← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
From NFL to CEO ft. Chris Hetherington | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby
00:40:15
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- [00:00]
Joe
If you grew up in the 2000s, you knew what a fathead was. Athletes didn't just play on your screen, they lived on your wall. But after years off the cultural radar, fathead didn't just need a rebrand, it needed a comeback.
- [00:15]
Chris Hetherington
Waking up every day and taking care of the blocking and tackling, understanding the X's and O's of the business in football terms. And we've set up pretty, pretty lengthy KPIs.
- [00:25]
Joe
Chris Hetherington isn't your typical CEO. He played 11 seasons in the NFL, came out of Yale, and rebuilt his life after losing everything in the Palisades fire. In this episode, we talked grit, family, fatherhood, and the future of a brand that defined a generation. From the locker room to leadership, from rebuilding a brand to rebuilding a life. Welcome to Coffees. Quick break. Thinking of going independent? Don't do it alone. At Emortgage Capital, our high hybrid broker banker model gives you real support, Instant lead access, 160 plus lenders, and nationwide reach in 46 states. No hidden fees, no fluff. Just a platform built for Los who want freedom with firepower. Visit joiningmortgagecapital.com and run your business your way.
- [01:25]
Chris Hetherington
Joe, thanks for having me. Good to see you. Appreciate it.
- [01:27]
Unknown
You know, you're, you're a friend. Our kids play ball together. It's, it's great to have you. It's great to have you in Newport beach now. You know, we're, we're blessed to have you in our city Now. I like to start off my show the same way. I ask every single one of my guests and Chris, what's your morning routine?
- [01:45]
Chris Hetherington
I got a crazy morning routine, Joe. I wake up at 4:30. Between 4:30 and 4:44 every morning, I go immediately in the cold plunge. I do the sauna, I meditate for about 20 minutes, work out for about 45 minutes, and then go back home and wake the kids up and get ready for school. So, you know, no option for me when that, when that alarm clock goes off at 4:30 or 4:44, I'm up every morning. So I enjoy it. It enables me to, you know, I still train like I'm a professional athlete and I still treat my body like I'm a professional athlete because I think being an entrepreneur and a business person, you know, you got to take care of your mind and your body. And so it's, it's worked for me. It's not easy, but I stick to it and that's my routine.
- [02:29]
Unknown
You know, the demand of an Entrepreneur and a professional athlete are pretty similar. That's why the transition for professional athletes is not that bad because they're used to such a rigorous grind.
- [02:42]
Chris Hetherington
You know, it's. In all honesty, Joe, it's hard for a lot of athletes. The transition from being a pro athlete to the real world, most of the time is very difficult. And that, you know, you spend all this time and energy, you know, trying to live out this dream and then when you're, when you're on this big stage and you're living your dream, you spend all the time and energy to stay there. For me in particular, you know, I played 11 years in the NFL and the chips were stacked against me. I came out, I was an undrafted rookie free agent out of Yale University and I played quarterback in college. They made me a fullback in the NFL and was lucky enough to play for a long time. But once you retire, you're like, shoot, what am I going to do next? Right? What am I going to pour that discipline and that passion and those traits you learn from being an athlete. You know, what's my next identity? Like, how am I going to define myself? And the reality is a lot of players really struggle with that. I feel lucky and blessed that I had a good education to fall back on and, you know, knew the game wasn't going to last forever. So I started to prepare early on in my career, whether it be internships, et cetera. But, but yeah, you're being told where to go and what time to be at meetings. You're getting paid to work out, you're getting paid to take care of your body. And once that's gone, you know, guys really struggle with that.
- [03:58]
Unknown
Yeah, I know we see a lot of failed athletes. I mean, it's a, we talked about this before. It's like a 90% failure rate. After that, they just dwindle a lot of their money away. Plus it's only a two year career for most. They played 11 seasons. I mean, that's, that's a big deal.
- [04:13]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, I think the thing for me, you know, I didn't, I made fullback money and then didn't make quarterback money. And the money back in the late 90s and 2000 wasn't what it is today. But you know, again, I had a good, good foundation to fall back on. And you know, these athletes, you know, generally speaking, they tend to not surround themselves with the right people that are generally interested in their success after, after football. And you know, they get involved in these, these get rich quick ideas or they want to, you Know, these investors or owners want to use their, their brand to kind of leverage what they're doing from a business perspective. And, you know, yeah, it's sad. It's sad to see some of these guys get in trouble and, you know, get poor advice and poor guidance. But it's hard. It's hard to, like, start, you know, from a rookie again. Right. Like, when you're done with football, it's like, all right, what am I going to do? Some guys made a lot of money, and hopefully they take care of the money and make good decisions. But in general, guys really struggle.
