Overcoming the Founder Mindset That Holds You Back with Mike Konrad

Episode 037 — Overcoming the Founder Mindset That Holds You Back with Mike Conrad

In this episode of Overcoming Anything, Anne sits down with entrepreneur Mike Conrad to unpack a hard truth many founders avoid: the traits that get a company off the ground are not always the traits that help it grow. Mike shares how he launched a company around an idea no one else believed in, made every “bonehead mistake” an entrepreneur can make, and eventually realized he had to scale himself before he could scale the business. 

Together, Anne and Mike explore founder ego, decision-making under pressure, conscious marketing, and what it actually looks like to stop being the bottleneck. This episode is a powerful listen for business owners, creators, and leaders who feel stuck between early hustle and the next level of growth.

Key Takeaways

• The founder traits that create traction in the beginning can eventually limit growth if they are never updated. 
• Great businesses are built by making great decisions, not by obsessing over one metric at the expense of everything else. 
• Scaling often requires letting go of control, hiring smarter people, and learning to lead differently. 

Approx. Timestamps

• 00:00 — Welcome + Mike’s mantra: success comes from making great decisions 
• 02:10 — Starting a company around an idea no one else believed in 
• 06:00 — Why technical skill did not prepare him for business 
• 10:15 — “Scale yourself before you scale the business” 
• 15:20 — How founders become the bottleneck 
• 19:40 — Letting go of ego without losing edge 
• 24:10 — Why some of the best decisions happen when the building feels “on fire” 
• 28:20 — Conscious marketing vs. traditional product-pushing 
• 34:00 — How better marketing changed the kind of customers he attracted 
• 39:10 — What founders can do when they feel overwhelmed, stuck, or trapped by success 
• 44:30 — Mike’s top advice on decision-making, fear, and the founder journey 
• 48:20 — Where to connect with Mike 

Connect with Mike Conrad
• Mike’s website: Business Website | Personal Website | |Reluctant Entrepreneur Podcast

Resources
• Recommended book: Good to Great by Jim Collins, https://a.co/d/0eVATSGx 

If this episode helped you, share it with a founder, leader, or entrepreneur who’s grinding hard but still feeling stuck—because the next level isn’t more effort… it’s a better decision system. I’ll see you next time on Overcoming Anything.
 ❤️ Anne

Disclaimer
The content of this episode is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, legal, or medical care.

Overcominganything, midlifetransformations, energyhealing, resilience, founder mindset, entrepreneurship, business growth, decision making, leadership, startup life, cash flow, profit, profitability, scaling, business strategy, high performance, productivity, mindset shift, resilience, overcoming adversity, small business, CEO mindset, burnout prevention

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:00

Welcome to Overcoming Anything, the podcast where we dive deep into stories of resilience, transformation, and growth. I'm your host, Anne Vryonides, and today we have an incredible guest who has overcome the founder mindset that can hold you back. So joining me today is Mike Conrad. He bet on an idea that no one else believed in, and he built a company against the odds and learned the very hard truth that every founder eventually must face. The mindset that gets you started can be the thing that eventually holds you back. So welcome to the show, Mike.

Speaker 3 0:34

Thanks Anne. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 4 0:37

Likewise. Thank you. So before we dive in, I always love to ask, what's one quote or mantra that keeps you going in tough times?

Speaker 3 0:48

My favorite mantra would be, the path to success is not chasing success. It's making great decisions.

Speaker 4 0:56

Oh,

Speaker 3 0:56

that's good. That brings success. I've lived that with a couple of very specific examples. In the early days of my company, we were chasing cash all the time. We were constantly cash starved. And I would chase cash and I would get cash at the expense of profit. I just needed cash to cover payroll. Profit's. Not my problem today. That's next month's problem. So every time I focused on one element of success, one me, one key metric, it was at the cost of something else. And eventually I learned, you know what? Forget all that. Forget growth, specific growth goals, cashflow goals, market share goals. Just make great decisions. See what comes. And it sounds almost careless, but it worked. The moment we took our eye off one specific goal, everything. Everything fell into place.

