Habits and Hustle - Episode 367: Erika Ayers Badan: Leveraging Generosity, Balance, and Leadership for Success from Former CEO of Barstool Sports.

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Imagine the dedication and initiative it takes to turn a small blog into a multimillion-dollar media brand. We know it’s not easy, but the habits and hustle required may surprise you. This is what I dive into in this episode with former CEO of Barstool Sports, Erika Ayers Badan.  We discuss how Erika transitioned from leading roles at Barstool to her current position at Food52, the importance of authenticity, learning from failures, and how to cut through information overload. We also discuss the traits that foster success, like persistence, generosity, likability, and hard work compared to “coddle culture” which leaves detrimental effects.  Ranked one of the most influential executives in digital innovation, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle media, Erika Ayers Badan is the CEO of Food52 and the former CEO of Barstool Sports. During her tenure at Barstool from 2016 to 2024, Erika transformed the organization from a regional blog to a national powerhouse operation leading to a 5,000% increase in overall revenue, making it one of the most innovative and successful internet media brands. What We Discuss: Work Life Realness Building Intuition and Grit in Work Navigating the Evolving Digital Landscape Building a Home Lifestyle Brand Key Traits for Success and Generosity Establishing Successful Business Habits …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Erika Ayers Badan: Website: https://www.erikaayersbadan.com/   Instagram: @erika Book: Nobody Cares About Your Career

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Wow. So you did the deal for that dollar to get that company back for a dollar? Yes. Wow. So what was there? How did you do? Let's just start the podcast with this. How did that even come about? How did you even get that deal? What were the reasons for it? Yeah, there was like so much that went into it. And it's like kind of a long convoluted, you know, history, I guess, you know, the funny thing about Barstool Sports is that if you pay attention to Barstool Sports, it's a wild, weird, strange, you know, it's like the what a long strange trip it's been, like that is Barstool

Sports. But essentially what happened in 2023 was that we sold the company to Penn National or Penn Entertainment. We completed the acquisition for 550 million. And during this time, what was becoming really apparent in sports betting was that, you know, the regulatory concerns were really significant. Sports betting is highly regulated. It's regulated on a state-by-state basis. Barstool is edgy. It's not made for the regulators. They don't love it. And it was creating, I think, a lot of headaches for Penn, which was very... It put Penn in a tough situation, which I have a lot of empathy for. And then on the Barstool side of things,

we were taking this wild, free, very creative, very exploratory content, commerce, comedy platform, and trying to put it into a publicly traded company and a casino operator that wanted to know how much revenue we were going to book tomorrow, and did we book the amount of revenue we said we would book tomorrow. Which for a company like Barstool,

and you know an immediate company, just doesn't work that way. So it wasn't a good fit. It worked out where we were able to buy the company back. It put Barstool where Barstool began, which is with Dave. And for me, I came into Barstool in 2016 to grow and build the company, to legitimize it, to see if it could make money, to see if it could be a bigger brand. And we did all that. It

exceeded every wildest expectation I'd ever had. It changed me in ways I didn't even anticipate and couldn't have ever dreamed of. And it was an incredible, I will never love anything again, the way I loved Barstool Sports, but it also, I wanted to respect it and be like, I don't wanna just hang on here forever when they don't need me. And I want to go do something where I can be,

I can learn and grow and be scared and trying to figure something new out. So who now is the new CEO? Do they have a new CEO? No, Dave's. Dave's actually running the whole, is doing it. Yeah, and he's great at it. I mean, it's amazing because I mean, you took it. I mean, you guys always seem to have a really nice partnership, right? Because usually founders, CEOs, there could be some friction.

And it seems like Dave kind of like let you kind of do your thing. I mean, and this is from me from the outside looking in, right? Like he's such a big personality, a dominant force. And yet like you, he still, it looked like you took something from like 12 people and like what you guys call it, someone else calls it or whatever, a pirate ship, right? Like a complete crazy, like it's a blog that was all mayhem and like really created a massive culture, phenom, like there's nothing like it. That's amazing. There will never be anything like Varsityle Sports again and so much of that credit goes to Dave. And also we did have a really special partnership. I loved our partnership. I don't think I'll ever love working with someone

the way I loved working with Dave. He's brilliant. He was challenging. He was funny. It was charming. It was a disaster. It was all those things in one and it was a really, really, really special, it was a gift. It was just a really great, it was a really great run. What was your first, I guess, sign of business? You go in there, like I said, there's 12, there's basically no payroll, there's 12 people working, it's a blog. Like, how did you start, like how did you start kind of creating some kind of overall structure or. Yeah. So much it was, you know, I was very worried about payroll in the beginning.

I was very worried about like, who worked here and do we have paperwork for them? And you know, are we paying them? So that was a lot, you know, we were moving everyone to a new office and it was very, it was very uncertain at the beginning because, you know, there was a lot of anxiety. It was a lot of nervousness because no one knew what we were going to be. And we really hadn't set about

being it yet. And I'm new and New York was new. And it was kind of this little, you know, it was a very powerful brand in Boston. It was building a very strong presence in Chicago with Big Cat, Philly and New York. But all those personalities had never come together. And so I was like, oh, gosh, like, how are we going to make make this thing sing? And so what I really it's, you know, right. I just I'm right. Launching a book. And a lot of this I write about in the book, which is like, I just started tackling the small things.

I was like, we got to do one thing at a time today. You got to take one step and put one foot in front of the other. And you did. I mean, the book is about, I should say, okay, so Erica did, of course, write a book called Nobody Cares About Your Career, which is a great name. I want to know, A, why you've been like, it could be like, nobody really cares about you at all. That's the real truth. Like, no one really does.

