Mixing Business with Pleasure

Well, it has been a wild ride since August of 2020, and while we have a ton more we want to accomplish with Mixing Business with Pleasure, we have decided to put the interview portion of the show on temporary hiatus. 

As most of you know, this podcast has been a passion project for us, and lately we have realized we just aren’t able to commit the necessary time and resources to it to provide you with the quality content we know you want and deserve. 

Our priority this year...

This is honestly one of the most incredible couples we’ve had the privilege of interviewing on our podcast. Together, they’ve gone through multiple careers, business ownership and parenthood. Gina has also battled (and beat!) cancer four times—all with Eric as her caregiver, right by her side.

From the film industry to financial planning to now owning & running Think GREAT, their work has definitely been a big part of their shared story. However, love came first for these two and it has clearly remained first throughout their entire marriage and journey together. 

These two found love together before officially founding their company. Although, Michelle actually started her first business back in 2009 before meeting Doug. However, it wasn’t until he entered her life in 2013 that she really saw the opportunity to grow and scale. 

In 2016, Doug & Michelle co-founded Pink Callers and the rest is history! They are the perfect complement to one another in business—Michelle is a pro at getting ideas off the ground while Doug is amazing at getting things done!

Now, this amazing pair is on a mission to pr...

Like many of our guests, love definitely came first for these two! They met over 20 years ago in college and have now been married for 15 years. They are also parents of three (four if you count their business as their last “baby”).

Prior to opening their business, they worked in separate jobs but often in the same industry. 

And while their careers were often parallel, Jim & Chantea are obviously the perfect complement to one another in and outside of work. 

Through Functionised, Chantea focuses on the health & wellne...

For this pair, love definitely came before work. Jason and Tova have been together since college and admittedly have a hard time remembering life before they had each other in it.

Jason is a lawyer and the managing partner of the Weiss Law Group. He practices business and commercial litigation. Tova handles the financial side of the law practice. She also, along with the pair’s 14-year-old son, runs an apparel company for lacrosse players called Longpole Life. 

Jason & Tova’s 11-year-old daughter, who is a dancer and dress maker...

Today’s guests, Mike & Alyssa Kaeding are married entrepreneurs who run a thriving apartment management company, Norhart, located right here in Minnesota. They are also parents to two young children. 

This pair of childhood friends have known each other their whole lives, but didn’t start dating until near the end of college. Soon after graduating, they began working together in Mike’s parent’s business before they even got married. Eventually, Mike & Alyssa completely took over the business from his parents after losing his father suddenly in 2015. 

Today, they’re teaming up to create a better way...

Today’s amazing guests, Amanda Greenberg & Noah Bornstein were childhood friends turned married entrepreneurs and now, parents to two little ones—an almost 6-year old and a 7-month old. Together, they run their co-founded business, Balloon—a company dedicated to transforming how teams interact. Their company has worked with leaders from places ranging all the way from Google to Amazon to the Los Angeles Angels. 

This pair ran into each other’s lives at a very young age. Amanda & Noah were actually on the same t-ball team when they were 5 and 6 years old. They feel in love in high s...

This amazing couple truly is doing it all right now! They have a newborn baby boy and are also going through the post-production process for their recent film—which they starred in AND produced. We have so much to say about this lovely couple, but we’ll start by diving into what brought them to this point in their lives—where they’re so beautifully mixing business with pleasure. 

Jenn is an award-winning actress known in the faith-based market. She starred in over 70 projects including two Oscar Nominated films, Frost/Nixon and Alone Yet Not Alone. Her movie, My...

For Rafael Diaz & Nixie Espinal-Diaz, love definitely came before work... at least working together. Although, Rafael claims he used business to hook his love. This beautiful pair met dancing the night away, but most of their first conversations were actually around their family businesses.

Rafael is a serial entrepreneur and has had many ventures with different business partners that all fell through for one reason or another. At one point, he and one of his business partners made it as far as the 2nd round of SharkTank trying to seek funds to grow their...

