Our next guest is Emily Grubman. Emily is the Founder of Title Case, a consulting company that focuses entirely on naming. Before starting her own business, Emily spent nearly six years at Red Antler working on some of the biggest DTC brands in the world. She became the firm’s naming expert, naming companies like Prose, Burrow, and more. What I love about Emily’s career path is her focus on work that’s fun. She picked naming because it’s the thing she liked doing the best. And as you’ll learn, Emily has a knack for finding the right rooms to be in and keeping it honest and real with the people she meets. Her story is also about persistence and grit. She lied about her address being in NYC to get her first job, before moving to the city, and paid the bills in her early career days as a tasker on Task Rabbit, waiting in line for people who wanted to go to Shakespeare in the Park.
Mike Saloio Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Huddle Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Our next guest is Emily Grubman. Emily is the Founder of Title Case, a consulting company that focuses entirely on naming. Before starting her own business, Emily spent nearly six years at Red Antler working on some of the biggest DTC brands in the world. She became the firm’s naming expert, naming companies like Prose, Burrow, and more. What I love about Emily’s career path is her focus on work that’s fun. She picked naming because it’s the thing she liked doing the best. And as you’ll learn, Emily has a knack for finding the right rooms to be in and keeping it honest and real with the people she meets. Her story is also about persistence and grit. She lied about her address being in NYC to get her first job, before moving to the city, and paid the bills in her early career days as a tasker on Task Rabbit, waiting in line for people who wanted to go to Shakespeare in the Park.
Mike Saloio Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Huddle Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
0:05
Emily Grubman, our second guest on the podcast.
0:08
Welcome.
0:09
Hello, thank you.
0:11
How's it going today?
0:13
It's going well.
0:14
What got my tech set up?
0:17
Oh, yeah, you have to get your tech set up.
0:18
What actually, where in the world are you calling in from?
0:26
And what's it like there?
0:27
And what time is it?
0:28
I'm currently in Lisbon Portugal.
0:32
It's four PM.
0:34
It's 60 degrees and sunny.
0:37
It's pretty great.
0:38
I hear it's bad in New York.
0:41
I'm in, I'm in Miami.
0:44
I do hear it's really cold there.
0:46
I'm happy to be here.
0:47
I just went for a run in the park right before this to like, clear my head and such.
0:54
But let's dive right in.
0:56
So we have a little agenda here.
0:59
However, I like starting where the conversation is rather than trying to force it.
1:06
And so I was joking as I came on here because at this point, although by the time you're listening to this, this podcast will have a name.
1:15
But as we're recording this today, this podcast does not have a name and we decided we're going to actually huddle the name of the podcast and we hope you join.
1:27
If not, that's ok too.
1:28
But let's start there because you are a naming expert.
1:35
So tell us a little bit about how that happened.
1:40
How did you become great at naming or what made you want to do that?
1:48
So, and I have to like pull my headphones out of my ears while I talk because there's an echo.
1:55
But I got into naming through like naming has always been as I've been working in branding.
2:05
Naming was always part of what I did.
2:07
So I was a strategist and copywriter.
2:10
And when I was working at Red Antler naming, fell under that role as one of the responsibilities and it didn't happened that often.
2:23
Most of the companies that came to us had names, but sometimes they didn't.
2:28
And that was always exciting because we got to come up with a new name.
2:33
And so I think just over the years that I was there, it started happening that like my names were getting chosen most often.
2:46
And even if it wasn't my project or like my particular client, I would be pulled into the initial naming brainstorm.
2:55
And yeah, over time, I just sort of became the go to naming person.
3:02
Everyone else was also doing the naming work, but it just sort of became my particular superpower.
3:12
W w was it natural for you?
3:14
Because I think it's interesting that you didn't like, choose it.
3:17
And then you just were good at it.
3:23
I think it was always like, I always thought it was fun.
3:25
And so the reason that I'm now just a naming consultant is because I decided that like, writing brand strategies and doing copy writing was not fun.
3:40
or not as much fun and not as, I guess, I don't wanna say easy but like, yeah, it felt like a bigger effort to do those other things than to do naming.
3:55
And so I guess, yeah, just like, felt, felt easy and fun.
4:03
Yeah, that's so cool.
4:06
And I'm learning a lot about that right now myself in terms of like, work is work and it doesn't actually have to be hard.
4:17
Like, that's what I, that's what I'm picking up and what you're putting down it like can be time consuming, it can be challenging.
4:24
It doesn't have to be a grind, like, in some ways it's almost like the universe is telling you, hey, you're really good at this and it feels fun and you don't have to actually do the thing that feels not fun.
4:37
Mhm.