But, you know, what was even the impetus of you writing the book and even coming up with this name? Because the name is like, it's so on point and true. I, super true. I mean, I think, I think people in your head, you think everybody else is looking at you. You think everybody else is judging you. And you know what? They probably are. But you think this mythical everybody else, and I think it's really hurtful for people because I think

people who do things because they should do them, or they think they're supposed to do them, or they're worried about what people will say about them if they do what they actually want to do. I just think that's a really shitty way to live and I think it's a really shitty way to work. And I wrote the book because, well, for a whole bunch of reasons, for me personally, we had just completed kind of the first part of the pen acquisition and I had spent seven years in this crazy creative No holds barred anything is possible world And then I was like trying to manage to a spreadsheet eight hours a day and I was like, oh god

Like I'm missing the creativity So on my commute I started to write the book and it was really, the book is my opinion on work. It's as though I'm talking to anyone or someone about just what I've learned. I've spent most of the last 20, 25 years working. I feel like I've seen a lot, I've experienced a lot, I've failed a lot. And it's kind of a first person perspective on here's what happens at work and here's when things go wrong and here's when things go wrong in your head and here's when things go wrong in your heart and what you can do about it.

And I think if you can realize that no one's coming to help you, that was one of the biggest lessons of Barstool, which was when I got there, people had told me I was committing career suicide. People were like, this company sucks. We hope they fail. And what I realized was nobody's coming to help me. And they're actually probably happiest if this thing doesn't succeed. And what I realized was that seems like an incredible amount of negativity or an incredible pressure, but it was really motivating. And just being free to be

like, you know what? I'm not not gonna listen to what anybody has to say. I'm not going to judge myself by virtue of how other people judge me or judge this company. And we're just going to set about making it great. It was a great metaphor for what I think people can do for their life. You know, this is what I like about you. You know, like I loved you when I met you in 2019.

And cause you know what's refreshing because you are very frank, you're very no bullshit, you say what you mean, you mean what you say, and there's no sugar coating, right? And I think that why I like the book is because you don't mince words, you kind of tell it how it is. And I think there's not enough people who actually do that.

And so when you have somebody who does, like it's a pleasure talking to someone like you really, because you get the real goods, you get the meat on the bone and not all the frills around it. And I appreciate it. I like the way you even begin the book. You're like, this book isn't for you

if you're like basically a trust fund baby or don't wanna really work hard or don't wanna do this. You know what I mean? You kind of like, you call it out right away, you know? Like. This is for you if you, you know, you're interested in using work as a way to change your life. It's not for you if you're so satisfied

with whatever douchey country club you belong to. And that's like winning. So I appreciate that I think I kind of found that too, where I was, when I was thinking about writing it, you know, I went into Barnes and Noble or whatever, and I like looked at all the business books, and they're all like screaming at me about like what habits I'm supposed to have or the seven minute work week, or I'm just supposed to be like a more machine version, better version of myself by virtue of like tricks and tactics.

Then I didn't see any books that told, so that was sorry, that was like one version. And then the other version was like, I'm so perfect. Look at my amazing career. I'm brilliant. And I was like, gosh, like I mess up 24 seven. I'm in the middle of my career, I'm trying to figure out my career, I'm trying to figure out my life. I screw up every day. I think everybody screws up every day. So why not write a book where you are just honest about that? Because I think being honest about it is actually quite freeing and it's quite motivating.

Well, you know what you talk about intuition, you mentioned it just now. So when you do your decision making, is it more a gut thing? Is it more just your own intuition? Like what is your process for making decisions, making tough decisions? Yeah, I think about this a lot. I write about it a lot in the book. And you know, in particular, I think the more you fail, the more you learn. And I think failure is really important. Like you talk about this on this pod a lot, which is like hustle. Like you got to motivate, you got to like make stuff happen. When you try to make a lot of stuff happen, it's not all going to be perfect. And that's such a gift because the more you trip and fall, the faster you learn how to

get up and fix it and do it right the next time. And the other reason I really like that is it makes your gut so much stronger. It really makes your gut quite smart. And I find that most times when I mess up or most times when I fall short, there's something in my gut that's like, oh, that this isn't going to go well or, oh, that's not the right call or, oh, you shouldn't be doing that. And so for me, it's like 70% gut. And if it's 70% gut, the other 30% for me is I try to learn from everybody. And I think the more you can, a lot of times, I think people's ego gets, I think ego and insecurity

kind of get in the way of most everything in your life, where people's ego, you know, I had a woman who worked for me who just really only cared to learn from people who were more senior, more successful, better, you know, only she only wanted to learn from the top. And I thought that always thought that was like a really big mistake. Like I think you can learn from everybody. You can learn from the janitor, you can learn from the train conductor, you can learn from the most junior person you work with, you can learn from your kids. You should be willing and open to learning from everyone.

I think that's really important. And I think if you are open to that and you put your ego away about how great you are, you can learn more. And then I believe the second piece of it is your insecurity. And I see this a lot. You know, Barstool, we worked with a lot of young people. I work with a lot of young people now. People don't like feedback.

They're so devastated to get feedback that you're not perfect or devastated to get feedback that you could have done something different or better. And when you get that feedback, you're kind of like capsized and you're like, oh, I suck. I'm the worst. You're defeated and not doing that either. Like taking feedback, digesting it, being like, I think that guy's full of shit, or I think they're totally right and I'm going to figure out how to be better. I think those things are really important in building intuition.

