My Co-Founder is not the gender I would choose to sleep with.<p>Having gotten in bed with a co-founder in the past I would say this article missed the more important rules.<p>Don't date in the workplace, and don't work in the datespace. You have to compartmentalize your relationship. Don't talk shop over a candle light dinner, and don't talk love/sex/relationship in the office.<p>Don't get viewed as a unibrain. You need to be in sync, but you need to be viewed as two people. It is easy to get viewed as BrianAndJen all one word, all one person.<p>No pet names in the work place. You can't be like "Hey Babe, can you get me those TPS reports".
Loved the tips, to add my 2 cents to tip # 1: Don’t Let Arguments Escalate - Also a good idea to not bring in the past issues. I see that too often that when people fight they start bringing in the arguments from the day they met!
It's an interesting dilemma. As a woman, my co-founder (and team mates) are quite likely to be male. I am in love with my work and our mission; having a romantic relationship with someone who does NOT share these passions would be difficult. A person NOT involved in tech startups could never fully understand me. And a totally unattractive individual becomes significantly more so when we hit a rocking work stride and build beautiful things together, hit walls and win together. Fortunately, I need my future lover to summit mountains, too, so I'm somewhat shielded from this potential conflict! (ie - very few tech entrepreneur mountaineers) ;)
If you're able to separate your business relationships and personal relationships and keep it professional then why not? The problem with that is it's usually easier said than done.