Backable

Tim Krotiris
  • 5.0 (20)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Fortnightly

If you could listen to every conversation within the walls of a High Performance Business Growth Consultancy, do you believe you could improve your business? At worst, could you at least reinforce your own opinions, optimise ideas and use some insights to accelerate your performance each day? This is the next best thing. Covering key business ideas from areas including leadership, partnerships and the realities of business challenges. What does it really take to grow? Access insights from the Philotimo Performance Centre, industry experts, quiet achievers and business builders sharing their experiences.

  1. 5 days ago

    They Lost a Million Dollars and Doubled Down

    “I think you need an internal arrogance. When you commit to something, you're all in on it, not half in. Fear is confining your ability to make the right decision.”- TK A team of 20-year-old founders lost a million dollars and doubled down anyway, and it worked. In this raw, unscripted episode, Tim (TK) and Elana (Lana) pull apart what that kind of risk actually costs, starting with their own: two hundred boxes of premium Italian yarn they didn't need, bought instead of running a small, lean test first. Then it gets personal. Elana says she likes the product, but doesn't love it, and the disagreement that follows happens live, on mic, completely unscripted. Fear, control, and what it actually costs to play it safe all come up, including the line from Tim that gives this episode its spine: real commitment only works when you're all in, not half in, because fear is what's making the decision for you otherwise. What We Discuss in This Episode •  [00:05:35] The Dumb Call Test: Why purposefully spending more than you make feels entirely different from standard operational stress, and how to know if you're making a calculated bet or a reckless gamble. •  [00:10:58] The Italian Fabric Trap: Tim and Elana on the hilarious, painful story of buying 200 boxes of premium Italian yarn instead of running a small, lean test, and how close it came to being a real problem. •  [00:13:14] They Lost a Million Dollars: how a team of young 20-year-old entrepreneurs lost $1 million, secured fresh lines of credit on pure vision, doubled down, and scaled past $100M. Not Tim and Elana's story, theirs to admire and argue with. •  [00:15:47] The Barista's Collapsed Timeline: Tim breaks down a real conversation with a barista that proves how “safety” is actually a slow-motion way to run out of momentum. •  [00:21:07] The Arrogance of Commitment: why true execution takes an “internal arrogance” to go all in, and how fear confines your ability to make clean, decisive calls. This is the line the episode is built around. •  [00:26:11] The Coffee Machine Resource Test: Tim on why he refused to buy a new coffee machine while raising capital, and how investors actually read where you allocate resources. •  [00:29:46] The Like vs. Love Debate: a heated, unscripted disagreement between Tim and Elana on whether attachment to your product is a liability or a strength. 🚀 Join Backable for free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia Instagram:Backable → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/TK → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotirisElana →https://www.instagram.com/elanaharari/Nigel → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life LinkedIn:Backable → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/TK → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/Elana →https://www.linkedin.com/in/elanaharari/Nigel → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ Listen:Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/6hff8VLWJLBFxY89SUwz6XApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/backable/id1495129491YouTube Music → https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7cZKg7ojx5ZBMM6ZnqIysBlBIrQ2loZ