Like many of our guests, love came first for these two entrepreneurs. Their love story actually began very young. This pair went to the same high school, but didn’t officially meet and get together until a couple of years after. Now, it’s 20 years later and they’ve never looked back!

Prior to becoming a business owner, Britney spent her time acting on stage and screen. And as someone who’s always been comfortable with an audience, she’s found the ability to be comfortable on-camera has helped her teach those same skills to other b...

For Tony & Julie Bombacino, mixing business with pleasure has been a part of their story from day one when the two met through working together years before diving into marriage & business ownership. However, they still say love absolutely came before work in their relationship.

Prior to starting their business, this pair both worked in the digital marketing industry for over 15 years and never imagined they would one day be running a food company. But after a life-changing experience with their own son, AJ, their dreams changed and our family is one of thousands that...

For Jennifer & Michael Gallagher, love definitely came before work. From their first magical meeting on the beach to their obvious passion for one another today, they’re definitely an inspiring, resilient couple who’s meant to be.

Michael is a Navy Veteran & Former Firefighter who followed his passion for wine to create The Mr. Wine Guy Podcast, where he interviews some of the most talented winemakers in the world and learns about their journeys.

Meanwhile, Jennifer started her career in the corporate world in sales & marketing. But in 2015, she resi...

With an MBA and numerous certifications in finance, Wendy has been getting people to their financial goals faster and easier for over a decade. As the founder of Black Star Wealth™ and the creator of the One Number Solution™, she knows the ins and outs of all personal and business financial matters. Wendy truly believes that wealth is so much more than just a dollar amount: it is about the joys you have in life and how you live day-by-day. Helping her clients find this joy keeps propelling her forward.

Her other half, Kelsey, is a...

Love definitely began the story for Dean and Diony McPherson. The two met in college when they became neighbors in student housing, but were just friends in the beginning. In fact, Diony—who’s a few years older—never really considered Dean in a romantic way until one day he stopped her dead in her tracks and the rest is history!

This pair got married young and always knew they wanted a big family, but were open to seeing where the road led as far their careers and lives went otherwise. And while entrepreneurship wasn’t...

Unlike the majority of our guests on the podcast so far, for Jason & Pili, business actually came before love. The two met when Pili was managing a phenomenal bar and restaurant in NYC  where she hired Jason after discovering he was not only handy with the remodeling that needed to be done, but he could also “bartend circles around her.” 

At the time they met, both Jason & Pili were both in other relationships, but it marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship and business relationship. Then, after years of working together off and on and pu...

From relationship advice, business advice and parenting as entrepreneurs, have a listen to this episode to get an in-depth overview of all the episodes released in August and September, and a little tiny preview of what’s to come!

Tips for making the relationship work while building a business

2:10 | Having separate offices in the home, to make things work

6:17 | Make time for each other outside of the business

10:46 | Therapy - everybody could use some of it. It’s not just for for when you are dealing with issues.

For Ryan & Kim, love definitely came before work. We’ll let you tune in to find out exactly who fell in love with who first, but it’s safe to say they both feel pretty fast. This hilarious and adorable pair met in college and got married shortly after graduation. 

And while pleasure preceded business in their relationship, these two athletes have always had team-minded spirits and have actually owned multiple businesses together over the course of their long and loving marriage. In fact, one of our favorite parts of their interview was discussing every...

Brent was initially running a digital agency, but over time he and his partner ended up pivoting to teaching other agency owners how to improve their businesses, as that business was brining in more revenue and was much more scalable than the agency business. 

This pivot, mind you, happened right as Brent and Emily were getting married and going on their honeymoon - Brent’s first real vacation since he was in college.

In addition to working on Brent’s team at UGURUS, Emily is also an artist who owns...

For this couple, business actually came before love. At the time they met, serial entrepreneur Brent owned a digital marketing agency that serviced small businesses and nonprofits in the Denver area when he met Emily who was the marketing manager for the Colorado Ballet. She came to his company in need of a new website, but the two definitely got a much bigger return on this investment.

