In this episode of Success Unleash’d, Shawne Merriman and Zack Ellison sit down with Chris Hetherington who shares how he jumped into the world of entrepreneurship after playing in the NFL for 11 years. He shares how resilience and reinvention shaped his journey as a business leader, brand builder, and now CEO of Fathead, the undisputed industry leader in officially licensed graphic decals. Tune in as Chris dives deep into the playbook of personal transformation and smart business, offering invaluable lessons for athletes, founders, and high performers alike.

Success Unleash’d Principles From This Episode

1. Win the Morning, Win the Day

Chris gets up every day at 4:30 in the morning to do cold plunges and meditation, setting a positive tone for the entire day.

2. Discipline Outlasts Talent

Chris brings to his entrepreneurship journey the most important lesson from his NFL career: prioritizing discipline, consistency, and commitment over raw talent.

3. Building and Leveraging Genuine Relationships

Chris underscores the importance of cultivating meaningful and strategic connections in your personal and professional relationships to further your own development.

4. Focusing on Profitable Growth

Chris highlights the importance of smart growth, not just fast growth, to unlock profitable business scaling.

5. Adapting to New Technologies

Chris shares how businesses can evolve into tech-enabled brands in today’s digital world by integrating AI tools and automated processes into their processes.

6. Creating a Business Playbook and Staying Flexible

Chris explains how to unlock success by preparing a structured plan, establishing clear roles, and getting ready to adapt whenever necessary.

7. Surrounding Yourself with A-Players

One of Chris’s core strategies for success is hiring and collaborating with high-performers who elevate his entire organization.

8. Seeking Mentors and Being Coachable

Chris attributes much of his development to listening, learning, and being open to the most inspiring mentors and coaches.

9. Turning Failures Into Opportunities

Chris looks back on his past failures and shares how he applies the key lessons he learned from such experiences to unlock further growth.

10. Staying Fair And Authentic

Chris stresses the importance of upholding integrity and fairness in a world where tempting short-term wins could lead to compromise.

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Watch the Episode Here

Listen to the Podcast Here

Entrepreneurship Lessons And Realizations With Chris Hetherington

Welcome to another episode of the show. We have with us Chris Hetherington, who’s an eleven-year NFL veteran and the owner of Fathead. Chris, thanks for joining.

Appreciate you guys having me. Glad to be here.

Former NFL Star-Turned-Entrepreneur Chris Hetherington

Chris, we’re just saying offline how I’d heard of Fathead and was well aware of it, and you bought the brand, the company, about a year and a half ago. Tell us that story.

To be honest, I was in the right place at the right time. Dan Gilbert owned this brand for a long time. Dan had some health issues about five years ago, and another gentleman named Tony took it over. He was the CEO and owner. One of my roommates from Yale lives in Detroit and got to know Tony. Long story short, we ended up putting together a group of executives and athletes to buy the business about a year and a half ago. We’ve been off to the races since. It’s serendipitously, this thing I put on my lap. In seriousness, I couldn’t be more grateful to be back in sports again. We’ve got a great brand and a great opportunity, and over 150 licenses in sports and entertainment. We have big growth plans, but yeah, super grateful.

Chris, my son, still has a Fathead of me on this wall in his room. He’s so in love. I’m a big fan from a distance. I heard you say that a lot of athletes have gotten involved now with execs and other people. How have you seen, like just over time from the existence of Fathead books. I’ve been a fan. I know the story from the start to where you guys are now. How have you seen the landscape change? First of all, in the licensing business, but two in the physical assets. I’m still a big fan of Fathead myself, personally.

I think Shawne, know, look, fandom has never been bigger. This brand was everywhere back in the day. TV commercials, Super Bowl ads, ESPN. They did a great job of building the brand. In today’s world, there’s a little different approach. It’s a lot about social and social selling and live selling, affiliate partnerships, and influencer partnerships. For us the licensing landscape to your point has changed a little bit.

When we bought the business, we had about 194 licenses in sports and entertainment. It’s a typical 80/20. We’re the top twenty license doing a many percent of the revenue. We have every major sports league, all the players’ associations, NASCAR, WWE. For us, it’s trying to try to dial in who we want to be as a brand, what’s our vibe, what’s our voice, what are edges in the market. We’ve condensed our licensing portfolio and focused on driving growth with these specific licenses.

