There’s a common belief in business that if something isn’t working, the answer is to change the strategy. Adjust the plan. Work harder. Push faster. But what if the real problem isn’t the strategy at all?
What if the bottleneck… is the person leading it?
Today’s guest, Carly Pepin, works at the intersection of business Growth and human behavior.
She helps founders and leadership teams scale their companies, not just by improving systems and processes, but by addressing the underlying patterns in decision-making, communication, and alignment that often determine whether a business moves forward… or stalls out.
In the first part of the conversation, we’ll explore Carly’s journey. How she got into this space, the challenges she faced early on, and the moments that shaped her perspective on leadership and growth.
In the second part, we’ll dig into her work. What alignment really means inside an organization, why so many scaling efforts break down, and what leaders may be overlooking when they try to take their business to the next level.
If you’ve ever felt like your business should be further along than it is… this conversation may challenge how you think about why.
https://www.westcoastgrowthadvisors.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.
