{"podcast":{"title":"The Reluctant Entrepreneur Podcast","slug":"the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244","podcast_index_feed_id":7049244,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/6346062/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.mikekonrad.com","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/0c0e18f8fee88bf987c05cd6e1532a66.jpg","author":"Mike Konrad","episode_count":127,"summary":"I’m your host, Mike Konrad, the author of The Reluctant Entrepreneur - Anatomy of a Business Start-Up - From Uncertainty to Unstoppable, available on Amazon as a paperback, e-book, and an audible book, and I’m excited to share real stories that reveal the many paths people take to build their own businesses. Whether you stumbled into entrepreneurship or you’ve always known it was your calling, this podcast is for you. Let’s start with what it means to be a reluctant entrepreneur. Many entrepreneurs don’t set out with a grand plan to build a business. Maybe you worked for a company that didn’t value your vision, and one day you thought, “I could do this myself”, that was my story. Or maybe life pushed you in an unexpected direction—losing a job, facing a personal crisis, or discovering a passion that grew into a business. Reluctant entrepreneurs often find themselves starting a business not because they always dreamed of it, but because it was the best—or only—option available. And then there are intentional entrepreneurs. These are the people who’ve known from the start that they were meant to create something of their own. They may have planned meticulously, crafted their vision,…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-31T16:18:29.568615+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244"},"episode":{"title":"The Dog Days of Startup Life: How Courtney Honda and Slava Borisov Built Pupte - Episode 81","slug":"the-dog-days-of-startup-life-how-courtney-honda-and-slava-borisov-built-pupte-episode-81","published_at":"2026-05-08T07:00:02+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244/the-dog-days-of-startup-life-how-courtney-honda-and-slava-borisov-built-pupte-episode-81","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-dog-days-of-startup-life-how-courtney-honda-and-slava-borisov-built-pupte-episode-81--70628874","audio_url":"https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70628874/re_81_pup_01.mp3","summary":"You know, sometimes the best business ideas don’t start with spreadsheets, market research, or a carefully written business plan. Sometimes they start with something much simpler. A passion. A community. Or in today’s case… a love of dogs. Now the pet industry is enormous. In the United States alone it’s well over a hundred billion dollars a year. But despite that massive market, many pet businesses still look pretty much the same. Retail shelves, products on hooks, and a checkout counter. But what if a pet business wasn’t just a place to buy things for your dog? What if it was a place designed around the relationship between dogs and their humans? A place built around community, experiences, and connection. That’s exactly the idea behind Puptqe. Today I’m joined by Courtney Honda and Slava Borisov, the founders of Puptqe, a fast-growing brand that’s rethinking what a pet business can be. Instead of focusing only on products, they’ve created a space where dog lovers gather, socialize, attend events, and celebrate the bond we share with our four-legged companions. But like most entrepreneurial stories, the road from idea to reality wasn’t perfectly straight. It required risk, creativity, and a willingness to build something new in a very competitive industry. So today we’re going to talk about how Puptqe came to life, what it takes to build a brand around community, and what Courtney and Slava have learned along the way as founders. Puptqe https://puptqe.com","meta_description":"You know, sometimes the best business ideas don’t start with spreadsheets, market research, or a carefully written business plan. Sometimes they start wit…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3763,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244/episodes/the-dog-days-of-startup-life-how-courtney-honda-and-slava-borisov-built-pupte-episode-81/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-reluctant-entrepreneur-podcast-7049244/the-dog-days-of-startup-life-how-courtney-honda-and-slava-borisov-built-pupte-episode-81.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}