A little bit about ReWorkflow – our third baby. More of Jon’s, as he started freelancing for Slate schools during Covid. Slate by Technolutions is a CRM uniquely designed for higher education, a single platform that covers the full student life cycle from prospective to alumni, in a nutshell. The amount of client school increased steadily, to a point where he felt ready to quit his full-time job and found ReWorklow, became his own boss. It was early 2021, his office was our partially-furnished basement, with a tiny window, and we had a 1-year old and another one on the way. Everyday Jon woke up at 3am, went downstairs to work, then upstairs for a sunrise run, back to drive me to the bus station where I took the shuttle to Columbia, and Haruki to his daycare, and back to work. And repeat the next day.

Fast forward to late 2022, we sold our house, packed up our things and moved to Vietnam to be closer to my side of the family, aka free babysitters. Jon went to visit our now-partner to persuade him to give up his own LLC to join ours and succeeded. I quit my full-time job and officially became a piece of the ReW puzzle. I do things that Jon shouldn’t be wasting his time doing, sending invoices, managing receipts, scheduling calls, run payrolls, you name it.

What a journey it has been working together professionally, in our own business! The perks are unlimited. We go to different cafes for our weekly meeting, talking business over a cup of superb Vietnamese coffee. We have a floor at home only for ReW and separate rooms for our offices. We don’t need to seek approval for vacation requests. The flexibility hours and being able to skip crazy traffics and commuting to work make life with two little ones much better. We could join almost all their activities at schools. We can commit to leaving our desks promptly at 5 everyday to pick them up and spend the evening with them.

Needless to say, the challenges are also countless. We thought we knew each other’s working styles, but adapting to it in a professional setting is a different story. There are many difficult decisions to make, and we don’t always agree. The hard part is, to know when Jon makes a call that I disagree with, he does so for the sake of the company, not because he hates me or wants to annoy me (I have to constantly remind myself that). It’s also super hard separating our working and personal lives, because when we walk in our home, we also walk into the office, more or less. It’s hard not to give each other work updates during non-office hours, sometimes it feels like all hours are office hours. I can go on forever.

However, I’m thankful everyday for the opportunity to be a husband and wife team. We learn and understand so much more about one another, we feel closer as we share both the ups and downs as we do in our personal lives. Here’s to another day of reworking and reworking together!