← Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 514 - Andrew Eisbrouch - Scaling Secrets Fortune 500 Execs Don't Want You to Know
00:47:32
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- [00:00]
A
People are consuming media in all different ways. You have to find them where they are and you don't necessarily know what will take off at the at the outset you can guess so how we operate at least and I'm sure there's some people who would disagree with this strategy but it's worked well for us is we, we start like multi platform and multi like revenue from the beginning. So once we got into launch the TV network, part of the Lalonde crime business, we also had a website, we were also doing the production arm and we are also doing social media.
- [00:42]
B
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer. Today on the Second in Command podcast we are joined by Andrew Icebrook, the Chief Operating officer and General counsel of Abrams Media. Andrew's journey is a really cool one. He grew from an intern to a key executive behind a successful exit including a nine figure sale of law and crime, the Legal Media Network founded by Dan Abrams. Andrew has spent the last decade scaling and operating a portfolio of digital brands spanning news, legal Media and now spirits. They have a whole umbrella of different companies and they're currently stepping into launching and growing a company called Bottle Raiders which is a rapidly expanding platform for spirit enthusiasts. Also focusing on the non alcoholic space in this conversation today we are diving into what it takes to move from operator to owner and all the different pieces that go in that journey of moving up and learning how to start a startup and even exit a startup, how to hire enrolls. You've never held yourself protecting culture as you scale and the crucial differences between the CEO and CEO mindset. If you are interested in building companies and new industries while staying grounded in vision and execution, you will want to stay tuned for this episode. We are live with Andrew. Welcome to the show.
- [02:39]
A
Thanks for having me. I feel like you guys have a monopoly on the COO podcast vertical.
- [02:44]
B
Yes, that would be true. Well, let's go ahead and start with giving us a little bit of an overview on Abrams Media. What do you guys do? Who do you serve?
- [02:53]
A
So our founder is Dan Abrams, who has had a longtime career as a TV host on different networks like ABC News, NewsNation, etc. He's, he's the legal correspondent. So over the last 15 plus years he's launched a bunch of different media properties under his umbrella. Most of them are digital news media properties and sort of span the gamut in terms of genre. But to give you a quick overview, we have a news and politics site called mediaite.com that's been around for 15 years. We have a TV network and production company and social media business called Milan Crime where we produce content around true crime and live trials and all that. And then our newest project is a media company that focuses on the world of liquor and non elk where we recommend and provide reviews on the best liquor and non elk drinks out there. So a wide range of genres and we're constantly evolving those properties and launching more too.
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B
Very cool. Yeah, that is definitely a kind of broad range there. And you said 15 years the company's been around. I think you've been with the company for eight years.
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A
Ten years.
- [04:17]
B
Ten years. Okay, can you give us a little bit of an overview on how did you get into this world and what has kind of been your journey? Because I believe I saw that you started as an intern.
- [04:28]
A
Yeah, I did. So I'll give you like kind of the media medium length story. So basically when I was considering whether I was going to go to law school or not, I was networking with people and getting their advice on what I should do as like a, you know, someone just out of college and trying to figure out their next steps. And someone had put me in touch with Dan, our founder, just to network with him and pick his brain. So I went to his office, I met with him and at the time he actually told me not to go to law school, that that would be the, that would be the wrong decision just given some of my interest in what I was talking about. But I didn't take his advice. I did go to law school in New York where their offices were. And going into my third year of law school, I was looking for like a summer, you know, summer job, summer clerkship. So I reached back out to him and the timing happened to work out really well where he had just come back into his company full time on like a day to day basis. He had, he had to step away for a period of time because he was hosting like an ABC news show that required his, you know, his attention. So because of that he was looking for some, you know, extra help. And he brought me in as his like personal intern where I kind of like worked on the gamut of things from his digital media business to, to prepping him for like some of his news appearances. So you know, that summer I was like still in law school and I ended up, you know, doing a lot of, you know, legal work in terms of like drafting litigation documents and contracts. And I couldn't even file things with the court because I wasn't a lawyer yet. So I would have to, I would have to hire like an outside firm to file things for me. But you know, they, they seem to work out well and I like, you know, helped end a few different matters and you know, get contracts done. So at the end of the summer I was offered essentially a full time job while I was in my third year of law school. So I worked in that job the rest of law school knowing that I would continue thereafter. I definitely spent like most of my, more of my time on that job rather than studying for my, for law school. I remember in class, professors would call on me and I would just say pass. Because I was working on things that we were launching at the company and they would be like, well we're going to lower you half a letter grade because you're not participating. And I was like, that's fine. The whole point of this is to get a job that I want to do well on that job and I'll be fine when the exam comes around. I worked for the company. I helped launch some new businesses that Dan wanted to get off the ground and since then basically worked my way up where I started running the day to day of all of Dan's media businesses. And eventually we launched some properties together and partnered on those two.
