Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 98: Erik Huberman — Scaling Hawke Media, Dodging a $10M Curveball & Why 98.2% Aren’t Built to Build
20 Plays25 days ago
In this episode of The OhHello Pod, founder and CEO, Jeremy Bloom sits down with Erik Huberman — founder & CEO of Hawke Media and Hawke Ventures — just hours before his second child might arrive.
What follows is one of the most honest, tactical convos we’ve had on building something real — and surviving the chaos that comes with it.
🔑 Topics Covered:
– How Erik bootstrapped Hawke Media to 260+ employees and 5,000+ brands
– Scaling Hawke Ventures into a $20M fund focused on marketing and eComm tech
– The $10 million curveball that nearly cratered it all — and how he fought through it
– Why 98.2% of people aren’t wired to build — and why Erik only hires the 1.8%
– How fractional mentorship and in-office osmosis beat traditional training
– Building a founder-led culture that values grit over ego
– Real talk on Gen Z, leadership, burnout, and staying uncomfortable
🎙️ Plus: Erik gives a shoutout to his personal advisory board — including Joshua Zad (Alfred Coffee), Cole Zucker (Green Creative), Josh Wand (ForceBrands), John Koeltl (UP.Labs), Blake Mallen (Herbalife), and Sieva Kozinsky.
🔥 If you’re building, leading, or scaling something of your own — this one’s a must.
🔗 Learn more at OhHello.ai
📢 We’re growing fast and fundraising now — and if you’re part of the 1.8%, you’ll know why that matters.
#Entrepreneurship #Startups #HawkeMedia #ErikHuberman #HawkeVentures #Leadership #VentureCapital #Marketing #OhHelloPod #Mentorship #Bootstrapping #Grit #BusinessPodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Eric Huberman
00:00:05
Speaker
Oh, hello, Eric. Hello. Didn't see you there. you You did not see that coming whatsoever. Whatsoever. So Eric, first and foremost, Eric Huberman, thank you for jumping on We're excited to have you on the Yoho Live Pod.
00:00:20
Speaker
You just told me something crazy that is going to take place with hopefully within the next ah several hours. Why don't you tell audience? Yeah.
Personal News: Expecting a Baby
00:00:30
Speaker
ah Well, first.
00:00:31
Speaker
Yeah. and No, I told you as I woke up this morning, my wife and I have dinner plans. She looked me and goes, yeah, I don't know if we're making dinner because we have a er going to make it to dinner. We have a baby do. And she's texting me now that we're I think we're good, but it could be tonight. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. But yeah, we're there.
00:00:47
Speaker
Well, Mazel congratulations. this is Let's hope that we can get through the next 15 minutes or so. The phone rings. Everybody knows why. Just help your only phone number
Hawk Media's Mission
00:00:56
Speaker
that'll ring through. it like Very well said.
00:00:59
Speaker
Eric, why don't you tell, so you are the the CEO and founder of Hawk Media and Hawk Ventures. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Hawk Media and about Hawk Ventures? Yeah, Hawk Media started a little over 11 years ago. My background e-commerce, built and sold a couple e-commerce brands.
00:01:14
Speaker
After that, started advising and consulting for a bunch of great large and small brands around LA and around the country and just saw how broken the marketing ecosystem was. Because what happens in our space is the moment an agency becomes great at what they do and reputable,
00:01:28
Speaker
they go up market and ignore all the small and medium businesses. What that means is if you're a small or medium business, you're relying on hopefully identifying that agency before they scale up, or you're getting screwed by the 90, 90% that have no idea what they're doing.
00:01:40
Speaker
And so I just saw that over and over again with my own businesses and the companies I was helping out and got sick of it. So decided to hire my own team. And the idea was to be the best at what we do, but easy to work with and to stick to that. And so fast forward 11 years, we're 260, 270 people.
00:01:57
Speaker
We've worked with over 5,000 brands. We've had a ton of success. It's been awesome. And we've stuck to that mission of like, we're still one of the best of what we do, but we're easy to work with. And we still work with lots of small, medium and large companies.
00:02:10
Speaker
And so it's been incredible. We've built a great team, but a team that has that sort of principle of we're still here to be accessible. We're not going to be pretentious about what we do.
Starting Hawk Ventures
00:02:18
Speaker
um Through that, to speak to OctVentures, I never thought I would invest in startups. I thought I was going to make money here and then put it into very conservative investments and build a nest egg.
