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Host Stacy Havener brings you the storytelling tips, sales strategies, behavioral secrets, and inspirational stories that help YOU turn your words into dollars. Learn from sales and marketing experts. Meet finance and investment leaders, founders and fund managers who have made it, and the ones on the rise. Because there are people behind the portfolios. Their stories matter. So does yours.
@stacyhavener // www.billiondollarbackstory.com/
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 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.
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 8,000,000,000 that has led to 30,000,000,000 in follow on assets for investment boutiques. You could say against the odds.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. Understatement. I share 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.
Stacy Havener:Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the $1,000,000,000 Backstory podcast. Today's conversation is another point for my theory that we are ands, not ors. We are right brained and left brained.
Stacy Havener:We are artists and scientists. We are classically trained piano players, d one track stars, and successful fund managers. Wait. Today's conversation with Hunter Hayes is all about the ands. Hunter will challenge every stereotype you've had about the typical Wall Street Fund manager.
Stacy Havener: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. You don't wanna miss this.
Stacy Havener:Meet my friend and client of Havener, Hunter Hayes. Hunter, thank you so much for being in the $1,000,000,000 Backstory Studio today. This is an honor and for me, on a couple levels. 1, I'm just a huge Hunter fan. 2, we're friends.
Stacy Havener:3, you're actually a client. So there's, like, just so much magic here. Thank you for being here.
Hunter Hayes:I'm so excited to be here and have been looking forward to this for a while.
Stacy Havener:Okay. We are gonna dive in. And I have the the benefit of knowing some components of your backstory, but I also know that you're gonna elaborate on this in new ways even for me. So let's start with that. Tell us a little bit about your journey to become a fund manager.
Hunter Hayes:Oh, wow. Well, I guess depending on how far you wanna 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. I had parents that were super supportive of whatever I wanted to do, very multidisciplinary background. You know, I grew up playing instruments and playing sports and got a great education.
Hunter Hayes:And so I was lucky and very blessed growing up to have all those ingredients. I really started to get interested in money management as a teenager. You know, it's a little cliche to say. I always find it funny when I talk to high school students or I talk to young people who are already interested investing because it sounds so cliche. But it's true.
Hunter Hayes:Some people get the bug early on. And my dad, who built a small business and 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 5 or 10% of what I was reading, but I tried to read them. And so that planted the seed for me. That sort of multidisciplinary background permeated through my whole education and early career.
Hunter Hayes:So I actually went to school for piano performance. In addition to finance, so I got a dual degree and then I ran track at Auburn University. So I went on a 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. 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.
Hunter Hayes:But I knew I wanted to go into money management as a career that was kind of always the idea. And so when I came out of school, I actually took sort of a circuitous path. I went into consulting out of school at Deloitte up in Boston. So I went to school down in Alabama. That's where Auburn is.
Hunter Hayes: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. And, yeah, that's the broad strokes of how we got here.
Stacy Havener:Okay. Wait. I have to ask some questions. Okay. First of all, you obviously were a talented runner if you went on scholarship to Auburn.
Stacy Havener: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. Mhmm. 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.
Hunter Hayes:Well, I appreciate that. 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. Wow.
Hunter Hayes:Very different. Cool. But 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. And so there are some analogs there, but now 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.
Hunter Hayes:I mean, memorizing music and then having to sit there and play 30 minute or hour long concerts, It takes a lot of iterations. I certainly had a lot of failures related to that. And so and I'd say that was a theme while I think about it throughout my experiences leading up to this point. It's just I was allowed to fail a lot. You know, piano, I can't even count the number of times that I messed things up or stopped in the middle of a concert as a kid and just learned that life goes on when you when you make those mistakes.
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.
Stacy Havener:Let's jump stop from that and kinda take stay with that vibe and now take it to sort of the asset class you're in.
Hunter Hayes:Mhmm.
Stacy Havener: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. Mhmm. So when you got into money management, did you go into the space you're in now? Well, talk about where you are now and then how did you get there? What asset class are you specializing?
Hunter Hayes:That's a good question. The short answer is kind of.
Stacy Havener:Okay.
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 income. But, you know, the first job I got in money management was at a big blue chip manager.
