Erika Ayers Badan 0:00 

I really felt that when I took the bar stool job, it was very motivating that most people thought I would fail, and that most people thought that most people underestimated what I could do at that company and underestimated the company itself. And I found that to be incredibly motivating, because I knew I had no once I did it, there was no turning back. My only choice was to make this successful and make myself successful at it.

David Novak 0:34 

Believe me, no business is perfect, and every organization has issues, but how you talk about those issues with your team plays a huge role in actually solving them. Welcome to how leaders lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be. My guest today is Erica Ayers bedon, the CEO of food 52 and the former CEO of Barstool Sports. When Erica took the job at barstool they didn't even have a PNL. Eight years later, they're a media empire and a household name worth over $550 million and now she's got a new challenge, leading food 52 in this conversation, I want you to pay attention to how Erica leads with honesty and directness. She doesn't shy away from the tough stuff, and that's important if you want to build trust, solve problems and get people working together towards a big vision. You'll also hear some keen insights into the world of digital media that you just can't afford to miss. So let's dive in. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Erica Ayers madon,

I want to take you back to the beginning. What's, what's a story from your childhood that shaped the way you show up and lead today?

Erika Ayers Badan 2:01 

Oh, I have a lot of them. So I grew up. I was born in Colorado, and I my when I was about five, my family moved back east, so my parents were from Vermont, and my mom was from Connecticut, and we moved to New Hampshire, and my parents were teachers. And when I was young, we didn't have a TV. We we didn't have a TV. And my brother and I basic my who's a year younger than me, we had pretty much three options. You could read, you could stack wood, or you could play sports. And that's what I grew up doing, which is probably why I like media so much, because I was starved for it. I think the greatest thing I learned was when we finally got a TV and, you know, we didn't have a remote control, so you had to go, like, stand up and turn the knob, which no one who listens to this will relate to. But my brother and I had to share an hour and we so we could either have each have a half hour and not want to watch the others, or we could band together and figure out the best hour of television that we could possibly stomach, because that was all we were getting. So I think I learned a lot about negotiation from that, and I also learned how to fill my time, which I think are two skills that are important for leadership. Yeah, fantastic.

David Novak 3:25 

And, you know, I know you really admire your dad a lot, and, and I understand he gave you some incredibly good advice, something about control. Would you? Would you say more about that? My

Erika Ayers Badan 3:36 

dad's funny. My dad was my middle school principal, which was, as you can imagine, as a, you know, 12, 1314, year old, having your dad as a principal was a disaster. But my dad used to always tell me that the best control is no control, which I wrote a lot about, and nobody cares about your career. And I think, you know, one of the things that actually, I think, really contributed to being successful at bar, stool sports and other places was the fact that I did not need, I did not need a micro level of control at all times. And I think one of the things that I think people trying to control other people ultimately makes everyone feel small, and it makes things feel punitive, and being willing to let things go and see how they do, and then to come back and learn from them, to really let people run, and to let people breathe, and to let, honestly, let people mess up and let them succeed on their own, is, I think it's an underrated leadership skill.

David Novak 4:37 

How do you let someone mess up? I mean, how can you stand by and let that happen? You

Erika Ayers Badan 4:42 

gotta like otherwise. People never learn. You know what I mean, like you gotta. I see this at Food 52 all the time, like I'm living through it right now. And a lot of times I find that mid level managers want to one. They wanna shield everything they want to be. The guy or be the girl in the room, and then two, they want to shield the people who work for them from exposure. And I don't think that's good leadership, to be honest with you. I think letting people be exposed, letting people have a seat at the table, giving people the chance to run and enough rope to be successful or to hang themselves. It's a really important lesson, and what it means is you have to be comfortable with mistakes, and you have to be comfortable with learning, and you have to be comfortable with a journey. But I guarantee the people who are given the chance to run, they will be more loyal to you, they will be more grateful to you, and they will know more at the end of the day. Do

David Novak 5:45 

you remember a time when you actually hung yourself and somebody let you do it? I mean

Erika Ayers Badan 5:49 

daily. I mess up all the time. I still mess up all the time. I spent the early part of my career working in a bunch of ad agencies. And the great thing about ad agencies is they're always trying to make money, and so the less staff they have, the more revenue the agency keeps. And so when I was in my 20s, my early 20s, I was given a lot of latitude, I was given a lot of opportunity, and sometimes I was great with it. Sometimes I completely botched it, but it gave me, it gave me a lot of learning, and it gave me a lot of insight about myself and about others. And I it actually, I think, is what enabled me to move quickly through my career, in that I had the opportunity to succeed and fail of my own volition. You

David Novak 6:38 

know, before you got the job at bar stool, and you went through the whole interviewing process. I understand you were up against a ton of male candidates. You know, as a female in a predominantly male business, you know, what did you do to break through the clutter? I mean, how'd you do it?

