Launching a business together can put a strain on relationships – but these happy Valentine’s couples are living and working together to great effect
Debbie and Andrew Keeble didn’t need the recent protests to recognise the financial pressures farmers are under. Not so long ago, that was them. As pig farmers with four children, they were working long days but didn’t have a great deal of money. And when there wasn’t even enough in the bank for a family holiday, Debbie decided something had to change.
They took what they knew, got a loan and created a brand. First Debbie & Andrew’s, then Heck – both premium sausage brands that have transformed their fortunes, brought jobs to their community, changed their category and, arguably, the industry.
The Keebles are not the first husband and wife team to create a successful fmcg business but they are the most established in our latest Power List, which we’ve pulled together in time for Valentine’s Day.
Family businesses have enjoyed mixed fortunes in recent years: in 2023, there were 4.8 million family-run SMEs in the UK, according to charity Family Business UK, equal to 2016. But the number had been growing steadily before the pandemic hit. And while Covid created the conditions for a boom in entrepreneurship, seeing new business registrations at Companies House rising by around 10,000 per month, it also forged a new landscape that means the rules of successful engagement have changed.
Online culture has made a strong brand story crucial. And going into business with your significant other is a social media marriage made in heaven.
Trip Drinks’ Olivia Ferdi found that out when the story of almost cancelling her wedding to co-founder Daniel Khoury resulted in the launch of their brand. “We had no plan to leave our corporate careers, nor any expectation we’d ever work together,” she says.
@trip.drinks The real TRIP story #originstory #founderstory #foundertok #takeatrip #tripdrinks #startup #startuplife ♬ Happy Days - Lux-Inspira
In 2023, she revealed how her then-fiancé had undergone knee surgery and hadn’t been expected to be able to walk down the aisle. After taking CBD, he became last man standing on the dancefloor. CBD became a hero ingredient for them, and Trip was born. By sharing the romantic origin story on TikTok, they gained almost 50k likes as well as a broader audience.
The benefits of being visible has even led to established brands such as BrewDog bringing a partnership front and centre. Founder James Watt has brought his fiancée, erstwhile Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo, into the fold. She has used her considerable reach to post images from the brewery alongside announcements of her future husband’s career plans.
Perhaps with good reason. Research released in 2022 by GoDaddy suggested going into business together may boost relationship longevity. In a survey of 1,000 businesses run by couples, it found those working together would last 11 years and five months compared with the UK average of two years and nine months.
For Pam Digva, who founded Sauce Shop with her husband James, it’s the ultimate sign of partnership.
“There’s no partner secretly working in hedge funds behind the scenes – we’re all in,” she says. Which may well be enough reason for anyone to take the plunge.
Meet 10 couples who founded their own businesses:
Hunter & Gather
Amy Moring and Jeff Webster
Teenage sweethearts Amy Moring and Jeff Webster met at an ice rink in Essex. In the almost two decades since, after Moring’s career in petcare, and Webster gig as a quantity surveyor, the two battled health challenges that led them to found clean label condiments brand Hunter & Gather in 2017.
They managed the transition to business owners by carving very different work and home lives, says Moring. “We have different skills and experiences, and we’re very professional, so you wouldn’t necessarily know right away we’re a couple.
Following their 2018 engagement, impending parenthood and plans to grow the business, they will continue a ‘no phones in the bedroom’ rule and setting aside time for meetings in which they align their diaries. “It may not sound sexy, but it really helps and stops miscommunication,” Moring adds.
Perfect Ted
Marisa Poster and Levi Levenfiche
Marisa Poster is braver than most. Her co-founder is her now brother-in-law, then partner’s younger brother, Teddie Levenfiche. Having been in a relationship with Teddie’s brother Levi since their days at the University of Pennsylvania (they’re the couple you can see at the top of this page on their wedding day), Poster came to work in the UK but couldn’t find the kind of matcha she had come to rely on to manage her ADHD and anxiety in the US.
The brand launched in 2021, with Levi named as a director but not working full time. Levi joined the business in March 2024, shortly before he and Marisa tied the knot. “Work and personal life are so intertwined that tension sometimes seeps into our relationship,” admits Poster. “But we always come back to our shared goal.
“I actually think it’s our biggest competitive advantage as a business. We know each other so well that communication is completely open and honest—there’s no hesitation in giving or receiving feedback.”
Cheeky Panda
Julie Chen and Chris Forbes
Together since 2014, Julie Chen and Chris Forbes had plenty of experience in entrepreneurship before setting out on a shared venture. When they met, Chen ran an e-commerce store and Forbes a search and selection company, meaning business was a frequent topic of conversation.
Deciding to pursue the eco-friendly benefits of bamboo, they launched Cheeky Panda bamboo toilet paper in 2016, just a couple of years after meeting and three years before Forbes sold his original business.
