Speaker 1:
Welcome to ETF Central, recorded here at the New York Stock Exchange, the home of ETFs. We're diving deep with the people shaping the space, the technologies driving innovation, and the stories behind the tickers. Whether you're an investor, issuer, or industry insider, welcome home.
Bilal Little:
Welcome to another edition of ETF Central, the podcast where we break down the trends that are reshaping the entire future of the financial landscape. Today's episode, I'm really excited because we're bridging two powerful worlds, ETFs and personal finance. Look, today I'm joined by Austin and Robert, the two voices behind Rich Habits Podcast, a show that's dedicated to helping people build wealth through discipline, mindset, and smart strategies. This episode is going to be really powerful because we're going to talk about the tools that are reshaping the ETF landscape, and more importantly, how you can leverage some of these tools to actually help your personal financial journey. How are you guys doing? Welcome to the show.
Austin Hankwitz:
Thanks so much for having us, Bilal.
Robert Croak:
Excited to be here. Yeah.
Bilal Little:
All right. Come on, tell the truth.
Robert Croak:
For sure. Can't wait. You're one of our favorite guest in our people in Wall Street, so we love it.
Austin Hankwitz:
Every time we have Bilal in the Rich Habits podcast, it's always special guest, Bilal.
Bilal Little:
Hey, I like that. Look, I'm a man of the people, so I keep it simple and straightforward. So I want to jump right in, guys. You guys are important to me. I'm so excited to have you. But this question is specifically about how you guys have built a very significant following. So everyone wants eyeballs today. Everyone wants audiences. You guys have built three million plus following the action and insight of the Rich Habits podcast. How'd you do it and what was the significant aha moment that you said you needed to lean into this opportunity?
Austin Hankwitz:
So the Rich Habits podcast, for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about here, it's a three times a week podcast on financial literacy, primarily on Spotify. Monday, Thursday, Friday episodes. We started the podcast back in February of 2023. It was just Monday episodes. And as all podcasts go, no one listens to the first 30 episodes. So we were talking to ourselves. But the real growth I would say for the show specifically started to come when Robert and I got a little bit more growth hacky as it relates to trying to get the word out. So instead of, you see clips all the time and everyone's trying to find a clip and have it go viral on an Instagram or a TikTok. Instead, Robert has over a million followers on TikTok. I've got about seven or 800,000. And so every, I think it was Thursday night we were doing them, live streams for like two hours.
And what's cool about TikTok livestream is you get discoverability. So you don't have to be following anybody on TikTok and you just scroll your for you page and people that are live will pop up on your feed. And so I would say a lot of our success in the beginning of discoverability was like leaning into the, we got a little bit of an authority. We both got the little blue check marks right on this platform. Let's lean into that a little bit. Let's make sure people know that we're talking about everything in this live stream, but we have a podcast. So it's like if you enjoyed this conversation for the last two hours, you're going to love our podcast.
Robert Croak:
Yeah, absolutely.
Austin Hankwitz:
Easy sell, remind them every five, 10, 15 minutes. But I'd say 2023 specifically, so how the timeline of the show came about was in 23, started the show rocking and rolling Monday episodes, had a blast. Then we started getting feedback like, "Hey guys, I got a question about this strategy or here's my specific situation. What do you think about it?" And so we introduced our Thursday episodes, which were these Q&A. And so every Q&A episode lasts, let's call it between 30 and 45 minutes. We take questions from our audience via Instagram, DMs or email as well. And it's just an episode dedicated to them. So balancing the let's all learn together with these Monday episodes with, "Hey, we're learning together. This has been fun, but we know you guys got questions. We know you guys are kind of walking through your own personal finances, personal, which someone like to say a lot." And so we got to not only get the discoverability aspect with those Monday episodes, but also cater to and nurture that audience and that community with those Thursday episodes.
And now we just rolled out August at the beginning of August of this year here, the Friday episodes, our Rich Habits Radar, which you were on as well, which is really exciting. And these Rich Habits Radar episodes are, we like to say the biggest headlines and happenings impacting you and your money. So we're having a blast with the show, but I'd say the real growth came after that first 30 episodes. So staying consistent with it's really important because you become inside of people's daily and weekly habits.
Bilal Little:
Of course.
Austin Hankwitz:
Every time you go to the gym, oh, I'm turning to the rich habits. Coming back from my commute from work on Thursdays, rich habits. Whatever that I'm cooking on a Tuesday night, rich habits. And so being able to get in that consistency, get in that flow, have them come back, but then also lean into our existing audiences and use that for growth, I think is what really allowed the show to have a meteoric rise from brand new show in 2023, February '23 to number one on Spotify's business chart. You can think about all the podcasts are over there-
Bilal Little:
Absolutely.