  2. 15 Sept

    The Speedboat Advantage: How to Out-Decide Your Competitors

    Right now, the business landscape is exhausted. Between rapid AI shifts, economic uncertainty, and post-COVID adjustments, business owners are hitting a massive wall of decision fatigue. But in this solo episode, TK explains why this industry-wide tiredness is actually the greatest commercial opportunity of your lifetime—if you know how to use your small business advantage. TK shares a powerful story of a family business competing against multi-billion dollar multinationals, proving that unlimited resources mean nothing if your decision-making loop takes six months. In a fast-moving market, the biggest killer is not making the wrong decision—it is making decisions way too slow. WHAT WE UNPACK: The Agility Edge: Why a small business is a speedboat that can easily out-maneuver a slow, bureaucratic corporate tanker.The Daily Lunch Board Meeting: How one high-performing business bypassed board approvals to make critical, market-winning decisions every single day.The Stop-Loss Strategy: How to set strict time and metric triggers on your decisions so you can act fast and course-correct without fear.Firing Profitable Assets: Why elite investors and business owners kill off profitable products or clients that are sucking too much of their emotional energy.The 3-Decision Challenge: The exact exercise to run today to completely change your operational velocity in the next six months.If you are feeling overwhelmed, tired, or stuck in analysis paralysis, this episode is your tactical guide to falling in love with fast decisions and turning economic friction into your unfair advantage. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Cold Open: The Speedboat Advantage1:08 - Decision fatigue in Australia post-COVID and AI shifts2:03 - The Speedboat Edge: TK's friend's multi-million dollar advantage3:29 - The Daily Lunch Board Meeting: Daily decisions vs. 6-month corporate delays4:22 - Falling in love with making decisions quickly4:57 - The real killer in business: Speed of decision-making5:52 - The unfair advantage of small business agility6:56 - The relationship trap: Why we delay hard choices in business8:01 - Using "Stop-Loss" rules to evaluate and kill off energy-sucking tasks9:09 - Putting a time limit on risk (Why timing is everything)10:22 - The 3-Decision Challenge: What to kill today to change the next 6 months11:30 - Triggering innovation from negative friction CONNECT WITH BACKABLE: 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia📸 Follow Backable on Instagram → https://instagram.com/backableai📸 Follow TK on Instagram → https://instagram.com/timkrotiris📸 Follow Nigel on Instagram → https://instagram.com/this_backable_life💼 Backable on LinkedIn → https://linkedin.com/company/backableai💼 TK on LinkedIn → https://linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris (00:37) - Marker 01

  3. 1 Sept

    The $8,000 "Freebie": Why Free Lead Magnets Attract the Wrong Clients

    In this episode, TK breaks down the exact moment he flipped the script on his agency's lead generation model: taking a high-value resource they used to give away as a free lead magnet, putting an $8,000 price tag on it, and watching client conversion rates actually increase.   If you are currently burning team capacity on low-value "freebie seekers" or settling for a comfortable "B+ Life" because growth feels too risky, this episode is a diagnostic intervention for your operations, pricing, and business mindset.   ·       What we cover: ·       • The $8,000 PDF: Why charging for your "lead magnet" filters for the right clients. ·       • The Advisor Test: How to know when you’ve officially outgrown your current team or external advisors. ·       • Wasting 30% of Your Week: The operational cost of unexamined client reports that nobody is actually reading. ·       • Escaping the "B+ Life" Trap: Why privately owned businesses flatline when owners choose predictable certainty over expansive risk. 🚀 Join Backable for free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia Instagram:Backable → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/TK → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotirisNigel → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life LinkedIn:Backable → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/TK → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/Nigel → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ Listen:Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/6hff8VLWJLBFxY89SUwz6XApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/backable/id1495129491YouTube Music → https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7cZKg7ojx5ZBMM6ZnqIysBlBIrQ2loZ

  4. 26 Aug

    Stop Paying Someone to Keep You Scared of AI

    Her rates halved in four years. Not because she got worse. Because nobody's buying what she thought she was selling. Episode Summary This one's for business owners who built real skill over years and are now watching the price for that skill quietly drop — while people with a fraction of the experience seem to be winning the work. Nigel brings a live case study from his own kitchen table: his wife Trisha, a hair and makeup artist watching AI and influencers reshape her entire industry in real time. TK uses it to unpack something bigger than any one trade — that clients were never really buying raw skill, they were buying a value layer (trust, distribution, speed, influence), and that layer has moved. The conversation moves from the practical (how to find the 20% of clients actually paying for what you do best) to the psychological (why letting go of an old identity feels like grief, and why that's normal) to the protective (how fear-selling gurus and manipulative algorithms profit from keeping you stuck, and the one question that shuts them down). If your industry is shifting under you and the old playbook isn't landing the way it used to, this is the reset. Key Takeaways Clients rarely compare skill against skill. They compare the total value layer around it — influence, trust, speed. Find out which one moved in your industry.Old growth books can be right about principles and wrong about mechanics. Read them for the "why," never copy the "how" blind.You are not your business. You're the steward of it — which means the business can change shape without you losing yourself.Fear-selling only works on people without a plan. Build the plan first, and the fear-mongers lose their leverage.Ask one question before you believe anything that scares you: how do I know this isn't trying to manipulate me?Connect With Us 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia Follow us on Instagram: Backable → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/ TK → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotiris Nigel → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life Connect on LinkedIn: Backable → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/ TK → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/ Nigel → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ Call to Action If you're feeling the ground shift under a skill you've spent years building, you're not behind — you're early to a conversation most of your industry hasn't had yet. Start there.