“We actually didn’t get married until 2022,” says Forbes. “So we spent six years in the business before getting married and had a son along the way.”
Trip Drinks
Olivia Ferdi and Daniel Khoury
This pair had no intentions of ditching the high-flying city life before they discovered a passion for CBD. Olivia Ferdi and Daniel Khoury met in 2008 at Cambridge University and had started careers in law and finance respectively when they married in 2018, setting in motion the chain of events that sparked their enthusiasm for CBD and led to the launch of Trip the following year.
“My background in law makes me the worst-case-scenario thinker,” says Ferdi. “Daniel is the eternal optimist, but we’ve both adapted to business in different ways.”
What started out as the two of them has grown to more than 70 employees, a son and another baby on the way. The couple think it truly pays to be in love. “Many people jokingly ask if we get bored of each other, and they’re even more surprised when we say no, and we never get sick of each other either.”
Little Dish
Hillary Graves and Dean Brown
Hillary Graves and Dean Brown met at work in 2000 when Graves came to set up the London office of a New York-based business in which Brown’s company invested. After a few months of working together, they went on a date and have been together ever since.
They married in 2003 and had their first child in 2006. Little Dish was born the same year from a desire to improve the quality of infant food in supermarkets. Brown had long been on the sidelines as Graves handled the day-to-day, eventually coming aboard as CEO in 2014. Getting through the down days has made them stronger in business and as a couple, says Graves.
Heck
Debbie and Andrew Keeble
Debbie and Andrew Keeble have been married for almost four decades. With four children, what was once driven by the couple founding Debbie & Andrew’s in 1999 has morphed into a fully-fledged family operation as Heck.
They cite being able to make decisions quickly between the pair of them as key to their success.
“You’re in control of your destiny,” say the Keebles. Second time around, they’ve found it easier to take a back seat and watch their children take care of day-to-day operations, allowing them time to spread their influence further. “We put all our profits back into our people, the community and local area.”
The Tofoo Co
Lydia Smith and David Knibbs
With complementary backgrounds working at a series of fmcg giants, Lydia Smith and David Knibbs spotted a gap in the market upon going into business for themselves.
The two had met while working for Symington’s some 11 years ago and became passionate about its vegan and vegetarian offering. Since founding The Tofoo Co in 2016, they’ve barely switched off.
“We often work from home; in reality it’s a 364-day-a-year job,” says Knibbs.
“It all comes down to trusting each other’s instincts and being able to listen to their point of view. We’d worked together before, so we knew we agreed on the big stuff – that makes a huge difference.”
Pura
Abi and Guy Fennell
A true baby of the pandemic, Guy Fennell founded Pura in 2020 while preparing to start a family. Shocked at the lack of plastic-free wipe options, he set out on a mission-led venture to create a viable alternative as well as lobby against plastic wipes.
Since the launch, he and his wife, investor and board member Abi Fennell have had two sons.
Family life alongside entrepreneurship requires a few sacrifices in the work-life balance department, admits Guy. “We do talk about business at the dinner table, but we try to include the boys by telling them what Daddy or Mummy got up to during the day and why.”
Cookaway
Nidhi and Sahil Verma
Being married to a chef is a massive benefit for a food entrepreneur. Sahil Verma is one such lucky founder. He met his wife Nidhi through his brother, married in 2005 and the two made the move to the UK from India soon after. Originally, they planned careers in finance (Sahil) and marketing (Nidhi) but felt the pull of home cooking that led Nidhi to launch a London-based Indian culinary school.
The two went on to found Cookaway in 2019, a no-subscription recipe kit service that has plans to expand from DTC into its first supermarket line of larder kits containing specialist dry ingredients themed around Greek, Malaysian, Indian, Japanese and Spanish cuisine.
“What started as an idea became a small operation from our garage and is now thousands of customers, two warehouses and our product landing in households up and down the country,” says Sahil. “We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t bring completely different skills and expertise to the table. We are super clear on who does what and recognise each other’s strengths which is necessary to work as a team at the core of the business.”
Sauce Shop
Pam and James Digva
Meeting as they did as NPD technologists on a graduate course in 2008, it should’ve come as a surprise to no one when Pam and James Digva married and founded their own food business, Sauce Shop, a few years later in 2014.
After more than a decade, Pam says they’ve still not run out of things to talk about, be it across the desk at the office or at the dinner table at home. “There is an understanding of what each other is going through that we didn’t have before,” she says of the benefits of being married to her business partner.
“We also find it very easy to challenge one another, which is something I think those not in a couple might find harder.” But on division of labour “there is inevitable crossover as we both have a combined vision for most things in the company – it’s that push and pull between us that has helped grow the business.”
No comments yet