- [07:36]
B
Wow, that is a very cool story. And it makes me think back to just in terms of the education piece, this is kind of a hot spot for me. So I, I, it brings back memory because I had in high school I did a entrepreneurship, like a college level entrepreneurship program at Missouri State University. So I already had like six credit hours for entrepreneurship. When I went to University of Arkansas. That's all I wanted to do. I just want to take the business classes. But there's two years of all these, you know, pre classes that you have to do. And I asked, I went to I guess like the leadership of school and I asked them if I could do the entrepreneurship program with, without like even getting the credits. Just put me in the class so I can learn and do things. And they refused to let me go into this program because they didn't have these pre credits or whatever I needed. And so that made me schedule a meeting with the president of the school. And I was like, this is ridiculous. He would not Put me in the class and so I dropped out of college the next day.
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A
Good for you. I mean like, I feel like these schools sometimes have a very like, narrow way of looking at things because like most people tend to go one direction. So if you're not in that kind of box. Yeah.
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B
There's not as much customization for.
- [08:57]
A
Yeah. They're usually not happy with you. Yeah.
- [09:01]
B
Yeah. Because that is definitely what it seemed like. Well, I mean, for you, sounds like you thought you were going to be a lawyer and then you found yourself in the CEO role. What was the, was there a point of which you thought, okay, actually this is what I want to do, or did you have. Yeah. What was that internal decision?
- [09:21]
A
So I actually never thought that I would be a law lawyer for my entire career. Like, I went into law school knowing that I did not want to practice law my entire career. And I, I probably had that mindset just because like I have parents who did the same thing. Like they. Lawyers that went into other things as well. But why I, I liked that path was because like I was someone with a lot of different interests, like different industries. And the law was a way for me to, you know, pivot between industries because it can be applicable to really anything. And I mean my job now also, like I'm the general counsel of the company. So it did come in handy, like in addition to like what I do on the COO side, but being in business now also like makes things way more efficient because usually you're like the business people are negotiating a, a deal and then once they, they agree on like the main terms, they pass it on to the lawyers and then they draft up the contract and all that. So instead of passing it on to someone else, I can basically negotiate the main terms and then, you know, get straight to the contract. Either do it myself or we have a team of lawyers now that I can, that I can loop in and it's just made things way more efficient. But personally like I find being the client, like being the person who's building something more fulfilling than like, you know, working, you know, on the clock and then hourly for, for another client. So that's why like I chose this path instead of that, the other one.
- [11:00]
B
That makes sense with the journey from intern to. I think I saw you guys had a nine figure acquisition. You had like 100 person team with. Is it long crime?
- [11:12]
A
Yeah, long crime. And we still operate it too. So amazing team is still intact. But yeah, we, that actually started right when I like became Dan's intern. So when he interviewed me. He had told me he wanted to start like a legal based website and you know, that he would have me work on it. So like the first day, just to try to like impress him, I came in with like a list of different website names that he can choose from and like analysis on the competition and things like that. He didn't end up using any of those names. But, but that, that, you know, I was technically like the first employee for that, for that company. And you know, the, it morphed into a more than just a website. We started live streaming murder trials around the country. And like, as you probably know, there's such like an appetite for true crime in terms of content. I don't know if you watch it at all.
- [12:10]
B
I, I do. I actually, when I saw that we were going to be having this conversation the late night on a Friday with ice cream, like a pint of Ben and Jerry's version of me, was very excited. I have definitely watched a lot of true crime.
