Surviving the Business and Marriage Trenches - Liza and Jay Graves

The Decision by EO Nashville

Liza Graves is the Founder and co-CEO of Blueprint.Inc, a multi-platform marketing company, and the Co-founder of StyleBlueprint, a Southern lifestyle digital magazine. As a serial entrepreneur, she launched a lunch cafe when she was 24 before opening a retail business out of her home. In 2015, Liza was named one of the 75 Most Stylish People in the South and has been named a Woman of Influence and the Most Admired CEO by Nashville Business Journal.

Jay Graves is the co-CEO of Blueprint.Inc, where he leads operations and technology for the StyleBlueprint platform. With over 25 years of experience in data-driven businesses, he co-founded and sold SmartDM and SSB, which focused on data warehousing, digital marketing, and technology operations. With these companies, Jay generated value for clients, including the NBA, the NFL, and NASCAR.

In this episode…

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, so having someone along for the ride may make the daily obstacles less stressful. Yet business partnerships have unique struggles, especially when the relationship is also a marriage. How did an entrepreneurial power couple navigate individual and shared adversities?

While Jay Graves was scaling success in data operations, Liza Graves was struggling with an incompatible business partnership. After joining EO, she recognized her issue with holding others accountable. With the help of Jay and her EO forum, Liza leveraged the pandemic to restructure her business model and developed a culture of accountability and transparency. Now business partners, Jay and Liza credit EO’s Global Speaker’s Academy for improving their communication styles and recommend that entrepreneurial spouses establish boundaries with each other to balance work and life effectively.

Join Robert Hartline and Eric Jackson in this week’s episode of EO Nashville’s The Decision as they invite Jay and Liza Graves of Blueprint.Inc to talk about their intertwined entrepreneurial journey. Together, they discuss practicing what you preach to your team, how they divide company roles and expectations equally, and how strategic coaching helped restructure the business.