Austin Hankwitz:
... by October of 2023.
Bilal Little:
What I think what you did for people is you built trust fairly quickly, and that's the biggest issue for most people who are trying to build audiences. This authenticity is what people connect to you guys on. I know that's what I connected with you on. So with that being the premise of you guys providing financial education and real insight, maybe unpack what the views are, because you're formulating an opinion about markets and people are looking to you for thought leadership. And I think this is so important right now, given where we are where at the end of the year, the stocks have done obviously very well, but at the same time, people are still concerned. I mean, you look at what's going on from a political perspective. How do you set your strategic vision to say, "Hey, here's what's going on in the market where that trust continues to expand."
Robert Croak:
I would say probably the number one thing we do within our ecosystem, and he says it all the time, and I love it, is he says, "If you're surprised by anything in the markets, we're not doing a good enough job." And I think the big takeaway for us is consistency, but it is also taking the really hard, scary topics and breaking them down so the everyday person that maybe is just getting started investing, maybe just got their first million dollars or somewhere along the way is learning because even people with $50 million net worth, they have blind spots as well.
So I think for us, it's consistency and breaking it all down to prepare people better for what's happening because we have decades of experience in reading between the lines, the tea leaves and not reacting to all these headlines because we are faced in a financial world right now where everything has become clickbait manipulation. So our job is to break that down for everyone and just tell them to ooze out a little bit, relax, and we'll walk them through what is really going on in the markets so they don't fall victim to those headlines.
Bilal Little:
Do you guys typically funnel it down to maybe five core topics? How do you guys frame out what should be the topic of the day?
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, it's a really good question. I think to answer your first question, you don't have to be an expert in the markets to be an investor. I think we know that. There are experts that are incredible investors, but 95% of people aren't experts. They just are buy VOO and chill or whatever it might be for your strategy. But I think when it comes to tactically speaking, helping people understand how to build wealth over a long period of time, it's like a couple core principles. So when in doubt, zoom out, have that long-term mentality, own what you know. So don't go buy some penny stock because your barber told you it was a cool idea or some cryptocurrency because you're the person at the grocery store. So like Amazon and Google and things. Are you a customer of the company? Awesome. Maybe you should consider owning the stock. And then also having this mentality that if I can live on less than I make and I invest the margin, building wealth is inevitable.
Bilal Little:
Absolutely.
Austin Hankwitz:
And if you, one, are doing that, so we talk about it, call it the honest budget. So having a clear understanding of what you are spending and what's coming in, what's going out. It's like your own business if you think about it as a human. So how much revenue am I making? What are my expenses? What's that bottom line profit there? And then what do I do with that bottom line profit? Well, when do we even have it? And if no, then we talk about side hustles and entrepreneurship and stuff, which I think is also really important. But once you do have it's not just investing it, but it's investing it correctly.
Because we see all the time people have 401ks and don't get... I love a good 401k if you're investing, rock and roll. But nine times out of 10, when we talk to people about their 401ks, they don't know what it's invested into. They're like, "Yeah, I'm just doing the match and my company's doing it. I'm rocking and rolling. I'm having a good time." And then they forget, "Wow, why am I so heavy in bonds right now? I'm not performing when the markets are going." Or, "Wait a second, why am I invested in emerging markets? Shouldn't I be invested in the asset?" So it's, again, coming back to this idea of finding the margin and then investing it correctly, which just again comes back to the idea of knowing what you're invested into and having that long-term mentality behind it.
Bilal Little:
That's a fundamental conversation. It's funny because you explain literally fundamental investing.
Austin Hankwitz:
Kind of just did. [inaudible 00:09:16].
Robert Croak:
But to piggyback that, I think the sauce for us is getting the fear out of the way because we don't have anything to sell anyone. If we work for X, Y, Z firm, we're going to sell what we're told to sell.
Bilal Little:
Completely unless.
Robert Croak:
We tell people, "Here's what we would do if we were in your situation with your financial situation and your risk tolerance." And I think it lowers the barrier to fear to allow people to feel empowered by saying, "You know what? I believe that I can do this and get them off the sidelines." We see it every single day where people have 20,000, 50,000, two million, $5 million, they're not even in a high yield savings account because they don't know what to do, or they got burned by a broker 20 years ago and haven't invested since. So I think that is what gets me out of bed every day and energizes me, is helping people get across that finish line and start really getting it put together so they can build wealth for themselves.