4:38
And I also found out that there are a lot of people who don't like naming and think it's really hard and not fun.
4:45
And so like, I just assumed everyone loves naming.
4:48
So when I found out that I was like, oh, well, if I could just do naming for everyone who doesn't want to do naming, that would be perfect.
4:56
And we can all work together and focus on the things we like.
4:59
Can I, can I ask you what, what have you named?
5:03
What are some of your names?
5:04
Do you mind me asking?
5:05
Sure.
5:07
So I would say like the most well known ones that were my names from Red Antler were pros the custom hair care company and Burrough the couch and furniture company.
5:21
Cool.
5:23
And can we dive into like your process a little bit?
5:26
Like how is this done?
5:27
How do you name something?
5:30
Yeah.
5:31
So naming naming is a big challenge because I think a lot of people like we name so many other things in our lives, we name our kids, we name our pets.
5:46
So like technically anyone can name anything.
5:51
It's not like there's no particular secret, but I think what is needed in naming a company and a brand is that it has to be a little bit less subjective because you're gonna trademark it.
6:08
So like we don't have to trademark our kids names and like Emily is the most common girl name ever from the nineties.
6:15
So it's like Mike is the most common one from the eighties.
6:18
Yeah, so like our parents could not have named us this if they had to go out and like get the domain and trademark and all that.
6:28
That's a whole, that sounds like a whole rabbit hole too.
6:31
Yeah.
6:32
So basically the process is to to make it to make naming as painless as possible and as successful as possible.
6:43
You need to make it as objective and strategic as possible.
6:47
So that starts with coming up with a naming criteria.
6:51
So I I partner with the, the founder founders to make sure we're all on the same page.
6:59
We talk about like, what do we need, need the name to do knowing that it can't tell the whole story, but like, what foot do we want to lead with?
7:07
What kind of tone do we wanna strike?
7:12
How do we want the the customer to feel?
7:16
And, and we are at that point talking about like larger brand strategy.
7:22
because some of those things that we talk about like, oh, we want this to feel like a really strong brand or a really friendly brand, like those things can also be achieved through messaging and brand identity.
7:34
But we can, we can also start to pull out like what needs to be specific to the name.
7:42
And so we agree on naming criteria and that also includes what trademark classes you're gonna be registering in.
7:50
And so, so with the naming criteria, that's what I use to start inspiring the brainstorm and I go like really wide in a lot of different directions, just trying to see like what could potentially like be a great name for this brand, like looking at symbolic names, evocative names, something that you know ties its way in somehow.
8:18
And then as I start to get excited about certain names, I go and check and see if they're available and like, 95% of them are not.
8:27
So then that starts the puzzle of like, ok, we can't get that name.
8:31
That would have been awesome.
8:32
But like, what's another way to communicate that idea?
8:37
And so it's a back and forth between like, that's not gonna work but what's like another way in and you're just like, trying to think of something that nobody else has already thought of.
8:48
It's like for that category, it's, it's like white space is coming to mind.
8:53
Like you're looking for, you're looking for a white space to communicate the same idea in a new way.
9:01
Yeah.
9:01
So it's all about like, and it, it helps when you're working in different types of industries and different trademark classes because like, for instance, I did a, I did a brand a couple of years ago that was in the death care space and like there's, there aren't a lot of new companies there.
9:24
So that one was pretty open and we could have a lot of fun.
9:29
And yeah, as opposed to going into like a Sass, you know, tech trademark class, there's, it's way more crowded in there.
9:41
So it, each, each company in each trademark class comes with its own challenges and problems or obstacles that you need to work your way around.
9:52
Very, very cool.
9:55
OK.
9:56
Well, we started at a different place than we started when we were chatting yesterday.
10:00
So, let's like, rewind and go back to how you started in your career.
10:12
Yeah.
10:12
So, and when, and when you, and as you said yesterday, when you reluctantly moved to New York City, I love this story.
10:19
Yeah.
10:20
Ok.
10:20
So this was in 2013, January.
10:26
No.
10:26
Yes.
10:26
January 2013.
10:29
I had just graduated college.
10:30
I had thought that I wanted to work in advertising.
10:34
And so I had heard that, you know, advertising jobs are in Chicago or New York.
10:41
I was still in Michigan, which is where I went to school.
10:45
and I was applying to jobs that even though I was near Chicago there didn't seem to be any jobs there.
10:51
So I was applying to jobs in New York pretending that I lived there.
10:55
I was putting my cousin's address on my resume.
10:58
, I would fly in for interviews.
11:01
I would try to stack them all on like, Thursdays and Fridays and like, fly in for the weekend and go to interviews.