Also, we’re going to add some license there. Some strategic licenses in sports. We’re contemplating expanding categories into music and gaming, which, as you know, are very popular and culturally relevant. For us, a lot of our growth plan is not only expanding those licenses and expanding growth but also starting to expand distribution. We’re about 99% D to C, at least over the last five years. We’re starting to expand distribution into retail.

We’ve got some online e-commerce, really big opportunities taking a lot of the team stores, obviously in all the leagues. Also, it’s been a very North American business, historically. It’s the US and a little bit of Canada. Premier League soccer, as you know, is massive. Asia is a market we want to get into. Cricket’s one of the biggest spectator sports in the world and is expanding globally. It’s all about growth, but it’s all about strategic, intentional, and more importantly, profitable growth.

Chris, for those that don’t know, describe what Fathead is and what the brand stands for now.

Fathead is the undisputed leader in customized and licensed wall decor. We’re known for our big life-size vinyl decals, which I think you can see in my background. When we bought the business, we had over 55,000 SKUs on the website. We hired an incredible product team to condense our SKU count and make data-driven decisions going forward. The business is broken up into two verticals. There are the licensed products. Life-size vinyl, minis, we have dry erase boards, cardboard standouts.

Obviously, the cheering products you see are big heads, which are very popular. You see people cheering their heroes or family in the ballparks, arenas, etc. The other side of the business is the custom side, which is a big part of our business. When we bought the business, that was about 25% of the revenue. It’s almost 35% now. Fathead yourself or my ten-year-old son wins literally championship wants to capture that moment, birthdays, graduations, bar mitzvahs. A lot of pets. That custom side is we’re all about capturing moments. All about bringing fans closer to what they love. It’s a great space.

In the past, obviously the NFL, NBA, MLB, some of the some of the ones you got a background now are going to be the most known. With me being in the combat sports space now, we’re talking about the growth of these sports, cricket being one. How about the UFC and the job they’ve done? When the business first launched, UFC, it wasn’t what it is today, where they have these superstar fighters and athletes. Are you guys seeing more of a pivot or more of a growth in these up-and-coming leagues that haven’t been there when Fathead was first launched?

A 100%, Shawne. I love combat fighting. I love the USC. I love what you’re doing and your entity. I think there are a lot of opportunities. I think these fighters are very marketable. That’s the key. You got to make sure until the day we’re trying to sell decals and sell big heads, etc. We have to make sure that not only these leagues, including emerging leagues, etc., are culturally relevant and have huge fan bases. Also, these players, which are the assets or the fighters, which are the assets have to be marketable. We’re very bullish on not only what you’re doing but also UFC and just combat sports in general. Also action sports. Action sports are very interesting. The gaming space is very interesting to us and also music, as I mentioned earlier, but yeah, extremely bullish on it.

Chris, do you guys have any musicians up yet, or is it just sports?

We’re in some pretty mature conversations, Zack, with a lot of the big music labels and agents, etc.. We want to enter that space, like I said earlier, in a very intentional way. Working with Apple Music and Spotify to be able to bring a big artist on board. As you can imagine, Taylor Swift is our number one search term on our website. We’ve spoken to her manager a few times and have a lot of friends who are great artists.

Long story short, we have a very focused growth plan. The reality is that we have so many great licenses. We spent a considerable amount of time over a year cleaning up the business, the products, the data, the licenses, and the unit economics. The only really way to scale this business or any business is to make sure unit economics are dialed in, gross margins, customer acquisition costs, CAC or AOV, contribution margin.

We spent a lot of time with our partners and our vendors and really trying to put us in a position to scale here. We’re a print-on-demand business. The majority of our biggest relationships with FedEx, they do the majority of our printing and shipping. They have these eighteen hubs throughout the country. It’s very efficient in that typically we have the end user determine where these products are printed and shipped.

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In today’s world, we live in this Amazon.com world where people want their stuff yesterday. We have to be very cognizant of that and make sure we’re getting product on people’s doorsteps in a very timely manner. When we start to expand in the retail, a different strategy. We have to be very cognizant of that and very intentional with that as well.

Have you seen any shift in the market? When Fathead, I feel like I’ve worked with the company for some time because I know so much about just the start of it and why should business has grown. I’m always going to be a big fan of the actual physical product. Have you guys added any tech? Now, there’s 3D printing, as you said, that’s on demand. Have you guys seen anything shift or something you’ve added because the technology and the resources have changed over the last decade?