Bilal Little:
Robert, that is so important. So I used to spend a lot of time teaching financial education and I worked for an investment firm, so I didn't have anything to sell anyone. So I had to make sure there was a clear line of division and I just wanted to provide education because I want to see people do better. And our industry, sometimes it can feel gated to somebody who's not in the business, as you know. So what's one or two things, either of you, that you've learned from your audience over these last two years?
Austin Hankwitz:
Before I answer that, I want to double click on what you said because our first conversation started with the authenticity about the show, which really helped with that. And it's funny, Robert and I have a 30-year age gap. You're probably watching it at home and you're like, "Wait a second, you guys have a podcast?" It's like, that doesn't make any sense. So what's so fun about it is back to what Robert was talking about with nothing to sell people. Robert's had a very successful career as an entrepreneur. I had a successful career as an entrepreneur for several years before I started the show. So if we work with companies with the show, it's because we think it's going to benefit the audience more than it's going to benefit us. Because again, I've got my own business with Christian Blackwell, co-founder of Witz Ventures. Robert, he's again, a very successful entrepreneur. And so at the end of the day, we only work with the best of breed companies that are going to really move us in the right direction there.
Bilal Little:
That's a great point. And so what did you learn about your audience over the last two years? Either one of you, by the way.
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, I would say something we've learned about our audience in the last couple of years is I underestimated how hungry they were for the more advanced strategies. I think there's more sophisticated investors now in 2024 and in 2025, and now as we head into 2026 than there ever was in history. And when I say sophisticated, I truly do mean the retail investor, but the retail investor that listens to the earnings call. The retail investor that wants to have not just the S&P, but the diversification and the precious metals and maybe they want a little bit of a small cap ETF or emerging markets. I think that really took me by surprise because when I was growing up and when I was in college and all this stuff, like when I started getting and investing, it was the Dave Ramseys of the world.
Go get you some Roth IRA stuff, get you some S&P, some mutual funds. You're going to be just fine. Let's talk about the daily habits because I agree. 80% of it is the rich habits that allow you to find the margin in your budget and invest. But once... I was really surprised and I've learned that from our audience now of these more sophisticated investors, this is where we're headed. And I think it's really important to not just stop at that elementary 101, but to go a little bit further and help them, which is, again, this Friday episode that we introduce, let's talk about OpenAI this, Microsoft that, this earnings call or something else of the nature, they are hungry for that. And I love that because it just goes to show that over time, you get introduced to a topic, then you realize how much of an impact that topic can have on you as a human investing. I'm going to learn everything I possibly can about this. And we're just grateful that our show is a part of people's resource tab on their phone.
Bilal Little:
Awesome. I love that. That is very powerful.
Robert Croak:
And I want to click back on that. So, and you both have said these words already, authenticity and gatekeeping. The number one thing that I think is problematic, especially in our field of finance, is that so many people, as soon as they get a decent level of following, they no longer provide value. They say, "Da, da, da, do this. Oh, if you want the rest of this information, click below." And to me, that is something that drives me crazy because there's a way to monetize your ecosystem like we do without gatekeeping the information.
So I think the big success for us and what I've learned a lot from our audience is how much they desire to find someone that they can trust to follow along. I tell people, "Don't follow 10 people. Find two or three that you really trust that have a proven track record. You can Google me all day long and see my track record. It's proven, him as well." And so I think it's important for people to find people they can adhere to and then really learn from along the way. And I think that those are the two big things for us, us is authenticity and not gatekeeping the information.
Bilal Little:
The fact, if I can funnel down, but what you both said, this is important, I feel like you guys captured the sale of the win or tailwind behind the back of a lot of people selling trading courses. So the market infrastructure improved with Robinhood, meaning access, democratization, people being able to participate. But what you quickly got into, and this is 2020, 2021, think about the time a lot of people said, "Hey, I got these option courses." And everyone was just selling these get rich quick ideas to your point, Robert. And this is so important and the fact that you guys came in and said, "You know what? We don't need anything from you. Let us level set. Let us keep it 100% with you and let you make the most informed decision possible." So it's kudos to actually both of you to be able to take that venture. So I just wanted to share that with you. As we transition, because this is an important point, give me a sense and just level set where you guys are on markets and how you're communicating to people right now.
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, good question. Obviously, not financial advice. Neither of us are registered buyers.
Bilal Little:
100%.