Speaker 4 1:50

No, it's simple, but yet profound because like you said, so many entrepreneurs start out and they're like, oh, I gotta make money, I gotta make payroll. And they do. Whatever you focus on is what you get, what you create. But if it's just one thing and it's not holistic, then that's not a long-term strategy for success.

Speaker 3 2:09

Right. And when you first start a company, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? You're MacGyvering your way outta everything. You're an alchemist, you're spinning, you're spinning straw into gold, you know? But that can't last forever. At some point you can't just concentrate on the squeakiest wheel, you have to maintain the entire machine. And, but there's a time and a place for that.

Speaker 4 2:30

Absolutely. So let's start at the beginning. So you built this company by betting on an idea that no one else believed in. So what was the hardest part about that? When the challenge was, internally as well as the external roadblocks that you had to work through.

Speaker 3 2:51

Well, I really had a passion for a product. I had no desire to start a company, but I really had a passion for a product. And I was very frustrated that my employer at the time, who was in the same space that this product would live in, was not interested in the product. So like a mature 3-year-old as I was at the time, I, threw a little tantrum and went home. Complained to everyone who would listen how unfair life is. My wife said, is it a good idea? And I said, yeah, I think it's a great idea. And she goes, why? Why are you trying to give it away? Why don't you just do it yourself? And that's all I needed to hear. So reluctantly started my company for the sole purpose of building this product and delivering it to the world. And I. I knew looking at it that I would require two sets of skills. I would require a good technical acumen. Which I had.

Speaker 4 3:43

Okay, perfect.

Speaker 3 3:44

Because we were in the, the tech industry require some kind of business experience or business acumen, which I did not have. So I looked at the two and I'm like, okay, I got the hard stuff down. I mean, learning the tech is hard. How hard could business be? Ann, come on, I'll wing it. I'll just learn it as we go along. I'm a smart guy. Wow. I couldn't have been more wrong. The tech is easy compared to business. 'cause the tech is formula. It's like math two plus two is always four, right? With the. Business world, it was not predictable. It was like sometimes two plus two is eight, and sometimes it's two. And it depends on the context. And I just couldn't get my arms around that. I'm very analytical and I'm like, I, I need rules. I need cause and effect and and I, I couldn't see it from that vantage point. So I made every bonehead mistake and the entrepreneur could possibly make, I almost killed my business a thousand times. I refer to the business Gods metaphorically, and I think the business gods, I must have amused them because I should have gone out of business many times and I think that they were just. Either one of two scenarios. Either they looked down and laughed and said, this case, he needs to go, but we're having a great time. He's funny., Let's watch him do this again. Or they just took pity on me. I don't know what it was, but, eventually I learned and, learned to scale myself before scaling the business and. Everything fell into place. So that was 34 years ago. And I still own the business, so it's been around a few decades now, but it was a, it was quite a, quite a rough journey in the early days.

Speaker 4 5:25

I bet that Gods were looking down saying, oh, this guy just never gives up. We're going to help him at every cost. So,

Speaker 3 5:32

you know, I, if I didn't have a lot of smarts, I had a lot of passion. And I, and that's common for entrepreneurs, by the way. We are very passionate people and sometimes we chase, a passion project that doesn't lead to anywhere. Which is hard for us 'cause we don't like to let that go. But, I think that's. When I started the company, I started it with ego and naivety and arrogance, and a poor assessment of risk. That's pretty much what I knew about business, and now I look back and thank God for that because I didn't know 80% of all businesses statistically fail. I had no idea. Good thing I didn't know, I didn't know we were technically insolvent. I just kept bringing in more cash. I was like, weekend at Bernie's. I was the dead guy. I didn't know it though, right? I kept dragging my love dead company along and pumping cash into it until eventually it came back to life and or came to life. So I, I'm grateful now for those traits that I had, although, as you've mentioned in the intro. What gets you from A to B will often kill you from B2C, right? It's a, I think the founder has to shift, shifting the gears through a manual transmission car you can start out in first is highly leveraged high RPM. It gets you off the line, but you can't go far and you can't go fast. And some companies try and run their business on first gear all the time, and it burns everyone out. And it fails ultimately. So at some point, the founder has to learn to go from first to second, which is a whole different skillset. To third, which is a whole different skillset, and eventually to overdrive where you're not working too hard and you're cruising down the highway. It's a journey, but it requires a shift in mindset and skillset and things like that.