11:10
but even that didn't work, I just still wasn't getting hired.
11:13
And so I finally decided in January, like, ok, I need to just move there.
11:19
I have a lot of friends who live there.
11:23
Fine.
11:23
I'll do it.
11:24
Like, so I, but you weren't, but you weren't, like, called to the place.
11:29
No, I had friends who, when we were in college, they would talk about, like, oh, I can't wait until I moved to New York City and, like, they had this big dream and I just wasn't, I did not have that dream.
11:47
I kind of had that dream.
11:49
As you were talking.
11:50
I thought of something that we did when I was in college.
11:52
That was similar, which was, that we snuck into the Ivy League career fairs.
12:00
Like the equivalent.
12:00
Exactly.
12:01
Smart.
12:02
Yeah, I went to UMass Amherst and we would go down the street to Amherst College and also to Harvard because I was trying to get a job in Wall Street at the time.
12:10
And the big banks at that time did not recruit at us.
12:13
Now they do, which is cool.
12:15
And that was part of my effort when I was there.
12:18
But yeah, that was, that type of stuff is so fun.
12:23
You just kind of do what you need to do to get the thing you want to get.
12:29
that's amazing.
12:30
And so then what happens next?
12:32
So you, you lie about living in New York City and then, so then I end up moving to New York City, you know, subletting with a friend, still looking for work.
12:45
So I didn't have a job when I moved there and I was doing odd jobs.
12:51
I was a task rabbit.
12:53
, I had wait, but tell, say what you did for task rabbit is task rabbit.
12:59
A lot of it like, because I didn't have a car or like upper body strength.
13:05
So I would mostly wait in line for people.
13:08
So I waited in line at Shakespeare in the park.
13:12
There was also that Domino Sugar Factory Art in store.
13:17
I made a bunch of that.
13:18
That's right, right next to my apartment in Williamsburg.
13:21
Yeah.
13:22
So like the Shakespeare in the park, I got paid to sit in the park for six hours.
13:26
It was good.
13:26
This is the only, well, maybe not the only place but New York is like close to the only place where you could get paid to wait in line for somebody.
13:35
Yeah, I also once went grocery shopping for someone.
13:40
I guess this was also before like Instacart.
13:42
That one's more common now.
13:44
Yeah.
13:45
And, and, but like, how did you get into agency Land, Creative Agency Land.
13:56
So I ended up getting an internship at a digital agency that I will not name.
14:03
That started in March and I was there for a couple of months until I got hired for being too smart.
14:13
Tell me more about that.
14:15
So it, I can't remember exactly what instigated the conversation but basically a week or two before I got fired, there was a situation where I was leaving to go get groceries.
14:36
It was the end of the day I was going home.
14:38
I was checking like, ok, there's nothing else for me to do, right?
14:43
And my boss said, oh, actually, you know, did you, did you check on that one thing?
14:49
And I was like, oh, but then this other employee jumped in and was like, oh no, I'm handling that.
14:56
That's fine.
14:56
Like you go ahead.
14:58
So I left and then in this firing conversation, he was basically saying like, yeah, you know, you're not really putting in enough effort, you're kind of relying on like how smart you are and not really like, showing up enough.
15:15
And he mentioned that time that like, I went home when technically there was still work to do, but someone else said they were doing it.
15:24
And so this was all very the like, I was very like, upset and confused and now jobless, but also in the back of my head, I was thinking like, I thought the whole point of being smart was that you could put in less effort like, yeah, like, like you didn't go home because you had like work left to do you at home because you were done.
15:50
Yeah.
15:51
Yeah.
15:53
Yeah.
15:56
So it all worked out and then, so then I went back to like, you know, being a task rabbit doing random stuff.
16:05
I had one of my cousins worked at a startup and she would always invite me to the happy hours and parties that they would have so I could network and, and actually that that was happening before I got that digital agency gig.
16:21
And so there was one party where I was meeting all these other founders, you know, collecting business cards.
16:30
And as the night progressed, I, you know, continued to drink more drinks.
16:35
And so one of the last one does at a party in New York.
16:38
Yeah.
16:40
And at like 22 or 23 how old I was.
16:46
so one of the last people I met that night was this guy named Ben and he reached out a couple weeks later.
16:56
And by this point, I was already working at that digital agency and he wanted to connect because he was like, oh, you know, you seem really smart, like, sort of not exactly offering me a job at his company, but just like seeing if we could work together.
17:14
But I didn't, like, fully understand what his company did.
17:17
And I had this other internship.
17:19
So I was just like, I don't know, we'll keep in touch, but like, this was great that he wanted to take me out to lunch.