- [12:27]
A
Yeah. And there's no shortage of like true crime stories out there. So once we started live streaming trials, we saw that there was an opportunity in the market to expand that to, to be bigger. So we started a TV network that was dedicated to live streaming murder trials around the country. None of us have ever had, ever started the TV network before. We had a very, very small team of like under 10 people. And the good part in our minds was this was the beginning of TV moving away from like cable. It was all these OTT platforms, like you like slang Pluto, YouTube TV were starting to launch. Like YouTube TV wasn't even out yet. So we were like, if we're launching a TV network, we can plan our flag on all these platforms before it's too late. And they like have everybody already. So we built out like a very cheap version of the network. We hadn't raised money yet. And the first version, our studio was out of a closet. Like that's where we shot. We had like analysis commentary during the breaks of the trials. So we grew that. We started to get a decent following and A and E networks came in as an investor, like a minority investor. And from there we grew it. The network got on most major platforms like Peacock, YouTube, TV, Roku channel, all those. But then as you grow, you sort of pivot in directions you never expected before. So the part of our business that actually took off from a revenue side the quickest was the production arm of our business because we owned so many, so much trial footage and we had a lot of access to People from these stories. We were good at developing TV shows around that, and it was cheaper for us to produce them because we already owned a lot of the footage. So we started producing TV shows and true crime movies for other networks. So we've done some shows on Netflix on now Max. I don't know what they're calling it now, but they change the name like every other week. But Netflix, Max, and A and E and a few other networks. So that part of our business started to grow very quickly because all these networks wanted true crime content. So that became like one of our biggest revenue drivers. And then eventually our YouTube channel blew up during the Johnny Depp trial, because we were like, the number one place that was live streaming it and like, the whole world was. Was tuning into that trial.
- [15:02]
B
Yeah, I was one of them.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah, we. People were watching at work. It was. So that really brought us to the forefront of, like, the social media game because it made us, like, the number one true crime social platform out there. Like, right now we have 7 million YouTube subscribers, 3 million Facebook subscribers, ET cetera. So it's really like a whole business in itself. So how this kind of leads us towards acquisition is. You know, there was a company that called Jelly Smack that was focused on purely on the crater economy and social media, and they're based out of Europe, and they wanted to own, like, the biggest verticals in all these different genres. So True crime was one of them. And that's why that. That's why they acquired us, because we. We were the biggest name in that space. So that happened about a year and a half ago, and I stayed on for about a year, and after that I stepped away to focus more on the business that I launched with Dan, our founder. But I still, I stayed on as a consultant. So I'm still involved in it in some. In some sense.
- [16:11]
B
This is such a cool story. I have a few questions.
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A
Yeah.
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B
One of them is when you said that, you know, you kind of saw this opportunity opening up and you guys just went for it versus raising money. Were you guys having conversations around if you should go raise, or was it just like, we have this tiny window of opportunity, let's go for it.
- [16:31]
A
Yeah. So I, I sort of, like, owe this lesson to our founder because he's very good at this. We are always of the, like, profitability and bootstrapping mindset and how do we operate on a very efficient budget. So we wanted to have a proof of concept before, like, if we were going to raise, which in this world was probably necessary because to Start a TV network. It's not that cheap to do. Like launching like a news website is much cheaper just because it's like written content on the site. But yeah, we had never come from the world of fundraising before this because before this we were totally self funded. So there was never like outside investors. So that was on our mind that we might have to raise. But we thought we would be able to get like a better evaluation if we showed them a product already that had traction rather than just an idea and having them invest in it. So, so we launched like the first version of the network very, very cheaply. That's. That's why it was out of a closet. It was using like a device to live stream. Like we would hire like wedding videographers where the trials were taking place, to go there and like put our cameras in the courtroom and ship them a device that was also pretty cheap. Now we use something that's much more high quality. But A and E, luckily they were great because they could be a strategic investor for us. It wasn't just the money. So they obviously provided money for us to build out a better studio, hire additional members of the team. And that's when we phased into like having a real studio and producers and all that. But they also, you know, had certain relationships with platforms. We started producing TV shows for their network. So it became like very like a very strategic partnership and not just like money. So we like that too.
