Running A Business As A Couple | Sinead Davies & David McDonald | Episode 992

Sinead Davies & David McDonald | Episode 992

Sinead Davies & David McDonald are a pair of tradies/hobby potters creating their artworks in their home studio in tropical far north Queensland, Australia. Sinead focuses on practicality and function while Dave expresses creative flair and experimentation. However, the compatibility of their aesthetic preferences creates cohesion and crossover in their pieces.

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Is there a person in the business portion of your making that is more of the boss than the other person?

Sinead: Yes, do you agree that I am the boss?

David: Yes. Absolutely.

How does it work for you then as a couple? Sinead how does that work for you being the boss?

Sinead: For me I think it’s just with my time availability I am able to focus on this more. Dave works super hard in his day job and he also really supports the pottery business a lot whenever he can. It means managing the website, managing communications, managing the Instagram side of things. But I would say creatively we are quite equal in what we are producing.

David you are running another business, is it hard to be committed to both?

David: I haven’t found that because I guess they are quite separate. When I am working, I am working, but even when I am working I am thinking about pottery a lot. It’s a lot more enjoyable. Work is for utility but with pottery it’s more of a love and a lot more enjoyment. I find it quite separate and there’s no real conflict.

How important is it to define roles in terms of saying, You’ll do this and I’ll do that without defining significance? Without saying one is more important than the other, just things that need to get done?

Sinead: I don’t think we have actually done that. We are pretty similar people and we get along pretty easily. I don’t think there’s ever been a time where we actually delegated or separated our roles. I think we both treat pottery as we do what we want to. there is of course times where things need to get done but I think more of things that need to get done would just naturally fall to me being more available for this business.

David: We just know

How important is it to bring respect for what the other person brings to the business, respect for each other, how important is that?

David: I think it’s important and there’s a lot of respect for what we each bring and we also really like the pottery each of us make. I will make something and Sinead will see and it and it’s just, I don’t know, we just enjoy the same sort of pottery and have similar aesthetics.

Sinead: We are always super excited when the other one gets home, Come and look what I made today.

Do you guys hold team meetings where you plan what you are supposed to be doing, where you plan the future, plan the business, talk about admin stuff?

David: Not a planned time where we are going to sit down and 3 pm and talk about business. I think naturally lots of our conversations revolve around pottery and what we would like. But no specific meeting times.

Sinead: Yeah, I think things just sort of come up. If we are talking about branding or how we would like our Instagram page to look and things like that it would just come up in the moment when we have a little bit of down time.