Austin Hankwitz:
Well, you got to always say that. Where do I think we are in the markets right now? It's pretty obvious that since October of '22, when I think it was OpenAI, I think it was Thanksgiving when they came out or something of that nature with ChatGPT. This whole AI boom has taken place. I like to think of it as this productivity boom. Personally, I feel between the deregulation happening behind the scenes with policy, between the looser monetary policy, with the Fed cutting interest rates, we're seeing a lot of companies, specifically Mag 7, committing to hundreds of billions of dollars cumulatively in capital expenditure spend. Just make sure we're on the same page here. CapEx, capital expenditures are, this is money leaving their bank accounts to go build things, which turns into revenue in other companies' bank accounts. So that's good. So I think between all of the things I had just mentioned and how earnings per share is expected to rise with the 493, call it mid to high single digits next year, and then again, call it low double digits for the Mag 7.
I remain optimistic about the markets. Yes, downtown Josh Brown shout out him, and we talked about this on our show, had a wonderful observation, which was that 50% of consumer spending comes from the top 10% of earners. We're seeing that right now. And I absolutely agree with that. But I don't think that we are yet at a place where the economy slow... It's pretty obvious that the politicians behind the scenes right now really want to keep things rocking and rolling-
Bilal Little:
Of course.
Austin Hankwitz:
... between these big deals we're doing and all this stuff around not just the country here, but in the world. So I think there's still juice left in this bull trend run that we're in at the moment. And I think it's still very early stages for artificial intelligence. Now, let me also mention, there are absolute bubbles happening in sectors of the market. If it's unprofitable or even pre-revenue space exploration or nuclear energy or think like these crazy high beta names that we've seen go up down, left, right and in circles like, yeah, of course, do that at your own risk. But I think if you're an everyday investor who's trying to build wealth over the next five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 continue to be the backbone of a well-diversified portfolio. It's my own portfolio as well.
Bilal Little:
Absolutely.
Austin Hankwitz:
And I continue to be bullish on American capitalism.
Bilal Little:
I love it. You want to add anything?
Robert Croak:
Yeah. I broaden it out a lot and I agree with him 100%. I try to get people to understand a couple of things is that when we're looking at these secular growth trends like nuclear is hot right now, AI still has a long way to go. Energy is really important right now because we're so far behind China in our energy infrastructure. I try to get people to look at a longer window. Don't look at what's happening in the next three to six months. Look at it for two to five years because that's where we're really going to see more maturity in these sectors. But also I try to get people to understand, don't try to chase the trend. We see it all the time where someone, a company goes out and pays 20 influencers to talk about a crypto or a stock and then all of a sudden they're telling everybody to buy it.
Everyone's like, "Did you see this? Did you see this?" And we're like, "Slow down. Slow down. Let's back up a little bit. Look at it more long term." So I think we have a long way to go in AI like Austin alluded to. Nuclear is a really good category I think right now. For me, some of these energy companies like Constellation and Vistra Energy I think have a long room to grow, a lot of room to grow. So for me, I think there's a lot of bubbly things happening in the market, but I don't think the totality of the market is a bubble.
Bilal Little:
I like it. I respect it. Well, one, I agree with you, but I also think that this is a perfect opportunity to shift the portfolio into thematics that might be a little more attractive, not only from a valuation perspective, but from a diversification opportunity. What areas do you guys like right now? Just thematics. I know you mentioned energy. I didn't hear either of you say anything in the digital asset space, which for me, and the reason I like that space, and I'll tell you just this is just my initial thought, is it's about speed efficiency, cost, and accounting. So that is going to be a very transformative technology. So that's that on my end. But also like obviously you mentioned AI. What other thematics do you like? Anything in the precious metals? What else?
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, I would say at the moment, what's interesting to me is healthcare. I think healthcare as a sector is pretty beaten down. Obviously, we had some craziness with UnitedHealth Group, but I think that had ripple effects that caused a lot of still quality healthcare companies to trade at record low PEs. Cybersecurity is something I've always talked about. I think the Palo Alto networks of the world, the Cloudflares of the world, we saw CrowdStrike have their outage. I think it was last year, but they've since rebounded. So I think cybersecurity as AI continues to have its heyday and will continue to take over the world. Never more important to have cybersecurity against that or alongside of that. So I'd say cybersecurity and healthcare are pretty interesting to me as we think away from that. Real estate. We're seeing a lot of interest rates starting to become to take from the, what, the 30 years now, I'd say in the mid sixes, something of that nature. It was high as eight, just 18 months ago. Now, is that going to cause new builds? We'll see.