00:02:28
Speaker
And then I got convinced by a friend to invest in his company a year in the business. I told him I wasn't going to. And he's like, you're investing. It can be a small check, but you're in. And that company ended up becoming a multi-billion dollar company. And what was the business fabfit fund and uh those guys are great uh and so they took off very quickly and then i went maybe i shouldn't be so stubborn i should take this seriously so invested in seven companies angel invested over the course of three years they did really well and then we started entertaining the idea of we should actually build a thesis around this and bring in some outside capital so we raised our first fund which was 5.6 million
00:03:03
Speaker
And then I've raised a second fund at 20 million. And that's what we're deploying out of right now. All focused on marketing tech, e-commerce tech, basically all the tools we use to help our clients out. And so the idea is it forces my marketing team to be super innovative and constantly updating what they're doing and how they're executing gives us that advantage.
00:03:21
Speaker
and And then we also can be a market maker for the companies we invest in. So when we invest in something, we bring them a bunch of clients, and there's not a lot of funds that can do that. And we can do our diligence, we know what the market needs. So when we look at software is there's a pretty quick filter of like, yeah, we don't want to use this. So we're good.
00:03:37
Speaker
And so we feel like we can mitigate our risk on the upfront, both by juicing the scales as well as the diligence. And then you know, there's a lot of upside both ways. I appreciate the productivity. It's very similar to having ah a B2B media company over here and then having a mentorship platform with AI but for a bunch of businesses that keep on growing and growing just to consistently help people. On the surface, it can look like distraction, eighty entrepreneurial ADD, but then you look at the you know brass tacks and you're like, no this is there's a lot of synergy and it's actually really beneficial to each other.
Evolving Culture at Hawk Media
00:04:09
Speaker
lot of synergy. So help me understand and help our audience understand just as you bootstrapped Hawk Media, as you've been building over the past 11 years, when it comes to working with all these amazing different brands and startups of all different shapes and sizes, your team, your culture, as the founder, as a founder-led CEO, tell us what's important to you when you're hiring. Tell us what's important to you when you're building your team, when you're fostering some form of culture.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, my business partner said something a long time ago that I think has there's and few truer words in the way he put this. Think about your company culture, like your experience going through school and life. Your culture needs to change as your stage of life changes.
00:04:47
Speaker
And so what we were when we were seven people, what we were when we were 18 people, what we were when we were 50 people, 100 people, it needs to be different. So my answer today is very different from where my answer would have been five years ago.
00:04:59
Speaker
And what that means is, and so I believe culture trickles down, i take full ownership of our culture. And if it's not going the direction, it's because of me. And I think because what I prioritize and what I measure to is what my team does with what they do, they do, and it trickles down.
00:05:11
Speaker
And so, you know, there's a lot of things I've learned about culture over the years that have shaped the way I look at it. But right now, I'm very much in the mode of, I want to build something world beating and great. You know, I joke about our actual mission is to die ah marketing world domination.
00:05:26
Speaker
And so i I'm looking for people that resonate with that and really want to make it happen. So this is not a place, you know, one of my very public interview questions, and it's not meant to be a trick. I'm happy for you to know why I'm asking, but would you rather be overwhelmed or bored?
00:05:40
Speaker
Because if you'd rather be bored and you want some downtime. 365, 24, seven. There's no entrepreneur that would answer bored, but there's a lot of employees that would. And it's like, I would have said before, maybe this year, go get a government job. That's not as stable as it used to be. But that's your stable.
00:05:54
Speaker
But I, in general, it's like, this is not that place. And by the way, like, I'm i'm not saying that to try to trick again. i It's like, if you take this job and you'd rather be bored, you're going to be miserable here. You're going to burn out. So don't come.
00:06:06
Speaker
So i got like I'm looking for the people that understand that. And I don't know where the parents are, but some are great. Most don't. Most don't want to do that. There's a survey that I've really latched onto that I've quoted on a bunch of podcasts, but it's it was a big survey on X that was like tens of thousands of people answered. Would you rather work 25 hours a week and make 125 a year or work 70 hours a week and make 300 a year?
00:06:27
Speaker
To be clear, it's 90 bucks an hour for the 25 hours and 80 bucks an hour for the 70 hours. So you're making slightly less per hour, but you're making...
Work-Life Balance Survey Discussion
00:06:34
Speaker
two and a half times as much money, what would you answer?