- [18:28]
B
Yeah, we do like that. As always, a bonus. And then the. There is this, the four. I'm trying to remember where I learned or what it's even from, but I remember one of the founders that I worked with taught me for and energies of a business. You have innovation, stabilization, unification. And there's another one that is slipping my mind at the moment, but the two that stood out to me when you were sharing about the, you know, you kind of had this new lane open up that you guys weren't really expecting on the production side as the kind of the difference between innovation and stabilization. Where if you're already building something, if you start running into roadblocks, what can often happen, and I hear these stories all the time, is people then go try to launch a new offer, they'll open up something different and they'll try to innovate somewhere where if they would have just like stuck with it a little bit longer, the gold was on the other side. And then you have the other version of that where people are trying to be so stabilized that they're trying to build everything. And overanalyze all the things that they need to put in place before they can do X, Y, Z. And so for you guys, when this other kind of channel of opportunity on more of the financial side came about, whereas there conversations about like do we really start doing this? Was it different than the vision that you guys had already had when you originally started going down that path?
- [19:51]
A
So I feel like media companies are a little unique because you, you kind of have to pursue multiple things at once because like people are consuming media in all different ways. You have to find them where they are and you don't necessarily know what will take off at the, at the outset. You can guess so how we operate at least. And I'm sure there's some people who disagree with this strategy, but it's worked well for us is we, we start like multi platform and multi like revenue from the beginning. So once we got into like launched the TV network part of the long crime business, we also had a website, we were also doing the production arm and we were also doing social media. And we knew that one of them was going to take off, but we weren't sure what would take off first. And why we like pursuing them all is because they become symbiotic. Once one takes off, it fuels the others and reverses into it. So you have to do it in a way that you're not neglecting any. But you know, we, I think initially if you spoke to us like before we fundraised, we would have said that like the TV network part of it would have been the most valuable part of the business. And we were wrong. That wasn't the most valuable part of the business. I mean maybe in few years, I don't know, probably not. But like the most valuable part of the business ended up being the production arm and the social media army. And in the media world too, like it's constantly evolving like how people are consuming content. So you have to adjust, you have to have different, you know, coals in the fire. And that's kind of how we look at it with bottle raiders. To just give you an example, like the new company that I started with Dan, we started only like covering liquor, but we saw that there was like a lot of growth in the non elk market and people were like consuming, they were drinking differently, especially millennials, Gen Z et cetera. So we've invested heavily now in non elk content and we're throwing the first non alk festival in the country.
- [22:08]
B
Wow. Oh, that's so cool.
- [22:10]
A
Yeah. In New York and we have the first non Elk Awards. So when we launched this we would have never known that we would have got into that. But you have to of see where the market's going and you know, have things that will be good right now but also try to get early on in on parts of the industry that like haven't totally hit its pinnacle yet. And that's what happened with Long Crime and what we're trying to do with Bottle Raiders.
- [22:34]
B
I see that. Is there any overlap or what? Yeah. What is the overlap between these other areas that you guys have been in? Because I see that there's some overlap and then there's also this completely different industry that you're stepping into. What have been the similarities and the things that have been helpful and then is there anything that's been really challenging or unexpected that you guys have encountered?