Speaker 4 7:20

Is that what you meant when you said earlier I had to scale myself before I could scale the business?

Speaker 3 7:25

Yeah.

Speaker 4 7:26

I really like that. So tell me more. How did you scale yourself?

Speaker 3 7:30

It turns out starting a business from your garage, there's only one place to go. If I got one order, you know I'm a hundred percent growth, right? If I got two orders, I'm a 50% growth. So it's pretty easy to get something moving. Not enough to sustain you, but something moving. And I used all the tools in my toolbox, to get the company going, the first gear traits, and I realized that I over applied those traits and the business would stall. So if you saw a chart. Of my, a spreadsheet or a graph, I should say, of my business growth. It almost looked like a ladder or a stairs rather. It looked like stairs rather than a constant curve up. It would go up dramatically and then plateau, and then go up dramatically and plateau. And looking back now with some altitude and perspective, I realize those plateaus were me holding it in gear too long. To overuse that car analogy. And I was redlining my RPMs and the business could not grow, like the car cannot go any faster when it maxes out that RPM. And the plateau flat spots in our business growth was due to me not shifting my skillset in time, which just held down too long. Interesting. Jim Collins, the author of good to Great writes a line that I absolutely love, which is The Enemy of Great is Good. And when we first started the company, we were not doing good by any metric. When we started doing good, I was fearful to try and up my game to do great because. I had the safety of good's, comfortable. Good is so much better than bad. Right. And I didn't wanna risk the good to try and be great and screw that up and be bad. Does that make sense? Totally. It was too risky. I was comfortable in my good. And one thing entrepreneurs do is. They co constantly try and create the better mousetrap, and, I strove at some point once I had my, warmth of good for a while and the PTSD from all the bads started to wear off, i's okay, it's time to get that next step. And I need to up my game and what I couldn't learn, I hired, so in the early days of my company. I could honestly say, and it sounds like an egotistical comment, but it's not, I was the smartest guy in the room. Not because I'm the smartest guy on the planet, but because I couldn't afford any smart people. Okay. It was me and anyone who, with a pulse, who would accept whatever salary I was willing to pay in the earliest days. And now my goal is to quite literally, my goal is to be the stupidest person in the room. 'cause I consider myself pretty bright and if I'm the dumb guy. I'm surrounded by smart people and I wanna learn, I want to, challenge them and learn from them and clear the path for them. That's what my, my role is now. I don't run the company anymore. I still own it. My job is to clear their path, remove obstacles, sit in the crow's nest, look over the horizon. So how

Speaker 4 10:57

did you do

Speaker 3 10:58

that with the child for the company?

Speaker 4 10:59

I'm

Speaker 3 10:59

sorry. Oh, it was a hard journey and it was a hard journey. About six years ago, I realized that my role in the company was a little bit more disruptive than it was before. I changed the vibe. We're a factory. When I walk through the production floor, people change. It's kind of the Emperor's new clothes thing. Where I don't know if I'm hearing the raw truth, not that they're lying, but I don't know if I'm hearing unvarnished information or varnished information and that my team is amazing. They're absolutely amazing. And I find if I am there, they look to me a little bit too much. What will Mike say? What will Mike do? Will he like it and. I found that stepping back, letting my team do what they do differently than I would do it for sure. Without constantly looking over their shoulders and just do. Now what I love to do, so when I first started the company, I would have to do 10 things. One of them I love to do, and nine of them I hated. But you gotta do it

Speaker 4 12:11

right.