  5. 18 Aug

    Quit the Tactic, Not the Whole Business

    There's a theory that says the smartest thing you can do is quit. TK and Elana spent the episode arguing about whether that's true — and landed somewhere neither of them expected.EPISODE SUMMARY This one's for the business owner lying awake wondering if it's time to walk away. TK and Elana — back together after three years apart on the mic — start with a theory about squirrels foraging up trees, and end up somewhere far more honest: the night, eight months ago, when Elana asked TK if he wanted to quit and get a normal job instead. He didn't hesitate.What follows is a real argument about what "giving up" actually means. TK's reframe lands hard — you don't quit the business, you quit the tactic that isn't working. The sales program, not the company. The approach, not the mission. Elana pushes back on his claim that everyone reaches their "absolute potential," and the two of them land on something that feels true for anyone building something hard: the founders who last aren't the ones who never think about quitting — they're the ones who keep quitting the right things, one at a time, and never the whole thing at once.KEY TAKEAWAYS Quitting isn't one decision — most founders don't need to quit the business, they need to quit the specific tactic that's stopped working.Borrowed advice about "when to quit" rarely holds up. The real question is opportunity cost: if the odds are 100 to 1 in your favour, take the bet.The founders who stay in it aren't fearless. They just stopped waiting to feel ready before taking the next step.CONNECT WITH US 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia Follow Backable on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/ Follow TK on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotiris Follow Nigel on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life Backable on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/ TK on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/ Nigel on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ CALL TO ACTION If you're carrying a decision like this right now, Backable's here to help you see it clearly — not talk you into anything, just give you the evidence to make the call yourself.

  6. 11 Aug

    You Are Not Your Business, Even If It Fails

    Some people lose a business and never talk about it again. TK messaged a stranger going through exactly that this week, mid-liquidation, heartbroken, and it cracked open a story he's never told on the show before. EPISODE SUMMARY ( If you've ever lain awake running the numbers, wondering whether this is the year it all falls apart, this one's for you. TK talks about DM'ing a stranger mid-liquidation, and where that conversation led him: back to the moment he was staring down his own business collapsing, and a group of American investors said something that rewired how he saw failure completely. Over there, they told him, nobody rates a founder who's only ever run one business. Closing one down and going again is proof you've got what it takes. Here in Australia, it's still whispered about like a confession. TK pulls that apart — the trap of believing you ARE your business, the economic reality that small business creates 60 to 70% of all jobs in this country, and why the shame so many owners carry isn't earned. It's inherited, from a culture that hasn't caught up to how much courage this actually takes. If you've ever felt like closing a chapter made you a failure, this is the reframe before you go again. KEY TAKEAWAYS You are not your business. It's something you tried, not who you are.Failure isn't rare or shameful. Small business creates 60–70% of all jobs, the risk is the engine.Other cultures reward founders who go again. Australia still treats it like a scar.Don't internalise the loss. Feel it, learn from it, then get back on the horse.Find people who celebrate the risk you took. If your circle doesn't, build a new one.So: if your business ended tomorrow, would you know how to separate what happened to it from who you are? CONNECT WITH US 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia Follow Backable on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/ Follow TK on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotiris Follow Nigel on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life Backable on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/ TK on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/ Nigel on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ CALL TO ACTION  If you're carrying more than you're saying out loud right now, Backable is built to be the partner that's always there, twenty-four hours a day, looking out for your business the way TK wishes someone had looked out for that stranger's. Join free and let's go again, together.

