Episode #40: Andrew Hochradel - Creative for Hire!

Self-proclaimed "Creative for Hire!"  Andrew Hochradel joins Hiring U! to share what life as a creative contractor/freelancer is all about.   Andrew shares his best practices on finding and creating opportunities, (yes it's possible to create your own gigs- Andrew explains his new product launch with Southwest Airlines!),  as well as his insights about current market conditions including where AI fits in the creative process.  

" I think in this market it's a really good opportunity to push through and get the cuts, get the bruises, to hack through the weeds and along the way sharpen your machete.

When you land on the other side you can say, 'Oh cool,  I'm on the other side of this with new skills and even more marketable to land a job.'  Tough times are good opportunities for growth."

     - Andrew Hochradel

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Transcript

Andrew Hochradel

[00:00:00] All 

[00:00:00] Jon Beck: Welcome to Hiring University everyone. It's your host, John Beck. Today we are lucky enough to have Andrew join the show. Andrew is, I believe, our first creative contractor slash freelancer. He's a brand identity manager. He's gonna tell you more about some of the projects that he is worked with in the past.

[00:00:20] Andrew, welcome to Hiring University. How are you? 

[00:00:22] Andrew Hochradel: I am doing great. That was quite the intro. Thank you. You 

[00:00:26] Jon Beck: are welcome. And, and we're just getting started. Yeah. Andrew has done some really cool projects, at both companies that are household names like Adobe and currently Southwest, which will tell you a little bit about.

[00:00:38] We're gonna dig in with Andrew to have him share some experiences around the good and maybe the not so good. When it comes to freelance contract work versus full-time, and to help our listeners navigate, how to find jobs, and to create your own work and to stand out from all the myriad options that exist today.

[00:00:55] But first and foremost, Andrew, why don't you give us a little bit of about your background and, and where you've been and what you've done. 

[00:01:00] Andrew Hochradel: Yeah, so I like to call myself a creative for hire sometimes. , I think it encompasses all the things I do. I have a chef friend who said that they have knives for hire that just come in and do whatever, and I was like, that's me, but with creative stuff.

[00:01:12] So I like to jump around. I have a long history, InDesign in creativity. From branding to physical experiences, to lighting, design, video, um, I've kind of managed the gamuts across the board over my career, and landed in a zone where I just am really passionate about creating experiences and trying to help people see things from new perspectives.

[00:01:34] , and so anything that I take on is, from that kind of perspective and angle. I had started some agency, work I had, I'd started an agency and then went full-time freelance about four or five years ago. I think I just passed four years. And I've been full-time freelance since getting contracts, uh, kind of fending for myself, , making projects up.

[00:01:57] I love doing personal projects, and just rolling along with the punches. Through Covid nonetheless. 

[00:02:03] Jon Beck: Yeah, no, for sure. Where does agency fit in your span? Is it, are they friend or folk? Can they help you work through them? Against them? 

[00:02:12] Andrew Hochradel: Yeah, I think that, agency is something that is right for some people and maybe right for all people at some time.

[00:02:19] Uh, it's kind of a sometimes for everyone and every time for someone kind of thing. I think that it's a great experience to work agency when you are maybe a student just coming out to get in and just like, Absolutely drown in the deep end for like a year and a half. Mm. Because you learn so much under that pressure so quickly and it's miserable sometimes and totally insane, but it's so good for you in the long run to get that experience.

[00:02:49] And then I think as a more seasoned designer, I love working with agencies, because it is a lot of consistency. If you do good work over time, then it just turns into a really great relationship. Yeah. And so those really become a safety net, that there are agencies that it's like, Hey, I need some work.

[00:03:05] Do you guys have anything? Then it's like, you know, we have. Some low level production work. Great, I'll take it. And so building those relationships can go everything from working on projects with Red Bull that I've worked before to , I'm making some flyers for a industrial architect. Right? And it's like, it can kind of spread the gamut, but working with those agencies, especially as a contractor, I think is great.

[00:03:28] When I worked in-house at agencies, I liked that as well, because it's consistency. Yeah. I think it's just a really good, consistent, there's not the fear part of your job. Mm. It's more focused on the creativity and being able to just sustain, but you sacrifice the creativity sometimes for the comfort of knowing that you have work.

