Ep. 63 — Erik Huberman: Build the Sustainable Business First, the Sale Comes Later

5 min read

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · Amazon Music · iHeartRadio · Pandora · RSS

Episode Summary

You’re chasing growth because growth is the thing you can feel, and somewhere underneath it a quieter question is sitting on your desk. Are you building something that has options, or something that has to sell? I sat down with Erik Huberman, founder of Hawk Media, who built and sold three e-commerce companies before turning around and growing an agency from seven people to 115 in three and a half years. We got into how he thinks about scalable, repeatable growth (test a bunch of things, double down where it works, set up the framework to actually measure it), why most owners are missing the nurturing piece between awareness and trust, and the honest version of his swag-of-the-month exit where he didn’t have a valuation, didn’t have other VC options, and took the first check that came in the door. We dug into the three pillars of marketing he uses to assess every company, what “unfair advantage” actually means when he’s writing investor checks, and why he’s turned down seven or eight offers to sell Hawk Media. Real talk on the trap of building to sell, and what a sustainable business actually looks like when you measure it honestly.

Watch on YouTube

## Top 10 Takeaways
  1. If you build to sell, you limit your options. If you build a sustainable business, the options come to you.
  2. Marketing is testing a bunch of things and doubling down where it works. The discipline is in the framework, not the tactics.
  3. Your unfair advantage is the only honest answer to why you’ll beat everyone else.
  4. Hire people who have already hit the goal you’re trying to reach. Don’t pay people to learn on your dollar.
  5. Awareness gets attention, trust closes the sale, and nurturing is the piece almost every owner is missing in between.
  6. Unit economics decide whether scale saves you or breaks you. A $10 profit per customer needs a lot of customers to mean anything.
  7. Anyone claiming there’s a science to early-stage valuation is full of it. It’s a conversation about what makes sense.
  8. If an investor just wants to write a check because they have money, that tells you how they think about the rest of their business.
  9. Sustainable means real profit with a cushion, not 1% margins and a prayer when the next hiccup hits.
  10. Starting digital inside a traditional business isn’t a project. It’s starting a new business, and you should treat it that way.

Sound Bites

“Marketing is just trying a bunch of [stuff] and then doubling down when where it works. You just have to test all the time and actually set up the framework to test properly.” (@00:05:50) — Erik Huberman

“If anyone tries to claim that there’s a science to valuation in the venture world, they’re full of [it].” (@00:26:02) — Erik Huberman

“What you’re asking me to do for you is to start you a new business. So it’s not an easy straightforward thing.” (@00:31:23) — Erik Huberman

“Don’t focus on the sale and you’ll get it. Building a sustainable business gives you options. We’ve been offered to sell Hawk Media seven, eight times seriously, and we realized we don’t want to.” (@00:35:47) — Erik Huberman

“Business is about making money. That’s why you build a business. Maximizing profits, and there’s a lot of other cool things you can do, but at the end of the day you need to keep it sustainable.” (@00:37:28) — Erik Huberman

About This Episode

Erik Huberman is the founder and CEO of Hawk Media, a Los Angeles-based marketing agency he started after building and selling three e-commerce companies (an independent musician platform, swag of the month, and Ellie). Hawk Media grew from 7 people to over 115 in three and a half years, running marketing for hundreds of brands including a portfolio of 27 companies Erik has personally invested in or advises. He started his entrepreneurial run early (selling Beanie Babies at age eight to buy his first guitar) and broke records as a Cutco rep in college. This conversation covers the full arc from scaling, to exits, to investing on the other side of the table.

Resources Mentioned

  • Hawk Media — Erik’s marketing agency. — hawkmedia.com
  • FabFitFun — Erik’s first angel investment, referenced as an example of an unfair advantage built from an email list before the e-commerce launch.
  • First Round Capital / Howard Morgan — Referenced as the first VC meeting Erik took for swag of the month.
  • Cutco — Referenced as a sales training experience Erik now screens for when hiring.
  • Edelman Trust Study — Referenced for the data point that 75% of buyers say trust is the most important factor in a purchase decision.

Connections

Phase + Module:

Milestones:

Concepts referenced:

Graph View