They divorced but still worked together, growing their income to $1.4 million

When Max and Elena Emma Co-Founders Bookers custodybookkeeping franchisedecided to get divorced In 2014, this story will likely play out like many others: lawyercustody battles, employees forced to choose sides, and once-promising businesses ruined by personal divisions.

But Max, BooXkeeping’s CEO, and Elena, the company’s chief product officer, have decided that, despite their affection, that’s not the story. “We decided we weren’t going to get lawyerwe’re not going to get anything,” Elena told Entrepreneur in a new interview. “It’s going to be a very amicable divorce. We submit documents and everything else is just a verbal agreement. “

The origin of BooXkeeping

Max and Elena are both immigrants to the United States, Max came to the United States from Russia in 1993, and Elena came to the United States from Ukraine in 1999. They met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in San Diego three weeks after Elena arrived in the United States, began dating two years later, and married two years later.

Max designated July 3, 2002 as the last day he would work for someone.

“Celebrating July 4th as Independence Day has double meaning to me because I also celebrate it as my own personal Independence Day,” Marks explains.

Shortly thereafter, he started a landscaping company with Elena and grew it to 96 employees, but it ran into trouble when the recession began in 2008.

“We have no choice but to declare bankruptcy, both corporate and personal,” Marks said. That experience gave them a common belief: Numbers are important, but relationships are more important.

A few years later, they tried again. Max and Elena founded BooXkeeping in 2011 in a garage in San Diego, with a six-year-old and a one-year-old at home, with Max handling business development and Elena taking care of the baby and closing the books.

When their marriage began to unravel a few years after BooXkeeping launched, their first move was to protect those around them. Their staff worked in what had been the children’s nursery; once they chose to separate, they rented an office so that no one had to spend the family breakup in the former family bedroom. “We always put relationships first,” Elena said. “Even though the relationship format has changed. The human aspect is important to us.”

Marks remembers that when the discussion got heated, their coworkers wondered if they needed to call 911. “Sometimes we talk, we get emotional; it doesn’t mean we’re fighting,” he said. “We were just arguing, but in a good way.”

Elena was less than diplomatic: “That’s yelling, Max,” she said. “Honestly, don’t put a picture of a perfectly divorced couple. No. We yell at each other… but it’s been years and we’re still here doing it. Somehow, it works.”

Why this divorce is different

What got them through the split was a shared sense of responsibility — to their two sons and to the business they both describe as their third child. Early on, they sat their sons down and assured them that their divorce would not be like what they had heard from other families. “We assured both of them that they didn’t have to decide who they wanted to be with, who was right and who was wrong,” Marks said. “To this day, that has not happened.”

The same logic applies to BooXkeeping: Elena calls it “our third child growing up together.” “When people ask me, what’s your business? I say my business is a year younger than my second child,” she said. “Just like we do with our children, we promise they won’t have to make a choice. We’ll fix this.”

This commitment outlasts the marriage itself. Max still lives in Santiago; Elena lives in Barcelona and is a professor and crisis coach. They spent all their holidays together, with Max flying to Spain for a milestone occasion – their youngest child’s sixteenth birthday this year. “We start a business and we close a business,” Marks said. “But we need each other. We still need each other to get to the next stage of our lives.”

From a professional perspective, their post-divorce years coincided with BooXkeeping’s most ambitious chapter to date. The company now produces financial statements for freelancers and small and medium-sized businesses.

The company has developed to 16 franchisees Across the United States, there are more than 100 franchise brandsfrom emerging concepts to systems with hundreds or thousands of units.

BooXkeeping Culture

The culture they often talk about is directly dependent on the way they choose to end their marriage and then renegotiate it. They look for people, whether employees or franchisees, who can survive in a stressful environment without screwing up. Marks says he screens every potential franchisee with a simple personal test: “Do I want to hang out with this person outside of work?” If the answer is no, the deal won’t go forward, no matter how much capital is available. “Culture means a lot to us,” he said.

Internally, the culture looks like long-tenured employees who started in entry-level positions and now run operations and accounting, and a leadership team that is not afraid of conflict but has the discipline to bounce back from it.

“For me, the relationship comes first,” Elena said of the guiding principles that kept her working with her ex-husband. “We’ve known each other for years and we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs together as a couple…it’s just a different kind of relationship.”

It also looks like two very different personalities learning to share a steering wheel. Max is the one who wants to sprint; Elena worries about how quickly the company can actually absorb the growth.

None of this is perfect, and they don’t pretend not to be. The debate still rages. What remains is an unusual loyalty, the idea that a relationship doesn’t have to end just because of marriage, and that the companies that emerge from it don’t have to be collateral damage.

The result is huge profits. BooXkeeping’s revenue last year was $1.4 million and is expected to exceed $2 million by the end of this year. The goal is to double the number of franchisees from 16 locations to 35 by the end of this year.

“I keep my word, I’m committed to this business and committed to achieving this goal,” Elena said. “This was a very clear, conscious decision on my part.”

Max puts it even simpler: “I have no regrets because I don’t think we would have gotten where we have without each other.”

When Max and Elena Emma Co-Founders Bookers custodybookkeeping franchisedecided to get divorced In 2014, this story will likely play out like many others: lawyercustody battles, employees forced to choose sides, and once-promising businesses ruined by personal divisions.

But Max, BooXkeeping’s CEO, and Elena, the company’s chief product officer, have decided that, despite their affection, that’s not the story. “We decided we weren’t going to get lawyerwe’re not going to get anything,” Elena told Entrepreneur in a new interview. “It’s going to be a very amicable divorce. We submit documents and everything else is just a verbal agreement. “

The origin of BooXkeeping

Max and Elena are both immigrants to the United States, Max came to the United States from Russia in 1993, and Elena came to the United States from Ukraine in 1999. They met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in San Diego three weeks after Elena arrived in the United States, began dating two years later, and married two years later.