Episode 45: $700 Million Small Cap Credit Fund Manager Hunter Hayes of Intrepid Capital on Building a New Strategy Within a Successful Boutique | How Owning Your Different Unlocks Growth
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If your analytical brain needs FACTS to back up the power of left-brain growth tactics, you’re in luck.
Today's guest, Hunter Hayes, combines his classical piano training with impressive business sense, showing that there’s real power in combining art and science to edge ahead in the fund world.
In this episode, he and Stacy discuss:
His journey from pianist and D1 track star to successful fund manager
The differentiation playbook that boosted Intrepid Income Fund (ICMUX) from $50M to $550M AUM
How he spotted inefficiencies in the small-cap fixed-income world, giving Intrepid a competitive edge
The simple habits that helped him gain traction in the fund world
His top tips for new fund managers
About Hunter Hayes:
Hunter Hayes is the Chief Investment Officer at Intrepid Capital, which he joined in 2017 after working in credit at Eaton Vance (now Morgan Stanley) and consulting at Deloitte.
Hunter wears lots of hats at Intrepid, which has AUM of ~$900 million, but is primarily a portfolio manager of the Intrepid Income Fund (ICMUX) and the separately managed Intrepid Income portfolio, which has collectively grown from ~$50 million of AUM in 2019 to ~$550 million of AUM today. Hunter focuses mainly on liquid, small-cap credit investments and was previously a research analyst covering small-cap securities.
He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree in Finance and his Bachelor of Music degree in Performance Piano from Auburn University, where he also competed as a scholarship track and field athlete. Outside of work, he is an avid runner and musician.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Books: Once a Runner by John L. Parker Jr. , How My Heart Sings by Bill Evans
Songs: Nas - N.Y. State of Mind
TRANSCRIPT
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
[00:00:00] Hunter Hayes: There's just so many opportunities to win fans in different pockets. And so this idea that I think we had defaulted to, that we need to be all things to all people turned out to be a little bit paralyzing because within the context of that broad investor universe, there's a million different wants and needs.
[00:00:19] Hunter Hayes: For how people deploy capital, and you're not going to fit even a fraction of them. Even that little subtle change towards being a little bit more targeted, a little bit more consistent with who we were. It changed the caliber of the type of people, type of prospects that were coming our way significantly.
[00:00:36] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacy Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the toughest boys club, Wall Street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow on assets for investment boutiques. You could say against the odds.
[00:00:56] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Understatement. I share [00:01:00] stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here. Money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales, and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour.
[00:01:21] Stacy Havener: Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is. The Billion Dollar Backstory Podcast.
[00:01:33] Stacy Havener: Today's conversation is another point for my theory that we are ands, not ors. We are right brain and left brain. We are artists and scientists. We are classically trained piano players, D1 track stars, and successful fund managers. Wait, huh? Today's conversation with Hunter Hayes is all about the ands.
[00:01:57] Stacy Havener: Hunter will challenge every stereotype you've [00:02:00] had about the typical Wall Street fund manager. He'll challenge the idea that small cap is only a quote, thing in equities. He'll inspire us to think about building a boutique strategy within a successful boutique. He is as inspiring and humble. As he is smart and cool, grab a coffee and get comfy.
[00:02:22] Stacy Havener: You don't want to miss this. Meet my friend and client of Havener, Hunter Hayes, Hunter. Thank you so much for being in the billion dollar backstory studio today. This is an honor. And for me on a couple levels, one, I'm just a huge Hunter fan to, we're friends three, you're actually a client. So there's like just so much magic here.
[00:02:45] Stacy Havener: Thank you for being here.
[00:02:46] Hunter Hayes: I'm so excited to be here and have been looking forward to this for a while.
[00:02:50] Stacy Havener: Okay, we are going to dive in. And I have the benefit of knowing some components of your backstory. But I also know [00:03:00] that you're going to elaborate on this in new ways, even for me. So let's start with that.
[00:03:06] Stacy Havener: Tell us a little bit about your journey to become a fund manager.
[00:03:10] Hunter Hayes: Oh, wow. Well, I guess depending on how far you want to go back, it's been a pretty eclectic journey. You know, look, first of all, I was lucky enough to be born into a very nurturing household. You know, I had parents that were super supportive of whatever I wanted to do, very multidisciplinary background.
[00:03:29] Hunter Hayes: You know, I grew up playing instruments and playing sports and got a great education. And so. I was lucky and very blessed growing up to have all those, all those ingredients. I really started to get interested in money management as a teenager. You know, it's a little cliche to say, always find it funny when I talk to high school students or I talk to young people who are already interested in investing because it sounds so cliche, but it's true.
[00:03:54] Hunter Hayes: Some people get the bug early on. And my dad who built a small business and [00:04:00] came from very modest backgrounds with my mom nurtured that and loved that I was interested in the stock market, you know, would show me things in the wall street journal and was an amateur investor himself. And so from a very early age, I was encouraged to pursue that and, you know, tried to read all the classic investor texts in high school, understood probably five or 10 percent of what I was reading, but I tried to read them.
[00:04:23] Hunter Hayes: And so that planted the seed for me. That sort of multidisciplinary background permeated through my whole education and early career. So I actually went to school for piano performance in addition to finance. So I got a dual degree and then I ran, I ran track at Auburn University. So when I went on the running scholarship and I would say I was kind of above average at all those things, not really spectacular at any of them, but I had such a passion and curiosity for all these different things.
[00:04:47] Hunter Hayes: And I loved where I went to school because I got to have these different vantage points, which gave me this really I think differentiated way of thinking about things across those different disciplines, but I knew I wanted to go into money management as a career that [00:05:00] was kind of always the idea. And so when I came out of school, I actually took sort of a circuitous path.
[00:05:06] Hunter Hayes: I went into consulting out of school at Deloitte up in Boston. So I went to school down in Alabama and that's where Auburn is and went up to the Northeast and did that for about a year. And then landed a job in money management and haven't looked back since it's been an amazing last decade and have definitely benefited from being in the right place at the right time sometimes, but taking advantage of that too.
[00:05:27] Hunter Hayes: And yeah, that's the broad strokes of how we got here.
[00:05:30] Stacy Havener: Okay, wait, I have to ask some questions. Okay, first of all, you obviously were talented. Runner if you went on scholarship to Auburn, so I appreciate the humility, but we're gonna give props where props are due Also super interesting. I didn't I don't know if I knew you got a degree in piano So this is like this is really left brain right brain I mean you are an and not an or just even in your degrees
[00:05:59] Hunter Hayes: Well, I [00:06:00] appreciate that.
[00:06:00] Hunter Hayes: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely helped in unexpected ways. Just with the way that I approach things, I make the comparison between sort of studying a score of music and doing financial statement analysis.
[00:06:14] Speaker 3: Wow. Very different, but
[00:06:16] Hunter Hayes: Similar in the intensity required and just having to go sort of note by note or line by line, depending on what you're looking at.
[00:06:23] Hunter Hayes: And so there are some analogs there, but I draw on it all the time. You know, the biggest thing that a degree in music gives you, if you're in a performance degree, is just confidence in front of people. I mean, you know, memorizing music and then having to sit there and play 30 minute or hour long concerts, it, it takes a lot of iterations.