Erika Ayers Badan 6:58 

I just wanted the job really, really, really bad. So I don't know that it was I don't think I got the job because I was a woman. I think I happened to be a woman. And I do think I got the job. I think I beat out 50 or 70 some odd candidates. I was the last one to come along. I do think I got the job because I cared more than everybody else. I knew more about the brand than than my my impression of everyone else, and I was not looking to change what I thought made the brand so special, which I think was a departure from a lot of the other candidates, and, you know, that's, that's honestly, my advice to women, and really to anybody, which is, you know, don't let your gender limit you. Don't let your gender define you. Like, just be a great, curious, motivated, caring, you know, hard working individual. And if you can do those things, and this is really the essence of my book, you can be really, really successful for yourself. But

David Novak 8:07 

you you're sitting there and you say you showed people that you cared for and that you knew more about the brand. How'd you do that? I mean, what'd you do? I mean,

Erika Ayers Badan 8:17 

yeah, totally. So I did a lot show me how you do. I was more motivated to share ideas. So I think going into my first meeting with them, I made a PowerPoint presentation about everything I thought the brand was doing great, all the areas I saw as opportunities, I went and made a business plan. I introduced I was in the interview process, and I was interview I was introducing people who I was interviewing with, to people who I thought they might want to follow on social or be interested in. So for me, the caring was it wasn't just, hey, I want this job. It was, I'm motivated enough to put the work in to show you how I would do the job.

David Novak 9:07 

So you get the job, and here you are as a female in this seat, which was a big surprise to everybody. How'd you counter what I'm sure you had to have some sort of tax of like, being the token CEO. Was that something you had to deal with or not? And if so, how did you? How did it impact you? Yeah, I

Erika Ayers Badan 9:29 

mean, I dealt with it so much. I trademarked it. So I own the, I own the trademark for token CEO. I think, you know, the a lot of people saw me go into bar stool, and they said one of two things, she's gonna fail. This is career suicide. What a dumb move. And the second was, Oh, she's only there to wash away their sins and and make them look make them look presentable. And, you know, I think I proved both groups wrong and. And I think both were wrong, because they they made summary judgments, which I think happens a lot about people in general, and certainly about people in their careers. I really felt that when I took the bar stool job, it was very motivating that most people thought I would fail, and that most people thought that most people underestimated what I could do at that company and underestimated the company itself. And I found that to be incredibly motivating, because I knew I had no once I did it, there was no turning back. My only choice was to make this successful and make myself successful at it. What What

David Novak 10:36 

makes or what makes barstool such a polarizing, controversial brand. You know, why is it

Erika Ayers Badan 10:44 

barstool if you think about it, Barstool Sports, everyone who works at Barstool Sports in content or creative, it starts every day with a blank page, and their their job is to get page views and to make people laugh. So when you look at brands that grow themselves, and today, most brands that grow themselves grow themselves on social media, you have to get attention. And you have to get attention either by being funny or being opinionated or being provocative or being unafraid to offend. And Barstow is a comedy brand really dressed up as a sports brand. And as you know, with comedy, comedy cuts to the edge. You know, it's the edge of what's acceptable. It's the edge of what is funny and not funny. Comedy is it's a hard it's a hard path, and it's a hard road to tow. It's a hard line to tow. And I think the reason barstool is considered controversial, I don't think it ever really meant to be controversial. I think the reason it was controversial is that they were unafraid, and they they were unafraid to live on the edge, and it is that fearlessness that made the brand grow so much because they would do things that most other brands would not.

David Novak 12:07 

Give us a snapshot of Barstool Sports and, and what you inherited when you first went there, and what you left and, and, and the way you made money. How do you make money as a brand?

Erika Ayers Badan 12:19 

Yeah, we were really good at making money. We you know, when I got to Barstow in 2016 the brand really stood for something, especially in the Northeast, and they had a very, very, very rabid audience at the time. When you looked at the statistics for barstool, it looked like it was a gaming site, the amount of time spent, and the amount the number of repeat visits every day, was insanely high. It looked like fraud. It was so high. But there was no business infrastructure. They didn't have a PNL. They didn't have, you know, there wasn't any cadence for the business. There wasn't any planning around the business. There wasn't a whole lot of communication in the business. The business side of barstool really was pretty anemic. They had one wildly talented salesperson, and that was pretty much it on the business side. So what I really sought to build was a business that could be highly, highly distributed, so that we could make content which was our product, and it could live in all sorts of places. And then two, what I built was, once we put content and saw if it could gain audience or not, when it gained audience, we would figure out how to make money in multiple ways. So making money could have been a t shirt. It could have been an ad. Eventually, we started making our own products. We ran Pay Per View events. We did live events, we licensed our brand like we had, you know, by the time I left barstool, I think we had seven or eight lines of revenue.

David Novak 13:58 

What was the biggest part of your business? And what brand or advertising

Erika Ayers Badan 14:01 

and commerce, so the T shirts and hats and the sweatshirts and really soft goods where people could wear our brand. And then the second was big brand advertisers, brands like Chevy and, you know, Gallo and you know, big fortune, 100 brands. Fortune, 50. Fortune, 100 brands.

David Novak 14:22 

What was your top content?

