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Eric Malka
Co-founder, The Art of Shaving · Managing Partner, Strategic Brand Investments
He landed at Port Authority with 100 dollars and no green card. Twenty four years later he sold The Art of Shaving to Procter and Gamble. Eric Malka explains why a common idea executed brilliantly beats a brilliant idea, and why consistency is his superpower.
It was not a great idea, it was a common idea executed extremely well. The Art of Shaving was Eric’s fourth business, started with 12,000 dollars from selling his car. He argues entrepreneurs pour too much into the idea and too little into execution, when execution is everything.
Crawl, walk, run, then fly. The biggest mistake he sees is founders scaling before the business model, a proven machine for acquiring and retaining customers, actually exists. Give yourself twenty years and pace like a marathoner, because skipping stages is a recipe for a house of cards.
Consistency is the superpower. Eric ran 500 miles a year by never running more than two miles a day, and applies the same principle to parenting, brand building and investing. In his tennis analogy, championships go to the player with the fewest unforced errors, not the most winners.
