Most entrepreneurs dream about building a business that grows. But growth creates its own problems. More customers, more employees, more complexity, and eventually, a very uncomfortable question: is the business really scaling, or am I simply working harder?
Today, I’m joined by Eliot Vancil, CEO of Fuel Logic, a nationwide mobile fuel delivery company serving commercial customers across all 48 states.
Fuel Logic delivers diesel, gasoline, off-road diesel, DEF, and generator fuel directly to fleets, job sites, remote equipment, and other commercial operations.
But Eliot’s story did not begin in fuel. Before Fuel Logic, he spent two decades building and exiting companies in the Technology and IT services space. His entrepreneurial journey includes many of the challenges founders eventually face: doing too much himself, making leadership mistakes, building teams, rebuilding teams, and making the difficult shift from operator to CEO.
We’ll talk about why he entered a business many people might overlook, how he built Fuel Logic without outside capital, why he refuses to compete only on price, and what it takes to build a company that does not depend entirely on the founder.
Fuel Logic
https://www.fuellogic.net
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.
