Profitable Business Ideas for Couples to Start Together

Wondering if as a couple you should go into business together and what type of business should you start? 

Here are my best couple business ideas for partners (married couples, husband & wife, boyfriend & girlfriend, or lovers) with tips to maximize success and minimize relationship issues. Yes, entrepreneurs romance and business can mix.

As a startup consultant who also founded a small business with my husband, I know how to start a business with your spouse, make money, and stay happily married too!

Couples often make good business partners. The key to success is to select a business idea of which both of you are interested. Then carefully divide (and keep separate) tasks that are best suited to each person’s strengths.

Online Business Ideas

Affiliate Marketing Blog

Launching a money-making website as a team is an excellent idea.

Because one of you could focus on the technical aspects of site development and content creation. The other partner can focus on the business aspects of SEO search engine optimization, negotiating affiliate relationships, and creating monetization strategies.

Marketing Resources

• Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing
• 11 Tips On How To Start A Digital Marketing Business
• How to Start a Marketing Business

Video YouTube channel

Together you can create a Vlog – video YouTube channel – about a topic of mutual interest and passion.

One or both of you could be the on-camera person. The other spouse could be the video editor and/or the marketer director. Marketing directors negotiate profitable brand sponsorships and create online courses to sell.

Online Store with Handmade Crafts

Combine forces with your spouse and open an e-commerce store selling the handmade crafts that she/he creates. The other spouse could be the more tech-savvy one who builds the website, uploads online sale listings, and handles the financial aspects. The artistic one creates the art and photographs them for sale, then packs and ships them for customer orders.

Manufacturing Business Ideas

Product Manufacturing

This is the business type that I started with my husband. I was the business and marketing manager while he was the factory and shipping director. This worked out well because each of us had our own specific areas of responsibility which complimented our skill set.

Farming and Plant Nursery

Let Mother Nature be your business partner! Start a farm or plant nursery with your lover and grow your own green profits!

A couple friend of ours, husband and wife, run a very successful plant propagation business. The husband manages the greenhouses & farm Workers while the wife is the salesperson and business accountant.

Farm and Floral Resources

• How to Improve Profits from Online Floral Orders
• Profitable Agricultural Business Ideas
• How to Handle the Biggest Expenses of Starting a Farm Business

Restaurants & Food Business Ideas

Restaurants both local and franchisees are often successful when run by a married couple together.

Typically the division of labor is separated between the front and back of the house. The “front” deals with customer service, managing wait staff and planning advertising campaigns. The “back” of the house handles the preparation of food, ordering of supplies and kitchen design.

Food Truck

One partner could be the chef and handle food preparation while the other could plan social media ads, promotions, and bookkeeping.

Food Truck Resources

• How to Start a Food Truck Business
• Food Truck Business Name Ideas
• Starting a Food Truck Business: Is It the Right Startup for You?

Coffee Shop

One of you could be the Barista coffee expert while the other could focus on preparing other foodstuffs such as baked goods and sandwiches.

Alternatively, you could hire a chef for food production so that one of you can be the business manager who will do the accounting and advertising tasks.

Services

Landscaping and Lawn Care

This is a good business to start as a couple where one focuses on the physical aspects of gardening and lawn maintenance while the other focuses on the artistic garden design and business-focused marketing campaigns. Or one of you could design garden installations such as paths, and patios while the other builds these items. 

Garden and Landscape Resources

• Catchy Landscaping Business Name Ideas

• How to Start a Landscaping Company

• How To Start A Garden Landscaping Business

Tutoring and Teaching

Couples start a tutoring business together so they can cover multiple subjects. Perhaps one of you is better at teaching math and other tutoring languages. Alternatively, you could double your student customers by teaming up together.

Consulting

I know of a few successful business consulting teams comprised of spouses. Each spouse takes one aspect of the business for their consulting focus.

In one company I know the husband focuses on the financial advice for the business owner while the wife focuses on the human resources and personnel issues of the company.

Alternatively, you could have your spouse focus on the company’s production methods, and ways to streamline them, while you helped their marketing department improve their advertising campaigns.

Gym and Fitness Classes

Love to work out, run or do yoga? Use your passions to help others get in shape and stay healthy.

The two of you could double the number of classes you can have as a team. Or you can be personal trainers, wives focus on female clients, and husbands help men lift weights.

Cleaning Business

Mop up profits in the cleaning industry!

Couples make good partners in cleaning businesses because they can divide the tasks into those which require more physical strength for husbands who may be stronger and taller, and wives can do the more delicate cleaning jobs – or vice versa.

Another way to work as a couple is to divide your cleaning company into residential and commercial cleaning, one partner for each industry.

Alternatively, one spouse could be the cleaning service provider while the other is the sales manager who gets the contracts, collects the payments, and does the accounting.

Cleaning Service Resources

• Cleaning Company Name Ideas
• How to Start a Cleaning Business
• How to Start a Commercial Cleaning Business

Pet Sitting and Animal Care

How about starting an animal care business together as a couple? The two of you can double the number of pets you can watch, walk, and take care of as a team.

Or you can divide your business into your girlfriend who does the pet sitting at people’s homes for indoor animals while you the boyfriend focuses on animals that require strenuous outdoor walking, playing and training – or switch roles.

 Another way to divide the labor is to create a pet care business where one of you focuses on pet grooming and the other on pet walking and training. 

Real Estate 

Broker Sales Agency

Many successful real estate sales agencies are run by married couples. That is because one spouse can focus on getting listings and the other can focus on selling properties.

Another idea could be that one partner focuses entirely on real estate buying and selling while the other focuses on marketing listings and managing the business’s finances.

An advantage of having a couple in the real estate business is that most homes are purchased by married partners and as a couple business owners you can create strong customer connections, wives to wives and husbands to husbands, for positive interactions.

House Flipping

This business idea is one where you purchase real estate, renovate it, and resell it at a profit. We all know the successful real estate couple, The Gaines who divide the labor into her design skills and his construction skills.

Another way to divide the business is for one of you to focus on scouting properties, negotiating the price, and ultimately selling the property while the other spouse is responsible for the renovation, purchasing materials, and hiring tradesman. 

Retail Stores

Fashion Boutique

One of my marketing clients, are married couple entrepreneurs, own and operate a chain of fashion boutiques. The husband manages the business aspect of accounting, payroll, and shipping ecommerce orders, while his wife, who is the more creative Fashionista, devotes her time to sourcing interesting fashions to feature in their boutiques and also develops their advertising campaigns.

Plus the husband manages their online store while his wife sets up and directs the fashion photoshoots for the online store listings.

Retail Resources

• Why An Online Retail Venture Is A Great Choice For Entrepreneurs
• Cost to Open a Retail Gift Shop
• How to Open an Accessories Retail Store

Transportation

Delivery Trucking Service

Couples can start a delivery service where one is the driver and the other handles logistics, finances and marketing.