Today’s interview is high energy, insightful and fun.

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, marketer, coach, advisor, and fellow newsletter author. Wes has co-founded two companies: Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz, and the altMBA, which she co-founded with bestselling author Seth Godin. Over 250,000 people follow Wes across LinkedIn, X, and Substack.

Wes is a force to be reckoned with.

Keeley and I (Peter) first met Wes back in 2016 when we both participated in one of the first cohorts of the altMBA.

For those who aren’t familiar, altMBA is essentially a month-long online leadership bootcamp. The work we did and the frameworks we learned during that month continue to influence our work - and we have Wes to thank for that.

Since our time in the altMBA, we have followed Wes’s career with interest, as she co-founded another company (Maven) and then struck out on her own to help individuals and teams level up.

Every week, Wes’s newsletter pushes us to hold ourselves and others to a higher standard. Wes is rigorous, thoughtful, and good at coining memorable frameworks (some of which we discuss today!)

This was a super fun conversation. Keeley and I enjoyed debriefing this one (which you can listen to after the interview).

Enjoy this conversation with Wes Kao.

Topics Discussed:

• [00:00] Teaser Clip and Introduction
• [03:08] Wes’s background
• [03:55] What it means to be a high performer
• [08:52] Wes’s career arc
• [14:03] Lessons that Wes learned from Seth Godin, and what they disagree about
• [21:07] “Spiky points of view”
• [28:46] The “state change method”
• [31:17] Wes’s big vision for her business
• [35:47] Coaching
• [40:37] Organizational resilience, leadership succession, and getting raises
• [48:33] Toronto
• [49:42] Newsletters
• [52:05] YouTube
• [52:46] Houseplants
• [55:04] Book recommendations
• [55:48] Post-interview debrief with Peter and Keeley

Please help this interview reach more people by rating Uncommon Business on Spotify and Apple or by sharing it with others.

We would love your feedback, comments, and questions. Please leave a comment directly on the post or email us at hello@lumogroup.co.

Thank you!

Peter & Keeley
Partners, Lumo Group

Our guest is Darren Marshall. Darren is the CEO of Smith Teamaker. Prior to Smith, he worked in high level roles at iconic companies such as Coca Cola and Steinway.

People have been drinking tea for centuries.

It is one of the oldest consumer products in the world.

Because tea has been around forever, the category as a whole is relatively sleepy.

The tea industry has only experienced low single digit growth on average over the past decade. But Smith Teamaker has bucked this slow growth trend by growing dramatically over the past five years under Darren’s leadership.

We have talked to founders on this podcast before. But the reason we wanted to talk to Darren was the opposite. He is not the founder of Smith Teamaker. He joined the company as CEO in 2018 and has overseen a period of transformation, growth, and adaptability, even through COVID.

Succeeding a founder as CEO can be challenging. It’s not easy to step into a founder-led business and keep excitement and momentum going. Yet that is exactly what Darren has done, and much more. Today the business is much healthier and growing more quickly than ever before.

Topics Discussed:

• Introduction from Peter and Keeley
• The founding story of Smith Tea
• Succeeding a founder and how to navigate it and how Darren approached his first few months on the job
• Best and worst parts of working at Coca Cola
• Darren’s time at Steinway and the ins and outs of the luxury piano market
• How the company is growing through agility, innovation, and culture
• Maintaining a business in central Portland despite the property crime
• The ownership of the company and the outlook for the future
• Managing upward (i.e. to a board)
• Hiring practices
• Leadership
• Darren’s favorite cities
• Classical music recommendations
• Book recommendation
• Darren’t current tea order
• Debrief on the interview from Keeley and Peter

Peter sits down with Ari Weinzweig, the co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In 1982 Ari opened Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor Michigan with just 2 employees and a small selection of exceptional specialty foods and sandwiches. Today, Zingerman’s has developed into a community of 14 different businesses with hundreds of employees and tens of millions of dollars in annual revenues.

In addition to being an incredible entrepreneur and leader, Ari is also a prolific writer and author. Ari has written multiple books about business, leadership, management, and beliefs, and every week he sends out a thoughtful multi-thousand word essay via his newsletter.

Through his writing, Ari has inspired thousands of business leaders and employees to think differently about their business and their operations. As we note in the episode, we think Ari is actually a philosopher disguised as a business person.

Last year, Ari and his business partners transitioned the company to Perpetual Purpose Trust ownership. They are one of the higher profile businesses in the country to have made the leap to Trust ownership.

Buckle up, because we cover a lot of ground in this episode.

TOPICS WE DISCUSSED:
[00:00] Teaser Clip and Introduction
[04:08] What Ari learned while washing dishes at Mauds
[05:18] Ari’s entrepreneurial path and starting his own thing
[06:36] Ari’s decision to hire a full time illustrator in 1991 + The Natural Laws of Business
[09:53] The process of writing the mission and guiding principles for the organization
[12:47] Favorite guiding principle
[14:21] Rule-breaking with a philosophical foundation
[16:21] Ari's pamphlets
[20:53] What does it mean to be anarchist? And what are some common misconceptions about anarchy and anarchists?
[31:44] Who is Emma Goldman?
[36:05] What are some things that Ari tried and failed?
[38:36] What is Ari focusing on lately in business
[39:13] What is the Zingerman's approach to business?
[47:35] What's one thing Ari has learned from Seth Godin?
[49:37] What is a vision, and how is it different from a strategic plan?
[54:28] Zingerman's 2032 vision
[01:00:37] Ari’s current personal vision for 2030
[01:03:51] Visioning process
[01:06:33] What recent beliefs has Ari changed? And how did he go about that?
[01:10:58] What are Ari's beliefs that he hides or he doesn't advertise because he feels they aren't socially acceptable?
[01:13:20] How does Ari personally handle transitions?
[01:16:31] The role of trust in organizations and strategies for building trust among team members
[01:26:38] The analogy of an old growth forest applied to businesses and communities
[01:30:59] What is the energy crisis facing the American workplace, and how do we fix it?
[01:35:20] How does Ari keep his head in the game? How does Ari manage his own energy?
[01:38:21] Ari’s reading routine and how he decide what to read next
[01:44:15] Book recommendations
[01:45:27] A good recipe Ari cooked recently
[01:47:31] Appreciations
[01:48:22] Post-interview debrief with Peter and Keeley