- [05:14]
Unknown
You know, you're not a normal athlete. I mean, you went to Yale. That's a big deal. Then you went back to Harvard for some more certificates.
- [05:22]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah.
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Unknown
So you're, you know, you're a high level, high performing, high achieving, high intellectual athlete. It's not the standard. I mean, how many guys at that level in the NFL did you encounter?
- [05:33]
Chris Hetherington
Not many Ivy League guys, I would say. There's a little more these days, I think with technology and scouting, you know, if you're good enough to play, they'll find you. But, yeah, I got lucky. I grew up right outside New Haven. I played Yale youth hockey as a kid. My brother was a great role model. He was 10 years older, went to Princeton. Neither one of my parents went to college. So I had these good role models. And, you know, academics were important to me from a young age. Obviously, I was lucky enough to be a great natural athlete, but school was definitely as important as athletics. And, you know, I'm sure we'll get into it, but I just get disappointed with some of these college athletes that are. I think there's great things around building your brand, but it's not necessarily about what school I'm going to go to and what kind of education I'm going to get. It's like, how much money are you going to pay me to come to this school? So I think that's a challenging situation. And to your point earlier, improve their football IQ and understand defenses and they struggle, you know, and sometimes it's surprising where you can be an outstanding college football player and, you know, come to the NFL and your game just doesn't transfer. And I think it's. Some of it's physical, but. But a lot of it's, you know, intellectual.
- [06:46]
Unknown
So you're seeing now the demand. The game for college just totally has changed because of money, huh?
- [06:52]
Chris Hetherington
It has changed. I think some people would argue it's changed for the better. I don't. I don't have a problem with these athletes getting paid. I think they're incredible assets to their, their universities and institutions. But I think the value of education has definitely been minimized and, and that bums me out. Like obviously I had a different path. I went to a good Ivy League school and was lucky enough to play a long time but, but I had that to fall back on. I mean you can always go back to school and you know, I read LinkedIn and some people are arguing about this kid from Duke, whether he should stay at Duke or, or some of the football.
- [07:26]
Unknown
Basketball player.
- [07:27]
Chris Hetherington
Basketball player. Cooper. Yeah. But you know, it's hard to argue that guaranteed money in the NBA. You can always go back to school.
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Unknown
Yeah, I mean he's, we need him in the NBA. There's no other hot draft pick besides him. He's the biggest thing that's coming out of.
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Chris Hetherington
Yeah, Dallas got him in the lottery, right? Dallas?
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah, they just got him. Yeah, I'm excited about Cooper Flag. We don't have any big draft picks right now.
- [07:47]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, he's gonna be good. He's gonna be a good pro for sure.
- [07:49]
Unknown
So let's talk about your business now. You know, like successful business. How did you acquire Fathead?
- [07:57]
Chris Hetherington
Good question. By luck. I look, I've been involved in a lot of different businesses. I worked for a hedge fund for 11 years after I from football and and was fortunate enough to have a bunch of different roles within that hedge fund. I was a trader for a couple years. I ran a business in Tokyo into the big earthquake and tsunami in 2011, came back help launch a co invest fund where we worked with that strategy about five years and then got more involved in the private equity venture capital side of our business. So I had a couple CEO roles of companies we invested in. Fat Ed kind of fell into my lap. Joe, Serendipitously, one of my close friends from Yale, lives in Detroit. Got to know the former owner and CEO Tony. The story is Dan Gilbert owned this brand for a long time and Dan had some health issues about five years ago. And so Tony took over the business and essentially I convinced him to sell it to us. I put together a really experienced group of partners and brand builders and operators and executives that had deep relationships in sports and entertainment and culture. And you know, it's funny, I reflect back in the story. I mean we looked at this brand and we're like, you know, 194 licenses with some of the most epic IP in sports and entertainment. Two million email subscribers, over 300,000 SMS subscribers, we're like, is this a melting ice cube or a sleeping giant? And the more we dug in, dug in, the more we realized the brand equity and the brand awareness and the own database and these exceptional products and the opportunity to expand from a product innovation standpoint and so start to incorporate technology and automation and AI. You know, we have a really special opportunity, and now for us, it's about focus and execution, and there's just a lot of low hanging fruit to this business. And I'm sure we'll get into it, you know, with technology advancements we're making. But I feel very blessed. It's fun for me to be back in sports again and leverage these relationships I built over the last 30 years and participating in these temple events that are happening in sports and culture. And it's fun.
