Most entrepreneurs don’t start with a fully formed company. Sometimes they start with a problem they can’t stop thinking about.

My guest today, Nathan Gwilliam, is a serial entrepreneur, podcaster, and platform builder. He is widely known as the founder of Adoption.com, a company that grew from a deeply personal mission to use the internet to help children and families through adoption.

Nathan’s story is especially interesting because it sits at the intersection of purpose, Technology, and entrepreneurship. 

Adoption.com was not just another website. It was an early example of using the internet to connect people, solve a deeply human problem, and build trust online at a time when the internet itself was still new to many people.

But Nathan’s entrepreneurial journey didn’t stop there. Today, he is the founder and CEO of PodUp, an all-in-one podcasting platform designed to help entrepreneurs and creators create, grow, and monetize their shows. 

Rather than forcing podcasters to stitch together separate tools for recording, editing, websites, marketing, and monetization, PodUp brings many of those functions together into a single platform.
Nathan is also behind Podcasting Secrets, where he interviews successful podcasters and Experts and shares strategies for using podcasting to build credibility, authority, audience, and revenue.

That idea is especially important today. Many entrepreneurs spend years building visibility on rented platforms, such as social media sites or video channels they don’t control. 

Nathan’s work challenges business owners to think differently: not just about getting attention, but about building an audience, a message, and a platform that can create lasting value.

So today we’ll talk about the journey behind Adoption.com, what it takes to build a company around a mission, how Nathan moved from adoption advocacy into podcasting technology, and why he believes podcasting can be one of the most powerful tools for entrepreneurs who want to build trust, authority, and a platform they truly own.

Podup:
https://podup.com

Podcasting Secrets: Grow Your Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@podcasting-secrets

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Mike Konrad Podcast Host

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.