And if that's the case, we'll call out of waste management, the correlation there between new builds and then obviously trash and garbage management. So it's interesting. I think healthcare and cybersecurity and real estate are interesting to me. Precious metals on the flip side. We've seen a crazy run up when it comes to those. I unfortunately was late to the game. Robert was very early. He's been in this stuff, specifically precious metals for decades at this point. So to Robert's point, I'm not chasing that one.
Robert Croak:
Yeah, for sure.
Austin Hankwitz:
I'm looking for what is opportunistic to me right now.
Robert Croak:
Love it. So I would say for me, yes, precious metals. I mean, right now silver is in dire need. There's going to be shortages. I think there's a world where we continue to see silver rise even more than gold, but then we also have to see what happens in the Bitcoin crypto space to see if people start migrating more away from Bitcoin and back into gold as a safe haven. So we'll see. But I think nuclear is still a really strong sector of growth. I really like URA, NUKZ. Some of those ETFs I think are really important for people to have in their portfolios. So I would say those two, but also I wouldn't shy away from AI. I still think there's a lot of room to grow. If you look at AIQ, VUG, some of these ETFs that are very AI and tech specific, they're doing really, really well with outsized gains this year. So I think there's a lot of ways to go right now in the market, but those are some of the important ones from my opinion.
Bilal Little:
Yeah. No, you bring up a good point about the adjacent opportunity to AI. There's the AI infrastructure component. So you don't just have to chase the chips and the names on that side. You can also get the infrastructure. So great point. So when your audience reaches out to you for guidance on, "Hey, how do I get exposure to said thematic or area?" What are some of the tools and resources you guys point to? Because I'm sure a lot of people are coming to you and you are giving this authentic response. What tools are you using?
Austin Hankwitz:
So some of the favorite tools that I like to use right now are Investopedia. Shout out Caleb Silver. He's also a friend of the show. They're crushing it over there at Investopedia. I think it's been 20 years now of stuff they've been doing. I really enjoy seeking Alpha. I really enjoy using Koyfin. We're also just hanging out at the Google Finance Lab over here in New York before this. So yesterday we're over with Google and they've got some really cool stuff. Google Finance, it's a completely revamped product. I can't wait to really begin to dig into it.
Bilal Little:
It's exciting.
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, it's very cool. Fastgraphs.com. Shout out to... I wish this was sponsored. I've been using them for years. Geez, Louise.
Bilal Little:
Hit us up.
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah. It's a really cool platform. Fast Graphs, I use them all the time. But when it comes to all this, what's really... It's funny, I learned this way before I started entrepreneurship or any of this stuff, is just like be resourceful. So not just saying like, "Hey, I want to invest in this." It's like, okay, well, think about the value chain. So it's like AI. How do I invest in that? Well, let's think about all the different components of that. Is it the infrastructure? Is it the chips? There's a lot of different things around something. And so if I could give any advice to someone listening right now that wants to learn more about investing as a whole, don't just think about the end product. Think about the value chain is how they got to that end product. Think about all the components that go into your iPhone, all the things that go into all these other different things that we're building. Think about the value chain as you invest.
And to then also, it's funny, I was doing a deep dive into... We all know Anduril. It's a really cool company that's started by Palmer Luckey. But I was thinking about the value chain of that company and there's another... It's just an interesting rabbit holes that I know you like to go down a lot. There's some interesting rabbit holes as it relates to doing some of this. And it sparks a lot of curiosity. That's what's so important about this is we're not going to all know the answers on day one, but being able to stay excited about learning about this stuff at the end of the day is really important. So in summary, Investopedia, Seeking Alpha, shout out Yahoo Finance. I use them a lot. Fast Graps, Koyfin, Google Finance, it's all important. But lean into the ChatGPTs of the world, lean into these large language models. It boggles my mind how often we get asked a question that I'm just like, "Probably should just Google Search."
Bilal Little:
You can Google search it.
Austin Hankwitz:
Probably should just check that one out yourself.
Bilal Little:
You can Google search it.
Robert Croak:
So all of that, but for people in any walk of life or any level of where they're at in their financial journey, it's always be learning. Because I think there's a lot of cool things you can do as you advance and you're always learning because like right now, I'm super excited about predictive markets. Holly Market and Kalshi I think can tell you a lot about where the markets are going just by reading the tea leaves from all of the betting going on there. I think that's a great tool for us to continually learn from, but then also all the tools he mentioned, but it's just really understanding, I think Wayne Gretzky said it, "I don't skate to the puck. I skate where the puck is going."
And that's the number one message I try to get to people because I believe you're always going to have the early adopters and the creators, then you're going to have the people that come right after that that are really the deep into the know, the rabbit holes that we do every single day. Then you have Wall Street, then you have retail. I look at it that as long as I'm ahead of Wall Street and retail, we're going to win big.