Speaker 3 12:11

Who else is gonna do it now? I only do what I love to do, and I'm busier now in semi-retirement than I was gonna the office every day. And my team turns out, loves to do everything I didn't love to do.

Speaker 4 12:27

Makes

Speaker 3 12:27

sense. They love to run a company. They like to write SOPs, they like to organize, they like to train, they like to do all these things that. I was just into the creative side of the company. I designed all our products. I wrote all our code, I did all that. I did the marketing. That was what I loved to do. I didn't love to build. I didn't love to train. I didn't love to hire but those were necessary actions. They're still necessary, but I don't need to do them anymore 'cause I'm not good at it and I don't like it. And my team. Doesn't like speaking at conferences, which I do. They don't like creating content, which I do. They don't like necessarily designing new equipment, which I love. So

Speaker 4 13:11

perfect.

Speaker 3 13:12

I get to do what I love. They get to do what they love and they're better at than I was. And it took a while messing with my head when I first decided, okay, I'm gonna step back. 'cause it was my baby, right? And yes, it messed with my head for a short time, but the moment I realized I have all this extra time and now I can do more of what I love to do. You know, my wife constantly says you were way less busy. If she wants to spend time with me, she has to get on my calendar, which is terrible. Schedule an in baby of marriage. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Stand in line honey. But,, I'm super productive now. I'm super creative now and, my company is, doing wonderfully and part of it is just 'cause I got outta my own way and I got out of their way.

Speaker 4 13:57

Yeah. Which,

Speaker 3 13:58

so the trauma of the emotional game, it plays with you, the mind game that plays with you to leave your company and turn it over to the youngsters of the world. That didn't last too long because as soon as I realized the sky didn't fall, it actually did better. Which kind of messes with someone's head too, right? It was good. It was really good.

Speaker 4 14:20

I commend you for that because it takes a lot of courage to let go even a little bit, because I worked in a lot of medium sized companies where, the owners were like, Hey, I wanna grow this business. And then you start proposing ideas and they're like, wait, we never did that before. And then they hit the brakes and. So really the founder has to expand their consciousness in order to grow the company and be willing to step back. And you did that. That took a lot of courage,, to say, I'm going to take my baby to daycare and let someone else,

Speaker 3 14:52

run the

Speaker 4 14:53

company.

Speaker 3 14:53

Yeah. It turned out those daycare people were way better parents than me in that case,

Speaker 4 15:00

you're funny. And so is there a moment when you realized that leading the company in the same way that you've always done it had to change?

Speaker 3 15:12

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of signs that it had to change. I didn't see the signs right away. And again, I keep referring to the business. Gods totally metaphorically, but, they're patient. They'll show me like, this doesn't work anymore, Mike, try this and I will ignore it. And then maybe the 10th time it comes back to me, I'll go, oh yeah, okay. Now it makes sense. We learn on our own time. We learn when we're meant to learn and Right. Not a second before. And, the there, that, that was a journey of constant learning. I'm 65 years old. I've had my business for 34 years. So more than, half my life I've had this business.

Speaker 4 15:53

Wow.

Speaker 3 15:53

And I'm still learning today. I'm still learning and It never stops. But I used to, uh, I'm both blessed and cursed with this. Strange wiring in my head. I have this insatiable curiosity as to how things work. So I, I used to get in trouble when I was a kid, 'cause I used to take apart all my parents' appliances and that didn't get me in trouble. I just didn't have the same desire to put everything back together, properly. But I need to know causation. I needed to know cause and effect. And when I started working with the mentor on business, and she's nutty, I say that. Lovingly, she's, the ideas that she would give me were so counterintuitive. I thought she was nuts. I thought she was absolutely crazy. Like if you wanna sell your product, quit talking about your product, Mike, no one cares. Do something else instead. And that's what are you talking about? No, don't talk about my product. That, the company, is the product.