A 100% Shawne. Our mode is we have great physical products, but in today’s world, combining the physical with the digital is really where we’re the direction we’re heading in. We’ve made significant investments in technology, automation, and AI to make our business a lot more efficient. The future of Fathead is, like I said, combining the physical with the digital.

We bought a technology company very early on, and it’s a pretty robust tech stack. It gets into AR, AI, and can get into the metaverse and blockchain. We’re intentionally breadcrumbing that out. In the future, you scan Shawne Merriman’s decal, and that decal will come to life and become a portal to trigger content. Make sure your stats and your highlights link to the buy merchandise. We did a light AR field goal kicking game before the Super Bowl last year.

We’ve been in New York several times over the last couple of months presenting this tech to the big leagues and some of the teams and ideally picking a pilot partner. That’s the way of the future for Fathead. Again, our core business has so much low-hanging fruit to it. We’re extremely bullish on our core business, but at the same time, we’re making investments in technology and ultimately creating a fan engagement platform, which is exciting for us.

Looking Back On His Career Journey

Chris, how did you get into this role? What did you do before it? You went to Yale, which it’s rare to see somebody from Yale do as well as you did in the NFL. Clearly, you’re a very smart man. I’m curious. How did you go from Yale to a successful NFL career? What did you learn doing that? How did you transition from your career in the NFL to business and what you’re doing?

I was fortunate enough to go to Yale and more fortunate to play in the NFL for eleven years and make fullback money, not quarterback money. I had to go to work for a living and was trying to figure out what I had to do with the rest of my life. I took the executive programs at Harvard and Wharton. I joined a hedge fund in 2008. I was there for a total of eleven years. I had a bunch of different roles there and learned a lot about business. I was the CEO of a couple of companies that we invested in and I learned a lot about business.

Starting businesses, growing businesses, etc. I feel like everything I’ve done in my career up to this point has set me up for this point in my journey. Again, I’m very grateful to be back in sports and to leverage these relationships I’ve built over the last 25 to 30 years. The hardest thing in business, as you guys know, is building a brand. I felt like, for the first time in my business career, we’re starting on third base.

We had this incredible brand with incredible brand awareness and brand equity. We had a huge email list, a huge SMS list. The key, as you guys know, is getting the right team and the right partners to maximize the opportunity. That’s what we’ve done. We’re doing that further. We’re planning on bringing more A players into the organization and maximizing the opportunity. I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of decades. I’ve learned a lot from successes.

I’ve learned a lot from failures. At the end of the day, we’re running a business. It’s great to be in sports, and it’s great to be at these temple events that are happening in sports, whether it’s a Superbowl or NBA All-Stars or March Madness and all that stuff. It’s great. At the end of the day, like I said, we’re a business, and we plan to be a very smart business. To be a smart business, you have to be very efficient. You have to invest in technology. AI is everywhere. We want to use that in a very smart, focused way. We feel very fortunate.

Chris, I always ask you, especially someone who played ball and was an athlete, when did you start to make that transition. Not physically, but mentally. When you were pretty much ready to step out of the game and ready for the next phase of your life.

Look, I had a very different path to the NFL. I was a quarterback at Yale. The story is I went to Yale as a running back in the safety, and they moved me to quarterback my freshman year. When I was coming out of Yale, I was viewed as an athlete. Ended up going as an undrafted free agent originally in Cincinnati. I was on the practice squad in week eight of the season. Indianapolis started fullback got hurt.

They picked me up, and I was smart enough early on in my career, Shawne, to learn from the veterans that one, this game isn’t going to last forever. The average career is three years, arguably less. I always thought about business. I was lucky. I had a great mentor, my brother. My brother has been with Merrill Lynch since 1986. A lot of my buddies were on Wall Street. I was always very intrigued by business, very intrigued by the stock market.

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I did some internships throughout my career and was smart enough to, like I said, learn from the older guys and learn that this game doesn’t last forever. I was fortunate enough to play it for eleven years. As you know, it’s a full-time job, especially for a guy like me, who I felt like my job was at stake every day. I was grinding the off-season, really preparing mentally and physically and always trying to improve my football IQ and just be an asset to the ball club and be a pro. I tried to work out a deal for my twelfth year and wasn’t able to work it out.

I was like, “Time to move on to the next chapter.” As you know, Shawne, the transition from an athlete or a pro athlete to the real world is tough. I don’t care how many years you played or how much money you made or how much famous or not. It’s hard. For me, it was really important to find that next passion, utilize the skillsets and the work ethic and the discipline I had to find the next thing. I was lucky to find what I call the next locker room.