Bilal Little:
Absolutely.
Robert Croak:
And I just try to always be ahead of the information and learning, and that can come from X, it can come from Reddit, Google, Yahoo, anywhere you go, you just want to be ahead of the information and continually be open to learning and I think you'll win.
Bilal Little:
I love that. The one area you guys didn't mention was ETF Central, your partner.
Robert Croak:
Oh, there you go.
Austin Hankwitz:
ETF Central, you're completely correct. You're completely correct.
Bilal Little:
You know what's funny about this? So I actually just got off a call with them and one thing that we're trying to do to build for the ecosystem is portfolio construction analytic tools to where people can actually build an entire portfolio and then stress test it through their various market scenarios. Meaning if interest rates move 1%, how does the portfolio behave? If we have a 30% drawdown, what would happen to different parts of the portfolio? What that is, it's insight where people can make more informed decisions. So stay tuned for that because I think those are resources that the public hasn't had access to in the past. Historically, you'd need to go to a financial advisor to build these things and then, hey, well, is it diversified enough? You don't really know. And it's all about confidence and conviction when you do make decisions. So I love all the ones that you guys have mentioned. I actually, I've used them all through some sort of component of my life.
Austin Hankwitz:
Well, we're super grateful for the partnership, especially now with these Friday episodes. I mean, you guys have that consistent presence and we're really grateful.
Bilal Little:
Yeah. I'll just say this last piece, and this is important. The good thing about ETFs, and I know you guys lean into this, is the dollars flow and they tell market sentiment.
Robert Croak:
I like that.
Bilal Little:
They tell a story by themselves.
Austin Hankwitz:
Fund flows. Absolutely.
Bilal Little:
Fund flows actually tell a sentiment, but the ETF gives you real time data that you may not always see in mutual funds or legacy positions. So do you guys follow that at all or how do you communicate that in your-
Austin Hankwitz:
I follow it a little bit.
Bilal Little:
Yeah, that's fair.
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah, a little bit. I think where do you follow it most where it makes the most sense is the crypto ETFs because fund flows obviously mean that they have to do open order buys on the underlying security so the price theoretically should go up. And if you just ... It's a cool little thing there. But so I think from that perspective, I like to follow it. I will say though, something that is fun to do, to your point, is discover a new ETF. It's on ETF Central, and you start looking like, wait a second, why does this only have a couple of hundred million of assets inside of it? Why does it... I think humanoid robots, I think that's an interesting-
Bilal Little:
Great point.
Austin Hankwitz:
... secular growth trend. And you look at some of these ETFs, you're like, wait a second, are we that early? Back to what Robert was saying here, ahead of retail, ahead of Wall Street, or think about all the retail and Wall Street that's invested into GLD, for example. It's the easiest way to invest in gold. I bet you can put that on a chart and just see the meteoric rise in assets there and correlate that to the price. But then you think about these other things and it really helps you pinpoint, wait a second, how early or late am I to an idea?
Bilal Little:
Are you guys thinking... I'm glad you said that because I don't necessarily know if anybody actually has the silver bullet to where the opportunity is. But to your point, it's like, I'm always curious. And if you're always reading and you're like, "Okay, I identified this new product, doesn't have any assets in it, what are the companies inside of this ETF?" So that gives you a nice rabbit hole to create an opportunity. So I'm glad you said that. What tools and resources are you guys thinking about creating for your audience?
Robert Croak:
Yeah, I think it's just more about creating value and I'm big about no friction. And I think the more learning tools we can create, like we learned a lot at Google Finance yesterday and it was really informative, is how can we provide more value to our audience, weave them in tighter into our ecosystem and help them grow no matter what stage they are in their financial journey. And to go back to the ETF part of it, we preach ETF, ETF every single day because too many people, in my opinion, I believe they try to move too fast to get too fancy in their investing journeys. And it's opposite when you think of the billionaires out there and the people out there where yes, they have diversification, yes, they have a lot of cool stuff, but they also have a lot of their money in ETFs.
And I think that really comes back to keep it simple, stupid, and then diversify later once you have the base built and you're financially free, because too many people try to go out and chase the big wins early. And a lot of that comes from what we see on the internet, but I think that's an important part of this is we try to get the message out, build your base, keep it simple, have a basket of low cost ETFs, and then go from there into the precious metals, the cryptos, the real estate, and everything else.
Bilal Little:
I love it. Anything on your end?