[00:06:42] Hunter Hayes: I certainly had a lot of. Failures related to that. And so, and I say that was a theme while I think about it throughout my experiences leading up to this point is just, I was allowed to fail a lot, you know, piano, I can't even count the number of times that I've messed things up or stopped in the middle of a concert as a kid and just [00:07:00] learned that life goes on when you make those mistakes.
[00:07:03] Hunter Hayes: Same with running, obviously a lot of races that I did not win most races that I did not win. And so. I have instilled in me this idea that it's more about how you come back and improve and, and the process versus the results necessarily. So I was really lucky to have that, have that experience early on.
[00:07:20] Stacy Havener: Let's jumpstart from that and kind of take, stay with that vibe and now take it to sort of the asset class you're in. Because there are some really interesting kind of parallels and threads throughout. Kind of who you are and why you do what you do and what you do every day. So when you got into money management, did you go into the space you're in now?
[00:07:41] Stacy Havener: Well, talk about where you are now and then how did you get there? What asset class are you specialize in?
[00:07:46] Hunter Hayes: That's a good question. The short answer is kind of.
[00:07:49] Stacy Havener: Okay.
[00:07:50] Hunter Hayes: So I got into the general hemisphere of money management that I am in now. Same top level asset class, which I, you know, I categorize as fixed [00:08:00] income, but, you know, the first job I got in money management was at a big blue chip manager and it was very process oriented.
[00:08:08] Hunter Hayes: It was exactly what I needed. I learned the nuts and bolts of credit analysis, which I think it's a great first place to start if you're interested in money management and, you know, candidly, as much as I had prepared myself for this career, as much as I knew that it was something I wanted to do. I knew hilariously little about fixed income when I went into the asset class, which is just being honest.
[00:08:29] Stacy Havener: Yeah.
[00:08:30] Hunter Hayes: And credit generally, and this is what eventually made me realize it was the perfect fit for me. Although I did not realize this when I went into it, I just sort of knew it was a good asset class to start in and it was right place at the right time for me. But credit is very esoteric in a lot of ways.
[00:08:46] Hunter Hayes: It's super interesting. You know, I had an early mentor that said credit is a closed end equation versus equity is an open end equation. And what he meant by that was just with most fixed income instruments, you know, [00:09:00] as the name implies, you have a fixed stream of payments and you have a maturity date.
[00:09:04] Hunter Hayes: And so when you're thinking about it quantitatively, you know, really you can. Disaggregate the whole puzzle into what is the likelihood of those payments coming back? And what is the likelihood of me getting my money back and maturity? You know, that at a very high level is sort of what you're solving for.
[00:09:19] Hunter Hayes: Very different from equity, which can be very narrative driven, depends on a lot more variables and therefore it can be a lot more volatile. And so I was really attracted to that. It was different. Fixed income also has a narrative piece, especially the type of fixed income that I do now and higher yielding credit.
[00:09:35] Hunter Hayes: But I definitely lucked out in the sense that I was instantly drawn into an asset class that I had a proclivity for
[00:09:42] Speaker 3: and
[00:09:43] Hunter Hayes: that I eventually developed a pension for. So those early years were very much technical driven, trying to get good at the nuts and bolts, as I said, of just credit analysis, which takes time.
[00:09:51] Hunter Hayes: Credit analysis is. Complicated, you have to understand financial statements. You have to be able to interpret how a balance sheet translates to [00:10:00] creditworthiness. You have to be able to understand cash flows. You have to be able to understand the moving parts and businesses and every business is different.
[00:10:06] Hunter Hayes: Every industry is different. So those first few years were really about sort of soaking all that in. But to get back to your question, I think I was attracted early on to this smaller part of the fixed income market. You know, we call it today, a small cap credit. Which is not a well used moniker, but that's what we call it internally.
[00:10:25] Hunter Hayes: I'm intrepid and small cap credit. We compare to small cap equity back in the quote unquote glory days of stock picking back in the 70s and 80s. The era that I read about when I read all these classic value investor texts, when I was developing the bug, there was a lot of 0. 50 out there in the sense that there were a lot of undervalued securities.
[00:10:48] Hunter Hayes: And we think a lot of that was a function of less access to financials. You know, today, everyone in this industry has access to real time information, information overload, really, you know, you have more than you know what to do [00:11:00] with oftentimes and access to information in the stock market is pretty accessible and it's made the market a lot more efficient.
[00:11:06] Hunter Hayes: It's made treasure hunting a lot more difficult. And obviously it's cyclical, you know, sometimes things are very efficient and, and tight. And then they'll dislodge and you can find all sorts of bargains. And so we may be headed into more of a bargain era, but the world that we live in now, this small cap fixed income world, it's ripe with inefficiencies.
[00:11:24] Hunter Hayes: And that's mainly a function of one lack of access. A lot of these companies, you have to get set up on a data room to get access to the financials. They're not standardized. They're not in a Bloomberg terminal that you can look up easily. And then also just by virtue of being smaller, and you saw this same effect with small cap equities back in the old days, less eyeballs, less institutional eyeballs are on them.
[00:11:46] Hunter Hayes: And a really unique aspect of the type of fixed income that we do at Intrepid is, you know, a lot of these securities are what are called 144A securities, which is a way of saying that they're only eligible to be purchased by [00:12:00] qualified institutional buyers or QIBS, Q I B S. And you have to have a net worth of a hundred million or more to be able to purchase these, these one 44 a bonds.
[00:12:10] Hunter Hayes: And so we're fishing in a pond that we don't have all that much competition. And, and, you know, that creates a lot more really interesting opportunities for us to find value. So was gravitated towards that instantly. Once I started to discover it, even at my, my previous employer, and then when I came to Intrepid and we had this fixed income strategy that, you know, it was sort of primed to be looking at these sorts of things.
[00:12:33] Hunter Hayes: It was just a perfect fit and we've taken off since then and had some really great results. So super excited
[00:12:39] Stacy Havener: So what I think is cool about that piece is the creative side of you when you were first talking about credit, you know, you're like, it's finite. You can do the math. It's all right there for you.
[00:12:54] Stacy Havener: And yet you are this creative individual, this musician, an [00:13:00] artist. And now as you were talking about the space you're in, I can feel that creativity and I can see how you're able to tap into that side of you on a day to day basis. So that's making me ask this question now. So we had the creative thread.
[00:13:16] Stacy Havener: We also kind of had a little entrepreneur thread there. I think you talked about your dad. So I want to pull that thread forward and talk about kind of, so you go to Intrepid, which was an established company. But there's some unique twists to that because you were able to start a new strategy. So talk that through.
[00:13:34] Hunter Hayes: Yeah, no, it's a great point and kind of unique aspect of the Intrepid story, a theme throughout Intrepid story. So I think if you asked anyone I work with here, they would confirm that I'm very entrepreneurial, you know, and it definitely comes from watching my dad and mom. Build this small business. I sold closed caption security cameras, CCTV security cameras when that was becoming a big thing in the 80s and 90s.
[00:13:56] Hunter Hayes: And I had a front row seat to all the triumphs and all the [00:14:00] failures, the wrong word, but all the difficulties with growing a small, small business. And you know, I think people either love it or hate it when it comes to entrepreneurship, you know, people are either attracted to that difficult journey or they're repelled by it.
[00:14:15] Hunter Hayes: I was definitely attracted to it. So when I joined Intrepid, you know, it's a small team. Intrepid had a storied history when I joined in 2017, going all the way back to the 90s. We were founded by a father son team, Forrest and Mark Travis, and they'd had a lot of success in mainly small cap equity. That was one of the big things that attracted me to the story was, you know, these guys had had all this success and small cap equity.