- [09:57]
Unknown
And you're getting back in the weeds. You're out on the field, you're making new business relationships. You're back in the sports entertainment world.
- [10:04]
Chris Hetherington
I feel like it's all the time. I'm saying this in a humble way, Joe, but I feel like it's everything I built my career towards was, was for this moment to be able to take hold of a really great brand and, you know, bring it back to life in a big way and take it to new heights in a big way. And. And it's all about team, right? Like, I, you know, really have spent a lot of time assembling the right team. And we just hired a new CMO two weeks ago, Jared Dooby, who's a phenomenal guy with a ton of experience and expertise in sports and culture. And I have a really great coo. Jason Turner. Jen Beaver's our chief partnership officer. I've known her since my days at the Colts in the late 90s. And so, you know, team and culture is really important as, you know, as a business and organization. A lot of the stuff that I learned from sports, you know, translates into what I'm doing now. And yeah, we have a really big opportunity and I'm. I'm excited to be on this journey.
- [11:03]
Unknown
You know, a lot, a lot of my team members here. When I told them that the CEO of Fathead was coming, they were like, what? CEO of Fathead? Because the brand authority associated with Fathead is like, it's decades deep. Yeah, you know, it's.
- [11:17]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, there's a lot. It's, it's, it's. They had a lot of nostalgia back in the day. They came out with, you know, big decals and big moves and big statements and big Athlete ambassadors. And to your point, the brand equity and brand awareness is phenomenal. And now it's our job to, you know, it's been out of the conversation, out of culture for the last four or five years. And, you know, we have an incredible opportunity to bring it back in a big way and make a big impact in culture. Youth sports is massive. So we're attacking that in a big way and, you know, really, really maximizing these, these licensed partners we have and then starting to expand distribution, you know, potentially expand into other categories outside of sports and entertainment. And so it's exciting, man. But at the end of the day, it's, we're a brand, right? We're, we're a brand, we're a product, and eventually we're a service. But, but nailing that brand and investing in brand is really our focus. We're, we've been playing that bottom of the funnel kind of, you know, day trading roas game meta Google. But now it's, you got to invest in brand. You got to bring this brand back to culture in a big way, talk to people in the right way, live in these channels where consumers are at, as you know, I mean, back in the day, it was all over TV and Super bowl commercials, espn. Now it's social, social selling, live selling, affiliate partnerships, influencer partnerships. And so, you know, we treat that really serious.
- [12:42]
Unknown
Yeah, it's all omnipresent now. You can't just be on one channel. No, actually TV doesn't matter. You don't even need TV anymore. Yeah, you need, you need to be omnip. You need to be doing the podcasts. You know, your social game needs to be tight. You need to be doing, you know, book releases, like everything.
- [12:59]
Chris Hetherington
Yep.
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Unknown
I, I look, I tell my team within that, because what our company is, we're in the business of making companies. So everyone of our come, everyone that belongs to E Mortgage runs their own company. So, you know, they got to basically continue to add more legs on their table. And I look at a leg as, this is Facebook. Another leg is Instagram. Another leg is LinkedIn. Another leg is Tick Tock. Another leg is Snapchat. Another leg is podcast. Another leg is, you know.
- [13:25]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah.
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Unknown
So they got, they need a hundred legs.
- [13:28]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah.
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Unknown
And you just got to keep adding with your company. I mean, the sky's the limit because you could be everywhere. Yeah, you could be everywhere. Now what kind of product innovations can you really roll out with Fathead? I mean, it's a decal company. Like, what is there to do? Like, when we Talk about innovation. Like, I'm curious myself, like, how do you innovate in that space?