Speaker 4 16:47

Right.

Speaker 3 16:47

It sounded so counterintuitive and I would reject it because I need to understand, okay, if this really works, how. Draw me the line. I need the causation, or I won't do it. Now I, if she comes up and says, paint your building purple and you'll go up, your sales will go up 20%. I won't even think about it. I'll go hire the painter. Let's go. What's shade of purple? I wouldn't even question it because I've learned to trust the process. The process has worked every single time, as counterintuitive as it seemed in the beginning. It's worked every single time. So now I don't, that's my causation. Do you know it works, Mike? Because it always has, and that's my, I don't understand the mechanism under the hood, but I understand if I do this, this happens and it's never failed me.

Speaker 4 17:45

So if there's a business owner listening and they're like, okay, I need to find that person that I can trust so I can let go. How do you one, help them face that fear of turning things over in their mind? And then two, how do you find the right person that when they say paint the building purple, you can trust them.

Speaker 3 18:09

When I hired tent. She doesn't refer to herself as a consultant, but that's the best way to describe her. My back was up against the wall and I've made some of my best decisions, by the way, when there was no other choice. Imagine standing on the edge of a burning building, right? And, and the only choice is dying the fire jump out the window. It's like standing on the edge of a building that's on fire. You have a a hundred percent chance of not surviving if you stay in the building and you have a 1e-05% chance that a pillow truck will be coming by when you jump out of the window, so you jump out of the window. Some of the decisions I made. That would've otherwise been really scary decisions were those burning building moments. I had no choice. I didn't even give it a second thought, just do it and every time I made a decision like that, it's been successful. And I realized that unless the building's on fire, I have a hard time making fear-based decisions. No, let me rephrase that. I make fear-based decisions. I don't wanna make the right decision. That's too scary. That's why I make fear-based decisions. Jumping out of the window is not fear-based. It's survival based. And when we changed our marketing strategy several years ago from obnoxious in your face, braggadocious chest pumping ads to this concept called conscious marketing, which is stop talking about your product. Provide value. I didn't give it a second thought at first when she said, stop talking about your product. I'm like, oh, this is crazy. I'm just gonna stick that on a shelf. And then one day I just came to the realization that our marketing's not working. It's counter it. In fact, negative marketing. It's hurting us. The building was on fire, instantly jumped over to this other approach without any fear. So.

Speaker 4 20:14

Amazing.

Speaker 3 20:15

And those are the best decisions I've made in situations like that. And then I started thinking, why am I waiting for the building to catch fire every single time before I make a good, hard decision? Right? And so now, the building hasn't caught fire in a lot of years. And

Speaker 4 20:30

That's a great thing.

Speaker 3 20:31

And now I just know that if I can manage to take fear off the table. I can make better decisions without waiting for all the drama to occur to force me into that.

Speaker 4 20:45

Yeah, that's profound. A lot of founders run a business based on fear. 'cause like you said, initially I gotta make payroll, I gotta do this. So if you can take that off the table and just make sound strategic decisions. Makes it much easier. So tell us about conscious marketing and how has utilizing that philosophy changed the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 3 21:09

Everyone's familiar with conscious marketing, whether they know the term or not. The best example I like to give is Nike. Nike makes shoes, right? And if you ever seen an ad from Nike that talks about the quality of their shoe, the comfort, the support, the style, the arch support. The material of the soul, the grippiness on a basketball court?