[00:14:39] Hunter Hayes: And I had looked at this sort of small cap credit strategy that I had incubated in my head at that point and thought, you know, this could be a perfect fit for me. So I was able to stand on the shoulders of giants when I came to Intrepid, you know, Intrepid had had Lipper award winning funds, you know, had been featured on the cover of in the past.
[00:14:58] Hunter Hayes: Had had all these [00:15:00] successes and it was humbling for me in a way because I had many opportunities to start my own thing over the years going back to even 2019 2020 there were some opportunities to sort of set up my own shop and it was a difficult decision for me because I loved the idea of that.
[00:15:18] Hunter Hayes: Entrepreneurial journey. And so I went to our founder and told him, Hey, look, I really need X, Y, and Z if I'm going to continue to build this thing with an intrepid four walls. And I would really prefer to do it that way. It's better for, I think all of us and to our founder's credit and to intrepid's credit, he gave me that latitude.
[00:15:34] Speaker 3: That's awesome.
[00:15:36] Hunter Hayes: And the firm gave me that latitude to incubate this product and candidly, you know, even the product had already been established. We had a high yield strategy going back to the nineties. And so we did make some changes. We retrofitted it, but a lot of the pieces were already there. And so in a way, it was almost like buying a discounted security, right?
[00:15:56] Hunter Hayes: And again, I think I got very lucky, but the way that I timed it, the [00:16:00] strategy had been somewhat stagnant growth wise for a while. We sort of retrofitted it with this concept that I mentioned around the small cap debt, but we kept a lot of the elements the same as well. You know, the strategy had a long history of doing great credit work.
[00:16:13] Hunter Hayes: Very few, if any workouts or defaults in the strategy over at that point, a 20 year or so history. And so we had all these building blocks to go off of. And then, of course, the world changed coming out of covid with rates going up and inflation and all these other factors that were actually really positive for us
[00:16:31] Speaker 3: from
[00:16:31] Hunter Hayes: an opportunities perspective and from a capital deployment perspective.
[00:16:34] Hunter Hayes: So a lot of things worked in our favor. But, you know, I think one of my favorite quotes about luck is that it's where hard work meets opportunity.
[00:16:42] Speaker 3: Yes. You
[00:16:42] Hunter Hayes: know, you have to have both. It's not enough to just be lucky. You have to do the work and be ready for when the luck hits. And I think the quote unquote luckiest element of my story so far has been that I've been at a shop that has been so supportive.
[00:16:55] Hunter Hayes: Of that entrepreneurial spirit within an established business, which requires a [00:17:00] lot of humility across the board. I think I've observed a lot of other shops suffering from an ability to have that ability to incubate within. I think it's one of the common dysfunctions of established businesses. And so I've been very privileged to have that opportunity here.
[00:17:16] Hunter Hayes: And it's made getting the strategy off the ground a lot easier. You know, and the strategy in 2019 was around 50 million, 50, 60 million. And,
[00:17:25] Stacy Havener: oh, that's what I was going to ask. Good. Yes. Give us the context of the whole thing.
[00:17:28] Hunter Hayes: Exactly. And today we're over 600 million. So it's been, you know, over the last five or so years and a 10 X in our AUM and more importantly, we've, we've delivered really fantastic risk adjusted returns, you know, and done some great credit work and we've.
[00:17:40] Hunter Hayes: You know, I've worked with the same people on the investment team for the last five years. So we have this cogent, really tight knit investment team of people that can finish my sentences and a group that works really well together. So a lot of ingredients came together and the work was definitely a part of it.
[00:17:55] Hunter Hayes: Luck was definitely a part of it. But going back to your question, I think one of the key [00:18:00] elements has been that I was able to do this within an established business because an investment management. When you know this, Stacey, the hardest part is getting off the ground, right? You know, just totally get into that first sort of hurdle out of the box is very difficult and requires a lot of perseverance and a lot of the stuff that I've been talking about.
[00:18:18] Hunter Hayes: And so for me to be able to bypass all that through Intrepid's platform, and also being given the rope to develop on this existing product, And change some elements of it and put us in a position to be where we've gotten to, or to get where we've gotten to, it's just, it's been a great story. It's been a great experience and we think we're just getting started.
[00:18:38] Hunter Hayes: We think we're in the first lap of a very long race for us. And so we're really excited about where we're going.
[00:18:46] Speaker 4: Are you an investment boutique looking to grow your business and need a little help? If you feel like you're fighting for the spotlight and, well, still stuck in the shadows of the bigs, join us in the Boutique Investment Collective, Havener's new membership community [00:19:00] dedicated to the specialist in the investment industry.
[00:19:02] Speaker 4: In the collective, we'll guide you through the billion dollar blueprint we've used to help boutiques add over 30 billion in AUM. You'll refine your story, focus on your ideal target market, and practice your pitch. You'll rethink your marketing materials, rewrite your emails, and refresh your differentiators.
[00:19:20] Speaker 4: We'll even help you step up your LinkedIn game and give your profile a makeover. You want to grow your biz? We've got your back. Learn more about The Collective, the curriculum, and the amazing coaches who will help you on your journey. Visit HavenerCapital. com slash Collective. High five! Hope to see you in a coaching session soon.
[00:19:47] Stacy Havener: Thank you for sharing all this. And I can imagine, you know, if we put ourselves in the shoes of people listening, this idea of sort of incubating a strategy within an existing boutique or even just [00:20:00] like a boutique within a boutique or a startup within a, you know, there's kind of all these ways of saying it, but it is something that our industry needs more of.
[00:20:09] Stacy Havener: And so I have one more context piece. So it was a 50 million strategy. Now you're over 600. When you joined Intrepid, though, what was the overall AUM about ballpark?
[00:20:19] Hunter Hayes: Oh, gosh, it's been a little cyclical. The overall AUM when I joined, so I joined in 2017, and we had some equity strategies that were, A good amount bigger than they are today.
[00:20:29] Hunter Hayes: So sure. Overall AUM was probably around seven, 800 million might've been give or take a hundred million. And candidly, as this strategy was getting off the ground, COVID hit rates going up, although it turned out to be a good thing. And this is. Not an uncommon theme in investing, you know, quote, unquote, good things can actually be bad things.
[00:20:47] Hunter Hayes: And it was certainly bad for overall AUM clients and investors of ours were panicked. Obviously the world came to a halt. And so we troughed AUM probably around 300 million around, you know, 2020, [00:21:00] 2021. And that was across the whole firm. And today we're, you know, I think we're North of 900 million today as of this past month.
[00:21:07] Hunter Hayes: So, you know, that cyclicality is. Again, it goes back to sort of your appetite for entrepreneurship. Some people are very averse to that roller coaster and some people live for it. And then, you know, enjoy the challenge that comes with this, this industry and other industries that are cyclical and difficult.
[00:21:24] Hunter Hayes: And so we have definitely been on the bottom and on the top over the last few years. Yeah.
[00:21:30] Stacy Havener: But what I love about it, though, is that it gives the context of, as you said, sort of that risk appetite, you know, for Mark and the team to be where they were when you joined and say, Hey, you know what? We are going to do this.
[00:21:47] Stacy Havener: We are going to go all in on this idea. And these pivots. And launch something new in a really tough time. And that's what they always say, right? That's when you really make your money.