Erika Ayers Badan 14:26 

Oh, that we had a lot. You know, we launched, you know, Dave Portnoy, who's the founder of Barstow sports, is what we would call at Barstow, an electric factory, which is pretty much anything he touches, turns to gold. And he has a bunch of shows, and he also has his own pizza reviews, phenomenally huge, phenomenally successful. Pardon my take, biggest sports podcast in the world. Phenomenally large, phenomenally successful. A lot of the entertainment shows call her daddy. Was a brand we launched at Barstool Sports with a woman named. Alex Cooper, who, now, you know, she just got $125 million deal at Sirius, so we launched a lot of very big brands, especially in podcasting. And you know, by the time when I left barstool, there was probably 90 brands within the portfolio. That's

David Novak 15:16 

amazing. And and this all started out as a regional blog, and you turn it into this national media powerhouse, and as I understand, your revenues went from like 12 million to $550 million walk us through what you think was the biggest decision that you personally had to make that impacted the growth of the business.

Erika Ayers Badan 15:36 

The biggest decision I had to make was that we were going to move very fast and try everything and be very ruthless about if it worked or not. And so the decision we made was to keep the cost basis low. So when we made content, it didn't cost very much when you when you look, which is very common now, because most media companies are people at this point in time. But when I got to barstool, you know, ESPN was the giant in sports, right? When ESPN thought about going into a production, they thought about the studio and a director and the assistant director and the producer and the scripts and the desk and the cameras. We kept the cost basis very low, which was a very good decision. And then we were maniacal about just trying formats and putting those formats wherever we could, you

David Novak 16:33 

know, you stepped into this very male dominated company, sports oriented comedy. You know, some of it might, some might say, little off color comedy at times, you know, but somehow you found a way to thrive. You know, which, which can be tough to do. What advice can you give to other female leaders to on how to succeed in the business? Where? Where men, you know, seemingly have the edge?

Erika Ayers Badan 16:56 

Yeah, I think, you know, I'd first say my, my biggest piece of advice to men, and especially men who are in power, is to give a woman a chance, like just give give a person a chance. You know if, if Dave Portnoy hadn't given me a chance, or Peter Chairman hadn't given me a chance, I would never be in this position. So the first is, if you're speaking to the guys out there. Choose someone who looks different than you, choose someone that comes from someplace different than you like. Just choose someone different, and you might be surprised at what you get. And then for the women is you know, be unapologetically female. You you know you are female, or whatever gender you are, like, be, be yourself. But then as quickly as you can get to the work and get to building something together with other people, and I think if more people, women and men, spent more time focusing on that versus, versus the trappings of what gender you are, you know, the stuff that's, I think less important at work, I think the more successful people would be. You

David Novak 18:09 

know, I've been blessed to work with a number of great female leaders. I mean, you know, people I've really learned a lot from and admire a lot. One of the things that I've noticed about them is that they actually make men feel comfortable. I know that may sound a little weird, but, I mean, it's like, you know, they, they kind of just fit in. I mean, you know,

Erika Ayers Badan 18:29 

yeah, I think women are good like that like, I think women tend to be more empathetic, and that's a generalization, but I in my experience, it's true. I think women tend to put the needs of other people before them, which is, you know, I think it'd be awesome if men did that too. But I think women tend to be good at making people comfortable, at making people feel good, and making people feel heard, and making making and making an environment work. I think women are kind of like glue or water sometimes, where they're good at connecting a lot of people and getting them aligned to one objective. And I do think I was able to do that at Barstow. I don't know if that's because I'm a woman or not, but one of

David Novak 19:16 

the things I've heard you say, I think it was that you said, was like going to bar stools, like having a heart attack every day, you know. And so you're in this environment where, you know, it's been male when guys can be guys, and they, you know, say things, and yeah, you know what's, what's the most difficult moment you had working in that kind of environment, particularly when you were early on. I mean, you didn't have a chance yet to affect the culture. But, and then, how did you handle it?

Erika Ayers Badan 19:41 

You know, what I will say, and I think people think this is strange, is that barstool is actually the most welcoming place I have ever worked. So I didn't encounter a lot of that. You know, I walked into barstool, and it was weird. Honestly, I expected, like shirtless guys. Chugging beers and, like, beating the shit out of each other. Like, I didn't know what I was gonna expect, but they were truly, you know, what's very surprising to people who don't know barstool and haven't been inside of barstool is that that is a hard working company, and really, really hard working and and the integrity is, is super, super high. I think, you know, in my in my experience, the more sexist jobs I had, or the more insidious places I worked tended to be the bigger companies where the thing about barstool was, if it was happening, it was happening on the internet, which I think people found very jarring, because when people were fighting in the office, or there was something that happened in the office, it was on Twitter, and that's weird. That was weird for me joining. It took a while to get comfortable with that, but I think in terms of the places I've worked that have been less friendly to women, I barst would not be in the top five.

David Novak 21:03 

That's really interesting, because the founder of Barstow, you mentioned him, David Portnoy, he, he comes off, at least on the surface, as sexist is, you know, pretty, pretty sexist type guy. You know, How'd you make that partnership work?

