It probably has sitcom potential: a married couple who share an unusual vocation -- they are each CEO of their own Web startup. Oh yeah, and their first date was at a virtual reality conference, but that's getting ahead of the story.

Hans Bukow is CEO of eWork Exchange, a global online marketplace for finding, engaging and completing project-based work. Tiffany Bass Bukow is CEO of MsMoney.com, a financial services site aimed at women. They were married in 1998.

Hans is a veteran of high tech enterprises, with eWork his fourth startup. MsMoney is Tiffany's second startup, having previously started and run a consulting service called www.tiff.com. "We're both geeks inside," says Hans.

One of Tiffany's first clients was Sun Microsystems, which hired tiff.com to develop an online learning game for its employees called "You Don't Know Java." Because most of Sun's own engineers were too busy developing Java to help with her project, Tiffany recalls having to go online to contact and contract with Java developers in several different countries to help her develop the learning game. This sort of virtual contract employment in 1996 was a precursor to the idea for Hans' eWork Exchange.

The couple first met at an industry function in 1995, and stayed in touch online for six months even though they lived on only a few blocks from each other. "It was like the email dating in You've Got Mail," recalls Tiffany. "There were times it was easy for one of us to misinterpret what the other was saying, and we almost got to the point of bickering before we finally met again."

Their first real date was at a virtual reality conference the next year, at San Francisco's Exploratorium. More regular dates followed and as a courtship evolved so did their ideas to each build a new Web company.

So imagine it's late 1996 and you think you've got some surefire ideas for Web companies. You've registered a slew of URLs, and funding is in place. What's your next step? If you guessed white shark cage diving off the coast of South Africa you guessed right.

"We knew once we got started with these companies, we were going to have our heads down with hardly any time for each other for at least a year, so we decided to take a trip around the world first and really get to know each other," says Hans.

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Tiffany recalls the trip, which included stops at over 20 different countries and 80 destinations, as being like "ten years of marriage rolled into one. We spent almost every minute of every day together for a year." They also chronicled the trip with a digital camera and posted images online for friends and family.

LEAVING $100 MILLION ON THE TABLE?

The couple still talks about what might have been had they not put their Web plans on hold for a year. "We had the market to ourselves in 1996, but women we're only 18 percent of the people online then so it was too early for MsMoney.com," says Tiffany. "But if we started earlier we might have been able to IPO at the peak of the dotcom boom last September, so we wonder whether we left $100 million on the table by waiting. I don't care because the trip was the foundation for our life together."

Husband Hans agrees that money isn't the catalyst for their Web ambitions. "Tiffany believes in the power of women through financial independence and that's what drives her," says Hans. "I'm an engineer, and I believe the Internet can make people more efficient. We both believe in the viability of our opportunities and the potential good it offers. This isn't anything casual for us or about flipping" (slang for building a company as fast as possible to sell it at a profit).

Today, the CEO couple are hard at work growing their Web companies and leaning on each for support. Hans serves on the board of MsMoney.com. "I know other couples where one spouse works really hard and the other doesn't, and that can cause issues between them because they don't always relate to each other well," says Hans. "We both know what the other is going through."

Steve Douty, CEO of Octopus.com in Palo Alto, also lauds the benefit of shared experience in high tech and management as helping his relationship. His wife Kathleen ran a successful software engineering consulting firm for thirteen years, up until last year when she decided to take a break. During that time, husband Steve helped co-found and run Hotmail, its transition to a division of Microsoft, and launched Octopus.com, a free service that helps users create customized views of Web information.

"I consider Kathleen to be my most important mentor because of the experience she has," says Douty. "I always appreciate that she understands how long and hard the job is, and understands the business. It would be really different if I was married to someone without her kind of background, which is one of the reasons I was first attracted to her." However intense the work got for either of them the Douty's have maintained one rule -- Friday night is date night: dinner and a movie or some other diversion together.

"I think it's hard to understand the dynamic of a dual CEO couple," says Tiffany. "We each face an enormous amount of pressure. I heard one entrepreneur describe the CEO as one of the loneliest jobs in the world because everyone looks to you for answers, but you don't always have someone to go to. Hans and I go through many of the issues at the same time."

One factor that helps makes the couple's dual Web ambitions possible is not having any kids. But when you're the boss you have a lot of options. For example, after Kathleen Douty had twin boys, she established an onsite day care center for her company.

"When we do (have kids) I'm sure it will change things," says Hans. "We'll adapt."