[00:21:58] Speaker 3: Right.
[00:21:59] Stacy Havener: Right. When you take [00:22:00] a chance, when things seem stacked against you more than maybe in reality, they actually were.
[00:22:06] Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
[00:22:07] Stacy Havener: So I just love the bravery and the courage of you and the team to band together to do this thing.
[00:22:13] Hunter Hayes: Appreciate that. It's taken a lot of trust. I think. To have a situation like this work, you have to have trust and, you know, Mark and the whole team here have put a lot of trust in me and in the team and the other portfolio managers we've named on the fund, Joe Vancavage and Matt Parker.
[00:22:29] Hunter Hayes: And so we've, we've definitely bonded over that, over that trust and, you know, trust is, you know, A muscle, right? You continue to use it stronger and stronger. And I think we've been developing that for five plus years now. So we're, we're in a really good place there. And to your point, you know, people don't realize just how wired we are to do the opposite of these things we should be doing.
[00:22:49] Hunter Hayes: Humans are wired neurologically to, you know, run from danger and to, you know, it's fight or flight, right? So, and to, uh, be greedy when everybody else is being greedy. And so [00:23:00] being able to go against those trends, you know, being able to be counter cyclical, being able to You know, courage is a nice adjective.
[00:23:06] Hunter Hayes: Uh, I don't know if I'd call us religious, but certainly takes some gumption to be able to go against those things. And I think that's something we've done well. It helps that we're based in Northeast Florida away from all of the, uh, noise of bigger financial hubs. And, you know, that insulates us a little bit, I think from some crowd behavior.
[00:23:24] Hunter Hayes: And so, you know, we feel like we have a lot of, use the word again, but ingredients to help us be unique and to have some of the successes that we've had.
[00:23:32] Stacy Havener: Let's stay with that. And let's stay with this idea of the courage and going against the grain and this whole concept, because One of the things I talk about a lot and I've talked with you about is this attract and repel and it takes a lot of courage to lean into what you're uniquely good at, you know, what's differentiated about your strategy and to own it with authenticity and then say that.
[00:23:57] Stacy Havener: To the world, knowing that they're going to [00:24:00] be investors who go, that is not for me. And this was a journey for you having been kind of alongside for a couple of years now to really sort of lean into that. The elements of your portfolio and your strategy and your philosophy, quite frankly, that might be scary.
[00:24:19] Stacy Havener: I'm using air quotes. No one can see me, but that might be scary to investors. Can you talk about that a little bit? I mean, it's so qualitative. It's so attraction repel. And also I'm sure you had moments where like, are we really going to do that? Are we really going to own this side of what we're doing?
[00:24:36] Hunter Hayes: Yeah, it's a profound point and one that you're very familiar with because we've had so many conversations about this and you've helped us so much with discovering this identity and teasing out the elements of it. Kind of like a beacon can attract investors that are like minded. What I'd say first is, it was scary for us to adapt to that mode of thinking.
[00:24:57] Hunter Hayes: One thing that I think we underestimated, [00:25:00] heuristically, is just how big the universe of eligible investors actually is.
[00:25:05] Stacy Havener: Yes.
[00:25:06] Hunter Hayes: There are a lot of folks deploying capital, not just the U. S., but across the world, you know, and it's increasingly globalized world where capital is moving into the U. S. and out of the U.
[00:25:17] Hunter Hayes: S. I say this because there's just so many opportunities to win fans in different pockets. And so this idea that I think we had defaulted to, maybe not consciously, but that we had defaulted to, that we need to be all things to all people, turned out to be a little bit paralyzing. Because. Within the context of that broad investor universe, there's a million different wants and needs for how people deploy capital.
[00:25:43] Hunter Hayes: And you're not going to fit even a fraction of them, not even a tiny fraction of those wants and needs. If you're specific, and if you're boutique, and we are specific, and we are boutique, and we're differentiated. And so I think a key, you know, going back to the beacon analogy, I think a key sort [00:26:00] of thing that we didn't even know we needed to figure out, but that we eventually figured out we needed to figure out was how do we hone that beacon to find the people that align with us, to find the people that acknowledge what we do, understand what we do, want to be along for the ride.
[00:26:16] Hunter Hayes: And we'll give us the latitude to make those decisions. And I've been astonished as we've done that one, how many people there are that fit that, that are similar to us and that understand what we're doing. Because look, a lot of the early conversations we have with prospective investors, we're just.
[00:26:32] Hunter Hayes: Almost like we were talking in different languages because we talked about certain elements what we did and they either didn't have the appetite for it or didn't appreciate some of the nuances per se and so once we started to make our outbound marketing a little bit more targeted. And eventually it became very targeted, but even that little subtle change towards being a little bit more targeted, a little bit more consistent with who we were again, I think it changed the caliber of [00:27:00] the type of people type of prospects that were coming our way significantly.
[00:27:03] Hunter Hayes: So it is, I think, anyone who's in the throes of trying to raise capital or trying to build an investment management business, that's just such a key element, because as you grow the business and it's, you know, Develop more products and you develop more funnels and more things that people could be interested in.
[00:27:21] Hunter Hayes: I think it becomes easier to have multiple conversations and we're starting to adapt to that too, as we've had growth and you know, we're thinking about additional products and we're in the middle of launching another product, but it goes back to this idea of building it brick by brick, right? When you're first starting and when you really want to get the thing off the ground and raise those first dollars, I think it's maybe the most pivotal thing, knowing who you are and being able to communicate that to people, because I think there are definitely people out there that it will resonate with.
[00:27:52] Stacy Havener: Yes.
[00:27:52] Hunter Hayes: And look, I thought our strategy was just so Bespoke and so different that it was going to be really hard. I was thinking to myself, where are the [00:28:00] three people in the world that will care about this, but it's been vastly bigger than that. And we're still in pockets of people who now see our materials, what I think are very well crafted towards what we're looking for and say, Hey, that is really interesting.
[00:28:15] Hunter Hayes: That's different. That's what we're looking for. And then we can have those conversations.
[00:28:20] Stacy Havener: Yes, it's like a master class in, as you said, finding your fans, sort of putting out that beacon of this is who we are, and then being brave enough to attract and repel. And I want to ask you, I think I know the answer, but I want to ask it anyway.
[00:28:36] Stacy Havener: So when you're having these conversations with investors, isn't it so much more fun?
[00:28:41] Hunter Hayes: Oh, it's absolutely more fun. I mean, it's kind of a, uh, kind of a weed out process, right?
[00:28:46] Stacy Havener: Totally.
[00:28:47] Hunter Hayes: Because when your point of contact with a prospect is something that's authentic, you know, when you're talking to them that you've already gotten through that part, you know, it's kind of like having a, if you were putting together a dating profile, [00:29:00] having a dating profile, that's a lot more consistent with who you are.
[00:29:02] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:29:03] Hunter Hayes: You know, versus one that has a wide aperture and some liberal sort of things in there. So I think it helps us match with people that are much more aligned with what we're trying to do.
[00:29:13] Stacy Havener: Yeah. And the other thing I love about it. Is the new partnerships that come from this right? The idea that when you're talking to these like minded investors, you've become friends with them.
