Bringing Kids Into a Family Business…is it worth it?
Vincent Finaldi urges business founders to carefully consider four key questions before bringing kids into a family business. Are they truly qualified? How will it impact family dynamics and leadership structure? Is this decision driven by ego? And how will money and competition affect sibling relationships? He warns that business can turn family into a competitive team, making financial performance a priority over personal bonds. While a successful transition can be rewarding, founders must recognize the complexities and plan carefully to avoid long-term issues.
Transcript:
Hi. My name is Vincent Finaldi, and I wanted to address a personal video if you are a founder of a business. Meaning, you started a company, whether you started it from scratch or bought in, and you are the boss. So if you’re a founder and you and you’re thinking about bringing in your kids into the family business for second-generation family transfer, have you considered the following four questions?
First, are your children truly qualified to run a company? Do they have the skill set? Do they have the training? Do they have the pedigree to really do the role?
Second, have you thought about how that will impact their relationships? If your children are cousins and all these folks become partners, how does that get structured? What does that look like? Is there a boss?
Are they all equals? Because that can get really complicated quickly. Third, are you doing this for your ego? So you can say, look at me.
I started a company, and now my children run it, and it’s serving you. So at your dinner parties, you can brag. Because if it’s to serve your ego, that’s a big red flag and something you really wanna think through. And fourth, have you thought about the long term ramifications to your siblings’ relationships?
When you bring money and performance and competition into family, you’re not a family anymore. You’re a sports team. And at that point, it becomes winning and losses, and you have to measure things financially because that’s what business is. So the point of this video isn’t to challenge the founder of a company. The point of this video is if you are a founder and you’re thinking about bringing in your children, really think it through because it is not a small undertaking, and decades will pass and things will get really complicated if you do it. So while, hopefully, you ponder over some of those questions, it can be rewarding. If the business does well, if the relationships grow, if everyone evolves, it can be very rewarding to work with family, but there is a lot of detail and a lot of complexities that are not to be overlooked.