I joined this hedge fund called Evolution Capital. It was a lot of ex-Ivy League athletes who were working hard, play hard, and very smart individuals. I felt as though that was the easiest transition for me. I had some opportunities on Wall Street. I was 34 at the time. Joining a two-year training program, one of these bolts bracket banks it wasn’t my vibe. It was hard. It was 2008, the world was going crazy. I was trading futures and options.

I had no idea what an option was before I joined the hedge fund. I dove in at first and tried to learn as fast as I could and learn from the experienced traders and Michael Lerch, who was running the organization. John Jorgenson, who was an incredible asset to me. I think I learned early on in my career that I need to start thinking about life after football. Luckily, I had a good education to fall back on and had some friends that were ingrained in the finance space. That’s how it happened.

Applying NFL Lessons In Career And Life

Christopher, for folks that haven’t played professionally and that could still learn from the lessons that you took away, this is a question for you and Shawne. What are lessons that you guys learned in the NFL that anybody could utilize even if they never played sports? What are the top lessons you’ve learned?

I think for me, the buzzwords are grit, discipline, and consistency. Again, the chips were stacked against me my whole career. I felt like they were always trying to bring in younger, less expensive guys. I had to do whatever it took to become a good pro and be a good asset to the ball club. For me, it sounds cliche, but it’s the first one in the building. The last one to leave studying film. Your job depends on it. Every rep in the weight room, like your job, depends on it. Those are the kinds of traits I’ve taken into my business career, as I still train like I’m a professional athlete. Wake up at 4:30 every day. I’m in the cold plunge. I’m in the sauna. I’m meditating.

I’m working out because that’s just who I am. That’s how I feel my best and can perform my best. Long story short, it’s great. It’s consistency, and it’s discipline, and it’s showing up. You’ve got to take some risks in your life. As long as you show up and you go a hundred miles an hour and you’re prepared, I think being prepared is another key thing both on the football field and in business. If you’re not prepared, good things can happen, and bad things most likely will happen. Those are the biggest lessons I’ve learned. I try to instill this in my teams. Like communication and obviously discipline, hard work, being accountable to your teammates, etc.

Zack, just to follow up on that and what Chris said, they’re stuck with me as getting with a lot of these vets. I played with the great Lorenzo O’Neill. When I came in the rookie year, I got with him. A guy who was in his 12 or 13 years, who I used to work out 3, 4 days a week. After practice, we’ll go and get our morning workout in, and we’ll work out after practice. I had a problem keeping up with O’Neill, who was in his 12 or 13 year.

I think that a lot of us, when we’re lacking in a certain area, it’s really good to get with and get around these guys through the experience. It just doesn’t happen on the football field. It happens in business. You start getting around a lot of these guys with experience, and that mindset came from playing football. It’s a rookie, Shawne Raymond, coming in and just turning 21 years old and finding Lorenzo O’Neill saying, “How did you play twelve years?”

He ended up playing, I think, fifteen plus. At the time, he was twelve years in. How do you play twelve years? What do I need to do? What time do I need to wake up in the morning? What do I need to eat? What time do I need to get in the cold towel? How many times should I be lifting? That put me on the right track. I think after the game has helped me in business and in life.

I think it’s a great point. First of all, I love O’Neill, one of the one of the greatest fullbacks of all time. I think for me, I’ve gotten better at being open to having mentors in my life and being part of these communities. It’s like I belong to a couple great communities of like-minded individuals, successful individuals that I can learn from and grow from. The other day, there was so much access to great information online.

If you don’t have a growth mindset, you’re going to be in trouble. I think for me, being open to having mentors in my life and asking for help is hard to do when you’re younger. As you get older, if you wise it up, everybody needs help. Everybody needs coaching, and there are experts out there in every field. Gary Vee is an advisor of Fathead. I’ve learned so much from Gary Vee, not only from having one-on-one conversations but just witnessing or watching the content that he posts on LinkedIn or Instagram. He’s got a lot of great nuggets out there, as well as a lot of people.

I belong to this group called Outlier Project. I’ve just learned so much from these men and women around the world on just being a better pro at what you do and leveraging your network in a very positive, authentic way, etc. I think that’s been key for me as a good older. As I said, just be asking for help. Being a CEO of a company can be lonely at times when you’re at the top. I consider it a team effort. We have a very close-knit team, but everybody needs help, and everybody needs coaching.