- [13:50]
Chris Hetherington
Well, first of all, we have a great vision. We hired an incredible product team to help us make not only data driven decisions currently, but also with our product innovation roadmap. We have goals of getting into collectibles, limited editions, one of ones, one of a hundreds. But we bought a technology company early on and you know, pretty robust tech stack and get into AI Ark and the Metaverse blockchain. But essentially in the future we want to create a fan engagement platform and, and you know, these decals have become portals to trigger content and, and so we're really excited about that roadmap. But you know, our total addressable market, Joe, is almost overwhelming. And you know, we have, we're known for our big life size vinyl decals, incredible products, you know, removable, reusable. We have the minis, which haven't been marketed properly over the last several years. I think that's some of the most marketable products we have. You know, we have the cheering products or the big heads in the stadiums and arenas and ballparks, you know, those are kind of the licensed products, standouts and dry erase boards. We saw a lot of brackets for March Madness. We gamified that this year for the first time. So that's kind of your licensed products. All the major sports leagues, players associations, nascar, wwe and then on the custom side, which I think is a massive growth opportunity, fatted yourself or your son wins. Our sons play together, let's say they win the championship, they want to capture that moment with a decal or a product. Birthdays, graduations, bar mitzvahs, we sell a lot of pets. You know, that's really capturing these moments that are happening in life and in culture and you know, families, if you will. And so, you know, the combination of these licensed products, these major partnerships with these iconic, you know, IP and then the custom side of the business, you know, like I mentioned earlier, youth sports is a big category. 65 billion by 2030. Right. And so we're partnered with a lot of the biggest youth sports organizations to make a real impact in youth sports. And that's our demo. Right, Your son or my son. You know, the day we bought the business, I ordered my son a Christian McCaffrey from the 49ers life size decal. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then I made custom decals for my son's Pali au All Star team and a big life size and these minis, they can send A grandma and grandpa in Connecticut. They can put them on their refrigerator or Stanley's. And, and, and so the best brands innovate as you know. Right. So we have a lot of opportunities with the, with the IP and license we have and then a ton of opportunities on the custom side to innovate and come up with different product formats or, or et cetera.
- [16:29]
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And I think there's like, you're also skipping like corporate partnerships too.
- [16:35]
Chris Hetherington
Huge opportunity.
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Unknown
There's. You haven't even touched that space.
- [16:38]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, we, we, they did that historically, you know, insurance companies order $20,000 worth of product or, you know, we're in a suite, an NFL game, you know, highlighting the sponsor of the game or the sponsor suite. There's a lot of things we can do as far as installations and stuff like that on the corporate side. But yeah, it's. Sky's the limit, I think, I think for me, you know, our kind of mantra on Fat Ed is either hell yes or not yet. Like we have all these relationships and all these opportunities, but really for us there's, there's three to four core pillars that we're focused on, which are the big growth levers and the low hanging fruit in the short term collectibles.
- [17:16]
Unknown
Especially now with the grading. The PSA grading is like dominating sports right now. And matter of fact, I actually, my son, I got him into sports collectibles and I actually enrolled them in a course. This is not a college course. This is like adults are in the zoom every, you know, two times a week. And it's basically like adults who went from trading, you know, stocks, now they're trading cards.
- [17:42]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah.
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Unknown
You know, and for a kid to understand the dynamics of business, they have to really like it. So he really likes sports. So it's like it translates over, but I'm seeing this resurgence in collectibles, like bigger than it's ever been, like 100 times bigger. So what are you guys doing in the sports collectible world? Like, that market is bananas.
- [18:05]
Chris Hetherington
It's like we're, we're planning it out. I think for us we're all about fandom. Right. We're about celebrating fandom. We're fans ourself. Right. Like I was professional athlete, but I'm a huge fan of sports and you know, I admire what these athletes are doing. I admire these successful organizations and what they're doing to build championship teams and. But I'm also a fan of my kids and you know, my wife. And so if I can capture those special Moments, you know, through our products. It's really special. But we have, we have a lot of plans, Joe, to really, you know, make an impact in that, in that space. I have a lot of friends in that space.
- [18:42]
Unknown
In the collectible space.
- [18:43]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, but it's, it's, it's, you know, kind of plan B or phase two of the business. You know, we have so many products to sell and, and to scale. To scale. And so, you know, we spent a lot of time over the last, I would say, year and a half really cleaning up the business, optimizing the business, improving unit economics in a big way. I mean, you know, the only really way to meaningfully scale the business is to nail unit economics. And so we've amended some vendor agreements and got new partners in here. And now it's about growth, but it's about intentional and profitable and sustainable growth. And so starting to expand distribution. We've been 99% D2C over the last several years. And so, you know, we'll, we'll expand distribution, we'll get into retail eventually, but you got to have the resources and the infrastructure to support that move. And like I said, we have an opportunity to sell a lot of decals and a lot of big heads and, and a lot of Minis and a lot of standouts and, and you know, that's, that's what we're about these days. But big plans in the future, for sure.
