I’ve never really been a business human, so I never expected to have a business partner. I have rarely made money and mostly made jokes, and Jokes About Business has been one of my very favorite categories for years.

In college I majored in English but enjoyed visiting my friends at Stern School of Business, barking orders into an imaginary cell phone, “Buy! Sell! Tell China to offload our assets! I’m getting a fax! Beep bop boop beep.” After school, I stayed out of business, working first as an editorial assistant at a literary agency—where I willfully refused to understand foreign tax forms—and then as an assistant editor at Grand Central Publishing. In that position, I actually worked on business books, but it always felt ironic. “I’m still not really sure what money is,” I would tell my boss. While there, I certainly learned things I might not have known, both from my boss and those books, but I generally still preferred to pitch ideas like Black Widow-ing for Fun and Profit. While an enthusiastic editor, I stayed a fundamentally un-businesslike person.

At my next job, as a features editor for a blog network, I signed correspondence “xoxo business <3” and wooed writers with subject lines like, “LET ME PAY YOU MONEY $$$.” Now I’m a freelance writer, a notoriously business-oriented profession that allows me to watch Kathy Lee and Hoda at the gym. But I of all people have a business partner. And without her I would really be a joke.

In the summer of 2013, my friend (and at the time, co-worker) Allyson Rudolph and I founded The League of Assistant Editors, a professional networking group for agents and editors in book publishing. At the time, we were both assistant editors at GCP, and we had been fast friends with heavily overlapping lives since Allyson started at the imprint earlier that year. As industry nerds, we talked a lot about our various frustrations with and ideas about publishing at large, and the things we wanted for our own careers. Namely, we wanted to buy more books.

We knew we shared a problem with our fellow assistant editors: We found it hard to meet and get to know new agents, agents who could sell us new and exciting books. It seemed like a silly problem because it grew out of the weird opacity that characterizes book publishing, which runs on a system of knowing—but mostly being known by—agents. Silly, but solvable. We believed agents would want to meet us, if only they knew about our minimal but still existing budgets and intense desire to buy books. We were young and we were hungry. We wanted a place at the table, even if we had to set those tables up ourselves.

One night, the assistants of GCP were out for drinks, celebrating someone or something, as we always were, and Allyson told me her fantastic idea: speed-networking events. They would be just like speed-dating, but for agents and editors to meet and discuss their lists in a concentrated, fun space. I, in turn, had the fantastic idea of ordering more wine and haranguing Allyson about what a good idea this was.

We all had lots of ideas around then, especially during celebrations, but this one felt different. It felt important but attainable, necessary and actionable, so I did my part: I refused to let it drop, and that night we talked logistics and locations and branding and all the things that make ideas real. We talked about the things we could start off doing and the things we could dare to do. We named it. I promised to share my shoulder for whatever burdens would come up, and we both understood that this was something we were all in for.

In the next days, we just kept moving. We met with speed-dating experts to figure out what was what, and our HR department to find out what wouldn’t get us fired. We confirmed a location and a ticket price, put together our social media accounts, started a newsletter, drew up a goofy logo, and sent out press releases. We did media interviews in the conference room, running around to let our colleagues know that—NO BIG DEAL—we were being profiled for our own ideas. We mapped out our tables, giving each one an adorable title, and ordered special pencils with our business name—The League—on them. When the tickets went live, all seventy-six sold out in a matter of days.

In September of 2013 we held our first event at Housing Works in Manhattan. Book deals were made, all the proceeds went to charity, and despite the fact that no couples actually met cute at our first event (allowing us to write and sell a romantic comedy called “Speed Pitch”), we were a huge success. And a few weeks later, I left book publishing.

Contrary to how it all might sound, I didn’t leave book publishing in spite of The League. In fact, my connection and continued dedication to the group made me feel like I wouldn’t have to fully leave the incredibly maddening industry that I stupidly love. For the first time, I had a professional identity that didn’t hinge on who had hired me or where I worked or what I had been allowed to buy; it came from something I had helped to build. When I was scared or apprehensive about something at my new job, which paid better and involved more responsibility than my previous position, I thought about those assembled agents and editors, moving every three minutes to the ding of our bell.

Since that first event, Allyson and I have put on four League events, each one better than the last. But that’s not the end of what our business partnership has come to mean. For one thing, we served together as programming co-chairs for BinderCon, a symposium for female and gender-non-conforming writers, and coordinated panels featuring badass women like Jill Abramson, Anna Holmes, Amanda Hess, Jenna Wortham, and more.

We’ve moved on in our careers—Allyson has become a full-time editor for Overlook Press, and I stopped lying about “just wanting to edit” and started gathering bylines of my own—but when we have ideas, we know where to go. Whether it’s a book idea or a new website or an app that scrapes the Susan Miller horoscope for dates to put in your calendar, we’re one another’s first gut check.

It’s hard to say exactly why our collaborating works well for us. It’s not quite as simple as having different strengths—while we’re far from identical, we’re both small, voicey women who like having and executing ideas—but it might be that we have those different strengths at different times. In our work, we keep each other moving. If one of us knows some aspect of a project intimidates or overwhelms the other, the other person tries to step up. When things get too intense, we give each other a break.

Thinking of our friendship as a business partnership makes me feel more responsible, not only to Allyson but also to myself. It’s more than just being buddies with a co-worker or having a friend whom you can vent to about work; it’s also knowing you have someone who is going to be working with you after the work is over. It’s knowing you have someone else who thinks the work is worth doing.

I’m still not a numbers gal, so I won’t try to count how many times our partnership kept me going after the kind of setback that would have made me quit a solo project. I just know that I am unwilling to let Allyson down. Just like doing my own taxes, it’s impossible to quantify what bravery our partnership has lent me. I have been able to better honor my own instincts and aspirations because of the way she has treated them. I have taken myself more seriously because I take her seriously. I have learned to do business because there is business that needs to be done. And along with my partner, I’m the business human who is going to make it happen.

Who is your partner in crime?
Your work spouse?
Your confidant?

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If you’re not officially working on a side project
together, now is the time to start.

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Rip this page out and hand it to them.

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Get together and begin plotting: The world needs
dominating, and you two are just the ones to do it.