Most founders think they have a marketing problem. They think they need a better website, a better pitch, a better sales funnel, a better tagline, or maybe just a louder way to get attention. But very often, the real problem is not marketing.
The real problem is that the founder has lost the thread of their own story. They built the business. They lived the struggle. They made the pivots, took the risks, learned the lessons, and survived the moments when everything could have fallen apart. But somewhere along the way, the story became harder to tell. The business changed. The customer changed. The founder changed. And the message that once worked no longer fits.
My guest today is Dan Grech, founder of Your Business Is Your Story, or YBYS. Dan has built a career at the intersection of journalism, marketing, teaching, and entrepreneurship.
He spent years as a journalist before moving into startups, growth, and small business Education. That background gives him a unique lens. Journalists are trained to find the real story.
Entrepreneurs are forced to live it. Dan helps founders connect those two worlds by showing them that their business story is not just something they tell after the strategy is done. In many ways, the story is the strategy.
In this episode, we’ll talk about Dan’s own entrepreneurial journey, how a journalist becomes a founder, why so many businesses outgrow their original message, and how founders can use story not as decoration, but as a tool for Clarity, alignment, and growth.
Dan’s Website:
https://ybys.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.