17:27
So then after I got fired, I went back to him and I was like, I'm not necessarily asking you for a job, but like, can you connect me with anyone?
17:36
Like this is my situation?
17:38
And he was the one who was like, oh, let me get you in touch with the people at Red Antler.
17:45
And so I got an informational interview there.
17:52
So I met with the hr person and while I was there, she was like, oh, like, let me see if Emily Hayward is out of her meeting.
18:00
And so then I just, like, randomly had a conversation with Emily Hayward, who's one of the founders.
18:07
And I guess I seemed normal enough and then maybe like a week or two later, Red Antler reached out because they had just hired a strategist, but he was Australian and so he had just gone back to Australia for like a month.
18:24
And so Emily needed support.
18:26
And so they offered me a strategy internship for a month and I was trying to get a job at Nielsen, but they sort of ghosted me.
18:37
So I was like, OK, my only option is to take this like slightly paid internship at Red Antler.
18:44
How I Yeah, and, and so you took it, I took it.
18:48
Yeah, I, I didn't mean to cut you off.
18:50
But as you're talking about this, like Red Antler to me was like a huge inspiration.
18:58
It's, it's definitely an inspiration for our startup here huddle too in a lot of ways in terms of launching brands for cash and equity.
19:08
And how big is this company when you get, when you get there?
19:13
Like where, where, what was the state of the company?
19:15
It was probably like 30 people and I think now they're over 100 cool.
19:24
And so what was that like when you joined?
19:27
So I joined?
19:28
And it was really fun.
19:30
I didn't know what branding was.
19:32
So I had thought, what come help us do branding, you're like, sure what's branding?
19:39
Yeah.
19:39
Like I had thought like, oh, I'm gonna get into advertising or marketing or pr or something then in this conversation at Red Antler, I'm learning like what branding is, which is basically everything before advertising.
19:54
Marketing.
19:55
Pr So that was really exciting to like have more of a say over what the creative direction of the brand would be.
20:07
So I was working there, I was working there as an intern and I had like a month contract.
20:16
And at the end of that month, I asked like, so should I find something else?
20:21
Do you want to keep me on?
20:23
And they were like, oh, yeah, let's like renew your contract for another month.
20:26
And that happened like three months in a row and then they hired me full time, which was, I mean, this was now like over a year after I graduated and I'm finally getting a job with a salary.
20:40
I was so excited.
20:43
Yeah.
20:43
What, what part of the city were you living in?
20:46
I was living in Bushwick and Red Antler and they were in Dumbo.
20:54
Got it.
20:54
Do you remember the first thing you worked on there?
21:00
I think, I don't remember the exact first one, but definitely one of the first, like when we were in that old office was Casper.
21:08
That was one of the first projects I worked on.
21:11
Cool.
21:12
But you didn't name Casper.
21:14
No Casper.
21:16
But they had like a naming drama, basically, like they had five founders, they couldn't agree on a name.
21:24
It was holding up the design process.
21:27
And so there was a meeting where we basically, like, locked us all in a room and forced them to choose a name, like they had a list of names.
21:37
And so I think there were maybe like three or four of us from the red Antler side and the five of them and we all like wrote down, you know, like, ok, our top three names from this big list and then we put those on the chalkboard or the white board and like saw what bubble to the top and then from those five names, we all went back and like ranked them again and then it was just like we need to choose one.
22:06
So it came down to like, what do the most of us like?
22:13
And I think like, I assume availability research had already been done at that point.
22:20
But yeah, so like we did not come up with Casper, but we somewhat bullied them in to like just choose Casper.
22:29
It'll be fine.
22:30
No one's gonna think of the ghost.
22:32
Like if anything a ghost is soft and white, just like a mattress.
22:36
So like it's fine.
22:38
Yeah, it worked, it worked out.
22:41
Yeah, you put creative constraints in place.
22:44
I love how you said you bullied them.
22:45
Into it.
22:47
Yeah, we encouraged them strongly.
22:50
Excuse me?
22:53
That's cool.
22:55
And so why don't you tell us a little bit about?
23:04
I think I wanna go to, I think I wanna go to what you're working on now.
23:09
And, yeah, like, what, what's it been like to go off on your own or have you, have you gone off on your own before?
23:16
I've been on my own for the past four years.
23:20
Oh, wow.
23:21
Yeah.
23:22
So I left Red Antler.
23:25
Not because I didn't like Red Antler anymore, but I was starting to starting to burn out a little bit.
23:32
And I was also starting to want to focus on environmental sustainability.
23:38
And so I left to figure things out and decided that like, oh, I can, I can, you know, continue to offer my services on a freelance basis while I, you know, figure out how I might want to get into sustainability.