Speaker 4 21:33

No,

Speaker 3 21:34

never. They don't talk about their shoe. Some of their ads don't even show their shoe. What do they show? Athleticism. They celebrate athletes. They celebrate athleticism. And, they don't have to talk about their shoe. They connect with their consumer on an emotional level. We're not Nike. I can't run ads of,, Michael Jordan and then people buy my machines,

Speaker 4 22:01

right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 22:02

But we stopped talking about our products, the specifications, the number of awards we have, how much better we are than our competitor, and. Our products solve a very specific issue that's happening in the electronics manufacturing industry. That's the professional space I'm in. And instead of talking about the product, we create content. I speak all over the world. I lecture all over the world on the reliability of electronics, manufacturing, and electronic products. Our equipment aids, our equipment. Makes our customer's products more reliable. That's what our, that's our role in the electronics manufacturing industry, reliability of their products. So instead of talking about our product, we talk about reliability and best practices, some of which don't even involve us, many of which don't involve us. And by providing value, every time I'm in front of a microphone or a camera, or writing a white paper or technical paper, or. Hosting a webinar, it's a hundred percent non-commercial and a hundred percent value added. Wow.

Speaker 4 23:18

And

Speaker 3 23:19

I don't talk about my company anytime. And in the terms of marketing. We just provide good, solid, verifiable facts and data. That's the conscious marketing and then. I like this concept. I like to call guided discovery. So you are, you have a problem, you see someone that understands that problem and talks about that problem and best practice, not specific like call 800, blah, blah, blah. Call now offers, standby the coupon code. Instead, that person just gives you best practice advice on how. That problem can be solved. And sees that and goes, someone finally gets it. They got Yeah. That person, they know what they're talking about. That person becomes, and I hate this word 'cause it's been abused by other people, but they become an influencer. Not Kim Kardashian TikTok kind of influencer, but an authority based influencer and. All of a sudden Ann sees this, respects the content, trusts the content, does some research, finds out, oh, they make something that, you're gonna start there first. You may not buy there, but you're gonna start there first. 'cause they're an authority you trust. And that's the whole idea of influencer. You influence someone without telling them what to do. It's their decision. And once Ann. Realizes, oh yeah, that company is awesome. They got, they understand. They understand my problem. Ann doesn't just buy from the company, she joins their tribe. Right,

Speaker 4 25:04

right.

Speaker 3 25:05

You know how many people back in a little bit today, but certainly in,, 10, 15 years ago. You would see camping with little tents in front of an Apple store for three days so that they could buy, be the first a hundred people to get the latest iPhone, which hasn't changed much from the last iPhone. Right.

Speaker 4 25:20

Absolutely. I remember those days.

Speaker 3 25:22

They're super fans, right?

Speaker 4 25:23

Right.

Speaker 3 25:24

They wear their merch. How many people wear Nike Swooshes on their t-shirts? They're not known for t-shirts. They're known for shoes, but they're all in, they're part of their ecosystem. That happens when you connect emotionally. That's conscious marketing, not about the product's there. That's ultimately what you wanna sell, but you start with providing value. That's my take on marketing that is effective and that fits perfectly with the young generation. We always say, kids these days, we all become our father at the moment. We say that kids these days have all their, their faces are always in screens. That may be true, but a lot of it is because they don't read ads like our generation reads ads we don't trust that. They don't even see them much less trust them. They don't even see the ads. They just filter 'em out. What do they do? They go on YouTube, they go on Discord, they go on,, all these different, channels and research things themself. They look at influencers. It's a whole different. Way they consume consumer information.

Speaker 4 26:31

Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:31

On their terms, on their time. So if we are running ads that say we're the best call now, they we're missing an entire generation

Speaker 4 26:42

Right.

Speaker 3 26:43

Of consumers. If we create content that's valuable that they trust, we are gonna raise an entire generation of super fans who join our tribe. Way more than my generation did. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 4 26:58

So,

Speaker 3 26:58

so true. I think it's the future, it's just the way technology has progressed and human learning has progressed.

Speaker 4 27:09

So, since you switched to more of a conscious marketing model, how has that impacted your bottom line sales?

Speaker 3 27:18

When we first did it, I was very fearful that this could be the wrong move. And I kept thinking, we can just turn back on the marketing machine any minute. Right. We can do it. I never looked back. Our sales did not drop, they continued to expand. A publisher friend of mine who was the benefactor of a lot of our advertising dollars. Good friend of mine. Told me over a few cocktails that, Mike, you're just running on momentum right now from all the work you know I did for you.