[00:29:26] Stacy Havener: You're aligned your partners in the truest sense of the word. Then all of a sudden they're like, Hey, you know, or they have an idea for something new or you have an idea for something new. And those true fans by definition are the people that say like, If you're doing it, I am interested in it. I want to know about it and I might be right there with you And so I just love that for you that you're finding your people
[00:29:51] Hunter Hayes: not to mention the scale effects that come with building
[00:29:54] Speaker 3: Oh
[00:29:54] Hunter Hayes: fans of what you're doing, right?
[00:29:56] Hunter Hayes: I mean at this point we're enjoying The scale [00:30:00] effects which really come by the way of referrals.
[00:30:01] Speaker 3: Yes,
[00:30:02] Hunter Hayes: and it's gotten to the point You know where some of those earlier investors with us that we've done a nice job for Are Almost using us as a point of pride when talking to other people that do what they do, other capital allocators.
[00:30:16] Hunter Hayes: And that's the best type of referral, right? If they get asked, what are you doing for your high yield allocation? Or what are you doing in credit? And they mentioned us and say, this has been a bright spot in my portfolio. I would prefer all our introductions come that way because it's the perfect way to start a conversation.
[00:30:32] Hunter Hayes: And so, you know, doing right by those people that become your fans and become, you know, investors in your products is I think the most important thing, right? Building those roots because they can be your natural sales force going forward. And we've definitely benefited from that. I mean, we've been super lucky there and have a lot of folks that have become, as you put it, friends.
[00:30:51] Stacy Havener: Yeah, and you know, I think it's such a fabulous point on the fact that they, they view you as a source of [00:31:00] pride and we've talked with you about this and I've talked a lot about this for frequent listeners of the podcast that Rogers adoption curve and, you know, sort of making sure that you're targeting the right part of the curve.
[00:31:11] Stacy Havener: Where you are in your evolution. One of the things that's really interesting about early adopters is exactly what you said. They are connoisseurs. They do take pride in being early in being able to pick up the phone and call Hunter. Cause Hunter's their boy. You know what I mean? Like that's a real thing.
[00:31:30] Stacy Havener: I actually want to talk about that a little bit on the distribution side. Cause you did something pretty naturally that we call, we call it the magic PM call and Part of it was just situational, but I think it was actually super special. So you ended up fielding calls with prospects and sort of picking up the phone and calling prospects and saying, Hey, it's Hunter.
[00:31:59] Stacy Havener: And [00:32:00] talk about what that was like, because salespeople are great. I'm a salesperson. I get it. Like salespeople are important, but when you have a direct line to sort of, I'm going to use founder, but like the founder, the portfolio manager, isn't that different? Like how special to get a phone call from you,
[00:32:18] Hunter Hayes: right?
[00:32:19] Hunter Hayes: No, it's been a key differentiator for us. And it's something that we, we talk about constantly, just our accessibility. You know, we noticed early on with a lot of investors we spoke with, you know, this was 2019, 2020, when the strategy was much smaller, whenever they would have a conversation with myself or anyone else working on a strategy, they would usually say something during the call.
[00:32:40] Hunter Hayes: Like, wow, this is, this is very different. You know, we normally are talking to a wholesaler. We're normally talking to someone, you know, two or three layers removed from the actual portfolio management and to sort of get a ground level account of what is happening and to be able to answer our questions directly rather than say, Oh, I'll check with the powers that be and get back to you.
[00:32:59] Hunter Hayes: It's hugely [00:33:00] refreshing.
[00:33:00] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:33:01] Hunter Hayes: And, you know, for us sort of in our, Growth mode and willing to put in hard work. This was easy, right? You know, having these conversations. And so when our sales folks were having conversations with, you know, prospective investors who either they found or who had reached out to us, that was always something that was offered very early on was the PM of the strategy.
[00:33:21] Hunter Hayes: We'd love to have a conversation with you and answer your questions. And that's only become more true as we've continued to grow and gotten bigger and bigger checks from investors. As we get to these bigger levels, it's even more true.
[00:33:32] Stacy Havener: Yeah.
[00:33:33] Hunter Hayes: It's more and more difficult to get a PM on a call or on a zoom and to have an in depth conversation on portfolio construction or on any of the other elements.
[00:33:43] Hunter Hayes: And look, I don't want to glamorize it too much. I think it's challenging. It's a sacrifice because obviously our, you know, as PMs on the product, our primary function is
[00:33:52] Speaker 3: doing the
[00:33:53] Hunter Hayes: analysis and all that. So, you know, sometimes it means that you have to moonlight and you have to do the analytical work in the [00:34:00] evenings and you have to spend a lot more time, you And you otherwise would, and that's just part of what it means to be entrepreneurial in our view.
[00:34:08] Hunter Hayes: And of course you have to carve out the time during the day, you know, to make sure that you're taking care of what you need to take care of. So we've been very intentional about that in terms of how we plan those conversations and how we avail ourselves. It also helps, you know, I mentioned that I've worked with the same investment team for the last five years, you know, it helps that we have four people that work on this strategy that are all sort of able to play the different roles.
[00:34:33] Hunter Hayes: You know, we have a very unique structure in which each of the PMs on the strategy also trade and also do analytical work. And so unlike a lot of blue chip models where you have dedicated analyst bullpen that just does research and then a dedicated PM stable that just does security selection based on that work and the dedicated traders, each of us are kind of self contained.
[00:34:57] Hunter Hayes: We have the ability to do all those things. And [00:35:00] we're generalists too. We don't take on specific sectors. We view it as a much better way to think about the world. And we like to go deep on things when we find value. And that ends up with the portfolio being relatively more concentrated than a lot of our peers.
[00:35:15] Hunter Hayes: But, you know, having that also gives us the ability, you know, if they're in the middle of the day, I need to take a call with someone. I know that Matt, Joe and Mark are taking over the slack. And so that has been a key element of why we've been able to continue to perform the way that we performed and continue to deliver the way that we've delivered despite this more entrepreneurial edge that we also have.
[00:35:35] Hunter Hayes: So yeah, no, I think it's a great point. It's been a key differentiator for us.
[00:35:40] Stacy Havener: Love that. Accessibility is so big. And as you scale, you'll put in the resources you already are so that, you know, you have the IR and the tiers and all the things, but what I love is you never forget those investors that took a chance on you in the beginning, and that is a special relationship.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Stacy Havener: Like those early investors are always going to be able to call you up and it's always going to hit you right in the fields. Cause you're like. I'm taking that call because they're in a different category because they've been with us from the beginning, right? And it's really awesome to see let's talk a little bit about Authenticity we've kind of had that thread woven throughout but there's a piece that I know that I want to get to
[00:36:25] Speaker 3: Yeah,
[00:36:25] Stacy Havener: which is one that's near and dear to my heart the fact that as a group You've also owned that you are not typical wall street Mm
[00:36:36] Hunter Hayes: hmm
[00:36:36] Stacy Havener: Can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:36:39] Hunter Hayes: Yeah. I mean, the authenticity piece was actually pretty easy for us. Once we made that light switch moment, once we had that light switch moment, because we are very much a, what you see is what you get sort of shop. I mean, look, we're based in Northeast Florida. You know, there's a few other financial services firms here, but we're certainly not in New York or, or Boston or any of these [00:37:00] other large hubs.
[00:37:01] Hunter Hayes: And most of the folks here went to state schools. I mean, I went to a state school, you know, our pedigree is a little bit different. I'd say hard work is sort of the unifying theme here. And so we have these sort of core values, core elements that I think resonate with a lot of the investors that we've attracted.
