"I did have a request to move, so I was at this decision point in my life," said Landau, now president of MarketPlace Branding. "Do I move with my company job or do we start our own thing? And we decided, okay, let's start our own thing. If it doesn't work out, we'll do something else."
That was back in 2002, and the company has been solely focused on the food, beverage and wellness industry ever since, expanding its services to meet the needs of the industry over the years.
"We started out as a consultancy and started working with clients on trends and uncovering where their businesses could go and grow," Landau said. "And in that, we were asked to activate those strategies. So it's like, 'wow, okay. Yeah, I'll do that. It's just my husband and [myself], we’ll figure it out. And so we instantly became owners of not only a business and brand consultancy but also a creative agency."
Over two decades later, the business–and her marriage–are still going strong.
"I think the way we make it work is, first of all, we're big fans of each other" Landau said. "We love each other. We're friends. And then also at the core, if we were a Venn diagram, we would overlap a bit but also have very separate skills that we bring to the table. And it's very important. And we work together but we give each other space to make our own contributions.
"It was super exciting back then to think about it, and it's only got more exciting as we have moved along," she added.