On this podcast, we look at what it truly means to start, grow, and lead a business, through conversations with people who have experienced it firsthand.
My guest today is Todd Hagopian, a business transformation expert, author, and former company owner who has led multiple corporate turnarounds and scaled and sold his own business.
Todd is best known for his work helping organizations identify stagnation, eliminate unnecessary complexity, and focus on what actually drives performance.
But his expertise was forged through personal reckoning. Early success in his career was paired with extreme intensity, untreated bipolar II disorder, and self-destructive behavior that eventually forced him to confront how unsustainable his approach had become.
Losing the manic edge he once relied on pushed Todd to systematize what had previously been instinctive, leading to repeatable frameworks that he later applied across multiple business transformations.
Today’s conversation is broken into two parts. First, we’ll explore Todd’s entrepreneurial journey and the experiences that shaped how he leads.
Then, we’ll discuss his approach to identifying stagnation, eliminating comfort, and making the hard choices that allow businesses to survive and grow.
If you’re a business owner who feels busy but not effective, this episode offers a perspective worth watching.
Todd’s Company:
https://toddhagopian.com
Todd’s Book:
The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FV6QMWBX
Mike Konrad entered the electronics manufacturing industry in 1985. Four decades later, he continues to dedicate his career to advancing reliability within the industry. In 1992, he founded Aqueous Technologies, an equipment manufacturer serving the electronics sector. Becoming an entrepreneur was never part of his plan, he simply had a passion for a product he designed. When his employer declined to build it, he realized the only way forward was to create it himself.
Mike entered business with strong technical skills but no business acumen. His early assets were ego, passion, arrogance, ignorance, and above all, a poor assessment of risk. Ironically, those traits proved useful in the beginning, ignorance really was bliss. But as his company grew, Mike recognized that those same traits could lead to its downfall. To survive, he had to transform himself, developing business acumen, adopting sustainable strategies, and evolving from reckless enthusiasm into purposeful leadership.
Today, with 40 years of industry experience, Mike shares both his technical expertise and his entrepreneurial journey, offering lessons from personal and professional growth, the near-misses that almost derailed him, and the strategies that carried him forward. He is also a strong advocate of “conscious marketing”, moving beyond traditional chest-thumping advertising toward education-driven authority building. By offering value through knowledge rather than hype, Mike helps organizations connect with a new generation of decision-makers who prefer independent research over bold claims.