After a champagne toast at the website launch party that bubbled over with a confession of love, these two danced around their feelings for a bit before...

We had so much fun talking to Mickeli and Allison, that we completely lost track of time. So this is the second part of our conversation.

Make sure you listen to part 1 of this amazing conversation, to get the origin story of these couplepreneurs and all the lessons they learned along the way.

These two have been hard at work building new service and program offerings for Closers Media, and since this episode was recorded, Gaby and I actually became their clients (or more accurately, Proofpoint Marketing did).

For Mickeli & Allison, love definitely came first in their journey. With backgrounds as an architect and a software salesman, this happily married pair didn’t initially feel pulled to the entrepreneurial lifestyle. 

Although Allison came from a family filled with business owners, she was extremely happy in her architecture career at the beginning of their marriage. And it was actually Mickeli who first dipped his toe into the entrepreneurial water.

Fast forward to today, where they’ve gone through the process of launching several businesses and now co-own and run C...

For Eric & Nancy, love definitely came before work. These high school sweethearts were just 14 years old when they met before freshman year. 

And while Eric never imagined himself a business owner, Nancy was born into the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Her family runs their own flooring business that Eric actually worked for after graduating high school. He continued there off and on over college breaks before he entered the design world himself.

Meanwhile, Nancy—who had fallen deeply in love both with Eric and with interior design at a young age—went...

These two powerhouses fell in love before they fell into business together. But even when Rob & Sherry met on their college track team, they were just as serious about running their race then as they are now - several businesses later.

Today, they continue sprinting forward together as they support each other and countless other founders and entrepreneurs on their paths.

Rob has helped tens of thousands of startup founders through his numerous co-authored books (one with Sherry), 2 podcasts, and dozens of conferences & essays. He’s invested in 36 startups, an...

Aaron was born with the entrepreneurial bug and had always dreamed of being a business owner, but thought in order to make it happen that he needed a revolutionary product or mind-blowing idea. Then, when he found himself in desperate need of a career change, he and Alisha decided to take a leap. They took her side-hustle contracting gig and scaled it big time to become their family business.

They didn’t know how it would go, but they knew from past experiences that they could successfully work together. In fact, they shared with us...

Type A chaos-lovers Jason and Shelly Dailey are college sweethearts turned serial entrepreneurs who own not one, but two businesses together - a digital marketing agency and a distillery. Join us today as we pour a glass, take a deep breath, and dig into the secrets of their success.

Initially attracted to each other’s drive and passion, Jason and Shelly were lovers before becoming co-business owners. However, their desire to seek adventure and entrepreneurial spirit were always present. 

With digital marketing finesse hardwired into his DNA, Jason established his full-service agency, Bra...

Chris Martinez saw successful agencies providing the all-you-can-have subscription model by outsourcing creative talent. He built DUDE Agency in Tijuana Mexico, which provides website development services mostly as a whitelabel to other agencies. 

Their "origin story" is very interesting. Chris was a client of the company Oyuki first worked for and when they first met Chris was smitten. Oyuki on the other hand wanted nothing to do with him. Chris persisted and next thing you know they are living together, helping each other through some difficult situations and getting engaged.

Chris talks about how he p...

Tim and Bea Bonte from Hook Agency joined us to talk about how they build their agency.

Hook Agency focuses on providing Web design, development and SEO services to the construction, contractor and home services industry.

Tim and Bea's relationship started with love. They met while Tim was still playing in a band. Tim then went on to work for a variety of digital agencies, consulting on the side, and then turning his side hustle into a full-time gig with Hook Agency.

Tim hired Bea and they have since built a team of...

Welcome to mixing business with pleasure, a podcast about loving your work and working with your love. We are your hosts, Gaby Israel Grinberg and Mike Grinberg.
 
When Mike and I set out to create a podcast, the idea of interviewing couples that also work and own a business together was a no brainer. We came up with the idea for Mixing Business with Pleasure back in 2017. We wanted to scratch your own itch. We want it to connect with other entrepreneurs like us. We want it to validate some of our feelings and questions about working w...