Here’s some inspirational couples running great companies and a little insight into how they do it together…

Mr & Mrs Smith — founded by Tamara Heber-Percy & James Lohan

One question posed to them during an interview was, “What challenges do you face working together as husband and wife?”

James, “The key for me is having distinctly different roles in the office.”

Tamara, “At the moment we’re both trying to balance the growth of our business with looking after our two young children. I do think that a successful working relationship between partners is reliant on having a stable and secure relationship at home. We never let business problems interfere with family time, but when there are exciting prospects on the horizon it’s great to be able to talk to each other, as it is the livelihood of our whole family.”

Toast — founded by Jessica & Jamie Seaton

Jessica, “I look at the structure of the collection, the shoot, the catalogue, and Jamie shapes business decisions with me. There’s a lot of crossover. My strength is the overview, the way things fit together, and Jamie’s is detail and rigorous perfection.”

Agent Provocateur — founded by Serena Rees & Joe Corré (now divorced)

Joe, “We get requests from all over the world. We’ve had department stores approaching us for years, saying, ‘Can you do something in our store?’ But whether we can recreate in a department store the atmosphere of our shops, and that intimate and personal experience of our customers, is a problem. Because if we can’t do that, then we won’t do it at all. We don’t have any great mission to expand into every outlet we can.”

Firmdale Hotels — founded by Kit & Tim Kemp

Kit, “I think we would be unemployable anywhere else, as we’re both perfectionists.”

Their roles in the partnership are well defined. Tim finds the locations (Soho Hotel is on the site of a former NCP car park) and does the sums. Kit designs the interiors and has an eclectic eye for detail that ensures no two rooms are the same. The secret of their success is knowing how to spend.

Kit, “We have never skimped, even during an economic downturn.”

Baileys Home and Garden — founded by Sally & Mark Bailey

Sally, “We’ve always been into antiques and recycling, and the business blends the two together. When we started, we ploughed a lone furrow, but mixing old and new and recycling has become very fashionable and we’ve seen the interest in what we do grow enormously over the last few years.”

Mark, “I prefer things to be worn and lived-in and Sally goes along with me. I love things that are well made and have some integrity, honesty and heritage.”

Their own home is a converted barn next to their shop, workshop, and cafe.

the Rug Company — Suzanne & Christopher Sharp

“What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur?”

Chris, “As I consider myself unemployable, I have little choice! I love the variety of what we do and, right or wrong, I like making my own decisions. Travelling, meeting interesting people and working in a craft I feel passionately about, I don’t think it gets much better.”

“Anything that comes out of a passion just works.” Now that sounds very Coulson Macleod.

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simple home is by Mark and Sally Bailey of the utterly lovely store Baileys Home and Garden.

The blurb on the back says, “One of the most inspiring interiors books we have seen in ages, giving a room-by-room tour of spaces that embrace the Baileys’ love of the well-worn, the distressed, the abandoned and the recycled” Telegraph Magazine.  And I agree whole-heartedly.