Stacy Havener:Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes:And it was very process oriented. It was exactly what I needed. I learned the nuts and bolts of credit analysis, which I think is a great first place to start if you're interested in money management. And 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 wanted to the asset class, which is just being honest. Yeah.
Hunter Hayes: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. It's super interesting. Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes: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, as the name implies, you have a fixed stream of payments, you have a maturity date. 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 at maturity. That at a very high level is sort of what you're solving for. Very different from equity, which can be very narrative driven, depends on a lot more variables, and therefore can be a lot more volatile.
Hunter Hayes: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. But I definitely lucked out in the sense that I was instantly drawn into an asset class that I had a proclivity for Mhmm. And that I eventually developed a pension for.
Hunter Hayes: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. Credit analysis is complicated. You have to understand financial statements. You have to be able to interpret how a balance sheet translates to creditworthiness, you have to be able to understand cash flows, you have to be able to understand the moving parts of businesses and every business is different, every industry is different. So those first few years were really about sort of soaking all that in.
Hunter Hayes: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, small cap credit, which is not a well used moniker, but that's what we call it internally at Intrepid. And small cap credit, we compare to small cap equity
Stacy Havener:Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes:Back in the glory days of stock picking. Back in the 70s 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 $50 out there in the sense that there were a lot of undervalued securities. 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 with oftentimes and access to information in the stock market is pretty accessible.
Hunter Hayes:It's made the market a lot more efficient. It's made treasure hunting a lot more difficult. And obviously, it's cyclical. 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.
Hunter Hayes:But the world that we live in now, this small cap fixed income world, it's ripe with inefficiencies. 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.
Hunter Hayes:Then also just size by virtue of being smaller and you saw the same effect with small cap equities back in the old days, less eyeballs, less institutional eyeballs are on them. 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 144 a securities.
Stacy Havener:Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes:Which is a way of saying that they're only eligible to be purchased by qualified institutional buyers or QIBs, Q IBS. And you have to have a net worth of a 100,000,000 or more to be able to purchase these 144A bonds. And so, we're fishing in a pond that we don't have all that much competition in and 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 previous employer. And then when I came to Intrepid and we had this fixed income strategy that you know, was sort of primed to be looking at these sort of things.
Hunter Hayes:It was just a perfect fit, and we've taken off since then and and had some really great results. So super excited.
Stacy Havener:So what I think is cool about that piece is the the creative side of you. Mhmm. 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.
Stacy Havener:And yet, you are this creative individual, this musician, an 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.
Hunter Hayes:Okay.
Stacy Havener:So we had the creative thread. We also kinda had a little entrepreneur thread there. I think you talked about your dad. So I wanna 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 tap that through.
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. They sold closed caption security cameras, CCTV security cameras when that was becoming a big thing in the eighties nineties.
Hunter Hayes:And I had a front row seat to all the triumphs and all the failure is the wrong word, but all the, difficulties with growing a small business. And I think people either love it or hate it when it comes to entrepreneurship. People are either attracted to that difficult journey or they're repelled by it. I was definitely attracted to it. When I joined Intrepid, you know, it's a small team.
Hunter Hayes:Intrepid had a storied history when I joined in 2017.
Stacy Havener:Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes:Going all the way back to the nineties, 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 these guys have had all this success in small cap equity and I had looked at this 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 Lipper Award winning funds, had been featured on the cover of Barron's in the past, had had all these 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 20 19, 2020 there were some opportunities to sort of set up my own shop.
Hunter Hayes:And it was a difficult decision for me because I loved the idea of that 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 within Intrepid's 4 walls. I would really prefer to do it that way. It's better for, I think, all of us. And to our founders credit and to Intrepid's credit, he gave me that latitude.
Stacy Havener:That's awesome.
Hunter Hayes:And the firm gave me that latitude to incubate this product. And candidly, 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.
Hunter Hayes:But a lot of the pieces were already there. And so in a way, it was almost like buying a discounted security. Right? Mhmm. And again, I think I got very lucky.
Hunter Hayes:But the way that I timed it, the 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. We kept a lot of the elements the same as well. The strategy had a long history of doing great credit work, 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.
Hunter Hayes: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 Yeah. From an opportunities perspective and from a capital deployment perspective. 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.
Stacy Havener:Yes. You know, you
Hunter Hayes: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 of Mhmm. That entrepreneurial spirit within an established business, which requires a lot of humility across the board.
