'Spreadsheets in the bedsheets': Couple who sold to Pepsi for $2 billion says going into business with your romantic partner is 'not for the weak'

“Marriage is not 50/50, a business partnership is not 50/50,” he said. “Each person has to be committed 100%, because at any given time, someone’s gonna be falling short of 100%. Trust and commitment are absolutely critical.”

Co-founding a company or startup with a spouse is more common than you’d think. Roughly 10% of all for-profit businesses (~298,000 U.S. employer firms) were jointly owned and equally operated by spouses in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Annual Business Survey.

The downside risk, though, is real: A University of California analysis of 3,900 married business owners found nearly one in three of these couples ended up divorced — roughly double the 10% to 15% rate among non-founders in the same age bracket. Separately, Wharton management professor Stewart Friedman has argued that married cofounders can struggle to raise outside capital precisely because investors price in relationship risk alongside execution risk.

Of course, there are plenty of success stories, too. Cisco cofounders Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack sold their stakes for roughly $170 million in 1990, although they divorced soon after. Husband-and-wife team Janie and Victor Tsao, by contrast, sold their home-networking company Linksys to Cisco for $500 million in 2003 and remain married. And Eventbrite’s Kevin and Julia Hartz took their ticketing platform public in 2018 with their marriage intact.

As for the Ellsworths, Allison recently returned to “Shark Tank” as a guest investor this March — the first former contestant to come back as a Shark — and Poppi continues operating under PepsiCo.