23:55
Did, did you do anything in particular when you left?
23:57
And that like figuring it out stage that supported you in figuring out or did you just kind of start work?
24:02
Like, did you, you know, go overseas?
24:05
And, well, right before I left Red Antler, I went, I went on a trip to Finland and the book that I took with me was I never know how to pronounce his name.
24:19
Yvonne Sheard, the Patagonia founder, his book, let my people go surfing.
24:24
So I took that with me on the trip and I came back and quit because I was just, like, no way I need to do something more meaningful.
24:33
That's crazy.
24:34
Do you think the book?
24:35
I mean, it sounds like the book inspired you to.
24:38
It pushed me.
24:40
Yeah.
24:41
Yeah, I can relate to that a lot.
24:43
Two, I read a book on meditation on a way to, on a business trip to London and Stockholm.
24:53
And it was the first book I ever read cover to cover on a plane.
24:56
I thought people that read books covered a cover on a plane were like total weirdos.
24:59
And then I read this book and I was like, I just knew after I read it, I was like, I gotta quit my job.
25:05
I don't know, I don't know what, I don't know what it was about.
25:07
It was a lot of different things and I won't go into the story here.
25:11
But that's cool.
25:12
That's cool.
25:13
So you came back and you were like, I gotta leave and then what happened?
25:18
And then I did have a project lined up like a strategy project.
25:25
And then because I had worked at Red Antler for so long, I was there for 5.5 years.
25:31
I had a big and have a big network of designers and developers.
25:38
And so they, and so now I was like the one freelance strategist writer that they knew.
25:44
So like getting projects was never really an issue.
25:48
Like all my friends were basically referring to me.
25:55
But what I did finally have the autonomy to do was start to really put up standards around the types of projects I wanted to take on.
26:06
So now I was finally like being able to only take on projects that were actively benefiting the world in some way.
26:17
And so I did that and that was pretty nice.
26:23
And then what, what, what are some of those standards?
26:25
Can you dive into that a little bit more?
26:27
What, what does benefiting the world mean to you?
26:30
Basically, I didn't want to work on anything that I thought was stupid.
26:36
So like a lot of like C P G brands I think are like, I remember there was someone that reached out to me that wanted to make like a breakfast bar for busy professionals who don't have time to eat breakfast.
26:52
And I was like, I don't think people should be so rushed in their lives.
26:57
They don't have time to eat breakfast.
26:58
Like I don't wanna support this lifestyle.
27:01
Yeah.
27:01
So it was really about aligning it to the way that you wanted to live.
27:05
Yeah.
27:06
And like if I wasn't gonna buy that product, I wouldn't want to work on it.
27:11
That, that's like a really incredible place to be.
27:15
Yeah.
27:16
And it was, it was good and, and then like more and more brands were starting to be more responsible and more mission driven.
27:25
And so it wasn't particularly hard to find good brands to work with.
27:31
And that's when I started to realize that like, ok, even if I do have, or even if I am working with brands that like meet all these standards, I realized that I didn't enjoy the work itself that I was doing, which was like the brand strategy and the copywriter because it just like really drained me of creative energy for anything else.
27:54
But I still really liked the naming projects, which were more rare.
28:01
But yeah, about a year ago is when I finally decided like, OK, I don't like writing strategies.
28:08
I don't want to be someone's human typewriter.
28:12
What if I could only do naming projects?
28:14
Like, will there be enough, will I find enough clients?
28:17
Because ideally when I'm doing a naming project, I don't have repeat customers like we name it once and we don't rename it.
28:27
There's like so many, like one thing that I have to say it like that seems like the theme of your career that I'm gathering is like, no, I have two, I have two, I have two things.
28:37
I'm putting a pin in the second one.
28:40
The theme that I'm gathering is like the guts to do what you want to do creatively, like someone else is gonna name that Breakfast Bar company because they relate to that.
28:53
You're just saying I, I want to work on things I'm aligned with like, so what I wanna ask you is like, how do you, how do you have the guts to do that?
29:02
I think that's a really hard thing to do to say.
29:05
I'm only gonna work on these things and, like, take a stand for that and then, and really, like, become that.
29:16
I don't, I don't know how to answer.
29:18
Like, how do I have the guts?
29:20
But maybe, maybe you don't relate to it the way that I'm saying it, that, that's, that's how it's landing for me.
29:24
I'm like, man, this is, that's, that's really challenging.
29:28
I think I just, like, I couldn't, I couldn't like unknow what I knew about, you know, like just society and like, waste and just all the things that goes into consumer products.
29:54
And so, yeah, I guess my values just like, started to drive me more.