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Handling Failures And Embracing Lessons From Football

Chris, are there any times when you’ve had failures that you learned a lot from and that you were able to overcome?

Of course. I failed in my life. I think that earlier on in my life, I always had a massive fear of failure, which I think is dangerous at times. Especially being an entrepreneur because being an entrepreneur is tough. We all know the statistics on the success and failure of startups or young companies, etc. I’ve definitely had some failures in my life, and I have learned from those, luckily. The things I’ve learned have helped me in what I’m doing now.

A lot of those are making sure you’re doing business or teaming up with the right people. It’s having the right strategy, and then it’s all about focus and execution. I think I made some mistakes earlier in my career, and I definitely have learned from those. Look, you always have to climb above the situation and take a look down and be like, “Is this dialed in? Is this as dialed in as I need it to be?”

Not only the people you’re working with or the teammates you have or the strategy or empowering people to be great and culture, obviously in sports is huge, but culture and businesses is huge as well. It’s the job of a CEO and the executives to establish that culture, just like it is in a professional football team from the top down. Had some failures. I’ve overcome my fear of failure. At the end of the day, I got to take the bat off the shoulder and take some risks, and those risk better be calculated, and you better sure have the right people around you to give the best chance to succeed.

Chris, I don’t know if this happened to you or not, probably not because you went to Yale and I went to the University of Maryland, but there was a lot of football terminology used in a lot of these meetings. I think that people look at us as athletes. They don’t have a total understanding of how much we know because they’re at the lens of us being an athlete first. They have to make some correlation between the business or whatever topic we’re talking about with football.

They used to get under my skin. After a while, you start to realize how much football and sports in general, but mainly football, was similar to these businesses and building a team and obstacles. Injuries, and dealing with adversities. It’s the same thing being an entrepreneur. Did you ever encounter that, at least starting out when you made that transition?

All the time. I still use football language, but I are lingo. To your point, Shawne, I think it’s relevant. Football is the ultimate team game. You got eleven guys on each side. You have very specific plays. The game has become more sophisticated, and you need to work together as a team to be successful. A lot of those lessons I learned playing sports and certainly have carried them into my football career. I use lingo all the time, that’s still from football. I used to be, I wouldn’t say insecure, but it was always hesitating to use football language because you’re working for a hedge fund.

It’s different. At the end of the day, what I’ve learned is that you have to be yourself, and being yourself is, I think, a good thing. If you’re to use football language, great. If not, then that’s okay, too. At the end of the day, I think it’s all a similar playbook in my opinion. The playbook shouldn’t be overly complicated. It’s having a great plan and executing on that plan and making sure everybody knows their roles and responsibilities in order to execute that plan. If you have that, you have a good chance to succeed.

Chris, it’s funny is this idea of playbook. I was just thinking about it as you were talking that there’s a playbook to success. People who read this blog probably think, “A lot of these episodes are similar because the themes are identical almost every time you talk to someone successful.” What does it take to be successful? It’s not some crazy secret that nobody knows. It’s relatively accessible information. I was just thinking about that because a lot of the stuff you’ve said, we’ve talked about explicitly on other episodes. I was just thinking, “It’s crazy how similar the mindset is along with the habits and the processes that all these successful people have.”

I guess this is what leads to books. At some point, I’ll have distilled this into a recipe, and other people already have, of course, but there’s always new recipes. I think what’s interesting about success on leash is that we bring in a lot of diverse people. We happen to have a lot of athletes, but that’s because athletes that we bring in have been successful, not only on the field but in business and in life. It’s just crazy to me how similar everyone’s mindset is. Their stories are completely different, but the core principles are almost unchanged. It’s almost like the commandments of being successful. They were written in stone 5,000 years ago, and they’ve never changed.

That’s a point. I did a LinkedIn post about this, I think, several weeks ago. There is no playbook for the transition from being an athlete to the real world. When we’re an athlete, we’re told when to show up, what time meetings are, when we have to lift, what time practices, when we’re hopping on a plane, a flight, or an away game. Now, all of a sudden, we have no agenda and nobody telling us what to do. There’s no playbook.

To your point, Zack, it’s the same principles. It’s being organized, being prepared, having a dialed-in schedule, and just really running those processes and procedures like it’s your playbook. That was the hardest thing for me. Again, I was fortunate enough to have some opportunities after football, but you still have to create those opportunities. You still have to go after it and leverage your network. As I said, find those passions because we spend all this time trying to live out this dream.

