Sorry for the length, but I’ve been dying to put this into words. My husband has been self employed in tech and scraping by for about 13 years. Over that time, he honed his skills and transitioned from graphic design to web design to web dev to app dev and became extremely good at what he does. About 5 years ago a popular local photographer that we knew socially was talking about starting a marketing and ad company locally (we live in a tourist destination in US). Fast forward 6m, my husband is a freelance “employee” of this man (let’s call him Coral) with plans to be a salaried partner within a year.
Naturally a year passes and no progress- no partnership, no salary…still fighting to hunt money down. Then another year. Husband gets another job offer and is put on salary by Coral the next day (no partner – that got pushed another year). At this point husband knows he’s on his way out the door, but at least has a monthly check in the meantime. Oh, he technically took a pay cut to go on salary just so we could have a predictable pay schedule.
During this time my husband is working 60-70 hrs a week- in office, from home, on weekends, etc (did I mention we have 4 kids?) Coral does finally hire someone (Tiffany) to manage the financials and do admin stuff, but it turns out she’s so good at her job she reveals Coral is even worse at business than we thought. Turns out my husband was bringing in clients and turning out 85% of the billable work while Coral and his wife were using company money like their personal ATM for their car, home decor, etc. All while claiming that they “make the same $” as husband. Tiffany also shows that they used company funds to buy he office building, but put it in Corals name personally and he charges his company “rent” so he can collect more $ and keep the equity personally. There’s so much more, but this is already a novel. Suffice it to say my husband was no longer interested in partner.
Coincidentally, around that time husband learned of a job opening at a company his friend worked for. All remote, Canada based company, good salary, benefits, and set work hours (they have a few job openings actually). Husband applied and got hired very quickly. Of course once he told Coral he got an offer C started trying to grasp for carrots to dangle to keep husband – but thanks to Tiffany, it was clear none of it was financially possible.
Oh, and the absolute cherry on top was the fact that Coral never made ANY contracts for employees or web clients (photo clients signed contracts, naturally ). So the app that husband was working on that was going to be the big money maker for the company BELONGS TO MY HUSBAND (yes, we have an IP lawyer). AND the company that hired him literally gives employees 3 hrs a week to work on personal projects during business hours!
I didn’t even mention the best part- the company in Canada that hired husband, in addition to better pay, hours, etc, got their B Corp certification! Meaning they meet some pretty rigorous standards for environmental impacts, social justice, worker rights and protections, sustainability, etc. So my brilliant husband is finally being rewarded for 13 years of struggle with a 6 fig salary, full med/vision/dental insurance, set hours (10-5 M-F w/ 3 hrs weds to work on personal projects), PTO, vacation, paternity leave, mental health days, 401k….there are more perks im not recalling. I can’t believe we finally have some real financial security. Took us until we‘re almost 40, but better late than never! Coral is likely gonna have to close his marketing biz after his cash cow stopped producing.
Sweet sweet victory.
TLDR; after being taken advantage of by a horrible employer for 5 yrs, husband got a new job that doubles salary, full benefits, and B Corp cert. He also 100% owns the IP to all the work he did for horrible employer- likely horrible employer won’t have a company for much longer.