Austin Hankwitz:
Yeah. When it comes to tools and resources that we are excited to build specifically for our audience, it's pretty obvious that the only way anyone's ever going to be able to retire is by having a nest egg that's growing for them over time. And so being able to lean on our partners like public.com, for example, and say, "Hey, go open a brokerage account, do your thing, that's fun." But something that I would argue has been locked up away from retail for a long time are these pre IPO or private investments. We saw that with SpaceX now as a $400 billion company, OpenAI being rumored to, I think it was just last week, an IPO in '26 or '27 for a trillion dollar valuation. So these companies are staying private for longer.
Bilal Little:
Of course.
Austin Hankwitz:
And people like Robert and myself and Christian as well through Wits Ventures, we get invited to invest in some really cool companies and our portfolio is over 30 names at this point and we're really excited about that. But how do we now unlock that access to everyone else? How are we able to say, "Hey, come invest alongside of us if this is interesting to you and of course if you're accredited." And so we launched recently a multi-asset SPV that we were able to build. Essentially what it is it's a way to invest in xAI, SpaceX and Perplexity, as well as the Cashmere Fund, which is a multi-asset portfolio fund there.
Go check out the cashmerefund.com. But they have 38 different companies in their fund, including Mr. Beast's Beast Industries.
Bilal Little:
Wow. Wow.
Austin Hankwitz:
So they have feastables and things like that. Katy Perry's De Soi, Graza the olive oil company, Acorns, things like that. So we were able to, yes, it took probably 80 hours and a bunch of legal work to figure this out, but we were able to launch that, have it open for about three weeks or so, and now we're closing it before and should be closed by the time this episode goes live so we can lock in these valuations on the secondary markets. But just doing stuff like that, unlocking access to as many people as possible to this what's always been, oh, if you didn't know the person, you're not on Wall Street, I don't know anybody. I grew up in the hills of Tennessee.
So it's like if I'm in the room, how do I invite other people in the room with me? I love it. And how do I get as many people as possible to say, we're not selling to go bet the farm or anything, but like diversification. If you want to put low single digits of your net worth into some pre IPO or private investments, have at it, have the opportunity to go do that. It's offering them that opportunity versus them never having that in the first place.
Bilal Little:
I love it.
Robert Croak:
Me being the older statesman here, when I came up-
Bilal Little:
That's just seasoned by then. It's just season.
Robert Croak:
There was no raising capital. Go do an SPV. How do I get these brand? How do I do all this? And then after silly bands and everyone heard about how much money I had, it was amazing the tables I got invited to sit at. And so now that has grown over time. And it's the coolest thing I've ever gotten to be part of. And congrats to him for reaching out to me and starting all this with me and Christian because we get to change people's lives.
Bilal Little:
Absolutely.
Robert Croak:
Every single day, it's the coolest thing on earth to wake up and know when we have this access to these deals that they would've never ever been invited to the table.
Bilal Little:
For sure.
Robert Croak:
And through the Rich Habits ecosystem we are now, it is so fun. It's just incredible.
Bilal Little:
I mean, I can ask you to add more service than that, but I have to ask you because I'm sure everyone's like, "Hey, could you just do it for us?" Do you see it on the horizon that you guys build an advisory platform where you try to service people differently?
Austin Hankwitz:
If you're alluding to a Rich Habits ETF, perhaps that could be into the future. We got a plug here at the New York Stock Exchange.
Bilal Little:
That's right.
Austin Hankwitz:
I mean, it would make sense. It would. It would make a lot of sense. And I think that's something we're definitely considering. But at the moment, this first multi-asset SPV had 41 companies inside of it, first time it's ever been done at scale like that. So what's so cool about it's like the barbell approach. You got these pre IPO companies like SpaceX, then you also have an olive oil company like Graza. So it's like all across the spectrum from pre-seed up to pre IPO is the tagline there. But yeah, it's definitely in the cards for the future is like, what else are we able to do to take this case study, learn from it, make mistakes along the way, but learn from it and then say, cool, let's now go 10X it. Let's go make sure that it's not just our podcast listeners that tune in, but maybe we do some more stuff with you guys. There's a plethora of ideas that we're cooking on. But yeah, the goal is to invite as many people as possible inside the room with us.
Bilal Little:
I love it. I mean, what you're doing is you're creating space for the underdog.
Robert Croak:
That's it.