- [22:57]
A
Yeah, so I think there's a few areas of overlap. Like one is we really only pick businesses that we're personally interested in. So like legal and news. You know, obviously we had a natural affinity towards that. But Dan and I also both like, like we like bourbon a lot and that's kind of what caught our eye of where the whole the hole was in the business in terms of liquor Media. So once we decided to launch like a liquor media company, we wanted to model the structure in ways to Long Crime. Not completely because it's like a totally different genre but we wanted to launch like a multi platform a business from the get go. So we acquired like an, we acquired a small events company that threw whiskey and tequila tasting festivals around the country and we grew that. So now we do like 14 events for that a year. But why that was important and this is why we we launched the production arm for Long Crime is in media. It takes time to grow the business to where the media side can fully monetize because you have to build the audience before the money follows. So it's a bit of a long term investment. So while you invest in that long term you need short term revenue unless you have a lot of VC or private equity money, whatever it is. But that's not how we operate. So we our short term revenue driver for Bottle Raiders is the events that helps fund the rest of the business until it becomes mature enough to scale, to scale larger than the events. And for Long Crime it was the production arm. So that was the initial funder of the business until the other arms outpaced it. So yeah, I think the thing that I've learned a lot for this company in particular Bottle Writers compared to the others is just like the world of beverage and liquor. I don't, I don't come from. I'm more. I'm definitely more comfortable in like the, the news media space just because that's where Dan and I have been the last, you know, me the last 10 years and beyond that. So, you know, I've needed to hire people who know that space better than me and how to navigate it because you want to make sure that you're, you know, addressing, you know, bartenders in the industry the right way because you want to get buy in from the industry so then consumers will follow. So, you know, that's one thing that we needed to focus on because Dan and I are mostly fans. Like, we're not experts in bourbon, tequila, et cetera. So we hired people who are more like experts in that space. Hey, it's Cameron. I hope you're loving today's episode. Quick question for you. Does your company have a strong leadership training program in place to grow the skills of everyone who manages people? If you want to help yourself and your company grow, get everyone who manages people learning from my invest in your leaders online training program. There are 12 core leadership skills that I cover online and they're all going to really grow. CEOs pay me $78,000 a year to coach them one on one, and now you can all benefit for 1% of what they pay me. These are the same leadership skills that I created and certified everyone in at 1-800-got junk when I was there as COO. Go to investinyourleaders.com today and use promo code podcast10 before the end of the month to get 10% off each manager you sign up. Now back to the show.
- [26:46]
B
Yeah, okay. In terms of, there's a few different paths that we could go down. Let's go circle back. I'm gonna write, make a note. We'll come back to the hiring with the acquisition piece, you guys staying involved and then creating another company. I'm curious for you, what was the driver to keep going on and even create something new? Because I know for myself, I've experienced having a decent bit of success and then having that space open up and being like, man, like, do I really want to step back into something big and stretchy again? I think so. That comes with time. But for you, it sounds like that was you guys kept operating the other company and then also launched this fairly soon after. So what is that piece that kept you so interested in building again?
- [27:34]
A
Yeah, I think it's a few things. Like one, I think it's like the gambling side to entrepreneurship. Like, once we made some money off of the acquisition deal, we wanted to kind of put our chips back on the table and roll it over to, you know, have another bite at the apple. So that was, you know, one part of it and two, like, for me personally, like when I was building like long Crime, I was, you know, pretty much in a traditional COO role where I wasn't like dictating the vision of the business. I was, you know, helping obviously strategically formulating it. But, you know, it wasn't necessarily like, coming from me solely. And for me, like, I always knew that I wanted to challenge myself in a different way and, you know, be that person that needed to take basically more ownership over, you know, over the business, both in terms of vision, financially risk, etc. So, you know, if I was going to do that, I would, you know, optimally want to do it with our founder, Dan, because we have a good partnership. So that's what, like, personally fueled me. There was like an opportunity there. We both, we both thought that there was like a hole in the market and this was my sort of opportunity to step in, in a bit of a different role and, and try that out. So. So yeah, that's, that's kind of why I went that direction well.
- [29:01]
B
And that's a really unique thing, I think, to happen from a coo. Just stepping from kind of being behind the scenes a little bit, being the person that's executing the vision sometimes is not getting the accolades or the spotlight to then shifting into a partnership. And you guys. 50. 50.
- [29:22]
A
No, but I have like a, definitely like a much larger amount of equity and, you know, money at risk than I. Yeah, right.
- [29:30]
B
There's a difference there. What is. Yeah, what has that journey been like, moving from more of the second in command role to being in some visionary and some risk?