[00:03:48] Let's talk about 

[00:03:49] Jon Beck: the fear factor in what is. I think for most, uncertain market, maybe challenging, pick your, your word choice. How is the market right now, maybe compared 

[00:03:59] Andrew Hochradel: to a year ago? Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it's in a time of, , like forced innovation and exploration, which I think is hard for a lot of people, but I think I find it exciting.

[00:04:16] And I think it can be both at the same time. I think it's difficult, , to find work and it feels stressful and it feels unknown, but I think that also gives you some leeway and some open space to explore new things and try new things. Right. That it's like, oh man, it's really hard to get a job right now.

[00:04:38] Can I create my own? Mm-hmm. Like, can I just. Hire myself for stuff, or, you know, oh man, it's really hard to get a job right now. How can I market myself differently than just sending resumes around? How can I. Develop a new skill that is more marketable. I think it's an opportunity for growth, even if it is scary.

[00:04:56] I had somebody tell me once that was really good advice. They basically said it's better to go through something than to get over it. And I think in this market it's a really good opportunity for that. Yeah. To kind of push through and get the cuts, get the bruises hack through the weeds. Right? Like sharpen your machete.

[00:05:13] And then hopefully you land on the other side then to just be like, oh, cool, let's get through this so that I can get a job. And then I'm just on the other side of this with no new skills. And so it's, it's that, yeah, dynamic of it's hard and terrible, but also a good opportunity for growth. You are 

[00:05:28] Jon Beck: an optimist and singing my, you're, you're speaking my language.

[00:05:32] That's exactly what I tell my team, there's opportunities in chaos. And in, bumpier, more challenging environments. But if you can get through it and to your point, sharpen the machete or, or sharpen the saw, on the other side of it, you're gonna be that much better and prepared for when things do pick up.

[00:05:47] Yep. 

[00:05:47] Andrew Hochradel: And I think that I've always had a mindset, I think I'm privileged in a lot of ways that I just have a lot of safety nets within work and just life of kind of where I've been positioned that a lot of people might not have. And so I've always seen it as, it would almost be irresponsible for me not to take the big risks because there are people that can't take those big, that don't have the safety nets, and so I'm like, I, if I have safety nets, it's responsible for me not to take that risk and not try something, and to not put something new into the world.

[00:06:19] Like, why would I not try to give that to other people, to other businesses, to other communities when there are people that like don't have the safety nets to be able to do that. Mm-hmm. And so going into the season, seeing that it's, you know, a lot of people struggling is like, man, I feel for them. And I realize like I'm in a position that a lot of people may not be.

[00:06:38] So I need to take these risks so that hopefully, I can get work for them. Right? A lot of the big projects I've taken jumps on have been big risk for me, but I know I have the safety net and I've been able to hire my friends to work on them and help to kind of bridge that gap. Which again, I think if you have the opportunity in this market, Figure out a way to hire friends, and kind of use that safety net to take a risk that can benefit others.

[00:07:01] Cool. 

[00:07:01] Jon Beck: Very cool. And I'm assuming that when you say friends, it's also the extension of your network too? Yes. Who are maybe classified as friends, but people that you know work with? For sure. I love that you are working on a very cool project right now, which is due to launch, I'm thinking you're gonna put this in the category of hiring yourself or, or creating work for yourself.

[00:07:18] Tell us a little bit more about that. 

[00:07:19] Andrew Hochradel: Sounds super interesting. Yeah, so when I went full-time freelance, I, um, Kind of, it was just like done working for people and I wanted to remind myself constantly to work for myself. I have a little banner on my front door that says, had to be you. And so every time I leave, it's just a reminder that like, I have to be me.

[00:07:37] And that was a big thing for me. I. Is taking a risk. And when I left my agency, I told them, I was like, this might be the worst decision I ever make, but I need to make it for me. And it was my own decision that I need to do this for me and so took that risk. And so I remind myself every year I hire myself for a project for my birthday.