- [19:43]
Unknown
I could definitely see a Fathead store at like, Irvine Spectrum. Yeah, like that would be right next to that.
- [19:49]
Chris Hetherington
That'd be the lid store. Yeah, we're working with lids.
- [19:52]
Unknown
I know it's next door to lids. You would just. But, you know, maybe a threat to them.
- [19:56]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, yeah, it could be a partnership. We're working on that.
- [19:59]
Unknown
But yeah, you plan something like that, you're thinking about having a Fathead store, like just direct down the road.
- [20:05]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, I think there'd be a time and a place for that. You know, you gotta, you gotta live where people. People are. Right. Like, you know, you know, what Walmart's doing, Target, Amazon, you know, that's where people shop. At least the masses shop there. So you have to, you have to be there.
- [20:22]
Unknown
Yeah. The Irvine Spectrum play would be just a brand play, just to get a couple hundred thousand views a day.
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Chris Hetherington
Yep.
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Unknown
On more fathead exposure.
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Chris Hetherington
Yeah, 100%.
- [20:31]
Unknown
So, you know, Fathead's been, you know, such a staple in sports memorabilia right now. The innovative, the innovation strategies you're implementing are technology, there's digital. You're planning to go Consumer direct from a store perspective. And then how does AI play in that world?
- [20:54]
Chris Hetherington
So AI is going to be a big part of our business. We're essentially, I won't give you the secret sauce, but we're essentially, we engaged a company, a partner who has a patent on Persona driven marketing. So just getting really smart about how we target database, target customers. Yeah, we're essentially creating this golden database or this single source of truth which collects all of your Shopify information, all the information elsewhere to really help us create Persona driven marketing campaigns, whether it's email, SMS, organic, you know, etc. And we think that's going to provide a nice little lift to our business. You know, your landing experience, landing page experience would be different than mine and different than your wife or my 11 year old son. And that's really the way to get smarter about targeting consumers. And I would say we have an interesting opportunity Joe, because our return customer rate is only about 22, 23% and so through better data driven marketing we can really increase that. You know, your wife who may or Theo, his favorite athlete on Christmas didn't know that we also have products for your daughter, you know, so it's a way to really reach those consumers and drive up that return customer rate. But also there's a lot of consumers that didn't know Fathead was still in business.
- [22:07]
Unknown
And we fell off for like a decade.
- [22:09]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, we fell off like four or five years, you know, six years. But, but we still have amazing products and amazing IP and so we have a really great opportunity to capture new customers that, that aren't familiar with our brand and once they see our brand and feel our brand and you know, they love it and then they're going to start to order more. And so it's all marketing as you know. Right. It's all investing in brand and having exceptional partnerships and having the right team and the right execution plan. But, but, but investing in brand is critical. Like I said, we do bottom of funnel pretty well. You know, kind of playing this ROAS game. But, but for us in particular, Fathead, that's been around for a long time. You know, we need to invest in brand. Top of the funnel.
- [22:50]
Unknown
Yeah, 23% return rate on a brand like Fathead. What's going to be your retarget strategy to bring them back into your funnel?
- [22:59]
Chris Hetherington
AI.
- [23:01]
Unknown
Yeah, shouldn't be a big drop off unless they just don't need decals, you know, or whatever.
- [23:05]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, different formats, you know, different IP and then customs like I said, I mean customs is a no brainer. Our return customer. It's higher in customs and license, but yeah, it's, it's like I said, getting involved in you sports. We're doing these big camps that are. We have a partner called Flex Work Sports. We're working on a group called Base Sports. We're doing a, an activation at a, at a tournament in Colorado over 4th of July weekend where there's like 1500 teams times 15 kids per team. These young girls playing softball, that's a really way to make consumers aware of our brand. And then once they see our products, they'll love them. But you gotta participate in these events. You know, NFL, NBA, NHL, mlb. We gotta show up in culture and bring this brand back to cultural relevance again.
- [23:58]
Unknown
Do you have a team that goes to, like, trade shows?
- [24:01]
Chris Hetherington
I'm going to the licensing show next week with my partners. Yeah, we gotta show up there too. That's a good way to, you know, establish relationships and, and build on partnerships and, and create for, you know, future partnerships. But yeah, you got to show up at these events big time.
- [24:15]
Unknown
Joe, in transitioning from the NFL, now CEO of Fed Fed, what do you think's been like, one of the most valuable lessons you've learned?