- [29:42]
A
Yeah, I think like when you're in a traditional COO role, I don't even know what traditional means because I feel like CEOs do different things at different companies. But let's say you're reporting into a CEO. You can give your opinion about something, but ultimately the decision, the final decision is going to come from the CEO. And I think there's a certain comfort and freedom to that because even if you disagree with it, you're like, it's not ultimately my final decision. So. But I'm going to do my best to execute it on as well as I can. When you are the person that needs to make those final decisions, which, you know, now I definitely am in, in more of that position, there's, there's a higher degree of pressure. So. And there can be like second guessing, et cetera. So it's, it's getting comfortable with that and you know when to go with your gut and rely on your, your own judgment as opposed to like what other people are telling you. So yeah, that's one of the biggest differences and I think the other difference is you're definitely more of a motivator and you need to articulate the vision to people. So I managed teams before, so that wasn't new to me. But sort of talking more holistically about the business and where this is going and getting people excited about it, you know, that has to be even more of a focus than it was was in the past. So those are like probably like the two biggest differences.
- [31:16]
B
Those are really good point that you bring up on the vision piece and being able to articulate it to your team because it's one thing to have in your mind and it's another, like you said, to have buy in for whether it's you guys are getting funding or hiring. So many different pieces. I don't know if you've heard of Cameron's book, but he has a book that he actually wrote on vision called Vivid Vision and he was partnered with Jennifer Houdy, who I actually just did a, we did a short term fractional CEO kind of role together. And I really got to see behind the scenes of all the companies that she works with that come in, where you've got entrepreneurs and executive teams that are all super clear on where they're going, yet they have these kind of breakdowns throughout the company where the team isn't clear or there's misunderstandings or you've got, especially I'm sure with the umbrella of companies that you have and you have so many different types of departments and people working on different projects that making sure that people are really clear on what is the main objective that we're wanting so that you can minimize the solos and also giving people autonomy and trust to make decisions without you having to be in the weeds of everything, knowing you can trust them because they're very clear on where the company's going.
- [32:33]
A
Yeah, and I think what's even harder now too is like the other companies when we started them were mostly in person, like everybody was in the office together. And our new company, Bottle Raiders is mostly remote and most people are, are not located in New York where our main office is. So I think that requires even a higher degree of communication and like visual articulation of vision because like if you're in the office with people, some of it like sheds to you can kind of see what people are doing. You kind of know where we're going, you're hearing like what other people are working on. But when the team is all over the country like there's some people who are even outside the country, they don't know like daily what everybody else is working on. And they kind, they need to hear more. Like I need to tell myself more often you need to like update everybody on like what our priorities are now, what our next big initiatives are. You need to give them more context. So navigating that and I'm sure we're not the only company that has to deal with that a lot have had to adapt to that area too. But it's, it's trickier than, than the in person world for sure.
- [33:41]
B
Have you found things that work really well? Do you guys have like weekly remote meetings? Is there any way that you are sharing those kind of tidbits as they come along?
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A
So like we have all hands, like all hands, all staff meeting once a month just to get us all on the same page. But you know how I usually work things and this is for the other companies too is anybody who like reports into me, I make sure that we're at least like once a week that we have a like a touch base meeting. So I think that helps align us and also like takes away any surprises and helps get expectations set. So yeah, those are kind of the two main things. And then like like other companies we use like Slack and you know, those tools to communicate. Yeah.
- [34:33]
B
Yeah, perfect. One thing I wanted to circle back to was around hiring because this question came up and I've asked a couple other guests on the show because it's something that I personally have been challenged with myself, which is I'm sure you can probably relate to this. Where I also was, I was a second hire at a company that we built over a hundred employees and I kind of wore all the hats through the phase of, you know, the startup. And then there came a point where we were opening up different departments and initiatives that I had no clue about. And those hires became much more of a challenge for me to hire the right people and then know how to accurately assess if they were doing a great job or not. Because if I had already done it, if I've got, if I could manage 50 accounts and you're managing 20. You know, I, I know that there is a gap here of performance but Otherwise it's a struggle. So in this new, you know, kind of chapter you guys are in where you're hiring for things that you don't know, have you been able to take away any lessons or any advice you give? Anyone that's starting to hire enrolls that they don't have skills yet in.