We’re on this platform, and we’re living out our dream. We spend all our time and energy and sometimes money staying on, staying in that platform in the NFL. Once that’s gone, it’s like, my identity is gone. Like, “What am going to do now? What am I going to be known for? What’s my legacy?” Sometimes, people struggle with it. Again, I think what you have to lean on and keep coming back to is that you got to the end for a reason, and it just wasn’t talent.

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We see guys all the time coming in out of league that are extremely talented, but if you don’t take care of your mental IQ and your football IQ and your mental wellness and physical wellness, it’s very tough. I thought it was interesting, but I think it’s all the same playbook. It’s work hard, it’s grind, make sacrifices, be consistent, be a good teammate, be accountable. It’s all pretty much the same stuff, but sometimes people get sidetracked. Business is stressful sometimes. It’s how you handle adversity, how you get you through those tough times and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

One thing I want to add just briefly, because I think it’s a necessary ingredient in the success recipe, is everything you said. One thing that isn’t talked about enough is this principle being fair. A lot of times in business, especially, and you’ve seen it, you worked at a hedge fund for a long time in business. Shawne’s seen it, too, as a media mogul. I’ve worked at five firms that are publicly traded, three of which have over a trillion assets traded with the biggest hedge funds in the world, the biggest asset managers.

BlackRock is one of my biggest trading counterparties. One of the things that I think resonates is being fair. That was the principle that I wanted to put out there because I think it’s lacking a lot in today’s world. People just don’t have that same sense of integrity that I think they used to even like 15 or 20 years ago. I was curious about what you think about that. If you feel like anything’s changed, and if you think there’s a way of acting in terms of the relationship that you’ve found works.

A lot of these a lot of things you do in your life are relationship driven. I remember some examples when I was a trader early on in the hedge fund, and you have these brokers. They’re trying to rip your face off on a trade. It’s like, “Look, I’m trying to do 100 trades with you. You can rip my face off one trade, but I’m not coming back to you.” To your point, that’s not fair. A fair transaction or a fair deal is hopefully both people walking away feeling like they got a pretty good deal. In business, too, a lot of these businesses are bottom line. The NFL is a bottom-line business.

You’re judged on wins and losses and hedge fund. You’re judged on P&L. In business, you’re judged on revenue and EBITDA, etc. It’s a very bottom-line business. At the end of the day, at least in my opinion, I’ve learned a lot of these things from Gary Vee, like you still have to be a good person. You still have to build relationships and be trusted. People generally want to do business with people they like and trust. I’ve lived by that mantra, being a good person, being accountable, and being trustworthy. More times than not, people want to do business with you if that’s your personality and that’s how you conduct your business professionally.

Chris’ Lightning Round

We’re just about out of time when we’re going to do a lightning round, Chris. This is basically a couple of questions, just top of mind. I want to kick it off, and then Shawne, I’m sure, always has good ones. I’m going to ask you one thing that ticks you off.

I was going to add on that because being late for us was a $5,000 fine. Unfortunately, we cannot implement that anymore, but being late for us, we were getting our paycheck snatched.

I got fined one time in my eleven years, and I was late and never lived it down.

Did you eat ramen for a week to make up for it?

Get those five G’s back.

My favorite questions here. I’ve got so many for you. What’s one unexpected thing that you’ve learned about success? We’ve talked about the success principles, but is there anything that you found that leads to success or that you’ve learned about success that you never really had considered until now?

Honestly, I don’t think so. Think it’s pretty clear. Some people start on third base where they have opportunities based on their family or certain situations, but generally, nothing’s a surprise to me. I think in general, you have to work hard, you got to make sacrifices, you got to be consistent, and you got to show up. I don’t think anything’s surprised me. In today’s world, looking at brands, I look at brands all day.

How they’re successful, how they market their brands, and who they partner with. Generally, it’s not a surprise. I am surprised in this creator world at how some of these creators get so successful. That’s been surprising to me because I just don’t understand that world enough to wrap my head around it. It’s backtracking on my answer. That has surprised me in today’s world, this creator economy and MrBeast of the world and some of these influencers or content creators. Sometimes I’m like, “How the heck are they so successful? What are they doing? This does not seem like rocket science, but they put in the work.”

AI is a pretty scary thing, but you can use it in a smart way that will benefit your business. Share on X

Managing your social media is a full-time job. Coming up with creative ways to capture people’s attention. We live in this attention economy where everything’s about attention. How do I grab people’s attention? How do I get in the focus on my post more than 3 seconds or 10 seconds, etc. I think that’s been a surprise to me how the world has just changed where it’s all about content and creative and attention.

We’ve started to focus on that with our business. In 2025, we’re going to 20X our content, we’re going to 20X our creative, and we’re going to lean into influencer marketing and affiliate marketing. Our return on spend on Email SMS is great. There has to be the right content. The right creative and speaks to consumers how they want to be spoken to or live in these channels or consumers or ad, etc. That’s been a surprise for sure.

That’s super interesting. That’s something that Shawne’s an expert in. Shawne, what do you think? We talked about it on a prior podcast about this idea of gatekeepers no longer being relevant. Now, it’s more about the individual. Shawne, what do you think?

That’ll be, and I’m a part of it. I have these cool, silent videos. Some of my videos get hundreds of thousands, not millions, of views. In a sense, I’ve become a content creator, but it’s different because we were coming up the five big platforms for TV was your Fox Sports, ESPN, now you have these podcasts and some of them have millions of subs on YouTube and they have millions of downloads. In a sense, they become the gatekeeper. They become the main factor of media where you sit back when we were coming up.

To get on Fox Sports and have a seat at Fox Sports or ESPN or CBS or NBC was that was it. Now it’s a verse. These content creators, they’re the ones holding the keys. To your point, like MrBeast from the world and Cai and all these streamers, the landscape has changed tremendously. It’s as fast as you can pivot and tap into that market. You can have the growth with a lot of these guys in that same vertical.

I try to my kids, I didn’t have my first cell phone that I was 21. We didn’t have Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or Twitter, any of this stuff when we played. I think there are a lot of good things that can happen, especially with athletes and entertainers. You can build a brand and be successful by building your brand. That’s what I’ve been focused on for at least the last couple of months.

The more I can get my stories out there and try to make an impact and the more I’ve built my personal brand, I think, you I know for sure that Fathead will benefit from that. I’ve been focused on that, like I said, the last couple of months, and podcasts, to your point, Shawne, are huge sources of media or news or entertainment. You look at what Joe Rogan’s doing, it’s just a pretty epic platform and community that he’s built.

I’m not going to talk about politics, but like a lot of people go to him, he’s a very bright guy, and he’s got a diverse group of guests on there and debating in a very educational way and intentional way, etc. The landscape has changed, but I think it’s scary sometimes. This whole AI thing is pretty scary to me, but I think if you’re able to use it in a very smart way, you can certainly benefit. We’re seeing that in our business for sure.

Chris, I appreciate you coming on. Shawne and I both clearly admire the business that you’re leading, and it seems like it’s in great hands. I don’t know how it was doing before you bought it, but it seems like you’ve got a great grip on it. I know you’re going to be successful.

Appreciate it, guys. My pleasure being here. Thanks for having me.

You got it. Appreciate it.

Guys. Take care.

Take care, Chris.

Important Links

• Zack Ellison on LinkedIn
• Zack Ellison on Instagram
• The 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison (podcast)
• Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.) website
• Shawne Merriman on LinkedIn
• Shawne Merriman on Instagram
• Lights Out Sports TV website
• Lights Out Xtreme Fighting website
• Chris Hetherington on LinkedIn
• Fathead
• Chris Hetherington on Instagram
• Outlier Project

About Chris Hetherington

Chris Hetherington’s diverse background includes earning a B.S. in Psychology from Yale University, playing in the National Football League for 11 years, attending the Business Management and Entrepreneurship Programs at Harvard Business School & Wharton School of Business, and achieving success as an experienced Executive (3x CEO), Board Member, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Investor, and Mentor.

Mr. Hetherington is an inspirational leader, who is motivated by internal standards of excellence to overachieve expectations and exceed all set goals, stemming from his experience as a professional athlete.

After retiring from the NFL in 2007, Chris was a Managing Director at Evolution Financial Group for 11 years, where he held numerous senior leadership positions.

Chris is currently an Owner and CEO of Fathead. For the past 18 years, Fathead has been the undisputed leader in licensed and personalized custom surface decals, bringing fans closer to what they love. With licenses representing the world’s most valuable, prominent IP, as well as innovative custom products, including Big Heads and Standouts, Fathead has been bringing joy to fans for almost 2 decades.