Erika Ayers Badan 21:19 

I don't think Dave is sexist. I think Dave, Dave calls it like it is. Whether you're a woman, you're a man, you're, you know, like he he calls it like it is. Now, has Dave made jokes that that aren't funny anymore, and maybe weren't ever funny like definitely, but I do not think he's sexist in terms of our partnership. We had a great partnership. And I think we had a great partnership, because one of the hard things, speaking of leadership, is when you come into a company that has a founder, it's it can be hard for the business person, right? Because it's not your company. You didn't create it. They know more than you do. They're in charge, and it's in my experience, having talked to a lot of founder led and run companies, and being on the board of founder led and run companies, most founders don't know what they don't know, or they still want to own what they don't control, and or they still want to control what they don't own, and Dave was really none of those things. So Dave was really honest, always about what he didn't know. And we had a good divide and conquer mentality. And I think I think he would say I made most of the decisions, and I think I would say he helped make most of the decisions, and it just kind of worked that way. That's

David Novak 22:44 

beautiful when that happens. No question about that. And you know, you're clearly renowned for having a knack for leading creative people. You know, how do you unlock the talent of people who are really creative, and they're they're so focused on their baby and giving it done the way how they see it. Yeah,

Erika Ayers Badan 23:03 

that's nice of you to say I really like creative people. I really, really like unregulated, wild creative people. I think that's probably because I'm highly regulated, so I am very calm, and I just want to make things happen for other people, and to me, I think working with a creative person is, it's, it's about a couple things. One, they have to you have to earn their trust. Where you you have to be consistent, you need to be calm, you need to be really responsive. I think creative people are, they're wild in a really great way. I don't mean in their content or subject matter or what they produce, but they can be erratic where, you know, they turn on and off, not on a nine to five regulated, consistent, predictable manner. And if you need consistency and predictability, managing creative people is going to be a disaster. And I think if you're someone who can roll with people on their you know, on their timeline and in their zone, and you can steer them because they trust you, that, to me, is when a partnership with a creative person can be really, really electric, because creative people always take you someplace you never really thought you could go. And I always looked at my job is to put them in the best possible position when they got there.

Koula Callahan 24:34 

Hey everyone, it's Kula. We'll get back to the interview in just a second before we do though, I have a question for you, have you downloaded the how leaders lead app on your iPhone, if you haven't take 20 seconds right now, go to the App Store, search for how leaders lead and download the how leaders lead app. In the app, every day, you'll get a two minute video that'll give you a leadership insight from one of our amazing guests from our podcast to inspire you. And to really get your mind in the right place before you start your work day. So go to the App Store, search how leaders lead, download the how leaders lead app, and start your day every day with two minutes of leadership wisdom. It'll take 20 seconds. Go to the App Store, download the app, and you'll be able to watch every day, just like me, the leadership insight from how leaders lead.

David Novak 25:20 

You know, earlier in your career, you spent time at Microsoft and Yahoo and AOL, and so your wheelhouse is in digital marketing. For sure, what advice would you give other leaders on how to make digital a real competitive advantage? I

Erika Ayers Badan 25:37 

mean, digital is everything at this point, so if you don't understand the Internet, I think you're going to have a hard time lead incredibly and I think you got to be a student of it. I always, was always kind of surprised when if I would ask people, you know, well, hey, did you I remember working at AOL, and we, I remember being in a huge meeting once, probably 30 people in the meeting, and we asked a really simple question, which is, how many people went to the AOL homepage today and read a news article or clicked on the weather? And the answer was zero. And I was like, What the heck are we doing here? Like, if we're not even using the product that we're making, there's zero chance anybody else is going to use it either. So the first thing is, you have to dog food. You have to use the product that you're making, and you have to understand your consumer is going to find you through the internet at this point. Like, unless you're a very small local brand, the internet is the gateway to your audience, and you have to understand how to show up there. How are your competitors showing up there? How do you look you know, what are you going to do to be there? How are you how do you transact once you are there? So I think you have to, you have to really understand the mechanics, and you have to have a vision and a perspective on how you how you can and will show up. What

David Novak 27:06 

are the fundamentals of getting eyeballs and audience growth,

Erika Ayers Badan 27:11 

a point of view authenticity, like you have to have something to say that, that people want to listen to. And two, you have to be maniacally consistent about it. So, you know, we always said it at barstool, which is, and now I'm living this at Food 52 but it was funny at barstool, we would, we would interview talent. I remember interviewing a really traditional sports guy, basketball guy, and one of the things we said to him was like, Look, when the when the Knicks game ends at midnight, you got to go online, you got to write a blog, you got to go on, you know, live. You got to be like, here's what happened with the game. Here's my opinion. Did you see this ridiculous? And the guy was like, Oh, I can't do that. Like, I would just have my producer tell me, and I do it in the morning. And the internet happens so fast that if you're not there in the moment with something to say, people are not waiting for you anymore, and they will not they'll forget about you. So that is my single biggest piece of advice. You

David Novak 28:19 

know, things do move so fast in every business now, and I'm sure in the business you're in right now, you gotta, you gotta be on your toes if you're gonna really set the pace as a leader. Give me some insight on how you how you keep pace or and even go beyond that and set the pace in terms of speed and insight.

