What if the secret to scaling a business is not answering faster, working later, or being available every moment of the day?
My guest today, Ari Pirutinsky, has built his career in a field where urgency is everywhere: paid media, client results, attribution, data, revenue, and growth.
He is the founder and CEO of Steady Growth Partners, a firm focused on sustainable growth through paid search, paid social, performance creative, and better attribution systems.
But what makes Ari especially interesting is not just that he understands growth. It is that he has built his business around the idea that growth should be steady, intentional, and sustainable, not chaotic, frantic, or all-consuming.
He has helped scale an agency from two people to nearly seventy, worked with demanding B2B clients, and developed a clear philosophy around client trust, proactive communication, and building cultures where mistakes become learning opportunities rather than reasons for fear.
And through all of that, Ari has been intentional about protecting the things that matter most: Family, faith, and boundaries.
So today, we are going to talk about growth, but not the reckless kind. We’re going to talk about scaling a business without losing yourself in the process.
Steady Growth Partners
https://steadygrowth-partners.com/#home
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.