00:06:39
Speaker
I wasn't following the math the entire time because I would think I was the reason no no there the reason behind that. Yeah. Because I was thinking to myself, truly, the fact that, huh, why would someone ever want to not really work and spend their time doing something that they're passionate about?
00:06:55
Speaker
Because for me, I'm really passionate about what I do. And so I would rather put in all of my time. Correct. yeah To be effective. And so what percentage of people do you think would rather work 25 hours and 70, even if you're making two and a half times as much?
00:07:08
Speaker
I think people would rather work less all the time. i think What percentage of people do you think? person Ask me the the exact question one more time. 25 hours a week for 125 or 70 hours a week for 300? Oh, I think most people would rather pick 125. Yeah, but what percentage?
00:07:25
Speaker
I would say probably 75 or 80%. Yeah, I would have guessed 70. It's 98.2. god Yeah. So that's why I latched onto this. Oh, like the not the majority, but the giant majority of the country would rather work way less and make less.
00:07:42
Speaker
So knowing that that's fine. That's that's people's prerogative. That's what you want. Good luck. I want the 1.8%. i want to come i want I want to be in the trenches with the 1.8. I want to compete with the 1.8. I want to thrive with the 1.8. And then... It really highlighted the idea of this, you know, the that the and politically, like the 1%.
00:08:01
Speaker
Now I look at it and I go, yeah, the 1% of the people that want to be there. And I know there's nepotism and luck and there's other things that go into it. But to be real, 1.8% of people want to put in the work. And it looks like more than half of them make it.
00:08:13
Speaker
So... totally So as you're building your team, as you're as you're hiring different people at different skill sets, different levels, different ages, how do you and how do you incorporate
Mentorship and Remote Work Challenges
00:08:23
Speaker
mentorship? How do you incorporate training? how do you How do you help the team? How do you help your Gen Z crowd? How do you help your younger millennials?
00:08:29
Speaker
Well, to to continue to be maybe the most unpopular podcast that's ever been recorded in the past year, in-house, work in be in the office. That's number one. I actually believe in this. And it's really hard remote because mentorship to me,
00:08:42
Speaker
Structured mentorship is challenging. I think like sitting down, having scheduled meetings to like go, by it's, it's, it's somewhere in between, like it helps, but nothing beats walking around our floor here and like walking past one of my new salesperson people, hearing him say something that is off or that is right on track, but needs a little work and being able to be like, Oh, you should do this and this. And Hey, what's going on with this? And then just barking up conversations with our newer employees out there. And not just me,
00:09:08
Speaker
but other leadership, other people that have been here and having that sort of osmosis that happens. I never, I did not realize how valuable that was pre-COVID. But once we left, the first two years after COVID, we were remote.
00:09:20
Speaker
It was fine because everybody had grown up together in office and it worked great. When we started trying to onboard new people and younger people, that's when it started to fall apart because they weren't getting that mentorship. So I think mentorship is super valuable. And my own mentorship, how I've always looked at it, people always ask, do you have a mentor? And in hindsight, I'd say my dad was a pretty big mentor in a lot of ways, but I don't look at,
00:09:42
Speaker
anyone is my mentor. I look at a lot of people as the right people to call for specific things. And I have a team of people that I would call my mentors in that way. I'm not trying to emulate some specific person. I'm trying to understand and think through and get help. Like I have a few people that I'll call with like specific types of problems, specific types of things that I know will give it to me straight, that have good feedback, that they may not always be right, but but it's going to help me think through something.
00:10:06
Speaker
When you think through just what you've been building, when you think through of just the, the, the team of the, of the barbell in terms of who you're going to be meeting with on Monday, what guidance or advice would you give to those who are listening and watching in terms of those that are going to be building their own businesses?
Advice on Business Perseverance
00:10:22
Speaker
You've seen it, you've done it, you're an investor and you've built a very successful but business in marketing, advertising and media yourself. Yep. yeah No one's going to make it happen but you and keep fucking going.
00:10:33
Speaker
Like, fucking all that I mean, don't get me wrong. There's the the one challenge to that statement is there's a point where you should probably you you're going to know if you shouldn't be running your business anymore. Like, is it hard or is it just not working? That's those are two different things.
00:10:47
Speaker
It's going to be hard. There's going to be hard times. And again, especially as an investor, because that's where I've had the scale of what in the marketing side to you watch people go through things and you watch how they rise to the occasion or don't. And I've experienced it myself. I've had times when I'm making it's not even a money thing. I'm doing well here and I still wake up fucking hating it. I've been doing this 11 years. There's been some down times.
