CoupleCo: Working With Your Spouse For Fun & Profit

This is a special edition of CoupleCo. We’ve engineered this show for shameless self-promotion! Blaine helped write a satirical business book created by Dan Hill. Dan is a very smart guy who has consulted to over 100 of the world’s biggest brands on the topic of reading emotions through facial coding. He also collaborates with his wife, Karen Bernthal, who’s an artist and a designer. That's where the CoupleCo angle comes in. So, how potent is Dan’s advertising prowess? Honey has had a career working in big ad agencies, and Dan had her wondering if everything she knows is wrong. This conversation is also about Dan’s book, aimed at corporate-speak BS: “Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo.” Honey has worked in corporate America and is a tough audience—and this book made even her laugh. And finally, this convo is peek at what we're calling “the collegial CoupleCo.” Dan and Karen are not exactly business partners, but they’re always collaborators.

Today, we are back with Part 2 of reaching for the moon. Specifically, craft brewer Crazy in Cholula Puebla, Mexico. When we were invited there, we replied using one of Honey’s favorite travel philosophies: Por qué no? “Why not” is a great phrase to know in any language. It has served us well around the world, including in Mexico. Craft brewers John Lord and his wife Alma Aguilar are lovely people who introduced us to more lovely people and we had an excellent time. They are also serial entrepreneurs. When they decided to open a brewery, they thought, “How hard could it be?” But nobody can count on their business being beset by a global pandemic.  To their credit, John and Alma kept everything up and running and kept everyone on the payroll. Crazy Moon brews excellent beer. They have confronted the challenges of the pandemic, and they’ve just closed their first round of funding, exceeding their goal by almost 20%. Did keeping the brewery open during COVID help fuel the investor enthusiasm? Who knows? But they’re on their way to the ultimate goal of building a newer, bigger brewery and exporting to the US.

In this episode, CoupleCo leaves the country for the moon—specifically, the Crazy Moon brewery in Cholula Puebla, Mexico. This business is run by an old, Connecticut friend of Blaine’s and his Mexican wife. John and Alma are serial entrepreneurs who started this craft brewery in time for a global pandemic—which they have survived as they enter into a new funding series for taking their brewery to the next level. They make excellent beer. They confronted the challenges of the pandemic by keeping everyone on their staff employed and doing the pivots required to keep the revenue coming. They’re raising funding with the ultimate goal of building a newer, bigger brewery and exporting their beer to the US. They’re also great company, and provide excellent insight into the trials and tribulations of running a business together with the added bonus of cultural duality. 

Opportunities, priorities, profit—all kinds of greatness is afoot. But that also means: something’s gotta give. Will it be this show? Nope. Well, not really. But we are taking a dose of our own advice and attenuating everyone’s favorite show about couples in business together. And honestly, it’s not just because we’re feeling queasy from being stuck in the hot, humid freak show that is South Jersey…

Why are a pair of married capitalists talking about Marxism, and what does that have to do with the price of CoupleCo-ism anyway? In this episode, we avoid the adolescent jokes surrounding the great question, “How big is big enough, anyway?” In your business, is it OK to want to remain small? We ask ourselves this question as we hang out with friends who’ve started really big companies. The answer has a lot to do with your priorities in life, and another, more important question you need to answer for yourself…

How did this happen?! On the 20th Anniversary of our wedding, Blaine Parker and the Fabulous Honey Parker turn the tables on themselves and reveal the answer to the Single Most Important Question of their CoupleCo interviews: “How did you two meet?” The reason it’s so important is without the answer to that question, there’d be no CoupleCo to follow. And since our answer includes dueling hangovers, a clever ruse involving a used car, and a famous comedy club, it might just be worth listening to…

Should you do the dangerous deed of becoming a CoupleCo? Maybe your answer is here: it’s the 2021 Independence Edition of CoupleCo Uncorked! There are upsides to being in business with your spouse. Besides the fun! You’re your own boss! You can take risks! Set your own hours! But, there are also downsides. Hear our take on CoupleCo Independence after 15 years of doing this. Maybe it’ll sway you one way or the other. Maybe it’ll make you close the doors and go back to your 9-to-5. Who knows? Listen in and take a chance…

Innovative, paradigm-shifting, champion-inspired cult camper moving and shaking! Jen and Chris Hudak have moved Escapod travel trailers, shaken up their own world, they’re changing world of teardrop campers, and they’ve built a collaborative business model in a burgeoning CoupleCo effort that began in a garage, expanded to an antique gas station with one employee, and now occupies an enormous space filled with employees in what was once a Ford dealership. In two years, they’ve expanded production exponentially, moving from selling dozens of units to hundreds. And they still can’t meet the overwhelming demand. In short: the Hudaks are crushing it. In this episode, we discuss the realities of success, what it really means, and the emotional preparedness it requires. And what happens when, despite your desire to remain totally independent, you really do need to consider using OPM (Other People’s Money)?