Bilal Little:
And that's the American dream. That's the American story. It's like we're all here just trying to get it. And if you do get the access, it's information and access, which provides the opportunity. It's up to you to walk through the door. You still got to execute, you still got to do some certain things, but you guys are literally providing real access to real businesses that are completely reshaping the landscape. So that's phenomenal, man. You guys should feel really proud about that. I do have to ask you though, this is important. So there's been something on my mind about providing access even from my seat. And we talked about it briefly last time on your show is I would like to do an event where we actually cater to your audience and figured out what's something we can do jointly to bring them down to the New York Stock Exchange and to provide a contest or something. Have you guys given any thought to that? I'm putting you completely on the spot and this is going to be fantastic when you respond.
Austin Hankwitz:
I know we did think about that.
Bilal Little:
Okay.
Austin Hankwitz:
We talked about that obviously last time you were on our show. So a couple of things come to mind. The first thing is I want it to not be all about access, giving access to the everyday person. So whatever we end up choosing, luck based. Nothing about like, oh, I live in New York and I was able to get the golden ticket because I went to someone, so I make sure it's luck based. But as it relates to how we're going to pick those people, I'm not sure, but I would absolutely love that. I remember the absolute glow on my face I had when I walked into these doors for the very first time. I was like, "This is crazy. I'm in the New York Stock Exchange." I got my degree in finance and economics from college and I was like, "This is so cool." I can't wait to partner with you to figure out how to do that to several more people in the future.
Bilal Little:
I love it. Well, I'm excited about it. Go ahead.
Robert Croak:
And I got teased outside because I get so bubbly and crazy about this stuff. But I remember the first time I came with Austin and Christian to New York Stock Exchange and Tim Croak that runs Croak Capital, our family office, he's like, "What's going on here? I've been doing this for 45 years and I've never gotten invited." I'm like, "You're not out there. You don't have the eyeballs, buddy." And so I think for me, I do a lot of B-roll footage. People love to see the behind the scenes.
Bilal Little:
100%.
Robert Croak:
They just love it because anyone can sit in a studio and have a perfectly crafted script, but I think they love seeing the B-roll and the mistakes and the coughs and the ums and ahs and all that. And I just really like that. And I think an event like that would be really cool because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, but we just have to figure out how that works and how many people could come.
Austin Hankwitz:
Maybe it has something to do with, maybe we got some funnel down to the ETF central website, new subscribers to the newsletter. Perhaps it's a specific contest related to that. I think that's probably a good first step.
Bilal Little:
Yeah. I think I want to lead with education. I think that's the foundational piece and I think you guys will be a good partner on that. So we'll talk about that. I got to leave with this and this is important. What's one area in the market that you guys are most excited about as we wrap up the year going into 2026? Just one.
Austin Hankwitz:
Humanoid robots.
Bilal Little:
Humanoid robots.
Austin Hankwitz:
Humanoid robots. Shout out Chris Camillo. He invited us to invest into Apptronik about two and a half years ago, which is a humanoid robotics company. About a year after we invested, Google and a bunch of other cool people invest in the company. DeepMind, Google invested well over $100 million, to my understanding. But long story short, humanoid robots, I think that despite the weird Neo thing that just got released recently, that's not these telly operated things, that's not that. I've seen videos of humanoids doing some things that would blow your mind.
Bilal Little:
I agree.
Austin Hankwitz:
And I 100% believe in 10 years from now, humanoid robots are going to be in every factory. We got what, 13 million factory workers here in the United States. I don't know how many millions of them will be displaced in the next 10 years, but that's where this is going. That's where everything is going. So humanoid robots figure out how to go to the value chain of those. Is it the actuators? Is it the chips? Is it NVIDIA? Is it AMD? How are you thinking about that? And then is it Tesla's optimist? So there's a lot of different things, but humanoid robots, I'm telling you 10 years from now, we're going to look back and be like, "That was the most obvious trade of my life."
Robert Croak:
For me, I would say that is number one, but I would say real world assets and the tokenization because what that's going to do, it's going to level the playing field even more for the everyday person that wants to invest in an apartment building or something else or a piece of art or whatever. And you see the Ondo Finances of the world, the Pendle Finances in the crypto space. I think those are some of the coins I'm really excited about moving forward because as real world assets and this tokenization of everything gets on chain, it's going to open up another completely different world of investing for the average person. So that really excites me.
Bilal Little:
Robert, Austin, thank you so much for joining ATF Central.
Austin Hankwitz:
Thanks, Bilal.
Robert Croak:
Our pleasure.
Bilal Little:
Love it.
Speaker 1:
That's a wrap for today's conversation, but the ETF discussion doesn't stop here. For more insights, deep dives and voices shaping the market, stay connected on etfcentral.com. From the New York Stock Exchange, we'll see you next time. Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the proceeding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.
