Being close in your personal and professional lives creates a unique set of advantages and drawbacks at work.
by Anna Meyer
illustrations by Grace Molteni
Today is National Best Friend day, and here at The Riveter we’re all about celebrating the friends who lift us up and make for the best allies against the harder parts of life. As the saved contacts in your phone favorites, and the ultimate confidants for all of your work, love, and life problems, best friends serve as one of the most important roles in our lives. They know you better than you know yourself sometimes, and they will be the first to brag to the world about what makes you so badass, as seen in Issue 3 with our featured profile on Lizzo, accounted for by her four closest friends. Powerful women supporting their equally inspiring besties gets the ultimate seal of approval from the Riveter nation, especially when our publication has a foundation in friendship.
The Riveter’s founders, Kaylen Ralph and Joanna Demkiewicz, created the publication as college colleagues at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, after deciding to do something about the gender disparities in magazine journalism and overall cultural bias against women’s media. As best friends at first, they created a project together and then ventured into becoming co-editors. If you want to ensure accurate financial records and minimize your tax liability, you need accounting and tax services to handle your business finances effectively. You can also create a savings account through banking services like Timberland Bank personal savings accounts and make sure your money is protected.
“I couldn’t have undertaken the project that has become The Riveter with anyone other than Yanna during our senior year of college at the University of Missouri,” Ralph reflects. “We ‘fell in love’ with each other while falling in love with this publication and the potential impact it could have on the representation of women in the magazine journalism industry, a very personal undertaking on many levels.”
The new kind of relationship that Ralph and Demkiewicz grew into was a bestiepreneur dynamic; a term coined by hosts Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow of the podcast Call Your Girlfriend. The podcast features a phone call every other week between Friedman and Sow, where they discuss pop culture and politics, in the kind of #realtalk that only two best girlfriends share with one another.
Similar to the dynamic between Friedman and Sow, Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner’s relationship has unfolded in front of online media consumers with their creation of weekly newsletter and website, Lenny. Dunham and Konner are friends, TV show writing partners, and co-founders with their eyes set on admirable goals, including what Dunham explains in an interview with Fast Company, “… to create a space that was funny and smart and feminist without the snark and infighting” with the newsletter. Lenny’s associate editor, Laia Garcia, has explained with us what makes the newsletter so great in an interview found in Issue 4, and further discusses all of the work that goes into each send out.
But sometimes being a friend and a business partner isn’t so easy, as Alexis Miesen and Jennie Dundas of their organic ice cream company, Blue Marble Ice Cream, has discovered.
“Sometimes it’s hard to know when to wear your friend hat, when to wear your business partner hat, or when – and how – to wear both,” Miesen points out in an interview with BBC. “Lines, roles and expectations can get fuzzy.”
Risking a friendship is a lurking problem of going into business together, but through clear communication and patience, the relationship can grow stronger though the project. In the same interview with BBC, Miesen explains how this unique struggle that comes with the dynamic is worth it for the benefit of having a friend venture alongside you.
“There is so much about the experience that is exciting, challenging and scary. Having someone at your side, riding both the highs and lows with you, is so rewarding and really such a relief. And it makes it all the more special when that someone is a person you care about.”
For us, The Riveter has gone from a small idea to a magazine for women everywhere to share and discuss issues in the kind of light that modern readers deserve because of two friends with a similar mentality and hard work.
“The fact that we created something during such a formative moment in our lives and that we’ve seen each other grow—and allowed each other to grow—is paramount to The Riveter‘s story,” Demkiewicz says. “We’ve literally seen it all, as with most friendships: the fuck-ups, the frustrations, the heartaches, the breakthroughs, the changes in our personal lives. All of that is a part of our working relationship, and that openness allows us to work more honestly with each other. I know The Riveter is better for it.”
When asked about what the best parts of working with your best friend are, Ralph and Demkiewicz offered up their take on being a best friend, business partner duo:
The Best Parts of Bestiepreneurs as seen by Kaylen Ralph and Joanna Demkiewicz
- KR: You can drink wine at meetings (encouraged, actually).
- JD: Work inspiration hits at any moment—middle of the night, middle of the dance floor, middle of a happy hour—and your bestie coworker will not judge and in fact probably had the same thing happen, on the same dance floor.
- KR: Working with someone who’s seen you at your best AND worst means they won’t let you get away with over-exerting yourself OR failing to meet your own potential. A bestie in business knows what you can handle (and what you can’t).
- JD: Real talk is as much a part of a work meeting as the hard-and-fast work stuff. But that real talk is often fodder for an idea that wasn’t there before; creativity is often borne from those intimate friendship conversations about bodies, books, booze, babes, etc.
- KR: Jumping from “girl talk” (wtf is so-called girl talk, though?) to business and back again somehow results in creative genius (please see #1).
- JD: *Ahem* drinking at meetings.
- KR: You can always play the “which ‘Sex and the City’ / ‘Grace & Frankie’ / ‘Girls’ / ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ etc. character are you?” in order to learn more about yourself as a businesswoman and friend.
- JD: It’s productive to understand the struggles and insecurities of your co-worker, and when your co-worker is your bestie, that’s a given. She is your biggest advocate for your mental health, and your biggest cheerleader for success.
- KR: Even during the hard times, you’ll never go it alone.
- JD: Ok this is easy: You get to work with someone you love. That’s enough of a reason to me.
Anna Meyer is The Riveter’s Editorial Brand Assistant. She is a Minneapolis native currently pursuing journalism and creative writing at the University of Kansas. She enjoys experimenting with charcoal drawing, plastic toy cameras, and she’s most likely waking up early for yoga this weekend. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Grace Molteni is a Midwest born and raised designer, illustrator, and self-proclaimed bibliophile, currently calling Chicago home. She believes strongly in a “beer first, always, and only” rule, and is forever seeking the perfect dumpling. For more musings, work, or just to say hey check her out on Instagram or at her personal website.