- [35:50]
A
So I think there's kind of two places. Like you, you, you touched on it. Exactly. And it's kind of exactly the exact place we're in. Like there's two stages. You're hiring like the kind of the startup stage where people are more jacks of all trades and then as you scale bigger, you're at a hundred plus employees. You have like true departments that are, that happen now and you can delegate a lot more and you're hiring people who are more specialized. So in the startup stage, how I usually hire, and I'm probably a bit biased just because like I was hired in this way too, is I like to hire more for personality than experience. Like in terms of experience, if I look at it, it would be more about like what do they have that shows like a record of achievement? Not necessarily that they've been in this industry before, but personality is like the number one. Like I can tell if the person's hungry, if they're a hustler, like how ambitious they are, like how they would gel with our team and communicate. And that has worked better for us than hiring someone who's more senior with better experience. But the personality, you know, is not exactly what we're looking for. So that's how I look at hiring this company. Like Bottle Raiders was a bit different because it was just an industry that we hadn't been in before. So I did need some people who knew that space and knew how to navigate it. But if I was more familiar with the space, I would probably just more purely stick more to the personality. If they happen to have experience, then great. But I'd rather that. But for our other businesses, like Long Crime is more mature now, they're definitely hiring people that are have been experienced in those verticals before because then they can build out a team and they don't have to be handheld. And I think how you evaluate their success, like for example, like a cto, like we're not going to know a lot of the things that they're talking about. Some of it's a different language.
- [37:59]
B
Yeah. I'm like, can you explain this to me? Like I'm three.
- [38:03]
A
Yeah. So over time you learn certain things, but a lot of it, like you Set certain goals for the team. Some are easier to measure than others. Like sales team, you can base it off of revenue and numbers. And like our production team, you can see how many shows have been greenlit, like that type of thing. So you kind of just look at if they've met those, how they're trending towards those metrics. And also you can get a sense of how they're working with the team too. Because even if someone is hitting metrics too, if a lot of people aren't gelling with them, it could be like a poison that spreads to the rest of the organization. So you need to get a sense of that too.
- [38:48]
B
There's a, a quote that Cole, the owner of a company that I used to work with, he said B players are like cancerous cells to the body, which is also just like, you know, toxicity. It really can make such a big difference. If you've got one team performing poorly, you find like the one kind of bad apple. And sometimes it takes some time to figure out where that's coming from because it can be kind of behind the scene scenes, especially in a remote culture. But it can be wild how when you really get the right team aligns, how much faster the team will grow.
- [39:21]
A
Yeah. And I think there's a certain like tense. Something I've realized also is like when you start everybody's doing things themselves and like they have kind of fine tuned like the way that it should be done and how it's best done. Then you hire people you need to delegate to and most of the time they're not going to do it like as well as you. Maybe It'll be like 85, 90%. But you have to be comfortable with that because ultimately it's going to help you scale faster. Even if you, you know what you would do certain things, you'd add certain things or do it a little differently, like. But I, I, I sort of view that in all our departments, like even though the, the person, a certain person might be able to do it, you know, 100%, it's better be able to scale faster even if someone's doing it 85, 90%. So that was a lesson I learned too.
- [40:10]
B
Yeah.
- [40:11]
A
Expectations can be too high sometimes in certain ways.
- [40:15]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think that need for perfection slows a lot of teams down. Dan Martel I think says it's just 80%. 80% done is better than a hundred percent incomplete or something. Something like that. Yeah. Keep it going. And then there was this other book I read where it's like if you can get your team to give you something that's 80% done and you can just quickly skim it and like perfect a couple things and then have them do their 100 on the little tweaks. Then you're way closer to 100 without having to do it. Other question I had around culture and kind of the same topic and we'll kind of wrap up here in a couple minutes. But the switch, or I'm curious, is there a switch in the culture that you're building with the new companies and the other companies you're running? Like, based off of all the things that you learned? I'm sure there's a lot of things worked well, maybe some things that didn't. Have you guys found things that you're wanting to keep in this culture or things that you removed.
- [41:14]
A
So I would say like a lot of these companies are in the same office. So the cultures do overlap in ways. But like one piece of culture that's important for all of the companies is like the people who are working for it have an interest in the business. Like they like, they're interested in true crime. If they're for bottle writers that they like have an interest in the world of liquor or non alk, like they would be a good consumer of it because that is like the best metric. Like if you could have people who be the audience, they're like a much better gauge if you're doing things well rather than like we started a business in the past, like we. That we would not be the customer of and it doesn't work well. Like you need to be like the audience slash customer. So that's one thing. Like the long crime as people who love true crime media, people who love news and politics, cable news and bottle writers has a lot of like bourbon, tequila, non elk enthusiasts. You know the one that I think in terms of like hiring that I've learned more over the years. It's like if you have a gut feeling that someone's not going to work out, probably better to end it quicker than to drag it on. Your gut is usually, usually right.