30:02
, and this was also like, the same shifts were happening in my non work life too.
30:10
Like I, I had, a couple of years earlier really decided that I wanted to live without roommates because I wanted to be in control over like the garbage situation in my home and be able to compost in the freezer and like, not buy liquid soap because that's just a waste of water.
30:35
And, but with my roommate, like, he liked liquid soap.
30:40
So we had to buy that.
30:41
And so just like, taking more control over my life in all aspects I think was sort of how this unfolded.
30:50
, yeah, when I would tell people, like, oh, I only work on these types of projects.
30:58
Everyone was always very positive about it.
31:02
So I think that just helped, like, positive reinforcement almost in a way where they were like, oh, that's so amazing.
31:09
Like, I wish I could do that too.
31:11
And it's like you can, if you want to, everyone can.
31:15
It's really, I, I, I think it's really hard for a lot of people to do and I think it's really cool that you found that and have you found that really aligning yourself and your work to your values has brought more value aligned people and projects into your life.
31:33
Like I was envisioning this roommate with the soap and you being like, I'm gonna live this way, like, did you start to accumulate new friends who were more aligned with you in what you cared about?
31:45
I think so, like, even the, some of the clients I've had, like, we might not be like best friends but like, we'll still get drinks together.
31:57
Like, it's definitely people that I want in my orbit and like, finding like minded people I think can be hard in general.
32:09
So, like, if you can do it through work, that's amazing.
32:11
And so I definitely would consider like a lot of the people that I've worked with, who, you know, met all those standards are people that I would love to continue working with in the future.
32:24
I was going to ask you, have you ever read a book called?
32:29
It's a really busy book, but it's called Built To Sell.
32:33
No.
32:34
Ok.
32:35
So this is one of my favorite business books that I've ever read.
32:39
I've read it twice and a couple of people had told me about it.
32:45
It was before I started working on huddle.
32:49
The first version of it was more like a traditional agency.
32:54
And the book is about an agency owner who I'll, I'll give you the T L D R.
32:59
The book is about an agency owner who determines that his agency is like only good at logos.
33:06
And his mentor tells him just do logos and he like doesn't want to do it because it feels small to him like, oh there's not gonna be enough logos and there's gonna be no repeat business because once you do a logo, it's like over and then basically what he figures out through his mentor is that like, there's a lot of logos out there.
33:30
Like I forget the company they name.
33:33
It's, it's like a big, I wanna say it's like Mars or general middle.
33:42
Yeah, like a parent brand where they have like 2000 brands and the logos actually do change like every couple of years.
33:49
So like one of those brands could be like a an ongoing recurring client, but it was one, it's one of my favorite books about business because he learns how to product, what he loves to do and what they're actually good at and he just starts doing that and he cuts everything else out.
34:04
And his business, like, totally rocks out and he sells it built to sell is about building a sellable business.
34:11
But there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of learnings in there.
34:13
It's great.
34:14
And it's also like a really super duper quick read.
34:18
And it's like, it's written by two business people who like fictionalize their, they make like characters out of themselves.
34:25
So what I'm saying is like, there's a lot of names out there and a lot of sustainability companies that need names.
34:32
Yeah, I'm working on one right now.
34:35
I can't, the, the problem with like naming but also branding in general is like, you can't talk about your client until a year after you work on it when they actually launch.
34:47
I like things that are secretive though.
34:48
That's kind of cool.
34:50
Yeah.
34:52
OK.
34:53
So I wanna ask you, how do you motivate yourself creatively?
35:01
And when we were talking yesterday, by the way, this happened so fast.
35:04
Thank you so much for coming on.
35:09
We jumped right in yesterday, we jumped right in today.
35:11
I almost forgot to say like, how grateful I am for you to like just dive in with us and do this.
35:18
And when, when we were talking about this yesterday, you, you said the only thing you said to me is like, I create space to do it, but I would love to hear more about how you get yourself into the head space or physical space to, like, make something.
35:37
Yeah, I think I'm still figuring out what, like, what is the best way, like, what's the best process or what's the best environment for my creativity, I think in the past.
35:52
And especially when I was working like a traditional agency job where there were, you know, 9 to 6 business hours, it was like, OK, going to work, I gotta be creative at work.
36:06
And so I'm still, I'm still trying to like unlearn that habit of like, OK, you know, the sun is shining, better, get to work.
36:14
I'm trying to be more flexible with when, when, when I'm gonna focus on a project or like when I'm gonna carve out chunks of time, I do like to have like a lot of time ahead of me.
36:31
If I know that I'm gonna have a call in like two hours, it's hard for me to go all the way in to creativity land knowing that I'm gonna have to be pulled out soon.
