One Brand, Two Countries: How We Survive the Long Distance as Atizay's Co-Founders.

Atizay Co-Founders, Christie E. (left) and Tamara I. (right)

Atizay is only one year old, but it’s already teaching us so many precious lessons. Whether you’re planning on launching a business on your own or with a partner, we believe some of the stuff we’ve learned might be useful to you. So here is a glimpse into how we (Christie & Tamara) manage Atizay as co-founders while living in different parts of the world!

We Know and Trust Each Other

Entering the business world, especially as an entrepreneur, can be scary. Having a business partner can certainly make the journey a bit easier. However, it's important to be intentional when choosing your business companion. Simply knowing a person and being friends with them does not necessarily mean that you can work together. Your business partner must be someone you really trust and can count on.

Atizay is an idea that had been germinating for years. The amount of work that launching the project would require and the fact that we lived in different countries were two factors that justified taking our time to figure out how we would make it work and move forward with the business. But the main reason why we knew we could make it work is because we knew each other very well. With 15 years of strong friendship under our belt, we are very familiar with the way each other works and know that we can count on each other to make it happen.

Also, two brains just work better than one.

Reunited 9 years later in Costa Rica, 2016.

We Have Shared Values

When launching a business, it is important that all partners are on the same page. And this does not only mean knowing what your business is about, but also what you are about. Regardless of the field you will be doing business in, your brand or company should always be a representation of what you believe in and stand for. So, it only makes sense that your partner and you build a business based on your shared values.

Knowing what your long, mid, and short-term goals are will help you better define smaller action steps that will get you there.

We are Atizay’s founders, but we’re also people, and as such, we don’t agree on everything in life. However, when we decided to launch our brand, we made sure that we built it on what was meaningful to the both of us. Our passion for art and the experience we wanted to create for artists and art lovers allowed us to find a common ground to start building a community and a brand that made sense to both of us.

We Set Clear Goals and Tasks

If you think becoming an entrepreneur will require a lot of work, you’re right. And when you and your partner live miles apart it can be hard to keep track of things. That's why you need to be organized. In order to keep things moving you must be very mindful of how you manage your time. Planning is key. Knowing what your long, mid, and short-term goals are will help you better define smaller action steps that will get you there.

We break it all down into yearly, monthly and weekly goals. We create a shared calendar, so both of us are always on top of everything. When all goals and tasks are clear, it makes it easier for us to know what needs to be done, when and by whom. This also allows us to hold each other accountable.

We Have Defined Roles

One of the greatest things launching Atizay has taught us is how important it is to define our roles within the brand. You need to know what you can bring to the brand, especially in the beginnings, when you might be doing most of the work yourselves. You will obviously share a lot of the main tasks but knowing what each of you is best at helps better assign resources in order to get things done more efficiently.

Having a clear communication system is important in the way we interact with each other as founders in order to reach our goals.

We’ve identified our individual skills and we use them where they can serve best. If there are any other areas neither of us have knowledge in, we can both learn and share the responsibilities.

We Communicate, and Communicate, and Communicate!

Transparent communication is key to running a successful business. Working with someone you know and trust will make the communication process easier, but this is also a skill you need to push yourself to learn.

Having a clear communication system is important in our interactions with each other as founders so we can reach our goals. This also helps reduce errors and create a better workflow. In addition to making work easier and better, transparent communication also helps us stay aware of how we are feeling in regards to our tasks, the business, and even our personal life and the ways in which it might affect our projects.

There are so many more things we’ve learned from launching this project, but these are definitely the ones that are at the center of the way we work as a team everyday. And to be honest, you just learn it all along the way. You only need to take the first step!