Erika Ayers Badan 28:38 

I think I'm a little bit of a nightmare like that. I think I have a lot of energy, and I like to move very fast. I'm very impatient, and I like, I liken a challenge. I like to think about something all the time and puzzle my way through it. And I can be a little bit erratic. The food. 52 people listening to this are like, yeah. But you know, for me, I was just always really motivated to learn something, make something, or do something, and I really wanted to do it with a team, and I really wanted to do it as a group, and I think that that's what's helped me make a lot of things happen. I think that's what helped us create a lot of growth at Barstool Sports and other jobs that I had. But for me, I'm very motivated to make the most of my time and to try to make something interesting happen. You

David Novak 29:38 

know, you were one of the early movers in into the sports betting space, and how did you get your team to squeeze everything possible out of that fact that you were there before most everyone else? So,

Erika Ayers Badan 29:51 

you know, I really credit Dave and big cat and Dave. Dave was really a gambler from the. Trump before, you know, before paspa was repealed, and he and authentically so. I mean, barstool started as a as a gambling paper, and moved through daily fantasy, and then paspa, when paspo was repealed and gambling looked to be legal, what we really saw was that that or legal nationally or on a state, state by state basis, we really saw that as our way out. That was going to be our moment to be acquired. And so it was actually pretty easy to get people motivated to do that, mostly because they had the right DNA, which is, they understand, they understood the market, they understood the motivations they already engaged in sports betting that by nature, and it was really then just a matter of organizing it.

David Novak 30:51 

You know, you were at bar you were at bar stool for eight years, and you grow the heck out of the business. You know, why'd you leave? Oh,

Erika Ayers Badan 31:01 

I left for a couple reasons. One is, you know, I had been at Barstow almost a decade, and I don't think I will ever love a job the way I loved Barstow sports. And I don't think I will ever be part, I hope I'm part of something that breathlessly extraordinary. I don't know if I will be but in 2023 we sold the company twice. We sold it to Penn national for 550 million in February, and then in August, we bought it back for Dave the founder, for $1 and I really

David Novak 31:38 

took, tell me say more about that. It was a wild

Erika Ayers Badan 31:41 

summer. Yeah, it was a while. I can't talk a whole lot about it, but it was just, I'll just say it was a wild summer and, but I really, I took a step back and said, you know, my job was to legitimize this thing and grow it and and to make it a viable business. And I did it, I really feel we built something extraordinary altogether, and I didn't want to overstay my welcome, and I didn't want to stay too long, and I did want to go try to build something else in a space that was different. And so, and I was also in the process of finishing my book. And the last part of the book was, do you stay or do you go? And I'm writing, you know, I'm writing all this stuff about what people should do about their careers, and then I'm like, I should maybe just take some of my own advice. So that's what I did.

David Novak 32:33 

You're so young. You say, you know, will I outstay my welcome? You grow the business to 550 I even read where you said that you weren't needed anymore. And I kind of, I said, that's kind of BS, you know, I'm just being honest with you, because, you know, leaders like you, you constantly redefine reality. You constantly see the unfinished business. There's always something that you could do, and why wouldn't barstool need you anymore?

Erika Ayers Badan 33:02 

Because Barstow was back where it belonged. You know, it was back. It was I joined, you know, right when Dave sold half of the business to an investment group. And it was really, truly full circle. I left when we gave the bit, we got the business back to Dave, and I do think even if you're young, you can overstay. And I don't think I'm that young, so I appreciate you saying that very much, but I do think you can overstay your welcome. You know, when you stay in a job, I think there's such thing as staying too long in a job, and for me, I really saw the future of barstool was to just, you know, continue this machine that we built, or continue this, this platform that we established, and I wasn't feeling like there was going to be a huge amount of iteration on that. And I wanted iteration, to be honest with you, I wanted to be in an environment where I could iterate and and I didn't, you know, I didn't want to become not needed. I had been so needed for a decade, and at that point I wasn't really needed the way we had accomplished what I came there to do, and so that that was really it for me. Okay,

David Novak 34:14 

I'll give you high marks for some humility. Okay, so walk me through your decision to take the job of CEO food 52

Erika Ayers Badan 34:23 

Yes. So I had just finished my book about staying or leaving, and I write a lot, and nobody cares about your career, about taking a job that scares you, doing something that you don't know exactly how to do. And I had wanted a couple things. I had spent, you know, I had spent almost a decade in what was perceived to be a frat house. I had spent a decade marketing to, you know, an 18 to 35 year old male consumer like I could do it in my sleep. And I wanted a different. Different environment and a different consumer. And to be honest, I wanted a consumer that looked more like me. So I was on the board of food 52 I had been an advisor to food 52 Since 2019 and food 52 shared the same investor as Barstool Sports. So when I poked my head up and said, like, now might be the time to go think about something else. There were a lot of companies that came knocking that looked, you know, they were in the sports business, or they were in sports betting. And to be honest with you, if I was going to work in sports, the only place I'd ever want to work is bar stool and food. 52 was in the need of leadership, and they were in the need of growth, and they were in the need of some of someone who understood the internet and how to build multiple lines of business around a consumer. And I felt like that was really my sweet spot, and I took the job. So what

David Novak 35:56 

give us a snapshot of the business and where the revenue comes from today, and where you where you see it in the future.

