Episode 26: Mike and Gaby Grinberg - Partners Mixing Business with Pleasure

Gold Nuggets in this Episode:

• “When you are business partners, it’s almost like you’re married. You’re both trying to grow something together.”
  
  
• On running a business remotely:
  
  “It’s not for everybody, and it’s not just a matter of technology. In terms of being successful, one of the biggest things is operationalizing asynchronous communication.” – Mike
  
  “Look at all the key operations and key functions in your company, and put together a playbook for that. Having a repository of playbooks and instructional videos that employees can go to, as a remote worker, is so critical.” – Gaby

• “What many companies will do is they will try to take their existing in-office experience and try to adapt it to the virtual experience. It doesn’t work. You have to start from scratch.”
  
  
• Analogy: “You have the bumpers in the bowling alley. Not every bowler needs the bumpers, but if you have them there, you know that you’re going to end up realigning, and hopefully getting a strike or a spare.”
  
  “We’re going to provide the bumpers, the pins are there, you are the bowling ball – go.”

• “In the U.S., there are 1.4 million husband and wife owned businesses. Seemingly, it’s a fairly large audience, but interestingly, because of the situation, it’s fairly isolating.”
  
  
• Steve reckons that Juliet loves being on podcasts. Sorry Steve, she doesn’t.
  
  “Be so good they cannot ignore you.” – Steve Martin

Our guests are husband and wife business owners, Mike and Gaby Grinberg. They are the co-owners of Proofpoint Marketing, and co-hosts of the Mixing Business with Pleasure podcast. Their entrepreneurial journey was kickstarted in 2015 when their daughter was born at just 24 weeks, with added medical issues, and simultaneously losing their jobs.

Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0