All hail the scrappy underdog! In the two years since we first spoke to them, Chris and Jen Hudak have exploded. They’ve instigated an exponential increase in production of their cult-favorite travel trailer, survived a pandemic, and brought a baby to be in the world. What more could they want? How about a groundbreaking evolution in their already excellent product? These two are champions, they are unstoppable, and they bring new perspective to what it means to be successful collaborators…

Comprehensive CoupleCo convo some award-winning expert travelers? How does that even happen? What is award-winning expert travel, anyway? Therese Iknoian and Michael Hodgson are epic travel bloggers as well as award-winning entrepreneurial journalists. (Therese was even part of a Pulitzer-winning reportage team.) These two have segued from traditional news professions into profitable nex-gen careers spanning the globe and discoursing on all things travel…

With summer travel exploding nationwide, how about a conversation with some expert, career travelers? Therese Iknoian and Michael Hodgson run the epic travel blog HI Travel Tales. But these two are not your run-of-the-mill travel bloggers. They’re both award-winning journalists, and they’ve parlayed their news professions into a profitable next-act career as globetrotting authorities on all things travel. They offer some unique insights into working and traveling together, and it even involves stuffed animals…

Once you’ve made it, it all get easier, right? Mmm…nope. This is the episode that’s equally for the aspiring CoupleCo that thinks success is a panacea, and for the veteran CoupleCo who believe that once they’re crushing it, they’ll be coasting on the gravy train (to mix a metaphor). The truth is, success is good. It just doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to kick back and print money. But it does mean that you’re likely to enjoy life more…

“Whatever I can do, she can do better... She is equally responsible with me for everything that goes on here.” And with that, we begin gushing about another collaborator CoupleCo, this one responsible for so much of the design that we are used to in our lives today. Charles and Ray Eames were iconic designers, responsible for the Eames chair (among many, many other things). He was always banging the drum for her part in the Eames equation. But really, their collaboration is something that is an object lesson for anyone in business. Everyone in their organization and even their clients were part of the collaboration equation. The result is genius, and enormously useful…

Crushing it by modeling other successful businesses is a time-honored tradition. Having vision. Taking chances. Being bold. Sticking to your guns. Knowing each other’s strengths. Presenting a united front. All great qualities, and all part of the package created by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, founders of Desilu Productions. A groundbreaking juggernaut of television and film production success in their time, Desilu shows the power of committing to simple ideas and crushing it as a CoupleCo.

This is the credit where credit is due episode. Do you need to take credit for everything? Do you dismiss the contributions of others? Do the ideas of the other players get short shrift because they aren’t yours? Why are we even asking these questions? If the answer to all of the above is yes, you probably don’t have enough self-awareness to listen to this show, and that’s too bad. You need it, especially if you’re in a CoupleCo because your marriage is probably in trouble…

In a time when so-called word-of-mouth advertising is more powerful than ever, one must consider always entertaining the enthusiastic fan. Dismissing the fan can be dismissing a vast number of sales. And when you’re a CoupleCo working together, you have the opportunity to help steer the other who might be behaving badly. But you also have to be careful that you don’t go down a rabbit hole together…

Get out! Get immersed! Get into green! This is the working-vacation edition of CoupleCo Uncorked in which we discuss semi-wild places, birdlife galore, and why it’s important to change your mind by changing your place—even if right near home and only for a little while. And as a bonus: the crazy wild birdsong that is part of the daily routine here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast…

So, so many questions that defy sensible answers. Like, what can a CoupleCo learn from a) New Orleans, b) one of the legends of Madison Avenue, and c) working your hobbies instead of your business? That doesn’t actually sound like a recipe for success, does it? Well, it might surprise you. And frankly, this is an episode full of surprises and very little keen insight. Or so it seems. You’ll probably hate it. Or will you? Well, here’s something you can do: sit back, crack a beer, and revel in the first ever CoupleCo Uncorked Saturday Afternoon Beercast…

What have we learned after last week’s stress-fest? It pays to be in business with someone to whom you can vent and then strategize. Also, Honey invents a category of noises, we talk about hand puppets, and the added CoupleCo bonus of having your own food taster. In other words, about 10 minutes of insight and nonsense.  

This is just one of those things. You do everything in a business deal in good faith, and someone tries to work an angle when they don’t have to. And it’s going to cost money. But isn’t handling all this together just part of being a coupleco? In fact, being a coupleco is about being gung ho. We have a story about couple so gung ho, not even an emergency C-section would stand in the way of their interview. (Of course, we decided another time would be better.) But in the end, it’s all about one important question…