Uncommon Business

Today’s episode is a little different.I (Peter) am actually interviewing my co-host Keeley about her previous company, Wild Friends Foods.Prior to co-founding Lumo Group, Keeley was the co-founder and CEO of a nut and seed butter company called Wild Friends Foods. All the way back in 2011 Keeley and her roommate and best friend Erika decided to start making their own nut butter in their college apartment. One thing led to the next and soon they were selling it at a local farmers market. Then ...

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 bot...

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...

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 ...

On today’s episode, we are talking to Cory Carman. Cory is a rancher, entrepreneur, innovator, parent, and the CEO of Carman Ranch, a regenerative cattle and meat company in Eastern Oregon. Cory is a female leader in a historically male-dominated industry (however, as Cory points out in the episode, there are and historically have been more women in ranching than one might assume). What’s actually even more trailblazing about Carman Ranch is Cory’s holistic approach to running a truly re...

For our first episode, I sat down with one of the most original entrepreneurs I know - Jason Fried. Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY. He is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of multiple books including Rework, Getting Real, REMOTE, and It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. Jason also writes a blog and posts almost daily about business strategy and tactics on LinkedIn and X to his combined 400,000 followers. The reason we wanted to kick off Un...

We launched Uncommon Business as a way to help small and medium sized businesses and business leaders level up. Lots of business podcasts focus on either big businesses that are household names, or high-growth, small startups, usually tech related. The companies we work with exist in this missing middle: solid, sustainable businesses who are doing interesting, important work - often without relying on venture capital or targeting a future IPO.Uncommon Business is for those com...