That was kind of long winded, but. No, but I know what you're saying, and I agree with you. And you touched on a point that I was going to ask you about anyway, which is this idea that you're saying people don't really like feedback, especially today. And I believe that I talk about this a lot on this podcast or my book or whatever is this caudal culture phenomenon right now. Everyone gets a participation trophy. Everybody has to be a winner, which is completely not and which is completely not the reality of life. And, you know, I feel like what I like about Barstool and what from what I know about it, it was the antithesis of everything that is liberal and woke

culture today, which is like, people don't want to work very hard. Everyone's a winner. You are enough. It's like the entire it it's like the opposite of that. Yes. You know? Yes, and I think that's why people don't like Barstool. Frankly, Barstool just said what everyone is thinking and they said a lot and they didn't always get it right, but for the most part, Barstool says it like it is

and says what you're silently thinking, but you're not actually saying. And I think coddle culture is just really dangerous. I write about it here a lot too, where I'm like, look, if your parents coddled you and you had an activity every second of the day, and when you weren't at an activity, or your mother wasn't like, helicoptering you, you're on your screen, you show up at work, and somebody is like, who the heck are you and what are you doing here and go do this right now?

It's kind of jarring and it makes that entry into work super tough because you don't have any toughness. You were just, it's kind of, do you remember the movie like Wallo or was it Wall-E, Wall-E, Wall-E? Wall-E 57 I think or? Where like they're all like blobby in the spaceship remember the movie like Wallo or was it Wall-E, Wall-O, Wall-E. Wall-E 57 I think or. Where like they're all like blobby in the spaceship when beings have no muscle anymore because they're just like blobs that sit on a conveyor belt.

Yeah. I think that's a little bit of like not in all cases but in a lot of cases what we're seeing at work and it stinks because it's so painful for everybody involved. And this book is a little bit of like, hey, get off your butt and start failing and start learning and start trying. But like, so yeah, I want to like stay on this a bit more because I feel like this is something I'm seeing a lot with the younger generation, right? Like I feel like our generation put in the hours, we kind of had these innate traits more so that we knew we had to work hard to get ahead more.

And now there's all these like boundaries that are put up. Like I'm not working to pass five 30. Like that's my boundary, right? Or, you know, or like, I won't do this because that's my boundary. The young culture doesn't have that scrappiness or that grit. But can you talk about this? What do you know, I was gonna say like, this is a really big problem. In my opinion, this is a massive problem. And you mentioned it too. And I obviously were like minded in this way. Yeah, it's funny. I think, you know, like every generation says the ones that come after them are softer, right? So our grandparents or our parents were like, you guys were soft and selfish.

And every generation says it about the next one coming along. That said, I think there's a couple of things. I think there's just a lot of words that are kind of abused. This is my boundaries. you know, this is, and look, like I'm all for having boundaries and there's a lot of places at work where people should have way more boundaries than they do. My opinion of it is this,

is that I think that like quiet quitting, lazy girl summering, one is like the only person that loses in all of those instances is you. If you are quiet quitting, if you're lazy girl summering, if you're like, I don't work past 530, there is someone who is younger than you, hungrier than you, smarter than you, more motivated than you, and willing to do a whole lot more than you who's going to take your job. May not happen now, may

not happen tomorrow, may not happen next week, but it's coming. And then I think the second piece is that you become kind of calcified and you become so precious that you just only exist in a very small bubble and a very small comfort zone. And look, maybe staying at work till 7.30 one night to finish a project will enlighten you to do a whole new thing that you didn't think you were capable of. Or maybe you'll meet someone who you can learn

from or be inspired by that you wouldn't have otherwise. Like I think the blinders to it's like infantilizing people, people are only antilizing themselves. Did you hear the one I was just looking at the name here, the bare minimum Mondays, that's another one. Oh no, what's that? You don't do anything on Mondays? That's what I, I don't know. It's like, these are some of the things I've heard, bare minimum Mondays, quiet quitting, the lazy girl summer.

I mean, it's just crazy to me that this has become the, like this is what's become the standard versus, you know, that it just, to me, it's like, like you said, I think that they're like doing a disservice to themselves. However, what I'm noticing more is that people and companies are acquiescing to them because of fear, right? Definitely. Yeah.

I mean, I think what's, one, it's just like, it's becoming impossible, right? And I think the worst the economy gets, like we're going into an election, you know, we're in an election year. Yeah. The economy looks good, right? The second, who knows what it's going to look like if inflation doesn't come down. And, you know, I think people are in for a rude awakening, whether the rude awakening is in 24 or 25 or 26, it's coming. And then the second thing that I find really disappointing is that I think our generation is a little bit different where we like things. One of my observations is that our generation

likes money. You want things, you want the house, you want the car, you want the handbag, and you're willing to put the work in for it. You wanted the corner office. And one of the things I think is really different now is people don't want that. They don't, you know, I have a really good friend, a woman I worked for forever, who would always tell me like her daughters were like, why would you work so much with your life? Like what's a terrible use of time?

And I just see it so differently where if you want to make a living, you're going to spend most of your life doing some kind of work and you might as well make the most of it to make the most of your life. And then I think the last thing of it is all we see now is lifestyle. So you spend so much time on your phone, you spend so much time on TikTok or on Instagram, like all you ever see is anybody's lifestyle. Like it's cool not to work. It's cool not to look like you're working. And let's be honest, like work is kind of ugly. Like it's, it's mundane Mondays, it's figuring out the zoom. It's and I, it makes me sad that people won't love what they do all day. And I really feel lucky that I've been able to. Well, I also think it's the lifestyle that they're looking at on social media that's

actually not even reality or true, right? And then they're living their life based on a lie and thinking that them doing nothing is going to get to that lie, right? Because it's a not, right? Like, if someone has that lifestyle, someone had to work somewhere to acquire that lifestyle. Exactly. I mean, the whole thing is a lie. You look at faith tuning and you look at AI and you know, it's not reality.