[00:07:54] So I basically like gift from my business to myself, a project. And I've done photo shoots. I've done. Like weird audio experiments. Uh, and then one that I did a couple years ago is I hired myself to do a merch line for Southwest Airlines. I've always been a super fan and I thought they'll never hire me to do a merch line, so let me hire me to do a merch line.

[00:08:19] And I put aside budget, I put aside time and just went all in on creating this merch line. And then started posting on social media trying to get ahold of them. It didn't go anywhere initially. It was just me posting and it was a good enough story that I realized this is going to become more about the story than it will I.

[00:08:38] Be about the actual products, right? It was something that I was passionate about that was a good story for me, and positioning for my brand of communicating my brand values that I'm passionate about, things I love presenting different experiences, and I'm not afraid to try weird stuff and see what happens.

[00:08:55] We did that and, didn't hear anything from Southwest. And I was like, I'm not gonna give up on this. I think that there's a story. I think there's potential here. And so I started sending messages to them and continuing my thread on social media and basically made the promise, I am going to make new mock-ups of Southwest merch on every single flight that I take until you put something in the store.

[00:09:16] And I did something like 26 flights that year. And so I had a. Full line of all these different experiments and ideas. And I eventually got like a thank you box from Southwest and I was like, great. Love that. That's not the win here. Right? Like, I am. Right. It's, it's that idea of I don't want to give up what I want for what I want now, right?

[00:09:36] That I'm like, oh, right now, it's really cool to be like, I gotta have an influencer box. Like, yeah, that's what I want. And I'm like, no, no, no. What I, what I actually want, the end goal of this that I can't forget is to get merch into the Southwest store. So kept going. I started doing a ton of stocking on LinkedIn.

[00:09:51] I found the marketing manager for Southwest. A lot of the team started stocking on social media, found their interests, and so my merch mockups went from. T-shirts and, fun little trinkets that you would see in a regular store to doing like motocross helmets and doing like coozies because they like boating.

[00:10:08] And so I started targeting the mockups very specifically to people and started tagging them. And eventually got connected with the right people in the right room, and started having the conversation of, let's make some stuff together. We went through, a few different iterations. It actually took like six months of different projects that didn't work out, and so we shifted to another project and eventually landed on let's do a nineties inspired nostalgia line of merch to launch directly in the Southwest store.

[00:10:37] No tests, like we're ready to take the shot because the work is there. It looks awesome. Let's take it. And so we've been working the last four or five months or so, and we're launching July 11th in the Southwest store. It's a line of five different pieces, inspired by my memories and my feelings through the nineties of yeah, flying with Southwest, which is really cool.

[00:10:57] Yeah, 

[00:10:58] Jon Beck: that is a, an amazing story. That's the power of persistence because it really is, after all that time to get that acknowledgement, the marketing manager finds you. Southwest is a client now. 

[00:11:11] Andrew Hochradel: Yeah, it's just really cool. Yeah. I, I tell people like it's if you're going after somebody, be the best kind of annoying.

[00:11:18] Yeah. And that's doing, providing quality with consistency over time. Like I. Always works out like I'd say 95% success rate on that is just quality consistency over time, will work out into something. And that was kind of the mindset I took. And again, it's, it's taken like two and a half years to make this happen.

[00:11:37] But I tried to continually deliver on that quality and just be so consistent about it that it put them in the corner of, hey, It's your loss if you don't take this. And so it's a lot of positioning, a lot of marketing, a lot of planning and a lot of work. But it's paid off in the long run, which is really cool.

[00:11:55] Very 

[00:11:56] Jon Beck: cool. It's, that's a great story of perseverance and, you know, we tell, job seekers a lot. Maybe not to that extent that you went through over that period of time, but, the fact that there are platforms today where you can create. Content that will be seen and recognized and you can send to other people to express your interest and knowledge and know-how, is amazing.

[00:12:17] Um, and yep, it's free. And to not take advantage of that, and to create. Um, you know, nobody's gonna call you, right? As good as you are, and even if your work is fantastic, you've gotta make it happen and manifest yourself. So, 

[00:12:31] Andrew Hochradel: yep. And especially in this kind of, economy and what's happening, it is so much more important to help.

