On this week’s episode of The Venue RX Podcast host Jonathan Aymin sits down with Justin Lund, founder of Propel Your, a company that helps small business owners streamline operations, handle compliance, and implement the systems needed to grow sustainably. Propel takes on the administrative and back-office load, things like bookkeeping, payroll, HR, and financial organization, so founders can focus on vision, leadership, and scaling with clarity. In this episode, Jonathan and Justin dive into how operational structure and personal growth go hand in hand. Justin works with business owners helping them overcome operational pain points and move beyond founder dependency. He shares how his own journey, from a creative, sales-driven entrepreneur to a disciplined systems thinker was forged through personal adversity and recovery. Justin opens up about his battle with addiction, the lessons learned through rehab, and how psychology and intentional structure became his path to rebuilding both life and business. He discusses parallels between addiction and avoidance in entrepreneurship, how distractions, overworking, and lack of clarity can hold leaders back just as powerfully as any substance. He also unpacks the dangers of founder dependency, the importance of financial oversight, and the transformative mindset shifts that allow entrepreneurs to scale beyond themselves. Through stories of both hardship and triumph, Justin reveals how simple, consistent systems can replace chaos with clarity and empower long-term growth. About Our Guest: Justin Lund is a systems-driven entrepreneur, speaker, and founder of Propel Your, a company dedicated to helping small business owners scale beyond founder-dependence by building resilient operations and administrative foundations. With a focus on companies generating $500K to $1.5M in annual revenue, Justin partners with founders to resolve operational pain points, standardize processes, and instill sustainable structure so that businesses aren’t reliant on any single person. His journey to operations expert was far from linear. Early in his career, Justin gravitated toward sales, creativity, and the more exciting facets of entrepreneurship, often neglecting the “boring” but vital functions accounting, payroll, compliance that he believed could be outsourced. But life intervened. After battling addiction and navigating legal and personal consequences, he underwent a deep period of self-reflection, rehabilitation, and growth. He credits that season not only with personal healing but with the formation of rigorous mental models, frameworks, and systems that now inform every facet of his work. Find Him Here: Instagram: www.instagram.com/itsjustinlund/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/@itsJustinLund LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/justin-lund-propel/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/justin.lund.propel Website: www.propelyour.com Email: justin@propelyour.com