It's not reality. In fact, it's so weird, Erica, and I'm sure you see it too. Like you go meet somebody in real life and you're looking around, you don't even notice the person. You can't even recognize that person because they don't even look like they're- That's the Delta. Totally. It's crazy. It's bizarre.

So you come from a business, you're like a media, this is what you do. This is what your forte is, right? You come from a business of talent, media, internet, content creation, right? Yep. How have you seen it evolve and where do you see it going now? Like with podcasts and with content creators.

Yeah, I mean, we're in such a time of fragmentation. Like there's just so many influencers. We're in an era of influence. I would have said we're in an era of attention a year ago or two years ago, but now it's almost impossible to get people's attention because there's so much competition. And I think that's going to make it really challenging. I feel that all brands are personal brands at this point. It has to be personal. it has to be human. The story is told through someone, not through something which would be a print ad or a TV spot.

So I think it's changing really rapidly. I don't know what happens. I think in real life becomes more important. Podcasting will be the kernels of IP that becomes video, which becomes long form, could be movies. I don't think we ever go back to a place where there's gatekeepers, where there's the authority. I just think authority is so different now. And I think that's really exciting. How is that? So with influencers, I think you're, I think you're spot on. Like it's very hard to break through a crowd because it's just information

overload and it's funny every year goes by, you think no one's attention span can get less, but it does, but it does. Yeah. And there are more people on Instagram. There's more of everything. Yep. How does, right? Like how, how does somebody or a brand, a person, how does anything break through the clutter?

Like what do you do? If everyone's doing the things, how do you stand out? You know, it's funny, if you look at, if speaking of like generational changes, you know, in our time and even I would say up to five years ago, you would find you could have a breakout artist in music, right? You had somebody come out of nowhere and be on the top of the billboard charts. When is the last time that happened? It doesn't happen anymore. Like it's Taylor Swift, Beyonce, or the band you listen to who's been around for 10, 15 years or it's bust. Like it really, there's not breakthrough commercial hits anymore in music,

which I feel is an early indication that there's not going to be big breakout mass hits much anywhere else. I think the big thing now is you've got to grow a community. It's like bloom where you're planted. You got to grow a little community around what you have and what you do. And maybe that community will get iteratively bigger, but it will build slowly and organically over time. And it's a hyper, hyper hyper hyper fragmented world. And it's, we're also a little bit in an echo chamber. So you'll find the way you'll grow is by being next to people who have the same point of view as you the same perspective as you the same interests as you. And that's really where community clusters will grow. Is it a better strategy then to build organically your own community or to piggyback off of like a juggernaut like a bar stool? I think it's best to if you want to be big, you should tap into something a lot of people care about. You know, it's funny, like I'm like

marveling today. Like, I don't know if you're following this, but the WNBA players, I guess are mad that they're getting all this attention and there's people waiting for them when they get off the bus. And I had this very random conversation yesterday with someone who I oddly gotten like a heated argument with, which I never get into. But I was like, this is, this attention is the single best thing that's ever happened to women's sports. The fact that like I can go onto barstoolsports.com right now and it's there's an article about Caitlin Clark and there's an article about Angel Reese is this is exactly what we've always been waiting for.

So I think if you want to be big, you got to tap into something people are already talking about and that they care deeply about. If you want to go deep, then you've got to find a new thing and just like sing with yourself until you can get people to sing with you. I mean, you Yeah, I totally agree with that. However, even so, like, it doesn't not necessarily always hit right? Like you guys I'm sure hadn't right? Like, you guys probably signed a lot of dogs and you know, you had fun. Yeah, it's not everything's going to be a hit. And that's, you know, that's the other thing in life and in a career, which is the expectation of perfection, because that's what you see

in social media is, you know, your job is going to be a success, your idea is going to be a success. Like, you know, it's like instant success. And it's like, it's actually not going to work that way. Right. Like, how did you case? So I wanted to ask you what you what did you think the secret sauce of Barstool was? And like, how did you guys really acquire talent? What was the process? You know, I think the secret sauce is Dave was a genius of fun. People give Dave Portnoy a lot of credit for being a genius content creator.

What I feel he's even better at is discovering talent. Just eyes for the internet. Paul Golczynski, who worked for Dave, just really, really, really good eyes for the internet. You look at what's happening right now with Miss Peaches. Dave's created arguably the biggest star at Barstool Sports as a dog. And so I think the secret is you find somebody

who has something to say, you find somebody who looks a little bit different than everybody else, you find someone who wants to work insanely hard and to publish all the time, and you find someone who isn't, who's fearless, who's not afraid to go out on a limb to have a point of view, and then it's rinse and repeat.

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What is Food 52? Is that the name of what you doing now? What is Food 52? Is that the name of what you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. And you're on, I know you said very briefly, you're on all these boards, but can you just kind of talk about what you are doing and all the things? Yeah. So after we, you know, we sold Barstool twice last year, which was kind of incredible and

was like never going to happen again. And then I was writing this book and we sold Barstool, I was writing this chapter of the book called, Do I Stay or Do I Go? And I was like, I'm kind of not reading my own advice. And the whole section is about like, you need to keep doing things that scare you and you can't rest on your laurels

and you need to keep pushing. And you should find something that you don't know how to do basically, which is kind of how I live my life. And so I was on the board of this company called Food52. They had the same investment backers as Barstool. And when the investors had invested in Food52, they had asked me, have you ever heard of this company and what do you think about it?