[00:12:39] People hiring you or potential clients to help them understand your perspective instead of your skills. Like you like resumes, there's one in a million, right? Yeah. It's, here's my skills, it's on a little chart, whatever, but being able to communicate your perspective as a creative, as someone going after a job.

[00:12:56] That is the magic, because I think. Businesses hire people with perspective. They could hire anyone with a skill, right? It's like listing and saying like, oh, I'm a carpenter and I'm proficient with Hammer. It's like, yeah, you should be right, but like, what are you gonna do? Like, oh, I make chairs out of using only nails with that hammer.

[00:13:15] That's like, okay, that's interesting. That's a new perspective. And so being able to communicate that perspective I think is so important, especially in this job market. Let's get tactical, maybe 

[00:13:23] Jon Beck: a little more practical. Than the Southwest example, which I just love. I definitely want a t-shirt too. I, I marvel at the fact, that the contingent workforce market in the United States, it's a 200 billion industry and despite the size and scope of it, I run into hiring managers and candidates and business leaders that have no idea that this model exists.

[00:13:45] They're still, for whatever reason, pre-wired to think the only job opportunities are full-time. And wouldn't entertain a contractor, God forbid, a freelance opportunity because I'm gonna miss out on benefits or, the pay isn't as good or I'm not gonna be viewed as an equal. There's just tons of examples.

[00:14:02] What advice do you give to somebody? And we do a lot of education as well, by the way, to say, Hey, the water safe. And in some cases you might like this even more, especially as a creative or a technical person. You get to work on the coolest stuff and then move on to the next and, You're not just locked in.

[00:14:15] That's the same as we, you know, our earlier conversation around agency versus freelance. But what advice do you give to somebody who is earlier in their career, in how to navigate that? And I'm gonna throw Upwork in some of the other gig sites in there too, cuz that's an option for some people it's overwhelming.

[00:14:29] Oh my God, where do I start? What advice do you give them to get going? 

[00:14:33] Andrew Hochradel: Yeah, I think that getting going, it's more about the width than the depth. And what I mean by that is get as many varying experiences as you can instead of like one singular, very deep experience. I think if you are, working as a contractor, if you are working as a freelancer, If you are kind of bouncing around, always have something going on the side.

[00:14:59] Use your experience from one thing to another thing. I've been contracting with Adobe now for four or five years, and they're really big on having people that have side things, that are doing other stuff. And I have people even on my team that are video directors, I have someone that's a model.

[00:15:14] I have photographers that they all do stuff on the side because they're able to take that experience and bring it over to another place that may not have that. . It's. Working with an organization that may be, cooking with one spice and then I come in as a contractor, as someone from outside and say, Hey, I literally have been cooking with 40 spices in the last year.

[00:15:36] Let's get some of those mixed in here and see if we can, , teach you how to cook a little bit differently. And I think that's the magic of starting out in a career. Is building that creative pantry, building the knowledge, building the experiences so that when you go to these different clients, they're so set on the way that they do things and make things.

[00:15:56] And they're running systems, they're running processes to come in and not be afraid. To be like, why are we doing this? I have three other clients that do this a little bit differently. Why don't we try that? Like, oh, I tried this thing a few years ago in this random, one week gig that I thought was really interesting.

[00:16:11] That could be a good application here. Let's see if we can twist and shift. And so I think that's the magic of starting out in a career is just build your pantry and don't focus on one thing. Focus on as many possible things as you can. And then once you figure out what's useful, You can start sorting that pantry and kind of push stuff on the top shelf, push it to the back and bring the good stuff forward.

[00:16:33] And, there are things that I think are terrible ideas that I've gotten in the past that end up being the perfect idea for something in the future. So just gather those experiences and that knowledge. I like 

[00:16:42] Jon Beck: the pantry metaphor a lot. I'm probably gonna steal it from you. So now, so I've created my pantry.

[00:16:48] What's the best way, or have you had more success? Than others working directly with the client versus through a staffing agency like us versus a gig platform like Upwork? Or , do you go through all channels? 

[00:17:02] Andrew Hochradel: I go through all channels actually. I very much bounce around directly with clients, through all three.

[00:17:09] It's, it's kind of the answer and I think that, again, the experiences with each are really good. For each other, right, that I can have a. Super professional experience in one zone, working with a hiring agency, and then have a very casual experience working directly with a client. And then the time comes and I have a client that is very professional and I'm like, oh, I know how to communicate with this person.

[00:17:38] From my experience over with a hiring agency, that it's getting those on every side and then mixing and matching them. Because if I come into a freelance client, like if I'm coming in working with, red Bull, I did some magazine work with Red Bull, super casual, super chill. I mean, it's Red Bull, it's fun, it's, you know, not super corporate.

[00:17:58] If I came in only knowing how to speak corporate, it's gonna be a weird vibe. And again, it's gonna sell my perspective as, oh, his perspective is that he's a. Corporate guy that like only works in these big corporations and you know is in-house that I know how to adapt and be like, oh no, no, no. I'm like the super chill guy.

[00:18:15] And then I go into a meeting at Adobe that's like, we're gonna talk ROIs and analytics. And I was like, oh yes, let me open my spread. Like being able to exist in those spaces and kind of communicate. And again, it's being able to communicate that perspective and sometimes be able to shift that perspective to what the situation calls for.

[00:18:32] Jon Beck: So that leads me to my perfect segue into my next question, we hear a lot about digital transformation. It's an overused term, but I think it's valid. I think a lot of, the acceleration of digital transformation came out of where maybe you and I who live in the space, just assume that everybody's digitally fluent.

[00:18:50] A large, portion of, corporate America wasn't before covid. All of a sudden they had to be, for all the obvious reasons. We've seen a shift, where, not even a shift, but a greater interdependence between the creative marketing teams and the technology teams. Because the expectation is that every experience is gonna be akin to what you get at Amazon or eBay or otherwise.

[00:19:13] Are you seeing the same thing and is there any evidence that budget or authority or ownership is moving more to the C o's office versus what used to land at the CIO 

[00:19:23] Andrew Hochradel: or the CTO's office? Huh. That's a good question. I think,

[00:19:33] I think there is a shift that I've had to kind of come to grips with between the. Creativity and the sail, or like the land, I guess the, it's the, the hot air balloon in the sky with the view dreaming and like the actual like landing of that. And I think something that someone told me at one point that was really good is remembering the difference between, purpose and preference.

[00:20:03] And I think regardless of where things are landing or where they're shifting to, I think that the. Purpose it's agreed upon by those parties can always be the end goal, right? Regardless of what responsibility is shifting, who's making the calls? If I'm the one just taking orders, or if I'm the one that's giving orders wherever it is in the hierarchy.

[00:20:25] If we're greed on the purpose of what we're working on, then it becomes equal, that there may be more decision making power that someone is only able to give the thumbs up, but I'm like holding their thumb up, right? That we're there together because we've worked collaboratively and not put our preferences.

[00:20:43] And there is always a point, and I have hit this so many times that I say it turns into a Sure Project. And what a assure project is, is when I have communicated that we are not heading toward the purpose of the project that, The technical skills that I have are informing that the decisions we're making are heading away from the purpose that we're trying to accomplish.

[00:21:04] And if the decision is we are still gonna go for the preference, then it turns into a Sure project where I just go. Sure. What would you like? Sure. Sounds good. Yep, absolutely. Sure. And so I think that's really, really hard for creatives. Yeah. But I think that it's a really good trait to have because I say, sure, and then I have mental space to go work on this southwest thing.

[00:21:26] Right. That I'm like, cool, I'm not, I'm not trying to fight for some idea that is just going to die. I am going to. Like get it, get it all dressed up and ready to go, and then let it fly wherever it wants to go. And I will build my, my project over here with stable wings, with good aerodynamics and we'll fly tandem and see who goes.

[00:21:47] And so it's not a spiteful thing, but it very much is a sure, like whatever you want is where we're gonna go. The preference is when. That 

[00:21:54] Jon Beck: was a very diplomatic answer. I appreciate that. I try, but no, it felt fil Let me throw another topic at you, which you can't run away from these days cuz it's everywhere in your face.

[00:22:04] , AI, AI is gonna obviate the need for everything can be done, marketing and copywriting, and recruiting's dead. And we're gonna write code and it's the end of humanity. And we're gonna be sent, they're gonna be, it's gonna be sentient and all hell's gonna break loose. How do you respond to ai? Uh, 

[00:22:20] Andrew Hochradel: so it's interesting, my, my take on ai, I think it's a really good, like co-pilot for creatives.

[00:22:26] Again, my whole thing with creativity is perspective and communicating. Perspective communicating. Experiences. And I always tell people I don't wanna make people like feel good all the time with my work, but I wanna make them like, feel good, like do a good job at making them feel. And I think that, there is a lot of AI stuff that is missing, that intentionality to be able to hit someone with that feel that we can create as creatives.

[00:22:56] And the emotion and. It really is the different pieces coming together that create that. And this is gonna get super technical, but there's something in design called semiotics. And it basically is the study of signs and symbols, how we communicate visually, right? It's the phonetics or the alphabet of design and creativity.

[00:23:17] And so AI is really, really good at understanding how. Two, there are three parts. There's icons, indexes, and symbols. It's really, really good at understanding how icons and indexes work together. So an icon is what it looks like, and so if you're putting in a prompt that's like a wizard, it's like cool icon of a wizard.

[00:23:36] I know what a wizard looks like. Yeah, if you're putting in an index, it gives information. So it's like a fantasy wizard, it's really good at understanding. Great. It's a fantasy is like sparkles and whatever. But the last one is symbols. And symbols are things that are understood within cultural context.

[00:23:51] Uh, ai. Doesn't, it just, it just doesn't understand. That's why you aren't seeing people generating alphabets and anytime you try to like do lettering, it just has no idea because every letter is a symbol. It's understood within a system. Yes. So there is culture and history all the way back to ancient Egypt that.

[00:24:09] Has been crafted and understood and passed down and synthesized by humanity. That I don't think AI is going to catch up with anytime soon. Obviously I could be wrong. It's evolving so quickly, but there's something about the complexities of how we communicate visually that AI doesn't understand because they don't have the contextual kind of pieces that it needs to put that together.

[00:24:31] Brilliant. Love it. That's a 

[00:24:32] Jon Beck: fantastic example. It's the humanity element of it, it's the same way that. Two humans talking to each other are communicating verbally or visually, but also unspoken, right through pheromones and through and eye contact. And there's just like, there's so many little touch points.

[00:24:49] That, can be interpreted so many different ways based on the background and to your point, symbolism and the history that all comes from that, yep. Um, 

[00:24:56] Andrew Hochradel: that part and I think, yeah, it doesn't get, yeah, for me, I love the 

[00:24:59] Jon Beck: co, I love the co-pilot example as well. I've had, I had somebody else refer to, like, remember back when people were doing math on slide rules and all of a sudden the calculator came along.

[00:25:08] Well, now you can job do your job that much more efficiently. But you still have to solve the 

[00:25:11] Andrew Hochradel: problem, yes. Yeah. And yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say is it's, it's, I understand semiotics very well because I've studied it for a very long time. And so I'm like, I know the pieces, I know how they go together.

[00:25:22] I know how to translate something from someone who only writes copy or speaks into a visual language. And like now I just have a really great dictionary that I can grab the words out of, right? That it's. I know how the pieces go together and I can now get those pieces much more quickly, which is very helpful in the brainstorming process.

[00:25:44] And I think that there's a conversation in creatives between that, like the craft is being lost, but I think that it just speeds up the creative process that you can put as much craft into something as you want. And so even if it is like, cool, it's generated X, Y, and z, for me, it could be done. It's like if you want more craft, put more craft into it.

[00:26:00] Yeah. Like really make it something special that is unique and has perspective that couldn't just be done with a click. That's the magic. That you can get to the result. That couldn't be done with a click by doing things with just a click. Yeah. Well 

[00:26:15] Jon Beck: done, well said. Andrew, let's go to, the speed round.

[00:26:19] Ask you a few questions to get to know you a little bit better. We'll start with some easy ones. Uh, 

[00:26:24] Andrew Hochradel: zoom versus teams. Oh, zoom, I think. Yeah, zoom. Uber versus Lyft. Uber. Always. Uber. Oh my goodness. Always Uber. 

[00:26:33] Jon Beck: Here's maybe an tougher one. Adobe versus Canva. 

[00:26:37] Andrew Hochradel: Adobe, sorry.

[00:26:41] Jon Beck: Based on your work history. That's an easy one. Yeah. 

[00:26:44] Andrew Hochradel: The best gig that you ever had and why? Oh, that's a great question. Best gig I ever had. Oh man. I this is a very specific one. One of the best gigs I've had, and probably the best gig I had, is like not a high paying one, not a high visibility, but I love Vegas.

[00:27:05] I go to Vegas very often, and there is a casino resort in Vegas called Ellis Island . And it is, it's a family owned, but it's literally just like if your friends opened a casino and like it had a brewery in it. And so I love going there. It just feels like home. And so I started talking to the owners, got connected through some creative meetups, and they asked me to design a set of growlers for their beer, to go out.

[00:27:28] And so it's a set of four and it says b e e r. And it's like B is for, Beer. E is for eats, the other E is for Ellis, and R is for roulette. And we made these little growler, , and we give them away. So anytime somebody gets a blackjack of a certain suit, you win a growler. So there's all these people that are gi getting these growlers that my design on it, which is really cool.

[00:27:49] And they started using it as decor in all their bars. And so anytime I go visit my growlers are all over the decor. It was just gonna be a little fun thing to do as like a small short run sale. And it's become a part of my life that I get to enjoy and a part of a whole bunch of other people's lives that they get to enjoy as well.

[00:28:04] And it just makes me smile every time I think about it. Cool, fun. 

[00:28:07] Jon Beck: I put you in the way back machine to the point in time when you first started your career. What piece of advice would you tell yourself? To young Andrew based on everything that you know sitting here today. 

[00:28:20] Andrew Hochradel: Always give into peer pressure cause I'll have a lot more friends.

[00:28:23] Uh, no, that's, that's always my go-to advice. I always have, like I tell that to students and I see them like writing it down and I was like, okay, my new advice is to not take everyone's advice. What the heck, guys? , no, I think that my advice to young Andrew, would be that that banner that I have by my front door is, it just has had to be you is just remind, you have to be you and like understand what that is, how that communicates.

[00:28:47] And hit those, the the two questions I ask myself on every project, what do you wanna say and how do you wanna say it? Figure that out early and that will guide your career very quickly. Very nice. 

[00:28:57] Jon Beck: Andrew, it has been a pleasure to have 

[00:29:00] Andrew Hochradel: you. Yes, it's been fun. Thanks 

[00:29:01] Jon Beck: Your experience and your perspective and guidance for some of our younger folks.

[00:29:06] By the time that we publish, the Southwest merch will be live, so we'll make sure that, that we put it up there. I definitely am gonna buy a nineties t-shirt. I love a good throwback t-shirt, but if people wanna find you, what's the best way for 'em to get in 

[00:29:17] Andrew Hochradel: touch? Best way to get in touch is any social media.

[00:29:21] , or you can just go to my website. It's hok.co, so h o c h.co. It also is the same on all social media, but without the punctuation. So it is spelled out, h o c h d o t Co and all social media. Send me a dm, pretty much anywhere, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, or just go to hok.co and you can get all of the initiatives and.

[00:29:39] Special things that I'm running. I technically don't keep a portfolio on my site, and this is highly controversial. I like to focus on one thing at a time. I think if you don't have anything to say, don't say anything and we have something to say, say it really loud. And so go see what's happening@hawk.co and maybe something exciting is going on.

[00:29:55] Love it. We'll make sure 

[00:29:56] Jon Beck: we put it in the notes. Thank you again for our listeners. As always, keep grinding, keep the faith, keep safe. And we will see you next time on Hiring 

[00:30:05] Andrew Hochradel: University. Andrew, thanks again. Good luck everybody.