00:11:07
Speaker
And, and those downtimes, like that that, that when it's, when it's going well and you feel good, running a business is amazing. There's almost nothing better. I'd say next to fatherhood, there's nothing better. It is so much fun and it's easy to find energy. It's easy to get excited. It's easy to innovate. Your brain can't stop thinking about all the good things and the opportunities, but when it's hard, that's having the grit and discipline to grind through it and not let the emotion get to you and just keep going.
00:11:34
Speaker
That is the hard part of entrepreneurship. Get ready for that. It's going to happen to almost everyone. And I say that because and i i came to this realization of, right, this is now like five, six years ago. We kept saying these things like, as soon as we solve that and make that higher, then it'll be easy.
00:11:46
Speaker
And then we do that and wouldn't be easy. And it just kept, you know, you kept pushing the ball. And finally I went, you know, Apple's dealing with like antitrust law and geopolitical climate right now. And they're the biggest at the time, biggest company in the world.
00:11:59
Speaker
I don't think there's a finish line here. I think maybe when you exit, but if you're running your company, there's always going to be challenges and the challenges just get bigger and the problems just get bigger. So it's not like it gets easier because now you're bigger so you can handle them because the problems get bigger too.
00:12:12
Speaker
And, you know, being transparent, I think it was like three weeks ago we had and don't know what I can share. but just say we had another party screw up really bad that wasn't us, but put us exposed us for a week. It looks like we could face like a 10 million dollar loss that had nothing to do with us and was such BS.
00:12:29
Speaker
But I had to fight through that and literally not sleep for a week and figure this out. And frankly, like 10 million bucks would be a real problem for us to figure out how to cover right now off the bat. like We're again, bootstrapped. So we're not just sitting on cash all the time. We're and reinvesting it. So That that that's a moment where it's like I've been doing this 11 years and I'm facing an existential crisis right now because of some bullshit that I didn't even like it. This wasn't even in the radar at all that this was going to be a thing. So and again, we got through it. That's all done. It's fixed for a week. I thought we were like maybe gonna to call a bankruptcy attorney. And then at the end of the week, it literally turned into nothing.
00:13:02
Speaker
So these, I share that because you're going to deal with that the first week of your business, you're gonna deal with that whatever 52 times 11 is, um you know, 500 and what is that 574. So, you know, it's you're going to get you're going to be dealing with that shit as long as you're running the company. And that's so it shouldn't be a bad thing. You got to find a way to both manage your stress.
00:13:24
Speaker
And like not turn it into stress. Like, you know, funny enough, right after that thing, another big sort of like curveball got thrown at the business. But because it was so much less than that first thing, yeah it was like, well, what do we do about it?
00:13:36
Speaker
Like, all right, fuck it. It's not that. So easy this I can deal with. And so when again, fixing that too, and that one's not even fixed yet. But if you can't tell from my voice, not we'll figure it out. Like it's lit out.
00:13:47
Speaker
And one, there's never an end point. I mean, that to me was one of the biggest things that I got out of the conversation. And I completely agree with you. No matter what size you are, no matter where you are in your journey, there's there's just, you don't just stop. You keep on going. You keep on building.
00:13:59
Speaker
Problems get bigger. Teams get bigger. You keep on evolving.
Continuous Business Evolution
00:14:03
Speaker
end. Yeah, you take swings. I mean, we talked about before getting on here, our AI tool, we've spent millions of dollars on that thing. And you know, it's starting to go, which is great. But like, God, we took some risks and just burn cash when maybe sometimes we shouldn't have been burning that cash.
00:14:15
Speaker
And you just but that's, that's the point I'm making there is like, that just causes another dynamic, potentially more problems, who knows what is waiting in the you know weeds for us on that thing, you know, and it's just part of it, you take these risks as you have the opportunity to.
00:14:29
Speaker
Totally. Totally.
Conclusion and Congratulations
00:14:31
Speaker
Eric, this has been awesome. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to the hello community, talk to our crowd. Congrats on all the success with Hawk Media and Hawk Ventures and Mazel on baby number two.
00:14:42
Speaker
Thank you. By the time this is released. i Could be. Yeah. An hour from now could be 10 days from now. We'll, we'll see. You rock my friend. Thank you very much, Eric. Yeah. Thank you.