Speaker 4 27:52

Wow.

Speaker 3 27:52

It's gonna run out. Give it a year and you're gonna come back. And I told him, I said, you may be right and if you're right, I'll be back and you know, hat in hand, right? But I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm right. I hope you're wrong. I'm willing to be wrong and I'll pivot if that's the case. So the next year the growth curve accelerated, so it was clear we weren't running on momentum. It's clear that resulted in increased sales, but more importantly, way more importantly than increased volume, we changed the type of customer we attracted. When we led on price. Braggadocious claims we attracted both good customers and trolls.

Speaker 4 28:42

Yeah.

Speaker 3 28:42

Toxic customers who would just demand discounts, demand extended payment terms, wouldn't maintain their, this is pretty sophisticated equipment. It has to be well maintained. They wouldn't maintain it. They would void the warranty and we, and pressure us to cover it anyway, and they were horrible customers. We brought those on our machines use, chemical specific chemicals in them. And in the chemical world, there's what's called Hansen's Law of Solubility, which sounds very nerdy. I'm

Speaker 4 29:13

not familiar with

Speaker 3 29:13

that. What it is, is like attracts like,

Speaker 4 29:18

oh, okay.

Speaker 3 29:18

So I take that way out of the chemical world. And apply it to business and apply it to just, life like attracts, like you attract what you put out and when you put out So true braggadocious, crappy, horrible ads. We attracted braggadocious, crappy, horrible customers when we put out content. That was meaningful and valuable. We attracted customers. Who appreciate that meaningful, valuable content. They never lead with price. I obviously price is part of the discussion. They don't lead with price and our sales transformed from transactional. To relational our customers partner with us.

Speaker 4 30:05

That's

Speaker 3 30:05

huge. Another way, never did, and that was just because we changed how we communicate from traditional, conventional advertising. To, to producing valuable, insightful content.

Speaker 4 30:22

Yeah. That's how you build a tribe and a loyal following. And it sounds like you guys have done that. So I just need to go back. There's one question that's coming up in my head. How did you overcome. Ego and I don't mean that in an offensive way, but like a lot of founders are always like, I know everything. I know the best. Like, how did you transcend that as a business

Speaker 3 30:44

owner? That's a great question. Yeah. I started my business mostly on ego. And I'm grateful I did. My ego was my friend. My ego was my confidant, my ego was my coach. I loved my ego. It was my bodyguard in many ways. It was both my propeller and my anchor. And once the anchor became more powerful than the propeller, I realized that Okay. Little buddy. Time to go, love you man. But thanks for being here. I couldn't have done it without you. But now I can't do it with you. So I put him in a little dungeon in my head and lock the door and occasionally and I'll bring him out to play. Hey buddy.

Speaker 4 31:39

Beautiful. I love

Speaker 3 31:40

that. Remember the old times? Yeah. I need to feel good about myself. Come on, go, come on out, fill me up. Okay. That's enough back in your dungeon.

Speaker 4 31:48

That's funny.

Speaker 3 31:49

And that's how I view it. I think anyone who thinks that they can defy the odds of 80% failure rate statistically for businesses and think they're a part of the 20 and are willing to bet the farm on it, they gotta have some degree of ego. Or overconfidence, however we want it, bravado, whatever, however we wanna describe it. And I think that's necessary. It's the high octane starter, fluid down the carburetor until the car gets started. But just like running in first gear for too long, it, it serves a purpose. It's a slingshot, but it's, you can't run a company just solely based on ego. So at some point that, that needs to be part of the shift. To a higher octave, to a higher degree, to a higher, a higher gear, whatever the metaphor we want to use. So yeah, I'm grateful for my ego and it was time I kept them around too long. I.

Speaker 4 32:44

Very well said. So for founders who are listening who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or secretly trapped by their success, what advice would you have for them? What are the top three things that they can do to shift out of that without burning down?