Erika Ayers Badan 36:03 

The revenue today is predominantly commerce. So 90% of the business are, you know, people buying home goods and tabletop and cookware. We have three brands in the company. One is called Dance, which is, you know, mid century American design. The second is a company called schoolhouse, which makes really delightful modern heirlooms, especially lighting and furniture. And the third brand is food 52 which curates design, cookware, tabletop items, et cetera, from over 700 makers. And the business is a commerce business, but what I'm looking to grow is a business that is balanced. So business that is a commerce business, there'll be an advertising business. You may see us do a live event business. You may see us grow other brands underneath these. And so my hope is that in a year from now, you'll start to see a more balanced business, and you'll see a more diversified set of brands. So

David Novak 37:04 

you're on the board of food 52 which gave you a good advantage, in the sense you were able to kind of understand where the business was and what the potential could possibly be. So when you come into a job like that, and you've been on the board. How do you demonstrate to everybody that you don't think you know it all yet, and that you know what was the process that you're using to really get the conviction to take the company and your people with you to into these new areas?

Erika Ayers Badan 37:35 

So the first thing was, I think a lot of people were skeptical of me joining food 52 just from Barstool Sports, like they just didn't get it. Like, how do you go from that to this? And I think people are probably honestly still a little bit skeptical about that. So I had my fair share of kind of naysayers, I think, inside the company and certainly around the company, which always helps with humility The second thing was, I sent a survey out. The company was very was fragile when I joined, is the word I would use. They were injured. They had had a lot of layoffs. What was very hard for retail companies in the pandemic was they had these huge spikes where their businesses quad, you know, tripled, quadrupled, and then it all came crashing down. And it threw a lot of companies in the retail consumer space a little bit into a tailspin. And food 52 was one of them. And so the staff, when I got here, you know, it's kind of beaten down. Morale was really bad. Trust was very low. And it took me, David, it was, you know, I'm still working on it, if being honest, like it's a journey to earn people's trust. But one of the first things I did was to send a survey, because one of my observations was that, in the past the I always felt like the answers were in the building somehow, like, if you could just find the answers, the answers were in the building, and I wanted to hear what was in the building. And so the first thing I did was to send an anonymous survey of just like, give me your feedback. Like, what should we start do, doing? Why did you join here? Why Do you work here? What should the company start doing? Stop doing and continue doing? And that was really insightful, and I've worked really hard to kind of build trust and and bring in management and kind of improve some of those things that weren't working.

David Novak 39:37 

Did you go back to the the organization and say, This is what you said, yes, yeah, yeah. And you

Erika Ayers Badan 39:45 

have to, I think that a lot of times where I think to the how leaders lead, if, if people are saying things in your company, and you're not, you don't say, I hear you saying these things. You. Right? And the lack of acknowledgement of it, I think, is it just creates kind of a break between management and people. I also, you know, I also think it's important to say, Hey, this is why we're doing this. The way we're doing this, like you may not like it. You maybe don't want to work here or shouldn't work here, but here's what we're trying to do. Here's the path we're going to go down to get there. We're going to be honest with you about how we're doing against that path, and you know, to create a vision for for where you want to go and how people can be a part of that is really important at not as important as being honest when you not just succeed, but also when you fail. Well,

David Novak 40:46 

the college basketball season is finally underway again. Will DAN HURLEY and his UConn Huskies be able to make it three years in a row as the national champs? Time will tell. But for now, get an inside look into how Dan leads, including this great insight into making sure everyone you bring on your team has the level of buy in that you expect.

Dan Hurley 41:10 

We have this, you know, this, this blue collar mentality in the program. We I recruit coaches to work for me that have incredible passion for the game. They have to love being a part of of this tribe and and want to invest absolutely everything they have into their obsession, or which is basketball, for all of us, our passion. So like they have to love it as much as I love it, or else I cannot bring him in here, because when the person that cares too much meets the person that doesn't care enough, you know, things can tend to get very, very bumpy, you know. So we're based on, just like the work ethic has got to be there, it's got to meet mine. I mean, I don't have a lot of hobbies, you know. I don't have a lot of balance. It's like, you know, I love basketball. I love my in a good way. I love the cult that I'm a part of and that I love my family. Go back and

David Novak 42:04 

listen to my entire conversation with Dan, episode 169 here on how leaders lead. This is kind of an odd question, but I'll ask it anyway. You worked with this bunch of guys and now you're the CEO of a female founded company. Have you had to adjust your leadership style?

