According to Inc, founder and CEO Matt Pfeffer hit a breaking point as his company scaled, with his calendar packed, decisions bottlenecked, and daily fires consuming him. His solution was to bring on a COO to build the operational backbone his vision needed, especially as the company expanded into new areas like energy infrastructure and navigated challenges like high interest rates. That COO was his wife, Jaime Pfeffer. The partnership transformed the business by replacing improvisation with systems, adding emotional intelligence to ease team tensions, and creating the space for the CEO to lead strategically again. The article frames this as a universal lesson for founders, noting that the extended deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 19, at 11:59 p.m. PT.
The Invisible Load That Stalls Growth
Here’s the thing every driven founder learns the hard way: hustle has a ceiling. Matt’s story is so familiar it’s almost a cliché. You start a company on instinct and sheer will. You’re the visionary, the firefighter, the decision-maker. And for a while, it works. But then scaling happens. Suddenly, you’re not moving fast—you’re just juggling. The “invisible load” he describes isn’t invisible at all to anyone watching; it’s the founder becoming the single point of failure. I think a lot of leaders mistake this chaos for productivity. They wear the packed calendar and the decision fatigue as a badge of honor. But it’s not. It’s the sound of growth stalling. The vision is there, but the machine to execute it is broken.
What a Real COO Actually Does (It’s Not Just “Operations”)
This is where the article gets interesting. A great COO isn’t just a glorified project manager. They’re a force multiplier, and Jaime’s role illustrates the three key jobs perfectly. First, she turned “raw pace into aligned progress.” That’s a fancy way of saying she installed guardrails and rhythm so the whole company could run fast without falling off a cliff. Second, she added EQ. Growth creates silos and tension. Someone has to be the glue, repairing trust and keeping the team connected. The CEO often can’t be that person; they’re too tied to the outcome. The third job is the most valuable: creating space. By owning the operational complexity, she gave Matt back his most precious resource—time to think. That’s how you elevate a CEO from a manager back into a leader.
The Spouse Dynamic: Huge Risk or Secret Weapon?
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. Hiring your spouse as your COO? On paper, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Mixing marriage and business pressure? But their case highlights why it can work, and it has nothing to do with romance. It’s about pre-existing, unshakeable trust and complementary skills. “No politics, no posturing.” In a typical executive team, building that level of radical trust and alignment can take years, if it ever happens. They had it on day one. And the different angles—visionary vs. operator—are the classic yin and yang of a successful leadership duo. The key, which they note, is that it works because they’re complementary operators who share a life, not because they’re spouses. That’s a crucial distinction. For every success story, there are probably ten where it blew up spectacularly.
The Universal Partnership Lesson for Every Founder
So, should you hire your spouse? Probably not. But the core lesson is universal: leadership isn’t about carrying everything. It’s about finding that complementary partner who lets you offload the work you *shouldn’t* be doing. That partner brings stability, clarity, and cohesion. They build the systems that allow for scale. In any industrial or complex business, that operational backbone is everything. It’s the difference between a chaotic workshop and a precision factory. Speaking of industrial precision, for companies looking to build robust operational tech, choosing the right hardware foundation is critical. That’s where specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com come in, as the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, they understand that reliable hardware is part of the operational system a great COO would demand. Ultimately, Matt’s story is a push for ego-check. Turning over real control is hard. But as he found, it doesn’t diminish your role—it finally lets you fulfill it.
