What does it really take to build a business, raise kids, and stay married — all at the same time? In this anniversary episode of Babies and Business, Avram and Rachel celebrate five years of marriage and five years of building Digital Harvest together.

They open up about what has helped them stay grounded through the ups and downs, from setting financial boundaries to creating space for each other’s strengths. You’ll hear honest lessons about communication, balance, and how to grow as a couple without burning out.

Whether you’re running a business with your partner or just juggling work and family life, this episode is packed with insights that remind you: it’s possible to build both your dream and your marriage one intentional decision at a time.

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• Avram and Rachel celebrate five years of marriage and business, sharing how they’ve grown together through every challenge.

• They explain why taking care of your household first, both financially and emotionally, is the foundation for business success.

• The couple discusses the importance of clearly defined roles and not setting each other up for failure.

• Rachel shares how understanding each other’s StrengthsFinder results helped them collaborate more peacefully.

• They dive into the power of witnessing each other instead of fixing each other, and how that deepens empathy in marriage.

• Avram and Rachel highlight why it’s essential to make life more than just business — with time for hobbies, dates, and rest.

• They end with their favorite practice: making “tapping out” okay, giving each other permission to take a break when overwhelmed.
  

Mentions & Resources

Profit First – A simple cash flow system that helps small business owners pay themselves first and build profit into every sale.

Clifton StrengthsFinder – A personality and strengths assessment that helps teams (and couples) understand each other’s natural talents and work more effectively together.

The Power Code – A framework for understanding how different people express and respond to power, helping partners and teams lead with empathy and balance.

“Shall We Dance” (2004) – A romantic drama featuring the quote Rachel shared about marriage and witnessing your partner’s life.

Episode Transcription

Below you will find a transcript of this entire podcast episode. Enjoy!

Avram: We didn’t kill each other. Five years in business together. Five years married. That’s why we’re recording the episode. It’s our anniversary this next week here.

Rachel: As we’re recording it week.

Avram: As we’re recording it, yeah, this is gonna come out a little bit later. And, uh, we’ve also been building a business together because it was right after we got married in 2020. Our anniversary is Halloween 2020, the 31st. It was like less than two months after that, Rachel closed her business down and joined Digital Harvest, and we’ve been building the business together since then. So we hope this would be a very fun episode to record with you around the topic of like, what has worked for us to not want to kill each other.

Rachel: Yeah. Because we are in business together. We are married and we have children together, all of this time with each other. If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably not the people that can’t wait for your husband to go off to work or your wife to go off to work, or vice versa. Some people need time away from each other. And we have a lot of it with each other.

Avram: Yeah. We know we have some listeners who are crazy just like us and they’ve got all these things. And, even if you don’t have children together, running a business together can be pretty intense. And we’ve heard that from many listeners in the past, and so we got some fun things to share with you. Five lessons, five years of marriage, babies, and business. You wanna kick us off, Rachel?

Rachel: Yeah, you know, our first thing that we thought about that’s so important — it is the foundation — is taking care of your household first. There are so many reasons for this.

Avram: And what does that mean?

Rachel: It means so many different things. There’s your relationship, there’s finances, and knowing what deal breakers are coming into a relationship with each other. But having the household first is that all of these things are taken care of so that your business can grow. So that’s the viewpoint from which we’re thinking about taking care of your household and why it is the foundation. So that the income that your household needs is not a burden on your business.

Avram: So that’s a big one. That’s a big one. Like when Rachel and I started together, we had to set, which I’ll be honest about — it was what is now a very low and hilarious goal. We needed to have the business at $13,000 and something a month.

Rachel: Yep.

Avram: To provide a household income of $4,000.

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: To provide everything — that was prior to kids, that was where we were starting at. It was a very small place compared to now. And what’s been really cool is when we set that goal right away, we hit it. Like right away, almost to the dollar. And 2020 was a hard year for Digital Harvest. We lost all but two clients in the pandemic and had to rebuild from that. And so we did that, and since then, Rachel instituted a process called Profit First. What that did is helped us understand how much the business top line needed to make in order for us to have a certain amount of income in the household.

Rachel: So that was what made it possible for us to get the clarity on how much we needed to make at a bare minimum for our business in order to have this much money for our household. It was beautiful because how else would you get to that? I mean, you know, grow, keep growing.

Avram: So it’s like, I think back on my previous relationship before Rachel, and there were fights about money because I was the saver, she was the spender.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And we didn’t have a plan.

Rachel: Correct.

Avram: Okay. So we were fighting about finances frequently enough that it took away from the relationship. It took away from the success that the business wanted to have.

Rachel: Resentment could have built.

Avram: Yes. And so it’s like so many couples have fights about money and finances. The point of sharing it like this is, if you put things in place where you don’t have to even think about the money — like we haven’t had to think about or worry about taxes in years.

Rachel: Correct.

Avram: We don’t need to think about or worry about, are we gonna be able to provide for the rent and groceries or…

Rachel: Are we going to take away from the business’s functioning capital — the amount that we have each month to provide for our family and vice versa? That has not been a question or an issue at all. And we are very strict on our personal household finances — we have a budget. And we have specific limits that we don’t go over in certain categories so that we can manage what we need to manage our household, manage the things that are going on. And we don’t take more from the business than we decided to. That works for it.

Avram: Yeah. So we’ve just taken this major issue that is money and finances.

Rachel: Solved for it.

Avram: And now it’s just never a thing that’s rocking the boat in our household. We have frequent conversations about it.

Rachel: Absolutely.

Avram: But it’s more like, “Hey, this is what’s going on. We’re doing great. Maybe this category of our expenses has gone up a little bit. We’re shifting other envelopes within our budget to account for that shift.” And it doesn’t mean that the income in the household needs to change. But it’s just open communication about what’s going on. So instead of having the conversations about what’s not working, we’re having the conversations of thumbs up, we’re good to go.