- [42:30]
B
I would agree. There's very few times I can look back and remember having a. I'm not sure about this person. And then all of a sudden they like really kicked it into high gear. Although I will say there are a couple situations where you may have the right person, but based off of past work, I mean, I remember one employee in particular I was really confused because I knew that they were amazing at their other company. They seemed like a good fit and then they came on and I was just seeing things that seemed out of alignment with how I thought he would be showing up in our culture. And after having some really honest conversations about, hey, this is what I'm seeing, here's some of our concerns. Realizing that because this particular person, I was wanting them to speak up more and share their ideas and they just seemed really quiet, which was surprising to me. And he shared with me that at this other company he was at, he did not feel safe to share ideas. Anytime that he would bring things up, he would get shut down. He was at risk of losing his job a couple times because he was stepping too, you know, too much over the lines that I guess the founder had, where that was not our culture at all. But without having that open conversation, I wouldn't have known. So there's like these obscure, random one off things like that. But most times you end up giving people maybe more time than you should based off of gut.
- [43:49]
A
Yeah. And it's not even about making mistakes. Like people can make mistakes on the job. Totally. Like fine with that. They'll learn from that. I make mistakes too and I, I like want to make sure people know that so that they feel more free. It's, it's more of like a, like a culture fit, personality.
- [44:04]
B
Totally.
- [44:05]
A
How they, the way they're rubbing other people on the team. So, so yeah, that's, that's kind of where it, where it's shaken. And sometimes it could be that, like with a startup especially that you kind of like put them in the wrong place and you see that they'd be better suited for another area of the company and then you shift them there. So. And that's worked out too. Like we've, we've done that a bunch of times. So until someone starts, like they can sound so good on an interview, um, their resume looks amazing. But until they start, the real interview.
- [44:38]
B
Is after day one.
- [44:40]
A
You don't know. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.
- [44:43]
B
Well, thank you for sharing all of this. This has been really amazing and insightful and learning about an industry that I really have never had a conversation in. So this has been wonderful. I always love to wrap up with a question around, what are you most excited about in the next six months, both in business and personally.
- [45:01]
A
Yeah, well, personally, my wife and I just had our first child, so we have a. Congrats. Thank you. We have a newborn son, five months old. So, you know, that's, that's definitely like my biggest focus personally and the most fulfilling, like by far. And then on the business side for bottlers. I'm really excited about our Non Elk festival that we're throwing in September. If anybody's interested in Non Elk and lives in New York, it's called Drinks with Benefits. Benefits. It's on September 27th in the Altman Building. And we already sold like, like we have over 30, 30, 40 sponsors. So we're getting a lot of interest and I think it's going to turn out to be a great event. And then for media, too. We are partnering with a lot of cable news personalities who are stepping away and trying to launch their own, like, independent media ventures. So we just partnered with like, Alison Camerata from CNN, Jessica Yellen, and we're operating their YouTube channel. So I'm excited about what we can do with that and, you know, grow that part of the business. So those are first things that come to mind, at least for me.
- [46:11]
B
Amazing. Oh, well, congrats on the baby and all the exciting things you have coming up. And I, I haven't touched alcohol personally in almost three and a half years, so non alk drinks are certainly up my alley. And I actually have some things I'll share with you after the show and some connections that might be supportive for you. But before we sign off here, would love to just ask if anyone has any questions or wants to connect with you, where's the best place for them to do that?
- [46:37]
A
Yeah, LinkedIn's probably best. Andrew Icebrook I usually respond to messages that people send me there, so feel free to direct message me and we could talk.
- [46:48]
B
Perfect. All right, well, thank you so much, Andrew. Best wishes on everything you have going.
- [46:52]
A
Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
- [46:57]
B
You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO alliance founder Cameron Herald. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com.