145,000 businesses start-up each year in the US. Many launch in garages, home offices, or in the case of Stonyfield Farm, a drafty old farmhouse on a New Hampshire hilltop with seven cows, and a dream. Like most entrepreneurial ventures, the company also had vision, tenacity, some capital, market research, and an understanding of expenses, competition and supply chains. How a new business will affect the personal lives of its leader, or the lives of their families and spouses, however, rarely figures into a business plan. Meg Cadoux Hirshbergworked with her husband Gary as he built Stonyfield into the largest producer of organic yogurt in the world -- with annual sales now at $370 million. In her career as a freelance non-fiction writer, her “balancing acts” column for Inc.Magazine, her travels with her charismatic husband, and hundreds of interviews, Meg discovered tension, taboos, real-life resentments, and some practical solutions for those building a business while also pursuing a fulfilling family life. Her new book, For Better or Work, is a survival guide for entrepreneurs and their families.
For Better or for Work: A Farm-Grown Idea