Hunter Hayes: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 and it's made, getting the strategy off the ground a lot easier. Know, the strategy in 2019 was around 50,000,000 50, 60,000,000 and
Stacy Havener:Oh, that's what I was gonna ask. Good. Yes. Give us the context of the whole thing.
Hunter Hayes:Exactly. And today, we're over 600,000,000. So it's been, you know, over the last 5 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, you know, I've worked with the same people on the investment team for the last 5 years. 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 work was definitely a part of it.
Hunter Hayes:Luck was definitely a part of it. But going back to your question, I think one of the key elements has been that I was able to do this within an established business because in investment management, and you know this, Stacey, the hardest part is getting off the ground, right?
Stacy Havener:Totally.
Hunter Hayes:Just getting to 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. 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. We think we're just getting started.
Hunter Hayes:We think we're in the the first lap of a very long race for us, and so we're really excited about where we're going.
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 like a boutique within a boutique or a start up within a you know, there's kinda all these ways of saying it. But it is something that our industry needs more of. And so I have one more context piece. So it was a $50,000,000 strategy.
Stacy Havener:Now you're over 600. When you joined Intrepid, though, what was the overall AUM about, Ballpark?
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. So, overall AUM was probably around $700,000,000, $800,000,000 Might have been, you know, give or take $100,000,000 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. Good things can actually be bad things and it was certainly bad for overall AUM.
Hunter Hayes:Clients and investors of ours were panicked. Obviously the world came to a halt. And so we troughed AUM probably around $300,000,000 around, you know, 2020, 2021 and that was across the whole firm. And today we're, you know, I think we're north of 900,000,000 today
Stacy Havener:So awesome.
Hunter Hayes:As of this past month. 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 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 and difficult. And so we have definitely been on the bottom and on the top Yeah. You know, over the last few years.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah.
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 gonna do this. We are gonna 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.
Stacy Havener:Right? That's when you really make your money.
Hunter Hayes:Right.
Stacy Havener:Right? When you take a chance, when things seem stacked against you more than maybe in reality they actually were.
Hunter Hayes:A 100%.
Stacy Havener:So I just love the bravery and the courage of you and the team to band together to do this thing.
Hunter Hayes:I 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. And so we've we've definitely bonded over that over that trust and, you know, trust is a muscle, right? You continue to use it and get stronger and stronger.
Hunter Hayes:And I think we've been developing that for 5 plus years now. So 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 that we should be doing. Humans are wired neurologically to run from danger and to It's fight or flight, right? And to be greedy when everybody else is being greedy.
Hunter Hayes:And so being able to go against those trends, being able to be countercyclical, being able to, you know, courage is a nice adjective. I don't know if I'd call it courageous. But certainly takes some gumption
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes: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, noise of bigger financial hubs and, you know, that insulates us a little bit, I think, from some crowd behavior. And so, you know, we feel like we have a lot of use Oregon, but ingredients to help us be unique and and to have some of the successes that we've had.
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 to the world knowing that they're gonna be investors who go, that is not for me. And this was a journey for you, having been kind of alongside for a couple 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. I'm using air quotes.
Stacy Havener:No one can see me. But that might be scary to investors. Mhmm. Can you talk about that a little bit? I mean, it's so qualitative.
Stacy Havener:It's so attract and repel. And, also, I'm sure you had moments where, like, are we really gonna do that? Are we really gonna own this side of what we're doing?
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. One thing that I think we underestimated heuristically is just how big the universe of eligible investors actually is.
Stacy Havener:Yes.
Hunter Hayes:There are a lot of folks deploying capital, not just the US, but across the world, you know, and it's increasingly globalized world where capital is moving into the US and out of the US and 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 Yeah. That 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 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 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?
Hunter Hayes:Mhmm. To find the people that acknowledge what we do, understand what we do, want to be along for the ride, and will 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 were just almost like we were talking in different languages because we talked about certain elements of 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 the type of people, type of prospects that were coming our way significantly. 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 as you develop more products and you develop more funnels and more sort of things that people could be interested in, I think it becomes easier to have multiple conversations.
Hunter Hayes:And we're starting to adapt to that too as we've had growth and 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 wanna 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.
Stacy Havener:Yes.
Hunter Hayes:And look, I thought our strategy was just so bespoke and so different that it was gonna be really hard. I was thinking to myself, where are the 3 people in the world that will care about this? But it's been vastly bigger than that. And we're still finding pockets of people who now see our materials, which I think are very well crafted towards what we're looking for, and say, hey, that is really interesting. That's different.
Hunter Hayes:That's what we're
Stacy Havener:Yes.
Hunter Hayes:Looking for. And then we can have those conversations.
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 I wanna ask you. I think I know the answer, but I wanna ask it anyway. So when you're having these conversations with investors, isn't it so much more fun?
Hunter Hayes:Oh, it's absolutely more fun. I mean, it's kind of a, kind of a weed out process. Right?
Stacy Havener:Totally.
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, having a dating profile that's a lot more consistent with who you are.
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
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.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. And the other thing I love about it is the new partnerships that come from this.
Hunter Hayes:Mhmm.
Stacy Havener:Right? The idea that when you're talking to these like minded investors, you've become friends with them. You're aligned, you're 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.
Stacy Havener:And those true fans, by definition, are the people that say, like, if you're doing it, I am interested in it. I wanna know about it, and I might be right there with you.
Hunter Hayes:Right.
Stacy Havener:And so I just love that for you that you're finding your people.
Hunter Hayes:Not to mention the scale effects that come with building Oh. Fans of what you're doing. Right? I mean, at this point, we're enjoying the scale effects, which really come by the way of referrals.
Stacy Havener:Yes.
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, 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 mention 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.
Hunter Hayes:And so, you know, doing right by those people that become your fans and become investors in your products is, I think, the most important thing. 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.
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 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 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.
Stacy Havener:They do take pride in being early, in being able to pick up the phone and call Hunter because Hunter's their boy. You know what I mean? Like, that's a real thing.
Hunter Hayes:Of course.
Stacy Havener:I actually wanna talk about that a little bit on the distribution side because 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. Mhmm. So you ended up fielding calls with prospects and sort of picking up the phone and calling prospects and saying, hey. It's Hunter.
Stacy Havener:And 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 gonna use founder, but, like, the founder, the portfolio manager, isn't that different?
Stacy Havener:Like, how special to get a phone call from you?
Hunter Hayes:Right. Right. No. It's been a key differentiator for us, and it's something that we we talk about constantly, just our accessibility. We noticed early on with a lot of investors we spoke with, this was 20 19, 2020 when the strategy was much smaller, that whenever they would have a conversation with myself or anyone else working on a strategy, they would usually say something during the call like, Wow, this is very different.
Hunter Hayes:You know, we normally are talking to a wholesaler, we're normally talking to someone, you know, 2 or 3 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 just say, oh, I'll check with the powers that be and get back to you is
Stacy Havener:hugely refreshing.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. And for us, sort of in our growth mode and willing to put in the 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 would love to have a conversation with you and answer your questions. And that's only become more true as we continue to grow and gotten bigger and bigger checks from investors. As we get to these bigger levels, it's even more true.
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes:That 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 any of the other elements. 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 100% of the security and doing the 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 evenings and you have to spend a lot more time than you otherwise would.
Hunter Hayes:And that's just part of what it means to be entrepreneurial in our view. Mhmm. 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 5 years.
Hunter Hayes:You know, it helps that we have 4 people that work on this strategy that are all sort of able to play the different roles. 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 then dedicated traders. Each of us are kind of self contained. We have the ability to do all those things and we're generalists too.
Hunter Hayes: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. But, you know, having that also gives us the ability, you know, if during the middle of the day I need to take a call with someone
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes: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. So yeah. No. I think it's a great point.
Hunter Hayes:It's been a key differentiator for us. Love that.
Stacy Havener: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 I what I love is you never forget those investors that took a chance on you in the beginning. And that is a special relationship. Like, those early investors are always gonna be able to call you up, and it's always gonna hit you right in the feels because you're like, I'm taking that call because they're in a different category because they've been with us from the beginning.
Hunter Hayes:Right.
Stacy Havener: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 wanna get to
Hunter Hayes:Yeah.
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.
Hunter Hayes:Mhmm.
Stacy Havener:Can you talk about that a little bit?
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. I mean, the authenticity piece was actually pretty easy for us once we Yeah. 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 New York or or Boston or any of these other large hubs.
Hunter Hayes:And most of the folks here went to state schools. I mean, I went to a state school. Our pedigree is a little bit different. I'd say hard work is the unifying theme here. And so we have these core values, core elements that I think resonate with a lot of the investors that we've attracted.
Hunter Hayes:So really what it came down to was we weren't intentionally building 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. It was that we didn't necessarily think that that would resonate as much as it has since we made that switch. And then since we made that switch, I think we found that people love having conversations with us because of those attributes.
Hunter Hayes: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 allocation.
Stacy Havener:I was hoping you were gonna go there.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. We end up investing in companies that are, 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 verify type investors, 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, in in this industry.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. We've built those relationships over these decades, over all the really talented people that have worked at Intrepid. So we have this Rolodex, this database of companies that we've lent to in the past, companies we've invested in the past that oftentimes or sometimes are family owned or have concentrated ownership and sometimes have the same management team that's been in place for decades. And that's, in our view, an ideal situation for us to be 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. It gives us the confidence and that all comes back to authenticity.
Hunter Hayes: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
Stacy Havener:Exactly.
Hunter Hayes:For us to care about. And so we really think we get to operate within this, 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.
Hunter Hayes:Capital allocators are sharp. They hear 100, if not thousands of pitches a year. They've heard anything and everything. And I think capital allocators will tell you 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, do these components that they're selling me on jive and do they fit together and does this story make sense and does it resonate?
Hunter Hayes: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 better was such a big part of why we've been able to have the growth that we've had.
Stacy Havener:That's my favorite part of the podcast so far. I could 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 gonna be like, okay. We get it.
Stacy Havener: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. All of that is so aligned. And to me, that is the best part of building a business as an entrepreneur, which is where I wanna go next. So just real quick, what worked? What didn't?
Stacy Havener: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.
Hunter Hayes:Well, I'll start with what didn't work since that's a much longer list than what did work. And again, I think I said it earlier, I say this all the time, my wife and I talk about this quite often actually. She works in the entertainment industry, she's an actor, and she 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.
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes:And to be able to adapt and to learn from things and and how ultimately successful people, you know, it's kind of cliche to say it, but, you know, are are the ones that 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. So I think what didn't work was actually, just as an opening comment, the most important stuff. And being able to survive those failures and to take risk, but appropriate risk
Stacy Havener:Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes:Has been a pivotal part of the successes that I have had. You know, I think just psychologically, what didn't work for me was expecting things to proceed or grow in a linear fashion. Mm-mm. You know, expecting sort of a stair step growth path in my career because, and 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 suffered from this too. You sort of have to shift from a pass this test, do this assignment, get this degree, a check the box sort of approach to things to an open ended world where now Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes: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. For me, it was a bit of an evolution. Right?
Hunter Hayes:I had to 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, 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, in some cases decades, and not see the results until a point in time, right?
Hunter Hayes:One of my favorite stories related to that, and I actually stole this from one of my favorite sports coaches of all time, Gregg Popovich, who coached the San Antonio Spurs and or 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 5'9. And he had in the locker room this, little short story that players will walk by every day. It was called The Stonecutter's Credo. And I'll probably horribly botch this paraphrasing, but it said, The stonecutter chips away at a stone every day, you know, a 100 times without so much as a crack in the stone.
Hunter Hayes:And on the 101st try, the stone cracks in 2. And the stonecutter knows that it wasn't the 100 and first hit on the stone that cracked it in 2, 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. 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, I think has been a challenge for me and something that, you know, I've had great mentorship and I've had great friends who have reminded me when I'm struggling with something that takes that.
Hunter Hayes:And running is like a perfect example of that. Music is a perfect example of that where things are nonlinear. So what didn't work was when I would get 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.
Stacy Havener:I was just gonna say Yep. It's true for your personal development and growth and evolution, and it's also true for your business.
Hunter Hayes:100%. 100%.
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 2 x. And then we'll do 4x. And it's this, you know, beautiful model.
Stacy Havener:And guess what happens?
Hunter Hayes:Never.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. Exactly.
Hunter Hayes:Best laid plans. Yeah.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. Totally.
Hunter Hayes:It never works the way that you think it's gonna work. So
Stacy Havener:That's right.
Hunter Hayes:Speaks to the importance
Stacy Havener:of Just
Hunter Hayes:just plan on it. Exactly.
Stacy Havener:Plan on it not going exactly how you think.
Hunter Hayes:Exactly.
Stacy Havener:How about the flip side before we go into some personal kinda exploration questions? So you learn the most from what didn't work, which I love. That was awesome. Stonecutter's credo was fantastic analogy for that.
Hunter Hayes:Glad you like it.
Stacy Havener:How about, like, things that worked or surprised you?
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. It's so true. And I think in a career setting, especially in finance, you need to forget that sometimes.
Hunter Hayes:And, you know, I remember all the people that I've worked with that were nice to me and that were helpful. It's little things, right? Like having an open door where you let someone come in and ask questions even when you're busy or other things. 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.
Hunter Hayes:You know? And 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 being a nice person, being affable and understanding that, especially if you work in finance, that people are really busy and time is money and all these things. But people, I think, generally, when prompted the correct way, want to help. People want to help.
Hunter Hayes:Yes. Totally. 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. And so not being scared to do that because I think it is an intimidating thing sometimes.
Stacy Havener:Yes.
Hunter Hayes:It 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 Yeah. Anything else that takes time to prepare for.
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 do metaphorically. There's so much that goes into that. And so I think just being consistent, not treating the highs as too high and not treating the lows as 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.
Hunter Hayes: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. I think consistency is just so important. Yeah.
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.
Stacy Havener:Fantastic advice. So with that as our backdrop, I actually wanna 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.
Hunter Hayes:Sure.
Stacy Havener:You have been very forthcoming and candid, though, so we feel like we know you. We're just gonna keep going. Alright. Here we go. These are not rapid fire, but ish
Hunter Hayes:Okay.
Stacy Havener:We'll say.
Hunter Hayes:Sure.
Stacy Havener:Okay. What book inspires you?
Hunter Hayes:Oh, man. You know, I think I'm gonna have to go with a book related to my passions. So I'd say Once a Runner by John Parker. It's like a Oh. Yeah.
Hunter Hayes:It's a 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. Oh. 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. Oh.
Hunter Hayes:It 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 in a lot of places. And whether you're a runner or not, it touches on a lot of what we talked about today, just overcoming things, the importance of consistency, grinding through the tough times. It's a great book.
Stacy Havener:Fantastic.
Hunter Hayes:I'll throw in one honorable mention too just on the music side since I have that sort of side too. There's a book called How My Heart Sings. And it's about the guy that's actually the sketch behind me. Yeah. No one can see, but of a musician named Bill Evans.
Hunter Hayes:He's a pianist, jazz pianist, 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 sort of spontaneous elements and how to deal with changes and things like that. 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 improving over chord changes in the moment sort of instantaneously, so you have to have this amazing toolkit in your head already to be able to do that in the first place.
Hunter Hayes:And so he talks about the ingredients of how you get there. There's a great video on YouTube. Bill Evans' creative process probably brings it up that that he walks through how he approaches that that I think is so applicable to human discipline.
Stacy Havener:Oh, this is good. I am watching that. That is Awesome. That is fantastic. I have often said, total sidebar, that someday I'm gonna take our team to an improv class because I actually think I totally see where you're going with it on the investment side.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. I think it's also super valuable skill in sales.
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.
Stacy Havener:No way. You did?
Hunter Hayes:It was. Yeah. And it was great. It was great. I mean, learning to adapt on the fly, handle things in stride, think quickly.
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes:It's awesome. That's a great idea.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. I love that. Okay. Maybe we'll have to do that as a as a crew.
Hunter Hayes:Let me know.
Stacy Havener:We'll we'll
Hunter Hayes:we'll come join you.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. There you go. Okay. Now we're gonna go from books to places. Mhmm.
Stacy Havener:What place inspires you? What's your happy place?
Hunter Hayes:Oh, man. 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. 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 Saint Johns River, one of the only rivers in the world that flows north.
Hunter Hayes:And, I grew up on a street called Oakvale, and it's just lined in these unbelievable 60 plus foot high majestic oak trees that are adorned with this Spanish moss that hangs down and sways in the wind and
Stacy Havener:Oh my gosh.