36:46
So I definitely prefer to have like a day with nothing else on my to do list or on my calendar.
36:56
And then I'm also trying to be OK with like when at 11 pm, I get like a spark of inspiration to just like go with it as opposed to being like, no, you have to go to bed so that you can wake up early and be creative in the morning.
37:14
Like, no, just like, go with it right now.
37:17
Yeah, I love how you said that you're still figuring it out.
37:22
I think when, as you were talking, I was like, that's kind of a cool thing about what we're doing here is like, I don't know, huddle is still a startup.
37:30
I'm still figuring it out and we're all still kind of figuring it out too, like, no matter where we are, like at our, at our level.
37:37
But like, I, I, I, I'll share like something that I did this past year, which was hard to do, which was that I just blocked off Wednesdays for no meetings and it was like the scariest thing to do because I feel like my position at Huddle, I have to be like, always available.
37:56
But if I take no meetings on Wednesday, I'm, it's the, it's, it's the best I get so much done.
38:02
I feel amazing by the time Thursday comes around.
38:07
I also, I, I like, I like working on Saturday morning.
38:10
I don't know why because it's like quiet and no one's there.
38:12
So I feel like I feel like less guilt around working on Saturday morning because I like had this Wednesday, not off, but like I had this Wednesday where I just didn't take meetings and I did stuff.
38:24
So if I'm like catching up on emails and doing, like, the more, like push pull work on Saturday, I just feel less guilty about it because I've already, and the, the, because I've already done Wednesday and the other thing that's weird that I do is, like, sometimes I just get up at, like, two in the morning, like, my body just wakes up at two in the morning and for a long time or like, three or four in the morning.
38:45
I also go to bed weirdly early lately.
38:48
and for a long time I was like, oh, like I can't sleep.
38:52
How do I get back to bed?
38:54
And now I'm just like, maybe this is a feature, not a bug.
38:58
So I just get up and start doing stuff.
39:02
Yeah, I definitely relate to, like, working on weekends when no one because I think I probably have an unhealthy attachment to my email inbox.
39:12
So, like, if an email comes in, I feel like that takes priority but on weekends no one's emailing and then that's also why I'm currently in Portugal to see if I could move here because like, being in a different time zone while everyone else is sleeping and I'm working is really nice.
39:33
I, I always, I always felt like whenever I flew to L A I would get, like, I always got more done.
39:41
I don't know what it is about the time.
39:42
I guess it's just because you don't, I guess you're just not, you're just, it's like time to not communicate with people.
39:47
, for a long time, I thought I was gonna move to L A for that exact reason or whatever.
39:52
L A somewhere on the west coast or somewhere in a different time zone because I could get up and do a bunch of stuff and then, you know, at three PM L A time, everyone in New York is done and it's like three PM and then you have the whole afternoon to like, you know, do whatever you want and not talk to somebody.
40:15
That's cool.
40:17
All right.
40:18
So it sounds like to motivate yourself creatively.
40:20
It's about, it sounds like you're just giving yourself permission to do it again.
40:27
This is, this is in theme with your career.
40:30
I think if I'm, if I'm reading into it, It sounds like you just give yourself permission to be creative when you're creative or do the things that you need to do to be creative and not have to like, not have to pick a way necessarily.
40:45
Yeah, I think also like, it's, I'm also giving myself permission to like, I know what everyone this is not news or a hot take of like, oh, like get up and go for a walk and like, you'll boost your brain creativity or whatever.
41:08
But I was always very much like, no, I have to sit at this desk and like juice my brain until something comes out and now I'm, I am finally giving myself the freedom to be like, let me go to a noon yoga class and like, maybe I'll feel better after that or like not even putting the pressure on that.
41:29
Like this yoga class will make me more creative, but just like, let me live my life and not have it centered around this like pressure to produce work.
41:42
I, I, I love that.
41:44
So 11 thing I did when I was working at Oppenheimer, when I was in investment research and I kind of knew that I wanted to do something different.
41:54
I always, I, I I remember this like, it was like yesterday or I just really vividly remember this day that I left work and I just like walked around soho like in the middle of the day on like a Tuesday, which was like super taboo in my head at the time, like working at an investment bank and I was like, just looking at people working in cafes or just walking around, you know, not like the tourists that are walking around.
42:22
So, but like the people you could tell that like lived in New York and I was like, what do all these people do?
42:26
I remember really thinking this, like, what do they do for their career now?
42:29
It's obviously different with COVID and a lot more people do this now just in general COVID accelerated it.
42:36
But the second thing I decided I was gonna do is I was gonna go to a workout class in the middle of the day.