Erika Ayers Badan 42:23 

Yes, how I say the F word a lot at work, and which is something I did before I got to varstiel sports, the food people don't like the F word as much, so I'm working on that. I also think it's a little bit more sensitive, and that feels stereotypical and rude, but I I'm I'm bar everyone had such tough skin and thick skin because we were getting hammered all day on the internet, like everyone hated you for something at any given moment of time, and it just makes you have thick skin. And this is not that kind of place, and this is not that kind of brand. So I'm I'm finding this I cut bangs. I'm finding the like softer, gentler me. You

David Novak 43:19 

know, I probably say the F word more than I should say as well. Why do you think it is we do? Why do we use them? It's

Erika Ayers Badan 43:27 

a great sounding word. That's why it's like, it's just a great word, and I think it shows emphasis and passion, and I should use it less. Like my mother doesn't like that. I say the F word all the time. And I'm like, so I'm like, All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tackle that now.

David Novak 43:47 

And now you do say this, and it's not an F word, for sure, but, and I love this you say work is, is tuition that you get paid for, you know, unpack that for me. Oh,

Erika Ayers Badan 43:56 

I love this one. This is a driving force for me. I really felt, you know, my parents took out loans for my brother and I to go to college, and I really felt that after seeing my parents sacrifice to pay for for us to go to good schools, that I owed my parents. I owed my parents a good shot at a career, and my parents didn't care what I did, and were particularly interested in it. And I don't know that. I don't I don't know that they would have cared if I don't know, but I felt very strongly about needing to do something, and I wasn't the smartest person in the room, and I certainly didn't have the best degree in the room, and I definitely didn't have as a lot of connections, but what I did have was this belief that the greatest thing about work is that you are learning all the time, and you're getting paid to learn, and that that, to me, was like getting paid twice, and that's how I think about work. To this day, I.

David Novak 44:59 

I wish I would have done this podcast with you before I wrote my most recent book, which is how leaders learn, master the Avid, the most successful people in the world. You're playing right into my zone here. And so I'm going to ask you this one, how do you sharpen your own acts and keep on learning and really model the kind of behavior to your team as the CEO? Give me a dan in your life of how you do that.

Erika Ayers Badan 45:23 

I I think you have to, you have to model the behavior you hope other people can have. And then you also have to accept that you the way you do things is not the way everyone is going to do things, and probably shouldn't be the way people do things. So I always try to work in two gears. So the first is that I think you have to be willing to do the shitty jobs. I think as a leader, if you are not willing to get your hands dirty and to do the small, ugly, non glamorous stuff, it's very hard to get people to follow you. I think people look to that. I think they that's, that's the type type of thing that people take notice of. I think the second piece is, you want to show the the you want to show the you want to model the behaviors you'd like to see. So for me, what that means is, like, I'm very curious. I'm always reading. I'm I just am curious. I just want to learn. I want to know stuff, and I'm spastic and probably prolific in how I share it, so I always try to share a lot of stuff. Whether or not people read it, I don't know, it probably doesn't even matter, but I think it's important to share with other people. I'll give you a good example of this, which is I'm a stickler for something called Call Reports, so when our sales people call customers, I'd like a report. And it's not big, it's not it's not over engineered, but it's like, Hey, I met with craft, and this is who I met with, and this is what they had to say, and this is what I took away from it. And I think it's a really, really good exercise to understand what your customer is saying, and it keeps the salesperson accountable, and it keeps us accountable to the customer. I had a situation this week where two executives went on a business trip, and I said, Okay, so I can't wait to see the Call Report. And they were like, well, what do you mean? And I was like, Yeah, you're going to see customers like you got to everybody here's got to do a call report like we do call reports. So for me, it's, it's sharing information that you learn with other people to try to make them informed, or the best they can be at their job. I think that's really important. And then the other piece is just, you know, I try to flank myself with people who are very good at things that I am not

David Novak 47:44 

perfect. Yeah. This has been so much fun. Eric and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Yeah, all right, the three words that best describe you

Erika Ayers Badan 47:53 

curious, pushing like I'm I push people,

David Novak 47:59 

and caring if you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be?

Erika Ayers Badan 48:03 

This is an excellent question.

Unknown Speaker 48:07 

I

Erika Ayers Badan 48:10 

I would love to live inside the brain of Elon Musk for a day, not to be him, but just to understand what goes on in there.

David Novak 48:17 

What's your biggest pet peeve,

Erika Ayers Badan 48:20 

complacency.

David Novak 48:21 

Who would play you in a movie,

Erika Ayers Badan 48:23 

I hope like Julia Roberts or someone I see

David Novak 48:27 

it. What's something that only stoolies would appreciate? These are barstool insiders.

Erika Ayers Badan 48:33 

Oh, I mean, stoolies. What would stoolies appreciate? Stoolies? Only stoolies would appreciate stories like working with Frank the tank.

David Novak 48:44 

What's your go to? Way to unwind after a long day? Margaritas. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Oh, you would

Erika Ayers Badan 48:53 

hear a very eclectic, probably bad playlist of a lot of 80s music.

David Novak 48:58 

What's something about you, a few people would know, oh, I

Erika Ayers Badan 49:02 

think I'm very shy in my core.

