Most business owners dream of Growth. But growth can become a trap. More locations, more employees, more customers, more complexity.
Before long, the business that was supposed to create freedom can start consuming every available hour. So the real question is not just, “How do I grow?” It is, “How do I grow without building a business that depends entirely on me?”
My guest today is Dr. Tom DuFore, founder and CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team.
Tom has spent more than two decades helping business owners think beyond the single-location, owner-dependent model and explore whether franchising could be a path to smarter, more scalable growth.
Through Big Sky Franchise Team, Tom and his team help entrepreneurs determine whether their business is truly franchiseable, how to build the systems needed to replicate success, and how to avoid the common mistakes that can turn growth into chaos.
He is also the host of Multiply Your Success, a podcast focused on helping growth-minded entrepreneurs, investors, and franchise companies learn from the misses, makes, and multipliers of business success.
Today, we are going to talk about Tom’s own entrepreneurial journey, what he has learned from helping hundreds of companies expand, why franchising is often misunderstood, and what business owners should think about before trying to multiply what they have built.
Big Sky Franchise Team
https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com
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.