42:40
And I remember thinking like, I'm gonna get fired for this.
42:43
Like, if people figure out that I'm leaving midday to go to like soul cycle, I'm gonna get fired.
42:50
And then one day I walked into equinox to like, get a smoothie down in Wall Street and like the director of research at Oppenheimer who was like, you know, our boss was just in there working out at, like, noon and I was like, I don't know, in my head and he just, like, waved and I remember being like, wow, like no one cares.
43:09
I mean, there probably is someone that cares but like, you don't have to care and then I just started doing stuff like that and it, it made me just so much happier during the day.
43:18
I, I still think there's a lot of people that I meet who are, like, really scared to take that on or just do it a little bit different in a way that works for them.
43:25
Mhm.
43:28
I agree.
43:28
Even, even here in Portugal, I'm in part of this, like, coworking coli community.
43:37
And there's a split between people who are like, you know, on the Zoom calls.
43:43
Like, hey, calling in from Lisbon, look at my cool life and other people who are like, oh, I don't want my clients or my boss or whoever to know that like I'm in this beautiful place.
43:56
Like there's still this, I don't know, expectation that like we need to be suffering at work.
44:03
Yeah.
44:05
Yeah.
44:06
Which I'm, I don't subscribe to, I don't subscribe to it either.
44:10
Although my brain wants me to subscribe to it every single day.
44:14
And it's, it's a fight.
44:15
It's totally a fight.
44:17
Yeah.
44:17
Meditation helps me a lot.
44:19
And actually it's funny as it sounds, I just started going on daily walks around my neighborhood here.
44:26
Because I live in a part of Miami where, which I wasn't thinking about when I moved to this neighborhood, but it's not like a really walkable neighborhood in terms of like city, things like there's not a lot of stuff around.
44:39
Like I can't just go outside and get a smoothie, which is like, oh that's a weird move.
44:42
So because I've been in my, in New York for so long where I can always walk outside and get something.
44:47
So instead I walk around this cute little neighborhood called Morningside and it's like a little jungle and there's a park and it's like the number one thing that keeps me just feeling like peaceful.
45:02
Yeah, that sounds nice.
45:05
All right.
45:05
I have I have two more questions to like close out our conversation.
45:10
So one I'm really excited about this one for you because you're so focused on working on sustainability.
45:17
But what is your utopian view of the future?
45:22
Paint us a picture.
45:33
I guess for, I mean, for the future of the world, like, I hope that the earth doesn't catch on fire and like humanity survives and we all decide that like, yeah, switching to clean energy is a good idea and like money isn't the be all, end all and all of that.
45:56
And so I think for like my slice of that utopian future and what I'm trying to figure out now on this Portuguese journey of mine is I wanna live somewhere outside of the city, somewhat rural.
46:18
I want to grow my own food.
46:20
I want to not worry that like, oh, I don't have a naming client every single week because I'm doing other things that make me happy, like writing and surfing and making bread and candles and just like living a nice life.
46:41
And I, I want that for other people too.
46:44
Like I want us all to stop caring so much about like, oh, I have to work really hard to make a lot of money to be able to go on like one vacation a year.
46:56
Like what if we could all just have a nicer life every day on a daily basis?
47:04
That's my view.
47:07
That's incredible.
47:09
And my last question is what or whom are you most grateful for in terms of where you are today in your career or in your life?
47:24
I'm definitely very grateful for the guy that I met at the party when I was drunk.
47:30
His name is Ben Hindman.
47:32
He connected me with Red Antler and yeah, he, I don't know what he saw in me, but he saw that I was like smart and had a good brain and honestly, probably that I fit in with the fun Red Antler culture.
47:50
So I'm very grateful for him.
47:52
And then also, of course, my mentor at Red Antler Emily Hayward.
47:58
Yeah, she taught me everything I know about Brandon.
48:01
That's amazing.
48:02
Shout out Ben.
48:02
Shout out Emily.
48:05
Shout out.
48:06
All right.
48:07
Well, this has been really fun.
48:09
I've super enjoyed getting to know you in this format and I'm excited that other people are gonna get to hear your story too.
48:17
And thanks so much for coming on our podcast that doesn't yet have a name as I'm recording this the Huddle Podcast.
48:26
And thanks, thanks for being an early supporter of Huddle and thanks for being a member of our community.
48:30
I hope that I get to, I hope that I get to work on something with you soon.
48:34
That would be really exciting.
48:35
Thank you so much for having me.
48:37
This was so much fun.
48:39
All right.
48:39
Take care.
48:41
Thank you.
48:42
You too.
48:42
Bye.