- [24:23]
Chris Hetherington
I've learned a lot of lessons. I think team is important for me, you know, so a lot of things I learned in sports is having the right team, having the right culture, having the right vision, getting everybody to buy into the vision, talk about the brand in the same way, be aligned with the KPIs and the goals. I've had some successes in my career. I've had some failures and some mistakes. And I think the best entrepreneurs learn from those mistakes and learn from those failures and grow from them and don't make the same mistake twice. I think the thing that was a real game changer in my career was to be open to having mentors in my life and, and asking for help in my life has been crucial. I'm a part of some really special communities and surrounded by really successful people that really have an authentic interest in your success. And also on the other side, I try to be a mentor of some of these young athletes and be transparent at what some of my challenges were and some of the things I've done well. But I think having a growth mindset has really been the key for me. Yeah, I think when it boils down to his team and culture and execution and focus, what's one thing that you.
- [25:37]
Unknown
Could think of that a mentor told you that's like, you live by frequently.
- [25:41]
Chris Hetherington
Or Daily surrounding yourself with people that add value to your life. Yeah, I mean, especially being an athlete back in the day, you know, people want to be around athletes and sometimes they're not there for the most authentic reasons. So I think, you know, in business and in life, right, your friend groups and you gotta be around people that add value and not extract value all the time and have a genuine interest in your success. And I've been lucky. I think a lot of, I still, I'm still talking to some of these kids I grew up with and a lot of people I went to high school with and college with and certainly keep in contact with a lot of guys I play with in the NFL. And you know, I think it all boils down to having the same values and being good people and you know, cheering each other on. And some people, some people get envious or jealous and it's like, look man, I'm just a normal dude trying to, trying to live out a dream and be a great dad and be a great husband and there's some bad people out there obviously, but not me. And I think it's important to surround yourself with the right people. And then, you know, being a, being a role model for my kids is important to me. Having them see me work out like a maniac in the morning, get up at 4:30 and, and encourages them. Yeah. Eat well and you know, have this keto diet that I follow religiously six days a week and then Sundays I have some fun and eat pancakes and donuts with my kids and, and you got to live a little bit. But yeah, it's important for me to be a good role model. It's important for me to teach my kids some know, some of these things that I wasn't taught as a young kid about leadership and, and being a great teammate and being accountable and having a great attitude and effort and energy and nobody taught me that was a kid. So it's been special to try to, in, in a non aggressive way. Right. Like I feel like my kids, I don't know if you've seen this being at baseball, but like, you know, Jack's old man played in the NFL for 11 years and I, I, I think Ian has some inherent pressure and so it's my job to make him feel that he doesn't have pressure. And I'm just, I'm proud of him. I want him to be a great player, but I want him to be a great kid and have a good attitude and be a great teammate and all that stuff. So it's Been fun.
- [27:51]
Unknown
He's a great kid. He's a great athlete, man. The best athlete we've seen in Newport for a minute.
- [27:55]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, I appreciate it. He's a good kid and he works hard. He's like me. It's hard to teach that. It's hard to teach kids to work hard. And you know he's on his iPad looking at baseball videos and instructional videos. It's hard to teach that as you know. And I think youth sports are incredible opportunity. You know we talked about your son like he's, he's a great kid too man and he's a great teammate and hopefully he's having a great experience. But it's important for these kids socially to be involved in U sports and do things that maybe they're not used to doing or not great at. And so getting better every day. My son tries to get better every day as I'm sure your son and.
- [28:37]
Unknown
But I think social off sports, baseball especially, it's kind of like one of those year round things.
- [28:41]
Chris Hetherington
It is. Which I sometimes I have a problem with I think, I think I was a better athlete and a better NFL player because I played multiple sports. You know I went to high school, this prep school in Connecticut, Avon All Farms and it was mandatory. We played three sports and I think I thought that was great for me personally in my development as an athlete. Parents as you know, are Nazis. They days they get their kids focused on one sport and, and put a lot of pressure on them or try to live vicariously through them. I think that's bad.
- [29:11]
Unknown
You played three sports year round?
- [29:13]
Chris Hetherington
I played three sports in high school and two, two in college. I played football and baseball. I played baseball my first couple years and then I, I got hurt my, my junior in baseball. But yeah, I loved it and it was just, it was who I, who I was. But I, I will say I went to this prep school in Connecticut like I said and it really taught me how to manage my time and balance between athletics and academics. And I felt like when I went to Yale I had somewhat of a head start where you know, it was just semi natural for me. Obviously Yale was a tough place academically but I think I learned how to manage my time effectively, you know, from that experience in high school.