David Novak 49:04 

Oh my gosh, I don't believe it. I am. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never miss? The

Erika Ayers Badan 49:10 

first thing I take the train to work, and the first thing I do on the train every workday is I send three notes of gratitude or appreciation to three different people. Awesome.

David Novak 49:22 

Love that one. That's great. Great job in the lightning round. We're gonna wrap this up with just a few more questions. I'll let you get back to food. 52 Okay, thank you. You wrote a book that came out earlier this year called nobody cares about your career. If you were to pull out just one thing, what's the main takeaway you were really trying to drive home for your readers,

Erika Ayers Badan 49:45 

my main takeaway is that if you put aside your insecurity and you put away your ego, and you make those two things sit in the back seat of your car, you can be wildly successful. Yeah.

David Novak 49:59 

The subtitle of your book, nobody cares about your career. Is why failure is good, the great ones play hurt and other hard truths. So speaking of hard truths, I want to hear about a time you've been a truth teller for someone on your team. Ah,

Erika Ayers Badan 50:14 

like daily. I worked for someone once, when I was at Yahoo, who said something to me, this was kind of early in my career, that you should never wait for a review to give feedback, that you should not wait six months to tell someone either that they're doing great or that they had stuff to work on. I am a big fan of direct feedback in the moment. So whether it's good or especially when it's not good, is to is to address it now. And I give a lot of feedback.

David Novak 50:50 

You know, curiously, how do you how do you manage being pushy and caring at the same time?

Erika Ayers Badan 50:59 

It probably depends who you ask about how good I am at that. But for me, I think, I think people can smell your intention, and if your intention isn't good, pushing can feel punitive. And pushing can feel punitive to anybody, especially for people who don't like to be pushed. But for me, I always, I always try to humble myself in whatever situation, which is, if I'm going to push you, I'm going to get pushed just as much and I'm in the trench with you. I think the second piece is to have good intention, which is, I'm pushing because I believe you can be something bigger and beyond where you are. Now, you know, for me, if I'm not paying you attention, it means that I've it's I'm not interested in pushing you because I don't think you can go anywhere. So for me, you know, it's kind of the balance of where I put my attention. And then this, the biggest piece is when you push people, you push them, they go outside of their comfort zone, and it's intimidating, and it's it's anxious, so to make sure you follow that push with a lot of reassurance, and a lot of you know, a lot of care,

David Novak 52:12 

that's really good advice, you know, and, and I know you're a bold leader and you're not afraid to fail, but I I'm going to be curious one more Time. Here is, I'd love to hear a story about the biggest risk you took that even had you a little nervous.

Erika Ayers Badan 52:28 

Oh, like, you know, I was nervous when I took the barstool job, and afraid. Quite honestly, I remember the first board meeting I had for barstool I prepared, I think, 150 page deck. I mean, it was a disaster. It was, it was a disaster, like, I lost the board. Kind of glazed over. Everyone was like, What are you talking about? Like, it was bad, and I was, I was really, really intimidated. I was intimidated by the board. I was intimidated by this, this company that was so wild, and I wasn't sure, you know, it's easy in hindsight, to be like, Oh sure, yeah, bar stool is going to be so successful. We were obviously going to grow it so much and so well. But those first couple years, it was a nail biter, and I really wasn't sure if it was going to work, and it I, like, chewed my lip to pieces that entire year.

David Novak 53:29 

You know, I think we've all been there, you know, you've had new job, and you're, you're stressed

Erika Ayers Badan 53:34 

over compensating. So dumb. Yeah,

David Novak 53:38 

we all get there. You know, our last question here, what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? My

Erika Ayers Badan 53:45 

biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants to be a good leader is to be consistent. You just gotta be consistent. I don't think day in day out. I don't think people like to follow people who aren't consistent makes them nervous.

David Novak 54:04 

Well, I tell you what. Erica, I was not nervous thinking about this interview, but I knew I'd learn a lot, and I really want to thank you for being so open and not pushy. Oh, good. Thank

Unknown Speaker 54:15 

you and giving

David Novak 54:17 

to our audience. So thank you very much.

Erika Ayers Badan 54:19 

I appreciate you having me.

David Novak 54:26 

I absolutely love how honest and direct Eric is, both in this conversation and with the people she leads. You can really tell that it comes from a place of respect and care. Believe me, people appreciate that kind of honesty, especially when a leader actually acknowledges what needs to be better in the organization, if you bury your head in the sand and pretend otherwise, you're not fooling anybody, worse, you're losing the trust of your people. So listen, it's okay to acknowledge the tough stuff. In fact, it's that all. Important first step you've got to take if you want to address those issues and move past them. This week, get honest with yourself. Is there some issue in your organization that you're afraid to acknowledge or pretending? Isn't all that bad? What would it look like to really define the reality of that situation instead? So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders acknowledge the tough stuff. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Scott Harrison, the founder and CEO of Charity Water. 703

Scott Harrison 55:32 

million people are drinking dirty water today. It's about one in 10 people alive on the planet. It's twice the population of the United States of America, and we have not solved this

David Novak 55:46 

problem, so be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business, so that you will become the very best leader you can be. You.