And this was way back and I wanted to say this was 2018, 2019. And I was like, yes, like my girlfriends loved Food 52. Like the community is amazing. It's all about cooking and home and lifestyle and the products that they're developing are the best in the market. And flash forward, Food 52 was really started by two women, a New York Times cookbook writer. She started it in her kitchen with her best friend and they made a really huge community. They made a little bit of a media business, a fairly healthy media business,

and they had a store. And the store had their own products and then they curated the best of everybody else's products and then they made products with really interesting makers. And I always really liked it and I wanted to join because I felt like the company could be so much bigger and broader and more expansive. I wanted to have a totally different customer, in this case, women versus Barstool really targets to young people. I don't know if it's necessarily male or female, but, and I really wanted a challenge of building a commerce driven business, not just an advertising driven business, which was also what I was

looking for at Barstool. So it kind of, for me, was the perfect, it was so different from Barstool. I would never love anything like Barstool. I could never do like Barstool Lite. That'd be a disaster and it'd be so unfulfilling. And I got, I was getting approached a lot by companies that were very similar and in the same space. And I was like, I don't want to do that.

I want to do something very radically different. And that's why I chose this. Wow. So are you the CEO of this company now? Yes. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. So how big is the company? Like, what is the... There's about like 150 people. They own the brand Dance, which is like beautiful. Yeah. It's designed like you're you probably have nostalgia around dance. Like you grew up in your mom or

your grandma had dance. they owned dance and then they bought this really special company out of Portland called Schoolhouse Electric which is a home furnishing lighting hardware case goods you know it's a home company everything is designed in Portland Oregon it's manufactured mostly in Portland. And it's just a really special vibe. And so it's these three houseware companies. And I'll want to build, you know, I want to barstool it a little bit where we'll build a lot of IP, we'll create personalities, we'll start to make a lot of content. But that's the vision is to build three really, you know, robust and meaningful and vibrant home brands.

Oh, wow. So basically, and it's all revolving, I would imagine around like food and what else? Food and table and home and life and family. Life is like the literally the antithesis. Yes, yes. Could not be more different. Could not be.

So you started with them. When did you actually officially start with them? In April. So I just started. You just started. Oh my gosh. What a difference. And so, and I wanted to ask you, is it in the other part of the night, we kind of like

ended it here, but like you just said it yourself, like a lot of competition, like a lot of companies that were similar, like Barstool adjacent came after you a little bit. Because I was trying to like rack my brain of companies or things that were even similar to Barstool. Besides Bob does sports, which do you know who they are? I couldn't think of anybody. Yeah, there's nothing like Barstool, I think. I mean, there's like pockets and people who you're like, ooh, they're very Barstool, but Barstool's a thing unto itself. It was a thing unto itself before I got there.

It will be a thing unto itself for forever. And I think that's what makes it so special. And what is the business model? Like you're making money, they make money based on advertisers. Is that really how they make money? For Poo 52 or for Barstool? No, no, back to Barstool.

Oh, for Barstool? Yeah. When I got to Barstool, they really had two forms of revenue. One was commerce, so t-shirts, soft goods. And then two was a little bit of advertising. And we built that into a big commerce business, big advertising business, big content licensing business where people paid to have our content on their platform.

We started to make our own products, we built a royalty business, we built a pay-per-view business. We built a lot of different revenue streams. Wow. And so, and now with Food52, you said that you want to really expand and build out the commerce business as well. Exactly. And the advertising business. So we'll probably have two businesses and then possibly a product manufacturing business where we start to build goods for other companies.

Wow. And so would you think of it, like, can you create? I know you said you wanted to do something very radically different, but yet use the same principles, I would imagine, that were successful. Would you start like a whole media chain where you're gonna have podcasters who are talking about food and lifestyle? Yeah, you're gonna do the whole thing.

Because there's so like to me, again, very similar with bar stools and sports, food is another like another area that people are obsessed with. Right? Like, like you people are like, and I never really got it, like you see on Instagram, everyone's like posting the meal they had the thing that they did, and like the food and meal prep. Like To me, this is a major area that hasn't been tapped in properly, and that's what you probably saw too. 100%, I see it the same.

I see there's so many hacks for your home, right? There's so much, I get inundated with cleaning videos. I don't know why, I clearly have watched enough where it's like, use a lemon to clean out your sink. And yeah, like I get those 24 seven. And there's a huge appetite for home. And think about how much time we spend at home, you work at home now. You know what I mean? It's just happening a lot. So I think it's a huge category. I think it's I think it has been a huge category

and it hasn't been monetized properly because you see all these things online, like do it yourself, things like the videos that you're talking about. And by the way though, I save all these videos and ask me if I've ever used or tried any of these things. Yeah, like never. Never.

And by the way, when I do, it doesn't work anyway, but that's not- 100%. You're right,'s not 100%. It's neither here nor there. But it's something that people are fascinated by. It's super interesting. And it's very viral. Like when I do get these videos, I do send it to like all of my friends and family. Right? Like I watched one this morning that was, you must do this to your dishwasher twice a month. It's some like disgusting cleaning video of like all the gunk in your dishwasher. I am in my mid forties. I have never done this to my dishwasher ever.