- [29:52]
Unknown
I mean you were grinding young actually, you know, kind of pivoting. I like to talk about family a little bit and you know, one thing, and I don't know how you grew up but you know, fiscally, but now your kids are growing up in a different position. Fiscally and having come from the roots that we've come from, not not having the same resources, it taught us a lot about grit. It taught us a lot about time management, taught us a lot about how to become the entrepreneurs and success stories we are today. How are you instilling that, that same mindset in your children now? Same level grit to grind? You know, you're doing a great job doing it.
- [30:33]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, I think it's important. I mean, I grew up from pretty humble beginnings. My dad was always a very hard worker. My dad was a salesman and he owned a golf driving range on the side. And then my freshman year at Yale, he bought a municipal nine hole golf course. I've always been around golf, but. But my dad was always a hard worker and I always had that role model. And then my brother, like I said, was 10 years older, went to Princeton. He's been working at Merrill lynch since 1986 and does very well. So for me, it's teaching my kids the lessons like, look, you gotta. Nothing is given to you. You gotta work hard, you know, and you gotta grind. And you know, my job as a parent or your job as a parent to put your kids in, you know, the right surroundings to hopefully set them up for success. But just because you go to a great school or live in a great neighborhood or town, you know, you got to put in the work. And so that's my biggest message to Cole and Jack is, you know, you're fortunate enough to be in this situation where you live in the sunshine and go to the good school and up, but you got to work hard and you got to grind, you got to put in the work.
- [31:41]
Unknown
Yeah, that's it. I mean, and it's hard to teach that. You talked about, you know, Jack putting in that work, now looking at videos on his iPad about instructional videos. And I mean, that, that's hard. That's hard for a kid to do and not want to play games.
- [31:56]
Chris Hetherington
There's a lot of distractions now, right? These kids are gamers. And you know, social media, we didn't have social media when I was a kid or you. You know, I didn't have social media when I played in the NFL. So there's a lot of distractions and there's a lot of companies and brands like, fighting for attention. But, but my job as a parent, and my wife does a great job of this too, is to really get our kids to focus on what's important. And, and you know, our house burned down, the Palisades, as you know, and I think that was a good example of, and a teaching lesson, a life lesson of like, look, we're, we're healthy, we're safe. You know, we have each other and that's the most important thing. These material things could be replaced or, or not, not important. But we have each other. We have our health and our safety and we'll rebuild, we'll rebuild our life and, but we gotta stay strong as a family unit. I'm really proud of my wife. She did an incredible job through that experience. And, you know, these are good lessons for our kids. Like, you know, stuff happens in life and it's how. I'm a big fan of stoicism and it's not necessarily about, you know, don't worry about the things you can't control and just worry about the things you can control. Can't control it. Our house burned down, but we control how we react to it and how we rebuild our life and, and how we remain a strong family unit.
- [33:12]
Unknown
What a life lesson these kids learn. What a life lesson you learned, you know, from that experience. And by design, I've intentionally not wanted to address that subject because it's a very, I mean, forget about emotional. I don't even know how to describe an experience like that. But what, you know, overcoming that tribulation must have been hard on you and the kids. How, you know, it was very hard, that transition.
- [33:42]
Chris Hetherington
It was tough to be transparent. It was tough. You know, we, when you're, when your community is gone, not only our house and our neighbors houses, I mean, 7,000 houses, but the thing about the Pacific Palisades, Joe, is it was a really special community and it was like kind of a bubble in la and to wake up one day and that's gone is tough and it's humbling. And some people can look at that as an opportunity to learn from and grow from, or you can go in the tank. And we made a decision as a family to, you know, focus on what are we going to do in the short term to provide some sense of normalcy for our kids. And that was, you know, we moved around a couple times and then we had some friends move to Corona del Mar and we're like, wow, this seems great. This is a good short term decision. You know, we'll get in a good community, get the kids back playing, back playing sports again, get them in a good school, surround ourselves with good people. And now we're like, all right, what's our long term plan here? And that's what my wife and I are trying to out Figure, figure it out. But it was a bummer, man. You know, to, to look, if it wasn't such a special community, it would be a little different, I think. Maybe not, but, but to, to, you know, really have that great community and have that being ripped away from you was, was hard. Especially two young kids. I mean, these kids have been through Covid and then they've been through, you know, losing. I mean, they lost their school, their church, you know, their sports facilities. You know, all the, all their friends are dispersed. It was, it was nuts.