Speaker 3 33:01

I think a lot of roadblocks come from the inability to make a decision, and one of the things that I learned for decision making is. Take two things off the table. Take time and money off the table. And here's a quick example. The business is at a fork in the road. I need to either go left or I need to go right. Okay. Which one should I do? I'm talking to my mentor now and she goes, what do you want to do? I said, I want to go write, but I don't have enough time or money. I can't go right now, so I'm gonna go left. She says, what if you had all the time and the money? That's a stupid question. Of course, if I had all the time and the money, duh, I'd go, right? Goes, that's the right decision. Yeah, you're decision. But she goes, no, but just put it in your head that the right decision in this metaphor is to go right. Once I concluded. Yeah. You're right. That's, that is the right decision. Guess what? Worked itself out? Time and money every time.

Speaker 4 34:14

Wow.

Speaker 3 34:15

Wow.

Speaker 4 34:15

And

Speaker 3 34:15

it's when we are not willing to make the decision. Whether we implement it or not, because we're fearful or we don't have enough time or money or name your obstacle. Then we fail to make the decision and when we fail to make the decision, we don't manifest a solution to the problem as to why we can't make that decision once we conclude. Yeah, definitely the decision is to go right. That is our decision now. How do we implement that? We've crossed a hurdle from. Uncertainty and indecision to a commitment to execute that decision. And then we start putting all of our mental faculties into how to execute the decision we've already made, as opposed to what should I do? And I know in my case this, everyone's different, but in my case, most of the time. The company suffered. It was due to my indecision to make the correct decision and

Speaker 4 35:30

wow, that's great advice. Can you repeat that again?

Speaker 3 35:33

Most of the time my company suffered was due to my inability to make a good decision

Speaker 4 35:42

That's great

Speaker 3 35:43

because I was either too fearful or I came up with all these excuses, I wouldn't even conclude that was the best decision. If you don't conclude, that's the best decision. You're not gonna come up with, ways to mitigate what's stopping you from executing it.

Speaker 4 36:02

Yeah, so

Speaker 3 36:03

true. Decide first, execute second, and if we don't decide, we can't execute.

Speaker 4 36:11

I love that. Awesome. This has been such an inspiring conversation, Mike. Thank you so much, for sharing your journey of starting a company and progressing through and scaling with us. So where can people connect with you, follow your work, or learn more about what you do?

Speaker 3 36:27

There's a few options. Mike conrad.com. That's my personal website. And that's Conrad with a k by the way. So all those people who just wrote down c just put a line through it and that becomes a K. Okay.

Speaker 4 36:37

We'll link it and show notes too,

Speaker 3 36:39

so don't worry. If they really want to drop down a really deep technical rabbit hole and learn about the secret world of electronics manufacturing My company is called Aqueous. Technologies, aqueous means water and, aqueous tech.com. And then, if they want to get into entrepreneurship and stuff like that, the reluctant entrepreneur podcast.com. And, it's conversations like this just, more. Advice from people who've been through the meat grinder of entrepreneurship. And, I, and I really appreciate you doing the show. I think people who are contemplating starting a business need to hear stories.. Like this. Yes. And from all your other guests and, people who are in business right now who are stuck in a hedge maze and they can't see around the corner and they're about to give up. Need to know that everyone's been there. It's not yourself that's making the mistake. It's the fact that it's a curriculum. When you start a business, when you become an entrepreneur, it's a curriculum. It's a PhD course only. It's not eight years. It's a lifetime. And there's no brick and mortar buildings. There's no, frat boys and sorority girls. It is a perpetual learning. And we all make the very similar types of mistakes manifested differently, of course, but we all make 'em. It's a rite of passage. Give yourself some grace and keep persistence going and try and take fear off the table. Try and not make decisions through lenses. Just try and make great decisions and things come.

Speaker 4 38:16

I love it. Thank you, Mike, for sharing your wisdom, and if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might be facing a similar challenge. And, I'll see you next time on overcoming Anything.