[00:37:20] Hunter Hayes: So really what it came down to was. We weren't intentionally shielding that. I mean, we're all proud of who we are and where we come from and we're not trying to hide that. It was more so that it wasn't a feature of what we were pushing forward. You know, it was that we didn't necessarily think that that would resonate as much as it has since we made that switch.
[00:37:41] Hunter Hayes: And then since we made that switch, I think we found that people love having conversations with us because of those. Thanks. Attributes. Yes. And because a lot of times they can relate, they can relate to who we are and where we come from and the way we focus on things. And you can even see it in the portfolio [00:38:00] allocation.
[00:38:00] Stacy Havener: I was hoping you were going to go there.
[00:38:02] Hunter Hayes: Yeah, we end up investing in companies that are Okay. As I mentioned, smaller, but more southeastern regional, because, you know, incidentally, we just get to know the companies better. They're easier for us to visit. We're very hands on type investors, very trust, but verified type investors.
[00:38:17] Hunter Hayes: And so we like getting to know management teams, even as lenders, which I think is somewhat unique and getting to meet with people in person and all these different things. And, you know, another big advantage of us being around for as long as we have been for 30 years, which is a really long time, as you know, Stacey, and in this industry, we've built those relationships over these decades, over all the really talented people that have worked at Intrepid.
[00:38:40] Hunter Hayes: So we have this Rolodex, this database of companies that we've lent to in the past, companies we've invested in the past. But oftentimes or sometimes or family owned or have concentrated ownership and sometimes have the same management team that's been in place for decades. And that's a, in our view, an ideal situation for us to be [00:39:00] lending into because we just have such a deeper understanding of how those businesses operate, how they're going to weather cycles, what their playbook is.
[00:39:09] Hunter Hayes: It gives us the confidence and that all comes back to authenticity and we have this vantage point. I think that coming from a stop doing similar things that was based in the northeast. We just didn't see a lot of it, you know, and oftentimes if we did see it, you know, some of these opportunities, they were too small for us to care about.
[00:39:27] Hunter Hayes: And so we really think we get to operate within this, you know, slice of the market that allows us to be authentic, that jives with the story that we tell, that jives with who we are. And that's been a huge differentiator. So yeah, authenticity is everything. I'll also say in the same way that the financial markets are efficient, the market for picking capital allocators is very efficient.
[00:39:48] Hunter Hayes: Capital allocators are sharp. They hear hundreds, if not thousands of pitches a year, they've heard anything and everything. And I think Capital allocators will tell you [00:40:00] one of the things that they think about most when they're meeting with someone for the first time is, is this authentic or said another way?
[00:40:07] Hunter Hayes: Do these components that they're telling me on jive and do they fit together? And does this story make sense? And does it resonate? And, you know, I think for us coming into that and realizing that a lot of what we were doing did jive and being able to communicate that, that it was such a big part of why we've been able to have the growth that we've had.
[00:40:25] Stacy Havener: That's my favorite part of the podcast so far. I can just throw my mic for you on that one. That was so good You know, it's so aligned and I feel like people are like, okay, we get it, but I just it's so aligned With what you do just like what you do the asset class you're in who you are Why you do what you do and who is attracted to you as a capital allocator?
[00:40:50] Stacy Havener: All of that is so aligned and to me that is the best thing Part of building a business as an entrepreneur, which is where I want to go next. So just [00:41:00] real quick What worked what didn't what surprised you on the journey so far if you're you know We've got listeners here who are you know in their own Spot on the evolution of building a boutique and i'm curious for your perspective
[00:41:15] Hunter Hayes: Well, I'll start with what didn't work since that's a much longer list than what did work.
[00:41:21] Hunter Hayes: And again, I think I said it earlier, I say this all the time. My wife and I talk about this quite often, actually, because she works in the entertainment industry. She's an actor and she, uh, deals with failure quite a bit and success, but failure quite a bit. And we talk about just the importance of being able to take that in stride and to be able to adapt and to learn from things and how ultimately successful people, you know, it's kind of.
[00:41:43] Hunter Hayes: Cliché to say it, but you know, are the ones that can dig through those tough times and come out the other side and tough times don't last, tough people do, there's all sorts of cute pithy cliches around that. Yeah. So I think what didn't work was actually, just as an opening comment, the most important stuff and being [00:42:00] able to survive those failures and to take risk, but appropriate risk has been a pivotal part of the successes that I have had.
[00:42:08] Hunter Hayes: You know, I think just psychologically, what didn't work for me was. Expecting things to proceed or grow in a linear fashion, expecting sort of a stair step growth path in my career, because I think a lot of people coming out of school who were competitive and maybe played sports or pursued a competitive degree or wanted to work on Wall Street, they probably suffer from this too.
[00:42:35] Hunter Hayes: So you sort of have to shift from a past this test. Do this assignment, get this degree, a check the box sort of approach to things to an open ended world where now you're no longer told what the next step is and you kind of have to figure it out and that can be really scary for some people. Some people really thrive in that environment.
[00:42:56] Hunter Hayes: For me, it was a bit of a, an evolution, right? I had to [00:43:00] sort of find the right way to get from where I was to where I wanted to go. And, you know, the path ended up looking very different from what I thought it would have looked like when I'd been back there, but just learning to appreciate that things don't happen linearly in life, things worth achieving.
[00:43:15] Hunter Hayes: I actually think, and things worth having actually sometimes have the most nonlinear growth path, right? In the sense that you can put in work on something and you can grind on it for years, some cases, decades, and not see the results until a point in time. Right. One of my favorite stories related to that.
[00:43:35] Hunter Hayes: I actually stole this from one of my favorite sports coaches of all time, Greg Popovich, who coached the San Antonio Spurs and our coaches, the San Antonio Spurs. And my mom's from San Antonio. So I grew up going out there and going to San Antonio Spurs basketball camp every summer before I knew I was going to be five, nine.
[00:43:51] Hunter Hayes: And he had in the locker room, this, uh, little short story That players will walk by every day, it was called the stone cutters credo [00:44:00] and, you know, I'll probably horribly botch this paraphrasing, but it said the stone cutter chips away at a stone every day, you know, 100 times without so much as a crack in the stone and 101st try the stone cracks in two and the stone cutter knows that it wasn't the 101st hit on the stone that cracked it in two.
[00:44:19] Hunter Hayes: But every hit on the stone before that equally that led to the success of cutting the stone in half I think that's such a powerful analogy, you know, we can chip away at the stone constantly and not see any progress And it can be frustrating and can lead some people to quit at things but it is making progress and so having a process and not being stuck Needing results in that process to feel validated.
[00:44:43] Hunter Hayes: I think has been a challenge for me and something that you know I've had great Thank you Mentorship and I've had great friends who have reminded me when I'm struggling with something that takes that and running is like a perfect example of that. Music is a perfect example of that where things are nonlinear.
[00:44:57] Hunter Hayes: So what didn't work was when I would get [00:45:00] frustrated thinking about why haven't I made progress on this thing? Why isn't this clicked? Raising money can be that way, for sure.
[00:45:09] Stacy Havener: I was just gonna say, it's true for your personal development and growth and evolution, and it's also true for your business.
[00:45:17] Hunter Hayes: 100%, 100%.
[00:45:19] Stacy Havener: I mean, you start a business and you think, like, when you do the modeling, you're like, okay, this year we'll do X, and the next year we'll do 2X, and then we'll do 4X, and it's this, you know, beautiful model, and guess what happens?
[00:45:31] Hunter Hayes: Never. Not
[00:45:32] Stacy Havener: bad.
[00:45:33] Hunter Hayes: Exactly. Best laid plans.
[00:45:35] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
[00:45:37] Hunter Hayes: It never works the way that you think it's going to work. That's
[00:45:40] Stacy Havener: right. So
[00:45:40] Hunter Hayes: it just speaks to the importance.
[00:45:41] Stacy Havener: Just plan on it.
[00:45:42] Hunter Hayes: Exactly.
[00:45:43] Stacy Havener: Plan on it not going exactly how you think. Exactly. How about the flip side? Before we go into some personal kind of exploration questions.
[00:45:50] Stacy Havener: Sure. So you learned the most from what didn't work, which I love. That was awesome. Stonecutter's Credo was fantastic analogy for that.
[00:45:57] Hunter Hayes: Glad you like it.
[00:45:58] Stacy Havener: How about like things that worked or [00:46:00] surprised you?
[00:46:01] Hunter Hayes: Yeah, I think the importance of relationships, even though it gets emphasized, is probably underappreciated by some, and there's that, I think it's a Marilyn Monroe quote, but around, you know, people don't remember the things you did, but how you treated them.
[00:46:14] Hunter Hayes: It's so true. And I think in a career setting, especially in finance, Easy to forget that sometimes and you know, I remember all the people that I've worked with that were nice to me and that were helpful and it's little things, right? Like having an open door where you know, you let someone come in and ask questions even when you're busy or you know, other things.
[00:46:33] Hunter Hayes: I benefited so much from people that were giving with their time and that were giving with their resources. And so what worked for me was maximizing on that. You know, so if you're someone surrounded by people that you. Want to emulate and that are in positions that you want to be in, I think there is an art to gleaning from them and learning from them and just being, you know, some of it just comes down to [00:47:00] being a nice person, you know, being affable and understanding that, especially if you work in finance, that people are really busy and time is money and all these things.
[00:47:09] Hunter Hayes: But people, I think, generally, Yeah. When prompted the correct way, want to help people want to help
[00:47:16] Speaker 3: totally.
[00:47:16] Hunter Hayes: So if you can phrase things like, Hey, I know how busy you are, but I think you could really help me with this or something along those lines. I think it taps into something for most people that makes them more amenable to help.
[00:47:28] Hunter Hayes: And so not being scared to do that, because I think it is an intimidating thing sometimes,
[00:47:32] Stacy Havener: yes,
[00:47:33] Hunter Hayes: can be great. So using resources around me, networking, making friends. Those types of things have benefited me a lot. And then, you know, going back to what didn't work, just consistency, consistency and not giving up, you know, similar to training for a marathon or
[00:47:47] Speaker 3: yeah,
[00:47:48] Hunter Hayes: anything else that takes time to prepare for.
[00:47:51] Hunter Hayes: I think money management specifically is a marathon. You know, you have to deal with injury and you have to deal with setback and you have to deal with grueling runs that you don't want to [00:48:00] do metaphorically. There's so much. That goes into that and so i think just being consistent not treating the highs is too high and not treating the lows is too low and just kind of staying level through all that with a process that works and that is well formed i think is it's that simple i really don't think it's more complicated than that you know obviously everyone's journey is different you have to deal with externalities that you don't foresee some people have a much easier path and some people have a much harder path.
[00:48:28] Hunter Hayes: But I think consistency is just so important.
[00:48:31] Stacy Havener: Yeah.
[00:48:31] Hunter Hayes: Finding the right habits and then doing them. You know, you are what you repeatedly do. So that's been a key element of why I've been able to survive a lot of these failures.
[00:48:40] Stacy Havener: Fantastic advice. So with that as our backdrop, I actually want to go even a little deeper into sort of my version of Proust's questionnaire, which is just designed to let us get to know Hunter a bit more.
[00:48:53] Stacy Havener: You have been very forthcoming and candid, though. So we feel like we know you. We're just going to keep going. All right, here we go. These are [00:49:00] not rapid fire, but ish.
[00:49:02] Speaker 3: Okay.
[00:49:02] Stacy Havener: We'll say sure. Okay. What book inspires you?
[00:49:07] Hunter Hayes: Oh, man You know, I think I'm going to have to go with a book related to my passions. So I'd say Once a Runner by John Parker.
[00:49:14] Hunter Hayes: It's like, uh, yeah, it's a, uh, well now it's not actually now it's published and you can find it in any bookstore, but it used to be this kind of cult classic. The author sold it out of the back of his trunk in Florida, not too far from where Intrepid's offices are. And it's just this. Passion laced, almost love anthem to running.
[00:49:36] Speaker 3: It
[00:49:36] Hunter Hayes: just talks to, I mean, you know, it's about a fictional character who's training for a race and just all the ups and downs that come with that. And it's beautifully written poetic and a lot of places and whether you're a runner or not, I just. It touches on a lot of what we talked about today, just overcoming things, the importance of consistency, grinding through the tough times.
[00:49:54] Hunter Hayes: It's a great book.
[00:49:55] Stacy Havener: Fantastic.
[00:49:56] Hunter Hayes: I'll throw in one honorable mention too, just on the music side, since [00:50:00] I have that sort of side too. There's a book called How My Heart Sings, and it's about the guy that actually, the sketch behind me, no one can see, but of a musician named Bill Evans. He's a pianist, jazz pianist.
[00:50:13] Hunter Hayes: And this guy, I mean, there's so many wonderful elements you can pull from different disciplines to better think about financial concepts. Jazz piano is a great one just because of all of the improvisation and all of the, you know, sort of spontaneous elements and how to deal with changes and things like that.
[00:50:30] Hunter Hayes: Bill Evans was so keyed in on this and his big thing, there's some awesome YouTube videos on this, was just on creative process. And how you can develop spontaneous creative process, which is the core of jazz, right? I mean, you're improv, you know, over chord changes in the moment, you know, sort of instantaneously.
[00:50:49] Hunter Hayes: So you have to have this amazing toolkit in your head already to be able to, to do that in the first place. And so he talks about the ingredients of how you get there. There's a great video on [00:51:00] YouTube. Bill Evans, creative process probably brings it up that, that he walks through how he approaches that, that I think is so.
[00:51:07] Hunter Hayes: Applicable discipline.
[00:51:09] Stacy Havener: Ooh, this is good. I am watching that. That is awesome. That is fantastic. I have often said total sidebar that someday I'm going to take our team to an improv class because I actually think I totally see where you're going with it on the investment side. I think it's also super valuable skill in sales.
[00:51:29] Hunter Hayes: Yep. It's everything. Actually, funnily enough, that first consulting job I had, that was one of the first things we did was an improv class.
[00:51:36] Stacy Havener: No way! You did? It
[00:51:37] Hunter Hayes: was, yeah. And it was great. It was great. I mean, learning to adapt on the fly, handle things in stride, think quickly. Yeah. It's awesome. That's a great idea.
[00:51:46] Stacy Havener: Yeah, I love that. Okay, maybe we'll have to do that as a, as a group.
[00:51:50] Hunter Hayes: Let me know. We'll come join you.
[00:51:52] Stacy Havener: Yeah, there you go. Okay, now we're going to go from books to places. What place inspires you? What's your happy place?
