Big Talk About Small Business
163 episodes listed below
Plainspoken business lessons from operators, founders, and local entrepreneurs.
Big Talk About Small Business is a practical interview show about entrepreneurship, local operators, and the everyday mechanics of running a company. Hosts Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton focus on showing up, learning from proven business people, keeping clean books, marketing consistently, and making decisions that can survive contact with reality. The tone is plainspoken and operator-minded, with frequent examples from Northwest Arkansas business culture.
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Big Talk About Small Business is built around candid conversations with entrepreneurs, business owners, and advisors. The show is less interested in startup glamour than in the habits, numbers, and judgment that make a business work. Episodes cover early-career discipline, family business tension, restaurant operations, debt, credit, marketing, and the difference between useful tools and business hype. Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton often push guests toward concrete lessons: show up early, learn from strong operators, understand the books, and do the work that customers can actually see. The sample episodes lean heavily on real small-business situations, including restaurant ownership, local networking, equipment financing, online ordering, and marketing during revenue pressure. Northwest Arkansas appears often as a reference point for business networks, career opportunity, and examples of regional entrepreneurship. The show also has a skeptical streak toward pitch-deck culture, generic AI excitement, and founder identity when those things are detached from operations. Guests such as Travis Feltner and Levi King bring the discussion into family businesses, credit readiness, lending, and scaling without draining cash. The result is a show for people who want business talk that stays close to payroll, customers, debt, work ethic, and execution. It is especially useful for listeners who prefer blunt practical advice over abstract entrepreneurship theory.
Made for: Small business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, operators, and early-career professionals who want practical advice about building durable companies.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by favoring grounded operator experience over startup theater, hype cycles, or abstract business-school advice.
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · July 2026
Practical, candid small business talk on debt, marketing, career moves, and the operating habits behind real decisions.
Big Talk About Small Business sits in the operator lane of Business & Finance. It is conversational, blunt, and most interested in what happens after an idea meets debt, marketing, financing choices, and daily pressure.
A hotel books zero dollars in labor; your eyebrows get a useful workout.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Specialized tools matter most when the business problem is real, not just flashy.
This episode stays close to the real work of small business: marketing when revenue is down 40%, making a clear case for value, and picking tools that solve an actual problem instead of chasing whatever looks new.
Debt only matters when the books show a real business.
This episode treats debt less like a slogan and more like a balance-sheet problem. Levi King and the hosts keep coming back to the same practical question: how to grow without starving the business, and what kind of money actually helps once the bills hit.
A lawn-care YouTube gamble, told with the nerves and uncertainty of a real career pivot.
A lawn-care YouTube gamble sits at the center of this conversation, with the real tension in saying the risky part out loud: leaving steady work before the new lane has proven itself.
Punctuality, learning by doing, and strong networking come through as the core business habits.
Big Talk About Small Business treats reliability as a working skill, not a slogan. It favors showing up on time, staying consistent, and being the person others can count on.
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
Naval Ravikant on epistemology, startups, and crypto, from David Deutsch to Vitalik Buterin.
Alex Theuma interviews SaaS founders and investors on scaling to $10M-plus ARR.
Guy Raz traces founders' origin stories and fields live advice-line calls from entrepreneurs.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Revenues are down 40%.
Starting a business is a bad idea.
This episode emphasizes the critical importance of sales for business owners, arguing that mastering sales is the top priority for generating revenue and solving business problems.
Hosts interview entrepreneur Abby Harmon about her journey from corporate jobs at Target and Amazon to founding her own business, discussing risk, innovation, and disruption.
He opens with the fear underneath it: he does not want to reach the end without knowing if he can make lawn care videos on YouTube for a living.
Hosts discuss entrepreneurial mindset and interview Cameron Clark, a young entrepreneur with diverse experience starting from Chick-fil-A.
Hosts discuss the importance of customer-funded capital over external financing for small businesses, with guest Levi King.
Hosts discuss frustrations with startup events and the realities of entrepreneurship.
Two entrepreneurs discuss the evolving perception of storytelling in business and share Thanksgiving preparation anecdotes.
Interview with Jim Beach about his School for Startups and his philosophy on entrepreneurship.
Hosts discuss the importance of not relying on others for business finances and share lighthearted banter about aging.
Two hosts discuss the challenges of employees leaving to become solopreneurs, sharing personal anecdotes and insights on running a small business.
Success starts with showing up.
Hosts discuss entrepreneurship challenges and interview founders from Vantage Robotics about innovation, sales, and business growth.
Hosts discuss the challenges of taking on responsibility for employees' livelihoods and introduce a guest who provides fractional CFO services to small businesses.
Hosts discuss the role of discipline and frustration in entrepreneurship, emphasizing a love for improvement.
This episode explores the differences between coaching and consulting for founders, featuring a discussion with guest Ben Cashin about business partnerships and support needs.
The hosts discuss the challenges of selling and multitasking, then introduce the episode's topic of sales strategies for small businesses.