Ever wonder why so many good businesses still end up biting the dust? In this episode, Ethan Decker sits down with veteran business coach and author Peter Boolkah, who has coached roughly five hundred businesses over more than twenty years and just launched his new book, Your Business Sucks. Peter and Ethan dig into why competence, not luck or good intentions, decides who survives in today's faster, less forgiving economy, and why founders unknowingly build their blind spots right into the company. Along the way they trade stories on the gap between being a craftsperson and being a businessperson, why partnerships so often fall apart, and how brands like Apple and DJI win by staying obsessively consistent instead of chasing every opportunity. Great for founders, coaches, and anyone who has ever felt like their business owns them instead of the other way around.
Main Topics
Why eighty percent of businesses don't make it to five years, and what that has to do with a Queen song
How every founder builds their business in their own image, blind spots and all
The difference between being a craftsperson who loves the work and a businessperson who can run the company
Why so many partnerships end up falling apart, and what that has in common with breakups and breakup bands
Why Peter wrote a research based book instead of an opinion book, and why he skipped the celebrity foreword
The strange marketing challenge of teaching an algorithm, and the world, what a new idea like "the hamster wheel trap" even means
Why dogged consistency, not constant reinvention, is what turns companies like Apple and DJI into categories of one
Links to Additional Resources
Peter Boolkah's book, Your Business Sucks: Build a Business That Works Without Destroying Your Life, available in paperback, hardback, audiobook, and Kindle
Peter Boolkah's website, boolkah.com
Featured Cover: Pomplamoose's cover of Queen's Another One Bites the Dust
https://open.spotify.com/track/3oGfAZZzRFeQmOPTyUw2vV?si=aeabbd62e5e4471c
If you have ever felt like your business is running you instead of the other way around, this one is for you. Subscribe to Cover Brand for more, share this episode with a founder who needs to hear it, and head to appliedbrandscience.com to dig further into the science behind the stories.
