You Can’t Scale a Secret

Danielle Sepsy started developing her secret scone recipe at 13. That recipe built The Hungry Gnome. But to grow, she had to share it with her team, and eventually with the world in her new book, The Scone Queen Bakes. So how do you scale a secret without losing your edge? Danielle figured it out. And this week, she's telling us how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the secret to winning in business isn't competing better? What if it's competing less? That's the idea behind category creation. And this week, Jason is speaking with Kevin Maney, co-author of The Category Creation Formula, to break down exactly how it works. Kevin lays out a simple but powerful formula for creating and owning your category. Drawing on real-world examples ranging from the minivan to White Claw, Maney shares his strategies for success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone says to “build your personal brand,” but how do you actually do that on LinkedIn? In this episode, Jason talks with Laura Lorenzetti, Senior Director and Executive Editor at LinkedIn News, about what really works and what doesn’t. They walk through how to create content that sparks conversation and build a repeatable strategy for growing your personal brand. Along the way, they bust some common LinkedIn myths, and Laura shares when the perfect time to post on LinkedIn really is. Whether you're growing a business or a career, this is how to make LinkedIn work for you. This is a new edit of an older episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Jason is sharing something different and special. His wife, Jennifer Miller, has a new podcast — a true-crime story about mistaken identity, impossible choices, and one man who goes to prison for his twin brother's crime. It's called Blood Will Tell. Here, you'll find the first episode. You can find the rest by subscribing to Blood Will Tell wherever you listen to Problem Solvers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Bernstein co-founded Melissa & Doug and built it into a billion-dollar children's toy company. Along the way, she learned a lot about entrepreneurship, which she shares in her new book The Heart of Entrepreneurship. Today, for the first time publicly, she shares the three-part strategy she used to fight back and what happened the moment new ownership stopped following it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every entrepreneur has been told to push through, stay the course, and that grit is everything. But advice like that leaves out that some of the smartest, most successful people in business got there by quitting at exactly the right moment. So how do you know when that moment is? Dr. Anthony Klotz, organizational psychologist and author of Jolted, has spent years studying exactly this question. He joins the show to share his framework for figuring out whether you should stay and fight harder, or finally walk away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Smith went from making art to being the art and learned the hard way that when you become the product, there's no off switch. In this episode, Smith breaks down how he's stayed relevant for 30 years by treating fans like the bosses they actually are. Plus: Jason shares how he once convinced his college to spend their full year's speaker budget just to get Kevin Smith on campus and what happened when they talked afterward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joey Zwillinger, the founder of Allbirds and Biologica, sat down with Jason to talk about the challenges of finding your ideal customer. Joey's done it both ways. Starting with a product and searching for the right people to buy it, and starting with a problem and building the solution. In this conversation, he breaks down what actually works when you're hunting for product-market fit, and what to do when your customers surprise you (because they will). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nobody likes meetings. But there’s a good reason for that. Organizational behavior expert Dr. Rebecca Hinds, author of the new book Your Best Meeting Ever, explains why most meetings are a massive waste of time and what to do about it. She shares a simple test to determine if a meeting actually deserves to be on your calendar. Plus, Jason also discovers something uncomfortable about his own approach to meetings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For sole proprietors and self-employed professionals, taxes can feel confusing, time-consuming, and easy to get wrong. What counts as a deduction? How do you save money on your taxes? And how do you stay organized when you’re doing everything yourself? In this episode, CPA and tax expert with TurboTax, Lisa Greene-Lewis breaks down how solo business owners can make taxes simpler, smarter, and less stressful. We talk about common mistakes new business owners make, overlooked opportunities to save money, what they need to know for the upcoming season, and how the right tools and systems can help you stay focused on growing your business—not wrestling with paperwork. With the business tax filing deadlines are approaching quickly, with many returns due March 16, 2026, understanding what has changed and acting on it with the right guidance may be one of the most practical decisions a solopreneur makes this year. Learn more about filing your taxes with Intuit TurboTax, visit http://turbotax.com/business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices