Hi everyone and welcome back to the e commerce impact podcast. Today, we've got Erik Huberman here to talk to us. It's great to have you here, Eric. Yeah, thank you for having me. 

Awesome. Do you want to just go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience? Sure. So Eric Huberman, the founder and CEO of Hawk Media. Basically we run marketing for about 500 brands. And the idea is we really focus on the confluence of being the best way we do in marketing, but also leveraging technology.

So we're investors in 60 plus marketing technology tools like Tapcard, et cetera. We built our own AI system. That's digesting about 8, 000 companies, marketing revenue and media data at real time so that we can optimize companies based on what's happening in the market. And then we use that with a team of excellent practitioners to really.

Grow businesses. And we've done it for about 5, 000 brands in the past 10 years. And yeah, so a combination of investing in technology, marketing for brands and really trying to grow what's out there.  Awesome. And you have a book that you've read in that kind of talks about how to get attention and an attention deficit world.

So do you want to tell me all about what that means and what your thoughts are on this, because attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. So what are your thoughts on that?  Yeah, I mean, so the book's more about it's called the hawk method, and it's the three principles of marketing that we helped at this point over 5000 companies sore.

And the idea is just the basics of what it breaks down to that. I feel like when people are thinking of a marketing strategy, I think actually the, one of the fallacies is they do try to just like, quote, break through the noise is I get attention is what they think they need to focus on. And, you know, thankfully you can pay for attention.

You can find ways to get attention. There's a lot of ways you can do that. And it's an important part of it. But  I think people have indexed too far in that and not all the other things you need to do to create a scalable and repeatable marketing strategy. And so you get what my business partner eloquently puts as sugar rushes, where you do something that gets a ton of attention, drives a bunch of stuff in.

But because it was so hype driven or so moment driven, it does, there's nothing sustainable about it. And so you end up losing all that business and not keeping it up, hence the sugar rush metaphor. And so really what we talk about is with marketing, it's really about the three principles, awareness, nurturing and trust.

So how do you get the word out about your product or service to new people and consistently over time, scalably continue to reintroduce new people to your product or service? And then nurturing, how do you get those people to actually buy and keep buying and keep in touch with them and keep messaging them and keep them on your list and all those kind of things?

And trust, how do you Get third party validation before you've built a branch that people actually trust what they're going to buy is what you're saying you're going to deliver and they can trust to buy. And there's a lot more obvious nuance and details in that, but really it's about that. It's about how do you introduce yourself to constantly new people and how do you nurture those people and how do you build trust? 

Yeah. So I'd love to dig into each of those three in turn and get your thoughts on each one of those. So  do you want to start at the top and talk us through your thinking on those?  Yeah. So with awareness, it's really just figuring out what are the. Cost effective, scalable ways. And I always say scalable because with businesses and if you've run a business, you need it to be predictable and scalable.

You need to know that like, once you do something, if you do more of it, you can get more out of it. And if you do it consistently or in some way consistently, you'll continue to be able to rely on that channel. So that's why things like Facebook ads are great and Google ads and all these channels versus like, we're going to go create a viral video.

So if you create one, you drive a ton of traffic, you get up, you're, you sell a million dollars worth of product in your first week of business.  Second week is going to be really tough  because nothing repeatable about that. Nothing scalable about that. So Dollar Shave Club dealt with that. I worked with them early on.

They had a really hard time growing past their first initial, I know, boost from that video because  it was like, then what? What are we going to do now? So  yeah, back to the point. It's about creating that. And so when you're thinking about awareness, it's really about thinking about the context in which the person is receiving the message.

What your message is, is all about creating something that is really easy to understand and recommunicate. So, we call it your value statement or, and not value, to be confused with value proposition, but something that's like, that's who we are, that's what we do, that's how we're differentiated, that creates intrigue.

So that when someone's trying to explain the value of your product or service to someone else, it's really easy for them. Because at the end of the day, word of mouth is still the biggest driver. And so when we're talking about awareness, Like for us, we always tell people where you're outsourced CMO and marketing team.

So then people are able to go tell other people there you're outsourced CMO and marketing. Really easy to remember, really easy to articulate, so they can go tell other people about this and then bring in business to us. So same thing with any brand, you can really have to figure out what is that statement.

And so that, and then from there again, what are the platforms that you're gonna attract the early adopters, the people that will buy without hearing it from a friend? How do you attract them so that then they go tell friends and you made it easy on them so that, again, it becomes cost effective?

Because if you have to buy every customer that you have, it's not scalable. It's not repeatable. It's not sustainable. So, with with that, the channels we use, it just depends on the brand. Like, the best example of context that I talk about in terms of which channels to use. This is a comparison between like Instagram and Google. 

Instagram, people are sitting there, scrolling through their newsfeed, doing nothing productive, and they're just bored. They're telling you they're bored. They have nothing better to do. And so it's a great time to serve someone that is telling you they're bored. You know exactly who they are from like a socioeconomic status and a psychographic status.

Like you can really target your exact potential customer. With messaging, you can test very iteratively. At a time when they're bored, like you can create a lot of demand for a product because you could just reach the right people. The problem you have with Instagram is there's nothing timing based.

So like the example I use a lot is like a DUI attorney. Like there's no way to target someone on Instagram that needs a DUI attorney. Like you can't target like a Jack Daniels and Mercedes fan and assume that they're going to have a DUI. Like the timing thing is really important in the need.  And that's where Google comes in because there people are actively seeking out the answer to a problem.

And if you can be the solution to that problem, you Google was a great advertising platform for you, but on Google, if it's more lifestyle driven, if it's more like you're selling running shoes, well, if I Google running shoes, I'm probably buying from one of the main brand, if I'm buying, which let's be real, who the hell goes to Google and types running shoes, like it's not a thing, but if I was a thing, I'm probably buying from Nike or Adidas or Hoka or whatever the biggest brand of the time is not your brand new running shoe brand.

So the easiest way to articulate it is. Think about Instagram and Facebook and TikTok as a place to create new demand for a product or service. And Google a place to answer existing demand for a product or service. And that's an example of context. But really thinking through the usage in which people are engaging in when they get on these platforms is really important.

A lot of people, the fallacy is, it's about demographics. And that's a really antiquated way to look at marketing. That's been, since digital, that hasn't been as important because frankly, Every demographic is on all these platforms. So it's not hard to reach, you know, people think that like only Gen Z uses TikTok It's like absolutely not true.

You have boomers, you have Millennials, you have everyone else on TikTok. Same thing with Instagram, same thing with Facebook Same thing with Google, like everyone uses all of this stuff  You can reach a large enough cohort on all these platforms of all these demos. So it's not about demo targeting You do have to pick your demo when you're on the platform But that doesn't come into the apply when you're picking a platform is the important part. 

Yeah, that's a great point. Like I have people say to me, well, we're going to be an Instagram brand. We're not going to, we're not going to go after Facebook. And I'm like, your customer might happen to be on Facebook today. Do you want to just not show them an ad? Because they happen to go on their local community Facebook group to  buy a tent. 

It's like, without them demanding it, like Walmart carrying your product, we'll be a Walmart brand, but we're not going to sell on target.  Like unless there's something I missed and actually it's not even like that because they're owned by the same company. So it's  more ridiculous. There's no principles of buying there either.

Yeah, exactly. We just want to get the individual at the point of need when they're most interested and likely to be inspired to buy from you.  Is around nurturing them. Right. Is that, have I got that right? Yep, you did. And the biggest thing to remember, and I think I see way too many brands misunderstand this, like I'd say 95 percent of marketers and business owners, like, will rationally understand what I'm about to say, but for some reason, don't apply it to how they're monitoring their business.

Yeah. Nobody, like the vast majority of people do not buy something the first time they see an ad for it. Yet, all the tracking people do around their ads is how much did we spend today, how much did we make today, how much did we spend this week, how much did we make this week, how much did we spend this month, how much did we make this month. 

There's something called a purchase cycle, or a consideration period, that is a period between when they're first introduced to your company and when they actually buy. And from our data, which we have a lot of, we see that that time period is between three weeks and three months. So the idea of measuring your marketing today and what the results were today, it's so ridiculous, but people still continue to do it at scale, which I think is driving a lot of why people are struggling right now in marketing because tracking got worse on all these platforms and things got a little tighter and now they don't know how to monitor it. 

You know, when things are humming and everything's good, you can make a lot of mistakes and be forgiven for them. But when, when things get a little tighter, you have to do things right. And a lot of companies, instead of figuring out how to do things right, they're just throwing in the towel. And it's like, actually a lot of companies are doing great if you monitor your sales cycle properly.

And, and so it's really important to understand that. And then when you understand that fact that like. People are going to take a few weeks to a few months to buy a product now, email marketing and SMS and creating great content to bring them back all become a no brainer. And that's what nurturing goes into nurturing so that during that period, while they're deciding whether to buy from you or not, you're reinforcing your value proposition, you're reinforcing your brand, you're building trust, which we'll get into next, you're doing all these things that allow people to feel more comfortable buying and honestly, not even comfortable.

Just remember so that when they're ready to pull the trigger, actually remember you exist.  And so again, email marketing, SMS content, there's all sorts of nuances with all of these, but those are big ones in the sense of nurturing. Yeah,  interesting. Okay, cool. And then trust, trust is a huge one, right?

We're talking about people partying with their cash online. Like, what are you, how do you see trust and how do you help brands to build better trust with consumers?  Yeah. And so 75 percent of consumers say they won't buy it from a company they don't inherently trust and Edelman did a study on this and which makes complete sense.

So, or initially when you don't have a brand, nobody knows who you are. Trust comes from third party validation. And this is a fun trick that is can be used in the wrong ways, but don't like just be a good person. Trust is funny. So I always do this. Like I, this has come up a lot recently with like, when I'm at conferences, like do show of hands, like who here shops on Amazon. 

Everyone raise their hand. Okay, who here looks at the reviews when they're buying something on Amazon? Everyone raises their hand. Cool. Who here believes that most of Amazon reviews are probably bullshit?  Everyone raises their hand. Isn't that funny? Like, you all know that what you're seeing is a third party validator that is probably not true, and yet that still comes into effect in creating trust for the product.

Yeah. Because people are really simple. There's another way of voicing this.  Have you ever watched the show How I Met Your Mother? I don't think  I have, no.  So the basis of it is, it's about a guy telling his future children about the time he met their mother.

But it's like story after story about his like dating life and meeting his friends and like, just a fun like late 20s guy in New York and that kind of thing. I think it was New York. I might have gotten that wrong. But anyways, the the funny part is like, so he has his, one of his best friends is his total womanizer.

And he's always trying to get the main character, Ted, and his friend, Barney. Barney's always trying to help Ted meet girls. And Barney goes up to random girls all the time and goes, Hey, have you met my friend, Ted? And every time it's like the perfect icebreaker, because they don't even know who Barney is.

But they're like hi, Ted. Like, good to meet you. In real life, we all, if you're an extrovert, like, you understand that dynamic, like, if someone just came up to you and said, Hey, have you met this person? You'd be like, no, hey, what's up? Nice to meet you. And so I've always taught, I think I do mention that in the book of like, I've always said, like, this is how people work, like, it doesn't have to be a celebrity necessarily, like, that does help in another way.

It doesn't have to be like a super credible source, unless it's something scientific, then we're talking different, like, obviously all different levels. But to buy a pair of clothes or whatever, sometimes it's just an intro. Even if you don't even know. Just knowing that they know someone else goes a long way, psychologically. 

So then I ended up actually sitting across from the showrunner of How I Met Your Mother, like, six months ago, and was able to tell her that this was something I talked about, and she's like, You know what's funny is, we used to go test it after filming. We used to go to bars and, like, introduce one of the cast to someone and do it.

It worked every time. Like, people are that easy, where it's just like, Hey, check this person out. They're like, OK, sure. I don't know who you are, but I trust it now. Like again, where our brains, I heard another good theory on this with the, how the, what's going on in the world right now about like, we're living in this modern society with super advanced AI and technology and our brains are still cavemen and women, like it's, we're very simple.

And so with trust, it's all about that third party validation. And again, you don't have to overthink it. Reviews, testimonials influencer marketing, endorsements, and sometimes just a simple, someone else saying you're great, like. All these things help build that trust.  Yeah, totally. I totally agree. I think it's, it goes back to that tribal mentality, doesn't it?

Of like, someone else in my tribe thinks  this person. Yeah.  Yeah. And so like, yes, having people that look like members of your tribe also can help with the brand. So if the person looks really different from you, then maybe they wouldn't be the right recommender. But some friends of mine have an Econ brand and they said what really helped them was like having diversity and their UGC.

So having like different types of people really skyrocketed their brand because then different people could see themselves,  see their tribe members, I guess. Super interesting. Yeah. One of the things I say to brands that are getting started is like, put everything down, put everything down and focus on getting video reviews and reviews and testimonials for your product.

Nothing else will work until you have that. So I agree with you on the trust.  And listen, that goes, I actually agree that those are super valuable and frankly, not that hard to do if you focus on it, but again, it goes back to. All three pillars, awareness, nurturing, and trust. If you're missing any of them, it's like a tripod.

You're going to fall apart. If you're not driving new P potential people in your business will decline. If you're not nurturing them, you'll never be able to market profitably. And if you're not building trust, you're never going to convert. So like all these things are super important. Oh, yeah, it's, that's a really great, simple way of thinking about it.

I really like that.  So switching tack a little bit. So before you started your agency, you had a couple of e commerce brands that you scaled, like tell us about that journey and what you learned. And, and and you know, what you would advise to e comm brands that are. And the world today. Yeah. So I learned three very key things in those three businesses.

So first one was a music company. It was a one on one business coaching for musicians and sort of a master class in the music business for musicians. And I learned it is really hard to build a business without a customer that doesn't have any money.  Seems very obvious in hindsight, but like independent artists as a customer, it wasn't expensive, but like it was, you know, they were, it was 50 bucks a month and they were, they were scrutinizing the hell out of that every month.

Even though it was all about building them to be actually make a living income doing what they were doing. That was a big warning. The second one was swag of the month, which I learned why people raise money. Cause I got it to the point where it was. I was working 18 to 20 hours a day. We had great traction, great unit economics.

So like we were selling t shirts, we were making a lot of money per shirt from a percentage basis, but we weren't at the scale that I could actually build all the infrastructure and do all the things I needed to do to then pick my head up to keep growing the thing. And so that was the learning there is like, I never, like bootstrapping always appealed to me.

Hawk media has been bootstrapped, but like. There's a reason to raise money in certain businesses and it's really hard to get over certain humps that you're going to need some sort of capital for. And so that was really the lesson there. Ellie, the activewear brand that I helped build and we sold about as well, the fitness other than learning that I want to be the main decision maker going forward.

Cause I was not in that case. And there was some really bad decisions made. I'd say that key decision, bad decision was building a business for enterprise value. Versus a sustainable business. They, they decided to vertically integrate the whole business because they thought it would be valued bigger because we'd have our own factory and stuff like that.

But it wasn't the right sustainable business decision. And it ended up taking the company and making it struggle to the point that we had to sell it where it probably would have been a huge, much bigger success for us. If we had stuck with what we were doing, we over invested in infrastructure.

Thinking it would create a better value to investors. Interesting. What is that diaper brand that just went down? I think they did the same thing, didn't they? Building factories all over the place. And probably, I don't know which one, which one went down.  So now what's it called?  Bally something.

And it's owned by Dax Shepard and his wife.  Oh, they, that's crazy. I just met their CMO the other day. Oh, really? She was very cocky about how well they were doing.  Yeah. So apparently they're bankrupt. I don't know what's happened next. Got it. So that, that checks out with the conversation I was having in some funny ways where you're just like, really though?

Is that really what's happening? But yeah, no, and listen, it's  the thing about business. There's two reasons you fail. It's really simple. And I've challenged many friends to give me like pushback on me. Am I wrong? Where is the missing? And I'm, I'd love someone to tell me why I'm wrong here, but I've seen two reasons, and it's really simple.

Number one, You get underwater on debt or investment.  So like you have so much debt that you, your business shrinks and now you can't service that debt and whoever owns the debt owns your business. Now, same thing with investors, you raise a hundred million dollars and now your business is only worth 10 because it shrank.

Well, why are you doing it anymore? Like they basically, you'll never get over that hump. So getting underwater on debt or investment and number two, the founders and operators give up,  like that's it  because if you're, if it isn't for debt, You can shrink down, down, down, down, down to like one guy selling products out of his trunk again, like that's possible  or build back up.

Like it is, it is very unlikely there are, I guess there is the exception where it's a business that takes so much infrastructure, even if it's not for debt, you just can't do it because you don't have the money,  but it's really a rare, that's, that's a very rare situation. Almost every business has the ability to contract as long as you don't have debt or investment to get over a hot.

And so keeping yourself in a place like what happened to a ton of businesses. I think it's the story is still going to play out, but a ton of businesses took on a ton of debt in 2021 because it was cheap. And then, but it ratcheted, it's almost like the business version of what happened in LA with adjustable rate mortgages, the rates adjusted on businesses and all of a sudden they're like, wait, my debt service is three X.

What it was like, what am I supposed to do? Like, how can I even afford this? I have to have three times the size of the company I did when I justified this. And they didn't know what they were doing because we're all people. We repeat this. History repeats itself. And I think I'm seeing that in a lot of ways now.

And I don't think it's done where you had like Queerco and Wayfire and these companies giving all these e com brands tons of debt going, well, you're making five time return on your ad spend. Why not pay? 12 percent debt. Like it's nothing. Well, now that 12 percent that's 36 percent debt and that five X is down to two X and you have cost of goods.

And it's like, and we're done  like scary, but it's a really easy way to lose your business, which is why I've always avoided debt and this, I have a really good reason to leverage it like temporarily. So yeah.  That's something that I think people really need to be terrified of. And that's interesting. And then  the founders giving up, like, that's a really interesting one to me.

How often do you think, how would you guide a founder to know when it's time to give up? Because. They just don't have product market fit or like their idea is bad and they should just stop versus they're just, you know, three more tests away from finding the perfect dad and the perfect landing page combination that this is going to like go great. 

I, so there's a couple of things there. One, I, it's net, your landing page is never going to make your company like um, once in a while, a video can make a company like Dollar Shave Club, but like. I think people get into that optimization game where like my view, like whenever I've  invested in or built a successful company,  the getting a customer was not hard in the beginning. 

And maybe I'm sure there's exceptions to this. I'm speaking and I'm not even speaking up early, but you know, I'm sure there's exceptions to every rule.  When I see a company that ends up being a rocket ship,  there was a seamless ability to get customers from the beginning as soon as they hone the message in the product.

Meaning like, it makes sense, and people need it, and they're gonna buy it. Like, you don't have to convince people, you don't have to like, spend a ton of time educating people, it's just like, oh of course, like our best investment in our venture fund is PostScript. Which is an SMS marketing tool that a lot of people use for e com and they've just skyrocketed There was never a point where it's like a client customers were like  SMS.

Really? Why would we ever want to do that? Like don't get wrong There's people that are like isn't that invasive and there's pushback but like on the broad grand scheme of things like people are like Oh, yeah, of course. I need SMS. Okay, this tool looks great. It works great. Like same thing with Hawk Media Everybody needed what we did and, you know, everybody was like, yeah, I need marketing help.

Oh, you guys are really easy to work with and you're really good at what you do. Like, yeah, it sounds good. We still only close, let's say  15 percent of the brands that come to us with a need and that's pretty standard.  So there's a ton that decided to try it themselves or don't end up moving forward or try another agency.

Like there's a lot of other decisions that get made there, but like, but there was always an obvious, like. People need what we're doing, people respect what we're doing, and when they hire us, they like what we're doing, and we've got a product here. So that sort of product market fit thing, that needs to happen really early.

If you're having to like, like, if that wasn't working, I'm not fixing a landing page or creating a better video. It's like, you need to figure out like, if you can't go talk to a person and get them to buy your product, it's not a marketing problem. It's probably a product problem. So, it's, I think, and then from there, once you have that, You, to your point of like, when do you give up?

Well, if that never happens and nobody, there never seems to be true excitement at scale in your addressable audience for your product. Just don't keep pushing after that.  Then it just comes a function of what do you, what do you, what are the reasons you're doing it for? And what do you want on a life?

Because if you do have a audience that it serves and you know that you've built a product that there is an audience that loves it. I mean, if not, everybody's going to be a billionaire. In fact, I heard the best stat the other day, a friend of mine said this on stage at our, we had a Hawk Fest or annual event and he goes,  and it's obvious, but I never thought about it this way.

You are more likely, any individual, you are more likely to be in the NBA than build a billion dollar company.  Like, and so if I ever said to an entrepreneur, Hey, what do you think your chances are being in the NBA? They're like, nothing. I'm like, what do you think your chances are building a billion dollar company?

They'd be like, Oh, well, I mean, you know, if things go well, I think we're on our way.  Really? Like, again, there's so much luck and timing and circumstance that comes into that kind of scale that... It's becoming the, like, becoming the Beatles, like...  Do you want to have a good rock band that's, that's booked and has gigs and pays you bills?

Or do you want to be like the Beatles? And that's the thing is like, do you love what you're doing intrinsically? If you do, then you're not going to be seeking to give up because again, the give up thing. And I don't, I think you made a good point here with your question, which is sometimes you should give up, like you're wasting your time.

You have better things to do. And I think that's, that's actually, I think a great way to answer that. If you have something that you think would be a better use of your time, Go do that. Yeah. I've been given that advice by advisors and investors on the, we have investors on our venture fund. That they're like, do you think you're spending your time on your most best use?

If you do, stick with it. If you don't, get out. Whether that's selling, shutting it down, whatever it is, you need to be spending your time on what you know in your gut is your best use. Whether that's a financial decision or a purpose and passion decision, you need to spend your time on what you think is the best use of your time.

I think that's critical. And if you do feel like you're in the company that you are spending that, you're true with yourself, and it's not just because you're afraid of saying, I give up, But it's actually because you think you've got something here. I think no one can really tell you otherwise. And then it's just a function of, you know, get through the burnout and the grind.

Because every, they talk about the entrepreneurial roller coaster. It's real. Like it, you know, I think all of us, including myself, the past decade was easy. Like the market just made it so easy to build a business that if you just, you dealt with day to day problems and there were, you know, speed bumps and things like that, but like and I'm not talking about brick and mortar and specifics and COVID and all that, but for digital businesses, for e commerce, the past decade was easy.

And then all of a sudden last year. The market swung and things shifted and venture shifted and advertising shifted and everything changed. And there's a lot of people that rode that wave and then hunkered down and went, all right, now it's time to actually earn my stripes. And there are people that went, wait, I want it to be like it was screw this and threw in the towel.

And I don't, I don't fault either of them. It's whatever you think is the right use of your time. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. It's a, it's always going to be like a market readjustment, I guess. Like the bad agencies needed to be shaken out because we weren't playing it on easy mode anymore. And that's good that, you know, we needed to kind of have that readjustment, I think.

So you've scaled some businesses most recently. Your current business, what would you, what would be your advice to brands or businesses that are scaling, you know, scaling their, their operations, their people, what have been your biggest learnings when growing a business quite fast?  eVery time you double your head count, the entire business changes. 

I've learned that. So like you need new management layers, new structure, new culture. It's, it really does change. I've also learned don't celebrate metrics, focus on building a great business. Like You know, people celebrate their social following or their employee head count or their revenue. One of my favorite lines, my dad, again, was an entrepreneur and I.

Remember calling him my first year and being like, dad, I, I did a million dollars in revenue this year. This is crazy. My first year in business and I did a million dollars over a million. And he went, revenue? How much fucking money did you make?  Trying to celebrate, like,  but it was such great. It is. That was my dad's nature.

Like really good indirect advice. Yeah. There's still a scolding or something, but it was like. That was, I think, like, I, I would hope that every entrepreneur could hear something like that because then it pulls your head out of these vanity metrics and just goes down to what actually matters. Like, you're building a business to make money.