I can't even imagine like taking the time to go clean out my dishwasher, but I sent it to like five people. Right. Exactly. I mean, so what's the first line of business? So like this is like exactly, I started this podcast by asking you, what was the first thing you did when you got to Barstools, right? Barstools. What's the first thing now, your first line of business now that you're working at Food52,

what's the first thing you're going to try to conquer and create? It's a lot of the same. It's like listening. I think the answers are always in the building if you just care to listen to the people who are there. So, you know, the food 52 side, the business aspects of the company were not as durable and tight and efficient as they could be. There's a lot of unnecessary cost. There was a lot of unnecessary complication. There was too much product. And so the first thing I'm really doing is like,

hey, let's run a profitable business. Let's clean this up. So we run a gorgeous store. We run a gorgeous design operation. We run a gorgeous content company. Now we have a long way to go to hitting on all those cylinders, but let's get the right

foot forward to start going after that. Those have really been the first things that I've been doing. Now, with Dave Portnoy, he kind of gave you a long rope, right? You can do it. He kind of allowed you as a founder, which is so unique. Now with these founders, I guess it's so early, you have no idea yet. You're just kind of getting your feet wet. But what do you like, do you buy it? Do you seem to have your own leeway to do what you want? Or like, what's the dynamic

so far? It's funny because when I took the barstool job was my first CEO job, and I really had no idea what the fuck I was doing. So it was, you know, and I was lucky that I, that I liked working with Dave so much and Dave was so great. I made so many mistakes. There's so many things I would have done differently. We tried so much that I'm coming into this job more confident with obviously much more experience. In some ways it's very similar where we have a lot of runway and we're going to

build things in other ways. It's really different because because there, you know, Barswell didn't have any money and I had, I had $2 million in the bank when I got to Barswell to run that company. This is a company that's raised a lot of money and has been around for a while. So I still will have the rope, I think, but it will be different because it's not building from scratch. It's kind of taking something down and building it back up again, which in a lot of ways is harder. How much money does a company has it? How much has the company raised and how long?

Like you said, they've been around. How many years you said they've been around since the mid 2000s, so maybe 2010, 2011. And they, you know, they've had a bunch of rounds of funding. And they've done a lot. They acquired dance. They found this company, Schoolhouse. So there's more here at the beginning

than when I came to Barstool, where there was so much, but also nothing. Right. Now, so I guess I have a question about you personally, right? What is the thing that you're the greatest at? Like, not like, I hate when people say, wait, what's your superpower? That's not what I mean. But like, everyone knows that they're like, their skill set is right. You seem to be very self aware. I think you do know. What is your strongest suit that makes you so

like makes like, what do you think you're the best at that makes you good for these rules and in general? I think that I am best at finding what makes other people great and like leaning into it. I think I'm good at that. I like to work with founders. I like to work with people. I like to find out what makes not what makes someone tick that sounds creepy. But you know, how can I unlock and accelerate and just let free other people to work together to build something? I think I'm good at that. I also think I have a relentless work ethic and I work fast. Yeah, you're like you said, nothing will ever out be hard work, right? Like you can ever really that to me is like, and so you are, and that's what you

are, a hard worker. So what do you think, like, in terms of traits for, like, success overall? I mean, besides the usual, and I'm just going to say them, so they're just not something that you're going to say, the resilience, persistence, tenacity, all those, besides those very spoken about traits that make someone successful. What do you think is like an under indexed trait? Generosity. Being generous. I think you have to be generous. You have to give. I wrote this like huge long email on the train the other morning. I was, I'm just like, we're missing what we're doing. We're not doing this right. And I was talking about consumers,

but I think it's true of anybody, which is like, you have to give, give, give, and then you can ask. Like you have to give first. And I think to get people to give to you, you have to start with giving, you have to be generous. And I don't think people really talk about that. I think you're right. They talk about, you know, be resilient, be able to dust yourself off, be able to get back up again, have perseverance, blah, blah, blah. But I really think if you're authentic and you're genuine and you're generous, you will

get farther than the person next to you, even if they're smarter and more skilled. I think that's an important hustle skill. That's a really good one. I mean, I was gonna ask you something else because I think actually a big one is likability. And I think as someone who's likable will get much further in life

than someone who's talented and beautiful and most skilled because people wanna see you win, right? And then I think to myself, well, what makes somebody likable? And I think being likable is that, I think one of the main ingredients is generosity, right? When you're giving. Yeah, I totally agree.

I see it the same. Yeah, and that's why I was asking, because I feel like, and I think authenticity, I think part of your secret sauce, you personally, is the fact that you are, you kind of say it like it is, I said this last time, and very authentic, no BS. And I think people appreciate that because we're living in a time where, and it's all BS, right?

Totally, everything is fake. And everyone, everything is like coddled and sugar coated, and nobody says what they mean. Yes. Do you feel like that's still like, where do you think this is going? Right? Like because of all the information and everything else, do you feel like in your opinion, the coddled culture, we mentioned all of these things, do you see the pendulums eventually swinging back? Or is it just going to get worse with with all this participation trophies? You know, everybody is a winner. Nobody can be a loser.

Yeah, I think it gets worse or stays same bad because we're now we're in our own echo chambers. Like there was a viral video last week or the week before where it was showing a couple watching the same piece of content. And the comments that the woman saw were totally different than the comments the man saw. And they reinforced what each one of them thought. Like one was kind of, they were by gender. So one was like, oh, the guy's so cute or whatever.

And the guy, and I forget what the guy's was, but we're kind of in like, oh, the guy's so cute or whatever. And the guy, and I forget what the guys was, but we're kind of in like the self in this reinforcement of your opinion. So if it's, you know, quiet quitting, all you're going to see is it's like you and I seeing home hacks. It's like you're seeing thousands of home hacks. I think when the economy tightens and things get a little rougher, yeah, People will get over needing to be coddled. I don't know what does it beyond that. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know.

