If you love the idea of starting your own business or working in a business that’s already been started by your family, there are a few things that you’re going to want to be careful about when it comes to working with or employing people within your own family circle.

Family relationships can be tricky in the best of times. So while it can be helpful for you to give your grandparents a job outside of their lives in their senior living community, before you go about doing this, it’s important that you keep certain things in mind.

To help you with this, here are three tips for starting a business with your family. 

Keep Roles Clear

As soon as you decide that you want to bring some member of your family into your new business with you, you need to set a clear precedent about the roles that each person will have. It’s so easy for personal relationships to cloud the judgement of people in working relationships, especially if those people are family. So if you don’t want your mom or dad second-guessing your decisions in the workplace, make sure you clarify what everyone’s roles are from the start.

Seek Advice Outside The Family

In business, there are likely to be situations where you and your family member/coworker don’t agree on something. Ideally, you will have set up your roles so that it’s clear who’s going to have final say about most things. But even if you have, it’s wise to seek outside advice from people who aren’t in your family on occasion.

By having trusted advisors or agencies of people that are familiar with your business available to offer their insights and advice about the direction or decisions you should be making, it can help you to take out the personal prejudices that you and others might have and allow for an impartial third-party observer with no personal interest in the matter to voice their opinion. 

Expect Some Conflict

As with any personal or professional relationships, you should expect there to be some conflict when you’re working with family in your business. While this might not be anything big, knowing how to resolve conflict together will ensure that you’re able to move forward and that neither your personal or professional relationships suffer. 

If you don’t already know how to handle conflict well, this could be a professional development that you should work on. And if you know from past experiences that you and certain family members can’t deal with conflict in productive ways, working together may not be the best idea in the first place.

If you’re thinking about starting your own business and heavily involving your family in this endeavor, consider using the tips mentioned above to help things go as smoothly as possible.