[00:51:59] Hunter Hayes: Oh man, [00:52:00] there's so many amazing places in the world. I'd have to say, so I grew up not far from where our offices here at Intrepid are.
[00:52:08] Hunter Hayes: I grew up in a little pocket of Jacksonville, just outside of Jacksonville called Fruit Cove. And it's this, it's on the river, it's on the St. John's River, one of the only rivers in the world that flows north. And um, I grew up on a street called Oakvale. And it's just lined in these unbelievable 60 plus foot high majestic oak trees.
[00:52:29] Hunter Hayes: That are adorned with this Spanish moss that hangs down and sways in the wind and
[00:52:34] Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
[00:52:35] Hunter Hayes: It was a very undeveloped place when I grew up, very rural. There wasn't a supermarket nearby, you know, one lane road. And it's developed a lot over the past 30 years. So it's changed a little bit, but it still has that same core element.
[00:52:47] Hunter Hayes: So whenever I go visit my parents who still live in the same house I grew up in. There's something special about it. And you know, close my eyes and think of that happy place just there along the river.
[00:52:56] Stacy Havener: That's magic. There's
[00:52:58] Hunter Hayes: fruit trees everywhere. Magic. [00:53:00] Yeah. It's a special place.
[00:53:01] Stacy Havener: Love it. Okay. We're going from places to music, which I mean, now that we're like right in your wheelhouse, I don't know how you're going to pick this.
[00:53:11] Speaker 3: Sure.
[00:53:11] Stacy Havener: All right. So you're going to, you're going to take this stage. At a stadium, thousands, we'll say, of adoring fans are waiting. What song do they play as you walk out?
[00:53:24] Hunter Hayes: Oh, that's a tough one. So I mean, you know, knowing that I was a classical pianist and that I like jazz. I'll have to throw a curveball.
[00:53:32] Hunter Hayes: I'd say it'd have to be like 90s east coast hip hop Which is just what I grew up listening to when I wasn't listening to, you know, Bach Beethoven or Miles Davis I'd say it's a toss up between Nas or Biggie But it would have to come from that from that repertoire. Okay. I just I love 90s New York hip hop was something else and, you know, like the West Coast stuff too, but as an East Coast baby, I think I'd have to go with one, one of those, maybe New York [00:54:00] state of mind.
[00:54:00] Stacy Havener: Oh, there you go. I mean, I obviously will have to be in the audience because I will love that. Absolutely. And it's funny. There are a lot of closet hip hop fans and rap fans in our industry because you would be surprised like some people you would not expect drop that.
[00:54:16] Hunter Hayes: Yeah. It's a great genre. Insanely.
[00:54:18] Hunter Hayes: Layered and complicated when you dig into it and doesn't get, doesn't get its flowers as much as it should,
[00:54:24] Stacy Havener: you know, you're speaking to the choir on that one.
[00:54:27] Hunter Hayes: 100%. I love it. What am I walking out to, by the way, is this, uh, what are we doing?
[00:54:31] Stacy Havener: I think you're giving a talk.
[00:54:32] Hunter Hayes: Okay. You're giving
[00:54:33] Stacy Havener: a talk on. Just being one of the pioneers in small cap credit.
[00:54:38] Hunter Hayes: Okay. For some reason, I was thinking like a boxing match or like a fight. That's the vibe. Yeah.
[00:54:45] Stacy Havener: I mean, that's the vibe that we 100%. Yeah.
[00:54:48] Hunter Hayes: Well, maybe I'll come out with gloves on just
[00:54:50] Stacy Havener: yeah. And wrote like the silks and everything. That's fine too. Sounds good. Okay, here we go. Now this is going to be an interesting one.
[00:54:57] Stacy Havener: What profession other than your [00:55:00] own would you like to attempt?
[00:55:01] Hunter Hayes: I mean, it has to be music. That's what I dream about. Yeah. I would love to pursue it. And look, I studied at a conservatory for a little bit in an exchange program in school. I was getting the music degree and you know, there were lots of people within my music degree, a lot more talented than me.
[00:55:16] Hunter Hayes: But when I went to Vienna for that stint, I saw just how talented people are. And just the Absurdity of how big the golf was. So I say that with a lot of humility that I would want to be a musician, but yeah, I mean, if I could increase my talent level 10 X as a prerequisite to do that, I would a hundred percent do it.
[00:55:36] Hunter Hayes: And music's just amazing. I still, still try and play as much as I can and stay with it. Not as much as I want, but love the idea of pursuing that.
[00:55:43] Stacy Havener: So good. Okay. Flip side, what profession would you not like to do?
[00:55:49] Hunter Hayes: That's a good question. What profession would I not like to do? So my brother is a software engineer, super talented, super smart, you know, took higher level math classes that I couldn't even fathom [00:56:00] taking.
[00:56:01] Hunter Hayes: I don't think I would enjoy
[00:56:03] Speaker 3: the type of work
[00:56:03] Hunter Hayes: he does. And it's not so much. It's just, I know the type of problems he has to solve and the type of things that he has to think through. And so I just don't think my brain is wired the right way to approach those sorts of technical challenges. So not so much a dig on software engineers, just more so a reflection on how I, I don't think I would be, I would be great at it and therefore probably wouldn't enjoy it.
[00:56:24] Stacy Havener: I have a brother who's a software engineer as well. And anytime I talk to him about work, I'm like, wow. Okay.
[00:56:29] Hunter Hayes: Exactly. It sounds like you're doing big things.
[00:56:31] Stacy Havener: I was on zoom all day. That's right. Um, yeah. I wrote the
[00:56:36] Hunter Hayes: code for you to do that. Yeah,
[00:56:38] Stacy Havener: totally. Okay. Last one. And this is a ways away, but what do you want people to say about you after you've retired or left the industry?
[00:56:50] Hunter Hayes: That's an easy one. I would want them to say that I did things with a high degree of integrity and character, you know, hands down, I think about the people that I enjoyed working with the [00:57:00] most, some of whom have gone on to retire and unequivocally, the ones that I remember strongest and with the fondest memories were the ones who were just high caliber people.
[00:57:09] Hunter Hayes: And so this is a very competitive industry, obviously, it's easy to get caught up in that, remembering that you're working with other humans and that you're at the end of the day judged more on how you treat people and sort of the availability you give to people to help learn things and to mentor and to foster that stuff is just, it's so important.
[00:57:30] Hunter Hayes: And so I think that's actually one of the most important elements of what we do is fiduciaries day to day is just cultivating and. Being available and doing things with a high degree of character and integrity. So yeah, if anyone said that about me at my, at my work eulogy, I'd be, I'd be pretty happy.
[00:57:45] Stacy Havener: Well, I love that you are defining success in your own way, and that it's not the typical way people define it here, right? It's not just AUM. It's not just performance numbers. It's also how you treat people. And Hunter, you are [00:58:00] a joy to be around. I know everybody who's listened to this podcast is nodding.
[00:58:06] Stacy Havener: Thank you so much for being with us and taking the time to talk with us today. Thanks for being here.
[00:58:11] Hunter Hayes: Thanks, Stacia. I really loved it. It delivered and I hope we can do it again sometime.
[00:58:16] Stacy Havener: We absolutely will.
[00:58:17] Hunter Hayes: Awesome. Thanks, Stacia.
[00:58:18] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
[00:58:24] Stacy Havener: The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm.
[00:58:44] Stacy Havener: Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.
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