have a clear delineation of duties. As the millennial daughter, Katie, naturally, handles the website and social media, and Katherine primarily sources the books. “I think we balance each other out pretty well,” Katie says.

Good Books has earned a lot of praise, especially in the aftermath of the uprising in June of 2020, but Katie says she doesn’t let it get to her head. “I don't think I'm particularly changing the world,” Katie says, with a laugh. “I’m not MLK or anyone like that. I'm just a girl with her books, and that's cool by me.”

Family fun: ways to keep it cool at home and work
Cool at home
Cool at work

☐ Start with a base of genuine affection and love.

☐ Think about the last time you did something fun together, and resolve to do that more frequently

☐ Be honest about whether or not it’s better to spend your nonworking time separately

☐ Create and maintain healthy professional boundaries

☐ Be proactive and respectfully candid about feedback

Cool at home

☐ Start with a base of genuine affection and love.

☐ Think about the last time you did something fun together, and resolve to do that more frequently

☐ Be honest about whether or not it’s better to spend your nonworking time separately

Cool at work

☐ Create and maintain healthy professional boundaries

☐ Be proactive and respectfully candid about feedback

Ivy Planning Group: A husband and wife build an empire

Janet and Gary Smith’s meet-cute happened at Bachelor’s, a now-closed after-work spot in Las Colinas, a suburb of Dallas. They were both recent Ivy League graduates—Janet a Harvard alum, Gary a Yalie—in town for an IBM training program for new employees. Gary walked over to Janet and asked if she would like to see Dallas, and her answer was yes. To Janet, Gary seemed handsome and it was impressive that he knew the city. Who wouldn’t like a tour?

But when Gary pulled up in a Ford Fairmont the next day and handed Janet a map as she sat in the passenger seat, she realized that he wasn’t as familiar with the city as she thought. “I said, ‘What's this?,’ and he said, ‘We're going to go see Dallas.’ I knew then…we’re in trouble,” Janet says, jokingly.

Gary and Janet were both in relationships at the time, but, “It was the 80s,” Janet says, “a time of dating and fun.” No matter how much dating and fun was in their plans, they had too much in common and were meant for each other. 40 years later, the Smiths have built a strong marriage and a powerhouse of a family business in the Ivy Planning Group, a consultancy firm where Mr. and Mrs. Smith serve as senior partners and their 3 sonsAlex, Bradley, and Gary IIserve as Vice President of Inclusive Recruiting; Consultant & Product Manager—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); and Head of Business Development, respectively.

From top-left: Janet Smith, Gary Smith, Gary Smith II, Alex Smith, Bradley Smith. Photo provided by the Smith family
“Entrepreneurship puts the level of respect you have for your partner on display every day. If you don't respect your partner, it's going to show.”
Gary Smith

“Most people can't work with their spouse and they need to be honest about it,” Gary Sr. says. “Entrepreneurship puts the level of respect you have for your partner on display every day. If you don't respect your partner, it's going to show. If you don't respect your spouse, entrepreneurship is going to put that on blast.”

“Introduce children in this business, and it's even more complicated,” he continues. “It's harder for [them] to do this than it is for Janet and [me] to do this.”

“At least with me and Gary, there's not an issue of trust or of a power dynamic because we are truly peers,” Janet adds. “With Gary II, Alex, and Bradley, there is a power dynamic—there's a difference of, this is my mother.

There are the tricky moments when the kids have to refer to their parents by their first names in front of clients and other members of the firm—something that, of course, is a no-go outside of the office—but Gary II says it’s not all that bad working for his parents.

“I have taken cues watching them work together for the 34 years of my life,” Gary II says. “We never fight; all we do is state our claims and the best argument usually wins because it's a house full of smart people who can listen, think, and figure it out as a group.”

It’s a sentiment all the second generation Smith men share. “When you're working with your family, you know that they always have your back, and they can be relied on,” Bradley says. Alex, the middle son, adds, “I love the work that my parents are doing and I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity to work in a family-owned business, because we all love each other.”

