When Mike Konrad’s employer dismissed his idea to revolutionize the electronics manufacturing industry with a single, four-letter word, fine, he didn’t just walk away, Mike flipped his entire trajectory. This is a really neat episode as Mike shares how he evolved from a reluctant product creator into a conscious entrepreneur, ultimately stepping into a powerful third act as an industry educator and advocate.
As Mike was quick to share, his early years were defined by ego, bravado, and a sheer refusal to accept the status quo. He built a company out of his garage to solve an environmental crisis in circuit board manufacturing. Over three decades, he had to systematically strip away his own arrogance, flipping his marketing from flashy trade show stunts to education-first authority, and shifting his decision-making to remove the blinding lenses of fear and hubris. The humility is pretty striking.
From my perspective, perhaps Mike’s most profound flipped story came when he realized his true passion wasn’t administering a mature company, but it was creating. Rather than retiring to a golf course, Mike transitioned out of day-to-day operations and flipped his purpose. Today, he serves as an educator, author, podcaster, and global speaker, sharing his native empathy with engineering students and industry professionals to ensure the next generation understands both reliability science and the realities of entrepreneurship. I’ll be honest in saying this – I get the desire to want to share, and the passion to continue to contribute – but seldom do I see entrepreneur make this leap with the degree of success that Mike has – if you are looking for a path, Mike certainly provides a good one.
One key element that I really enjoyed in the context of how a flip can manifest, is in his retelling, Mike was under the impression that often he was living his story in real-time, and only with the benefit of being able to look back did it all make sense, but as he’s now been able to look back it is clear that he’s always been walking down a path, and in my view at least for Mike it’s been one tightly aligned to a scientific learning path – observe, be curious, test, deploy, learn and keep going.
And oh yeah – his story is pretty amazing – creating an entirely new product in an already established space with an entirely new zero waste vision. 30+ years later, and I suppose the suggest of Mike’s company Aqueous Technologies speaks for itself.
The Flipped Story Recipe Book: Make Peace with the Worst Mike’s core ingredient for navigating high-stakes business decisions is removing the fear lens and by doing so you can then begin to work towards a solution rather than being paralyzed by hypothetical.
Where to Find Mike Explore Mike’s journey, access his podcasts, and grab a copy of The Reluctant Entrepreneur by visiting mikekonrad.com.
Catch the episode in full here: To get the full weight of Mike’s wisdom, you have to hear the actual conversation. We go far beyond the surface narrative to unpack his specific “burning building” moments, the exact conversations that shifted his mindset, and the actionable frameworks he uses to navigate risk. Dive into the full episode to hear exactly how he flipped his story – this is a really good episode, as told from the perspective of a very successful entrepreneurs!
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