- [35:19]
Unknown
You know, what's nice to see is the Palisades community here in Newport beach as a community again. You know, it's like another community of the Palisades here in Newport. And they're all amazing people. Yeah, everybody there. And they've probably become more amazing from that experience just because it's such a humbling experience.
- [35:38]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, it is humbling. But I will say the people that we met in Newport have been so gracious and welcoming and empathetic. And the people that have moved to this area from Palisades are all good people and they're going through hard times and they want to try to find that community again, which is important. And I think the people of Newport and Corona del Mar have done an incredible job of welcoming us and opening up their homes or their sports teams and stuff like that. So it's been a. Easier experience, I will say.
- [36:12]
Unknown
Well, opening up the sports seems easy when all these stud athletes are coming. Parents are pros, you know, like, you're just making our kids better.
- [36:21]
Chris Hetherington
Yeah, you guys are trying, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's been a good experience and, and yeah, I mean, the kids are pretty good athletes and, and, but they, they just want to be part of a team, man. And it's important for them to get back on teams. And my, my son Jack, my 11 year old is playing in the Pali All Star, so they'll, he'll get a chance to see, spend some time with his friends this summer, which is, you know, he's super excited about. And then again, these parents, we spend a lot of time with these parents and they're, you know, we're lucky. They're really good people and inspiring people and fun to be around and, you know, successful people. And that's important, right? If you're spending so much time in the summer and dragging your kid to, you know, Simi Valley and Chino and it's, it's been a great experience for me personally to be around these Good people and watch our kids have so much fun.
- [37:15]
Unknown
And I don't know what's going to happen with the Palisades now or, you know, a lot of Malibu. I don't. I don't know if there's going to be a rebuild strategy for that city.
- [37:21]
Chris Hetherington
It's going to take a long time. I think, you know, some people are very anxious about getting back and building, and some people are, you know, kind of sitting on the sidelines for a while. But I do think it's going to take a long time, Joe, and I don't know if that community will ever be the same. I hope so, but I just don't know. So we'll see what happens.
- [37:40]
Unknown
Well, God be with you guys. Couple last questions I have for you. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a goal that you have for the family, and then a goal that you have for Fathead?
- [37:51]
Chris Hetherington
My goal every day is to show up in the best way I can and get better every day. Show up as a person, for myself, show up as a dad, as a husband, as a family friend, as a leader, as a teammate. I mean, that's really my goal every day is to show up in the best way I can. You know, long term, it's. It's. How do I want my legacy to be right? And. And for me, that's. That's, you know, being a good person, being a good friend, a good dad, a good husband, all that stuff. But, you know, being an accountable human being and being a good human being. And so I have goals professionally. You know, I want to build Fathead to the moon and have a lot of fun doing it and make an impact in not only my team and my partners, my investors and. But. But our fans and our customers. Right? That's important to me, too.
- [38:44]
Unknown
And then one last question.
- [38:46]
Chris Hetherington
Yep.
- [38:48]
Unknown
Ask everybody this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?
- [38:54]
Chris Hetherington
Good job.
- [38:56]
Unknown
Let's go, Chris. If people want to connect with you, how they find you?
- [39:00]
Chris Hetherington
I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. I don't have a huge presence on X, but I'm on there. Not really on Facebook much, but, yeah, LinkedIn's my platform for business. Instagram, personally, I think we talked about it. I can build out my social. Social platforms and want to hire some people that do that with me. And, yeah, it's fun, man. It's fun doing these podcasts and telling my story and learning from you. Who's been a successful entrepreneur. Like, I enjoy this stuff and hopefully do a lot more of it.
- [39:29]
Unknown
You know, I. I always learn from every one of my guests, and it's just. It's a blessing to just be sitting here and just asking questions. Like, I even. I don't even use my questions. Like, I just. Off the cusp, I just try to, you know, be a student. And it was a pleasure to have you. Thank you. God bless you. God bless your family. Hope you hit every one of your goals. And thanks for coming on the show.
- [39:50]
Chris Hetherington
Appreciate having me. It was a pleasure. Thanks.
- [39:52]
Unknown
All right, Chris Hetherington, a legend. Fathead. Make sure to connect.