I I I'm skeptical. And that's why I, a lot of the times I ask questions that I want people, like people who may be smarter than me or have a better outlook than I do, because I, I actually see it getting worse and I don't know how it's going to get better. Yeah, same. I don't know the end of it. You know, I also wanted to ask you, what's the best piece of advice that you ever got and from who? I have gotten two really good pieces of advice. One was to work your ass off in your 20s, which is not rocket science, but I think it's very good advice. I don't remember who said

it, but someone when I was in college said it and that stuck with me. And then the second was from my dad and my dad would always say that the best control is no control, which I write about in the book. But it's kind of a funny thing to say. I needed to hear it because I wanted to micromanage everything and control it and like make sure it was just so and his point was like, hey, you got to step back, you've got to let something breathe, you've got to see how it plays out, you can't do things for other people, you've got to see how it works and then inspire it and push it forward, not try to micromanage and control things forward. And that was a good lesson for me. And so basically, that's a great one. Because I think a lot of people, that's where they get stuck a lot of it, right? Yes.

That's where they get stuck. And how like, what, like, because you are leaving one media company, it sounds like you're going to try to like do the same thing at another media company. And we're talking about like, there's no breakouts. It's very hard to have breakout start. It's very hard to stand out within the noise. So really like, how do you expect to do it differently than what's being done? Or can you give people some like, yeah, that's the first part of the A. And part B then like, what do you tell people

who are just starting a new business or very entrepreneurial and besides like the hard work, what are the tactical things that they can do to try to do this if there is like the clutter and the amount of everything? Yeah, I think that you've gotta go local and you've gotta go small. Like everything is very grassroots.

It's hard fought, right? There's no megaphones anymore. Or the megaphones, there's many megaphones, right? So I think if you're starting a business and you're starting a product, one, you've got to believe that you got to live it, you've got to do it yourself. And when I think about, you know, food 52 and the business we're in is, you know, like, I've got to do it myself, like I have to, I have to model what we're trying

to do. But I also think local will really matter. I think in person is really going to matter, especially as things are more and more fake online. I think things that are IRL will be important. Experiential really matters. And then, you know, this is the place where it's cheesy, but it is just perseverance. It's like you got to, you know, it's, we always said it at Barstool is, you gotta get up on Monday, you gotta do it Monday morning, you gotta do it Monday mid morning,

you gotta do it Monday at lunch, you know, like you gotta keep, keep, keep, keep, keep at it. And it's the people who actually keep at it who will succeed. Yeah, but like, I mean, you was Barstool, right? Like you guys had, you guys found new talent. Let's say they call her daddy girl or I mean, I don't remember all the people.

And they were technically breakouts, right? Out of the hundreds of people you found, they broke up. And now like we were just saying, and you've said that we talk about this and you've mentioned this a lot about the fact that it's very hard, like I said, to have these breakouts. Are you, how would you plan on doing that at Food52? Are you planning on trying to find new people

to break out them by doing that same formula? Yeah. Yeah, I will try to find breakout stars. I will, home and food and lifestyle isn't viral the way Dave's hot take on the Celtics is viral, right? So it's not gonna grow the same way. I also think that people like to see themselves on the internet. So how do I find, how do I take this community and do home tours or how do I have people show stuff that they're proud of and then carry

the brand through that? And that I think will also be something that's unique here. What is your work schedule like? Like, I mean, because you have how many kids too, right? I have two kids, two kids. So I get up at like, if I'm working out and not lazy, I'll get up at 536. If I'm like, oh, well, wait, wait, how many times a week are you? I want to know you're now. Now, this is the habit part of the podcast. I need to know. I need to know the nitty gritty with everything like all your habits, your ritual. Let's do it. All right, let's do it. Okay. So in the morning, I, I work out, I want to work out five days a week. I do work out hard, probably not hard as I used to, but I probably work out meaningfully three days a week.

I wish I could work. What does that mean? What does that mean, please? That means like 45 minutes to an hour. Okay, we kind of work out. Which may not be that meaningful for people who listen to this, so just. By the way, actually it's very, I mean, depends,

are you like wandering, walking, lollygagging, are you in an obstacle? No, I'm like, let's go. Yeah, no. Okay, so what are you doing? So big Peloton person. I love the Peloton classes. I I love a Peloton, crush your core, pro, all those type of.

I love that stuff. Oh, so you mean the ones not on the bike, the ones on never on the bike. Just on the like strength. I'm basically only at this point take strength classes. Good. Okay. I like it so far. All right. You're into it. I'm into it. Three times a week? Three times a week? Three times a week.

Okay. Then I try to get exercise. I walk a lot in New York City. So I'm always trying to get steps in. I'm a big coffee drinker in the morning. I don't really eat anything in the morning. I have this oil from Amazon that I wash my face with, which I love. I do it every day. I'm obsessed with it. What is it? I'll send you a picture of it. It's just like Google. No, no, no. We want to know what oil you use, Erica. I don't even know the name. If you just literally Google face oil on Amazon. It's kind of like a yellowish box. Not like castor oil. No, it's it's like face face cleaning oil. And it costs like

15 bucks. So I go I use that on my shoes, that all over myself. Why why that like it's sorry, this is like totally not like I want to send me the picture. But what I want to send you the picture. I I have just like very dry skin and I think it really cleans my face and do you use like a gua sha no like you just wipe it on your face and then you wash it like rinse it off with a washcloth okay I can okay okay I like that so wait so three times a week you're waking up at 5 30 in the morning yep 5 30 or 6 and then I get you know get know, get myself, get myself ready, get out the door. I'm on a 753 train. So I'm on the train at 753. Then I jam out

as much email as humanly possible between 753 and nine when I get to New York. And then I have a day. So you go into the that was my question. So you go into the office. Yes. See, this is the trick, right? The zoom is, I think the people are not, that's how they're becoming so quiet quiddings. And then, you know, what's that?