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. I mean, 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. So whenever I go visit my parents, who still live in the same house I grew up in, there's something special about it.
Hunter Hayes:And, you know, I was to close my eyes and think of that happy place just there along the river.
Stacy Havener:That's a magic.
Hunter Hayes:There's fruit trees everywhere. Magic. Yeah. It's a special place.
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 gonna pick this.
Hunter Hayes:Sure.
Stacy Havener:Alright. So you're gonna you're gonna take the stage at a stadium. 1,000, we'll say, of adoring fans are waiting. What song do they play as you walk out?
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. I'd say it'd have to be, like, nineties East Coast hip hop, which is just what I 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. K.
Hunter Hayes:I just I love nineties New York hip hop was something else. And, know, I like the West Coast stuff too, but as an East Coast baby, I I think I'd have to go with one one of those. Maybe New York state of mind.
Stacy Havener:Oh, there you go. Mhmm. I mean, I obviously will have to be in the audience because I will love that.
Hunter Hayes:Absolutely.
Stacy Havener: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.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. It's a great genre, insanely layered and complicated when you dig into it analytically and doesn't get doesn't get its flowers as much as it should.
Stacy Havener:You know you're speaking to the choir on that one.
Hunter Hayes:100%. I love it. What am I walking out to, by the way? Is this, where are we going?
Stacy Havener:I think you're giving a talk. Okay.
Hunter Hayes:Nice. You're giving
Stacy Havener:a talk Okay. On just being one of the pioneers in small cap credit.
Hunter Hayes:Okay. For some reason, I was, like, doing, like, a boxing match or, like, a a fight. So that that might change
Stacy Havener:the mood. Vibe.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah.
Stacy Havener:I mean, that's the vibe that we want. 100%. Right?
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. Well, maybe I'll come out Yeah. With gloves on just to make
Stacy Havener:Yeah. And wrote, like, the silks and everything? That's fine too.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah. Sounds good.
Stacy Havener:Okay. Here we go. Now this is gonna be an interesting one. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Hunter Hayes:I mean, it has to be music. That's what I dream about. Yeah. I mean, I would love to pursue it. And look, I studied at a conservatory for a little bit in an exchange program in school.
Hunter Hayes:I was getting a music degree, and you know, there were lots of people within my music degree a lot more talented than me. But when I went to Vienna for that stint, I saw Uh-huh. 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 10x as a prerequisite to do that, I would a 100% do it.
Hunter Hayes:And music is 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.
Stacy Havener:So good. Okay. Flip side. What profession would you not like to do?
Hunter Hayes:Oh, it'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 taking. I don't think I would enjoy the type of work he does. And it's not so much, it's just I know the type of problems he has to solve Mhmm.
Hunter Hayes: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 this sort of technical challenges. So not so much a dig on software engineers, just more so on how I I don't think I would be I would be great at it, and therefore, probably wanna enjoy it. I have a brother who's a software engineer as well. And anytime I talk to him about
Stacy Havener:work, I'm like, wow. Okay.
Hunter Hayes:Exactly. Sounds like you're doing big things.
Stacy Havener:I was on Zoom all day.
Hunter Hayes:That's right.
Stacy Havener:Yeah.
Hunter Hayes:I swear, like, I I wrote the code for you to do that.
Stacy Havener:Yeah. Totally. Okay. Last one. And this is a ways away.
Stacy Havener:Mhmm. But what do you want people to say about you after you've retired or left the industry?
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 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. And so this is a very competitive industry. Obviously, it's easy to get caught up in that, but 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.
Hunter Hayes:That stuff is just, it's so important. And so I think that's actually one of the most important elements of what we do as 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.
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.
Hunter Hayes:Yeah.
Stacy Havener:Right? It's not just AUM. It's not just performance numbers. It's also how you treat people. And, Hunter, you are a joy to be around.
Stacy Havener:I know everybody who's listened to this podcast is nodding. Thank you so much for being with us and taking the time to talk with us today. Thanks for being here.
Hunter Hayes:Thanks, Stacey. I really loved it. It delivered, and I hope we can do it again sometime.
Stacy Havener:We absolutely will.
Hunter Hayes:Awesome. Thanks, Stacey.
Stacy Havener:This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. 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. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacy Havener or Havener Capital Partners.