  7. 4 Aug

    Stop Running A Business That Can't Run Without You

    Only one in ten businesses that survive ten years ever actually sell. Most owners never ask that question until the day it's the only one that matters. Episode Summary: TK breaks down why so few businesses ever exit — and why building without a clear endpoint means spending your best years pouring risk and capital into something that might be worth nothing when you finally want out. He walks through the "race your business against your business" thought experiment: same person, same resources, but one version has clarity on where it's heading. Ten years later, there's no contest. TK argues that a business which can't survive without you isn't really a business yet — it's a ticking risk with your name on it. The fix isn't complicated: get clear on your endpoint, and every decision after that becomes a yes-or-no answer instead of a guessing game. Key Takeaways: Only 10–20% of businesses that survive ten years ever sell — build with that number in mind from day one.A business that can't run without you isn't a business. It's a ticking risk with your name on it.Clarity of endpoint doesn't just help an exit — it removes most of the daily overwhelm too.Putting your business under management increases its value and widens your buyer pool.Race your business against itself with full clarity, and the unclear version has no chance — not even with dumb luck.Connect With Us: 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia · Follow Backable on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/ · Follow TK on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotiris · Follow Nigel on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life · Backable on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/ · TK on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/ · Nigel on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ Call To Action: If you've never worked out your endpoint, that's the one thing to fix this week — not the marketing, not the hiring. Backable can help you build that clarity from the first conversation.

  8. 28 July

    He Called His Biggest Competitor. They Taught Everything

    Some people stay stuck for twenty years. Others compress a career into two. TK and Nigel get into why — and it isn't talent, luck, or timing. Episode Summary A business partner of TK's picked up the phone and cold-called a competitor ten times his size. Not for a favour, not for a deal — just to ask how they did it. They invited him in for a week. He walked out with 25 years of expensive lessons and skipped most of the mistakes. That story is the spine of this episode, but the conversation around it is the useful part. TK and Nigel start with two origin stories that went sideways — a martial arts promotion that fell apart, and a production company built to prove creativity could pay a mortgage — and end up on proximity. Why the best comics in the world fly to New York to bomb at a 2am open mic. Why the same idea dies at home and goes viral somewhere you couldn't find on a map. Take the guy who never called himself a musician. He wrote one song, expected nothing from it, and it went viral in Scandinavia — a market he'd never once considered. He's living off the royalties now. Nobody in his own city has heard of him. That's not a fluke. That's product-market fit working exactly as it should — just not where anyone thought to look. Why "right person, wrong time" might be the most expensive sentence in business. And if you're quietly the best in your own backyard — best supplier in the suburb, best agency on the street — this one's going to sting a bit. So: how many calls have you made this week that actually move you toward where you say you're going? Key Takeaways Change your reference point and your ceiling moves. Being the best in your postcode is a comfortable way to stop improving.The moment you decide luck picked your opportunities, you've handed away the steering wheel.Product-market fit isn't just the product. It's the room you're standing in.Nearly every business that compressed decades into years traces back to one uncomfortable phone call.The person you're too embarrassed to call would probably be flattered. Once someone's cup is full, generosity is the default — not competition.Connect With Us 🚀 Join Backable free → https://backable.ai/?via=backablemedia · Follow Backable on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/backableai/ · Follow TK on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/timkrotiris · Follow Nigel on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/this_backable_life · Backable on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/ · TK on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkrotiris/ · Nigel on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalton/ Call To Action If you're finding value in conversations like this, hit follow so you don't miss the next one — and if you want a partner working alongside you on the calls you're avoiding, that's exactly what Backable is built for.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
20 Ratings

About

If you could listen to every conversation within the walls of a High Performance Business Growth Consultancy, do you believe you could improve your business? At worst, could you at least reinforce your own opinions, optimise ideas and use some insights to accelerate your performance each day? This is the next best thing. Covering key business ideas from areas including leadership, partnerships and the realities of business challenges. What does it really take to grow? Access insights from the Philotimo Performance Centre, industry experts, quiet achievers and business builders sharing their experiences.

Information

  • Creator
    Tim Krotiris
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    142
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Backable 2020 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Backable