It's so dissatisfying. It's terrible because people are getting very like, like Laze, they don't have to show, they're just in their pajamas all day. That's the problem and And not interacting properly. I mean, think about this podcast. Like you and I had a blast when we were in person. We were riffing on 6000 things.

This is amazing, but it doesn't compare. You know, just it doesn't compare. And I think work doesn't compare. Work doesn't compare if you're just like clicking on and clicking off the zoom. I think it's just satisfying. It's beyond, it's beyond dissatisfying. So you have made it, so do you go into the office every day? I go into the office most days. So I'm in the office probably 40s a week. Okay, great. So then, okay, the days that you're not working the Peloton saying, what time are you waking up in the morning? 6.55.

6.55, okay. And what other, so basically besides the Peloton stuff, what other workouts do you do? I like to run. I don't run as much as I would like to or that I used to. So I still run a fair amount. I like a good Pilates class. I like a glutes and legs or arms with Tundi, like stuff like that. I really will try anything.

Okay, good. So then you work out and then you walk a lot. And you said you don't eat breakfast. What other habits rituals do you are like swear by? I'm trying to drink water. I'm not good at it. So I'm really, really trying. My son gave me a Stanley like the most obnoxious pink colored Stanley ever and because I just shit all over Stan Lee's and it's actually kind of amazing. I actually love it. Like that's the only way I get my water. So I'm trying to drink more water. I am starving by like 11. So I'm like, I'm early lunch eater. I always eat lunch early. What do we eat? Are you like a vegan? Are you like a vegetarian? I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be a, I'm a new vegetarian. I'm trying to be a vegetarian. I watched this documentary on a plane

to Portland, Oregon, and it just freaked me out. And I've been trying to be a vegetarian ever since. Really? So where do you get your protein from? Vegetables, which is the crazy thing, which is where your protein comes from. It's crazy is the crazy thing, which is where your protein comes from. It's crazy. No, it's not enough. But that's a whole other podcast. But like, I think you need to get protein from another source. I'm still aspiring. So like last night, I had steak tartare. You know what I mean? So I'm not... Okay, so you do there. I'm aspiring. Okay. Okay. Other things I do, I call my mom every day. Like I'm very, I'm very committed. I call my mom every day. I try to when I get on the train on the morning, I try to do three

nice things for other people before I do anything else. So I'm, I always try to do like the first three things I do every day help somebody else. In what way? Like phoning them calling like introducing them to someone? Somebody needs something or it's a shout out or it's a you know, hey, can I help you or you know, it's really rant. It's very rant. It varies. Could be a compliment. Do you have this? Do you still do the token CEO podcast? No, I just do Q&A's now. Just people send in like work questions and I do quick videos on Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn. Why don't you do the token CEO? Great name by the way, but I loved it. I just ran out of time. I just really, it was too much with everything else happening and

I was feeling like I was doing it and I wasn't doing a good job of it. And I was kind of like shoving it in between 40 meetings and it it showed. Yeah, I know. It's hard to do everything. Like I was gonna say, do you believe in balance? Do you think it's really hard to be balanced? I mean, no, I'm a balances bullshit person. I think you can. I think being present matters and you should really aim to be present. I think most people feel like they're, at least for me, like I feel like I'm always

neglecting or failing something at some place in my life. And I sure, I think balance also balance creates this like, oh, you should be, it's like you should, you should work less or work more, work out more, eat less or sleep. It's kind of punitive. It totally is. And I think it is a bunch of nonsense. And I think it gives people, like, it puts a lot of pressure that's actually like a joke on people because nobody has a balanced life. They can preach that they do. But I don't believe it for a second. I think basically between the last podcast, I think I believe it for a second. I mean, I think basically between last last podcast, I think I kind of covered it all. I mean, you know, I don't know what I mean, your hair

looks great. What are you doing for such healthy hair? I mean, other than that, I have nothing else to ask you. I don't know. I washed it today, which is probably why it looks better than usual. Oh, yeah. Good. It's probably that oil. You put the oil in your hair too? No, but I think you could. Oh my God, yeah, well, it looks great. Oh, well, what's that? Your hair looks great. Oh my gosh, thank you.

I mean, what time do you finish work? Like, what time do you get home from, like, on the train? Like, what time are you done? And then that's basically... I try to be home by six or 6.30. So I try to be home so that our family can have dinner together. And I'm kind of religious about it. Oh, OK. So you have dinner with your family every night.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Try to at least like three nights a week. We try to do three to four nights a week. How old are your kids, though? I didn't get that. They're middle schoolers. So 12 and 13. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. So which is hard. Because some you know, there's you then you start your Uber driving part of your evening, which is, you know, a whole nother thing. But that's basically the life. I mean, I it's

you are you've just become an Uber driver. So like you're on your seat, you're basically a CEO at one company, and then you're an Uber driver. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. You're obviously a pleasure and a delight and I hope to see you again soon. I am coming to New York at the end of the month. I don't know if you're going to be around. Oh, we will. Yeah, you should come to Food 52. I will love that. Where's your offices? We are in Brooklyn. Is that convenient for you? No, I'm going to be in Manhattan. I'm going to be obviously in Manhattan. Not obviously, but I am going to be. But I would love to come to your office and see. I have a couple of suggestions for you if you want them. Definitely for people that you should maybe like do things with in

definitely base. I think you'd like them. Definitely. That's awesome. Yeah. For having me again. You're absolutely welcome. It was my pleasure. And I'll text you and we'll figure out something in terms of getting together. I'd love to see you. I'm also in the city too. So that's not convenient. I can come meet you. Oh, amazing. Okay, good. So just let me know. We'll figure it out and send me a picture of that of that oil. I will send it to you tonight. Okay. Okay. Have a good night. I will