Hopefully you're building something that you enjoy doing, that you are making a difference in some way. But at the end of the day, like, you know, they talk about it. Like the purpose of a corporation is to profit. And so there's a lot of other metrics. There's great things you can do in causes. There's all those other things.

But. You can make a lot more impact if you have a very profitable  business. And so  focusing on that, I think is a really key part of it.  Yeah. Focusing on those numbers  and I guess where your time is being spent. So you could be super profitable, but you could be working at a burnout rate. So like, that's not, that's not sustainable and that's not happy either.

Yeah. Yeah. Another good point. I talked to my partner, so we got offered to sell the company for a decent amount of money that year. We are a year in. I just said our numbers. We did a million in revenue and someone offered us 14 million for the business, which is a stupid amount of money for the size of agency that we had.

But I looked at it and I looked at what we were building and I was confident in its scalability. And I went, I don't think we should take it. But if we turn this down, every time I turned down an offer to sell the business, I assume it's going to be a decade before I get another one. Because it allows me to be like, and it's the same way you should invest in most things.

Just assume it's going to be a decade. Anytime you make an investment decision. And this is a really good way to look at this that I was taught to  by not selling something you're making the decision to invest at the sale sales price. So I made the decision by not taking 14 million for Hawk Media to invest 14 million into Hawk Media at that point.

Yeah,  really got to think about it that way and then assume it's going to be a decade before you get that back in any way. And so then I said, so this is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. And let's make like the most important thing to do back to the point of how businesses fail is make this sustainable for ourselves.

Because if we want to give up, the business will fail. Self retention, my business partner is going away on Wednesday for two weeks into around Southeast Asia, and he's out. Like, and I do it too, and we go travel and do fun things. So we're like, yeah, this is not, I'd actually just had lunch with the co founder of Basecamp, the project management tool.

And I did not know this about him, but, and he was public about this. They have always had a 40 hour work week. He's like, if we can't get it done in 40 hours, it's going to next week. And in that time, he's also built a career as a professional race car driver while building one of the biggest SaaS companies bootstrapped in the country.

Like it's,  he's done it because when you set out with that kind of purpose and that kind of mission, you can do it. And I think the number one thing is if you make it something that you're never in a rush to leave.  Then the options always there, but like you just keep running it and you have a sustainable business that like, again, if you're, there's so much sexiness in the idea of selling, but then you have economies like the current one where good luck selling.

And if you haven't built it to be sustainable, you're probably miserable. Yeah, exactly. I think that that 10 year thing actually came across my thought process recently as well. Like if you're going to do something, are you willing to do it for 10 years? Cause that's how long it takes to do something really good that actually, you know, goes somewhere.

And if you're not, if this is just like, Oh, I'm going to do this for three years and then sell it, then are you actually doing the thing that you want to be doing? It's a good, like almost exercise.  Like what, what happens in like, and this, this comes back from my dad, who is also a real estate investor.

I don't think there's a 10 year period in time where the real estate prices were cheaper 10 years later than they were 10 years prior, even after the great recession, like 10 years later, they were back. So that's why it works. It's like. Historically, 10 year periods, the market's always higher than it was.

Yeah. So, it doesn't mean your business is doing better. So, you have to like, do the work there too. So, business is slightly different than that. But from an investment thesis, that's what you have to look at. Because what happens with a 3 year, like the same thing happens with people that like flip homes.

Well, like right now, real, commercial real estate in Santa Monica is down like 20%. If you bought it with a 20 percent upside margin, and now you're sitting there and you just put some money into it and you're like, Oh, wait, we're, we haven't made any money and, oh, it's going the wrong direction, we can get caught.

But if you have a 10 year thesis, you'll be fine. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a really great way to look at it. I think. Cool. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up? No, I mean, we got the book Hawk Method podcast, Hawk Talk TV show, Kings of Barbecue with Cedric the Entertainer.

We launched his barbecue brand on A& E. So a whole bunch of fun, like things on how we work out there. But if you guys need anything, you can always reach me at at or slash Eric Huberman on any social. Amazing. Thanks so much for coming along and we'll keep in touch.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Awesome.