Family feud: Best practices for family conflict resolution
Disagree, not disagreeable
Don’t sweat the small stuff

☐ Share constructive criticism without devolving into ad hominem attacks

☐ Identify the root causes of your disagreements 

☐ Respect your partner(s) and their areas of expertise

☐ Don’t let petty disagreements ruin your relationship

☐ Define and prioritize problems

☐ Map out and adhere to a conflict-resolution plan

Disagree, not disagreeable

☐ Share constructive criticism without devolving into ad hominem attacks

☐ Identify the root causes of your disagreements 

☐ Respect your partner(s) and their areas of expertise

Don’t sweat the small stuff

☐ Don’t let petty disagreements ruin your relationship

☐ Define and prioritize problems

☐ Map out and adhere to a conflict-resolution plan

Kookie Haven: 3 sisters honor their mother’s name and recipes

Kim Haynes, Darla McCuen, and Nita Briggs were known as the Pettis girls when they were growing up. Kim, the youngest, says they fussed with one another like any other group of sisters growing up in the same house, but they always had one another’s back.

Darla, the middle sister, tells a story about how a boy tried to come between her and Nita, the oldest, in high school. “We don’t do that in this house,” Darla says jokingly. So, while they were always close, the thing that built the strongest bond between them is their mother, Yvonne “Ms. Kookie” Williams and her legendary recipes. Ms. Kookie was a maestro behind any oven, known around the community for baking delicious sweet treats.

When their mother got divorced, she had to work long hours to support a house full of girls. Whenever their mother would leave, Nita would pick up the recipe book and bake in their mother’s absence. “I would bake a cake every day,” Nita says. And of course, she got in trouble for it, and the next day, she’d bake another cake anyway. “My sisters would be running down the street trying to borrow flour, sugar, and eggs,” she says.

This is basically how the Pettis girls fell in love with baking and would decades later become the Kookie Haven sisters and open their own battle-tested shop to honor their mom. The first Kookie Haven opened in 2002 and closed in 2005. “It paid its bills, but it didn't pay us, so eventually we shut down and decided we'll never do it again,” Darla says.

Several years later, the sisters began selling baked goods again, but this time, out of their houses, thanks to the Texas Cottage Food Law, which allows people to sell food from their home kitchens without permits, licenses, and inspections. This allowed the sisters to pursue their passion without having to rent a storefront, and enabled them to save money and eventually open their current brick-and-mortar location in 2017.

Things improved greatly for the sisters: they frequently made their way to “Best of” lists, and were making more money than ever. Then the pandemic hit, which led to a big loss in revenue and inflated prices for essential baking materials. But, even through the pandemic, they persisted. “We do everything that we know how to do and trust God with everything else,” Nita says.

The Kookie Haven sisters have successfully run a business that’s had more than a few bumps in the road. Their advice on being in business with siblings, especially when times get tough and you’re maybe running on 36 straight hours of work, is that you really have to like each other. “Bottom line. That’s an underlying fact,” Nita says. “At the end of the day, our mother taught us that you have to love each other.”

Photos provided by the Haynes family
Photos provided by the Haynes family
Photos provided by the Haynes family
Photos provided by the Haynes family
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“At the end of the day, our mother taught us that you have to love each other.”
Nita Briggs

“You have to get past the small stuff,” Kim says.

Kookie Haven’s emphasis is on delicious baked goods and exceptional customer service. Darla says customers will stop in their tracks and sing praises of a slice of cake. Kim says the customers tell the sisters that they “feel like aunties.” And no matter how many times someone offers to buy the company off of them—and there have been several offers—ultimately, Kookie Haven will always be a tribute to their mother.

“This is our legacy. This is our mom's name. We couldn’t see someone else sitting here saying, ‘Welcome to Kookie Haven,’” Darla says. “We always said we’ll go down before we let someone buy our business.”

Family focus: Be clear on your purpose
Mission and values
Duties and responsibilities

☐ Define your collective mission for your family and your business

☐ Identify your shared values as a family and business

☐ Establish each of your complementary skill sets and/or experiences

☐ Identify each of your individual strengths and weaknesses

☐ Clearly define (and revisit) roles and responsibilities

Mission and values

☐ Define your collective mission for your family and your business

☐ Identify your shared values as a family and business

Duties and responsibilities

☐ Establish each of your complementary skill sets and/or experiences

☐ Identify each of your individual strengths and weaknesses

☐ Clearly define (and revisit) roles and responsibilities