Edward Hechter Interview: High School Dropout Hits it Big Time as an Entrepreneur and in Pickleball
Diana Landau | August 10, 2024
Meet the remarkable Edward Hechter, who has "unretired" multiple times. He was a highly successful exec in tech, another incarnation as an entrepreneur with his wife, a consultant who helps companies overcome challenges and even the CEO of the giant Pickleball Central. "I tend to stay involved helping people that I adore solving business puzzles."
Edward grew up in Southern California in a typical middle-class family. "People say I was overly verbose and precocious." In high school he became active in debate, skills he would use for the rest of his working life. It was during his junior year of high school that he became one of the best high school debaters in the country. Midway through his senior year, he transferred schools and the new school didn't give him credit for some of his earned coursework. He decided to leave.
Edward began working in 1981 at the age of 17 in a tech consulting firm. He applied for the "girl Friday" position and as the company grew, he advanced. The company built websites for businesses all over the country and when Edward took the helm as the EVP and GM, the company went from $8 million in revenue to $100 million. "I was the right guy in the right chair," he tells us.
In his first unretirement, Edward figured he'd focus on becoming a soccer dad, volunteering and skiing on weekends. But he missed the intellectual side of solving complicated business puzzles. So he and his wife went shopping for a "broken" business to rehabilitate. They found a family-friendly, fixer upper in PartyPail, an online party supplies company. Edward says they went from just two orders a day to exploding in volume in just 5 years with $5 million in revenues.
In his second unretirement, Edward still wanted to help companies so he became a consultant/investor/mentor to help businesses break through whatever was holding them back. He loves helping countless entrepreneurs solve real world puzzles. "My love language is service," he says. "So I have to do good things for others. And if it turns out to be a good thing for myself too, even better." He was asked to come on board as the CEO of burgeoning Pickleball Central in 2015. And eventually helped the founders sell the business. In 2017, Edward created the Hawaii Open Pickleball Championships, the first sanctioned Hawaiian pro pickleball event.
Now in his third unretirement at age 60, (we see a definite pattern here), Edward and his wife live in Hawaii and the state of Washington. Edward still consults as much as he wants to and plays pickleball 3-4x a week. He says he's focusing on pickleball, poke, people and peace.
Edward Hechter's tips on life and work:
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"Know thyself, and what lights your fire."
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"It is often hard to tell what lit your fire until it's gone. Then you recognize you want it back." (Edward's example is his drive to help companies solve problems. He missed that.)
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"Figure out what your love language is. It's about finding the one thing that brings you a feeling of love. Start from a premise of joy and everything is easier."
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"Who do you want to share a foxhole with? That to me is the ultimate test."
• (Un)Retirement Travel with the Pro Allan Wright, Zephyr Adventures
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog
Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo
Carl Landau | August 10, 2021
We started our company Pickleball Media at the beginning of the pandemic. A weird time to start anything. But, I decided that I had to do something since I had just sold my business and came up with the idea of creating a podcast about Second Acts. I would be the guinea pig for this second act idea. To complicate the idea more, we wanted to incorporate our new love for the game of pickleball into the show. It all made no sense whatsoever but amazingly has worked out.
I enlisted my pickleball instructors Mo Nard and Reine Steel to help. Which one does???
Mo co-hosts my episode segment "Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo" and Reine created an amazing website for us (which she does in her real life).
Our segment "Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo" has been a huge hit. The funny thing is that people that don't know anything or care about pickleball love this part of the show. I just wanted to share 10 great segments. It's a fun listen. You can hear the friendship between Mo and I grow from week to week. Keep in mind it all began during the pandemic. We'd be 15 feet from each other on the end of the tiki bar each week. Oh, and we finally figured out how to use the microphones / recorder after about 20 episodes.
10 "Life Lessons with Mo"
• We're here to confuse you
• Mo wants to bring recess back in our lives
• Are you feeling lucky?
• Partner Up!
• The life and times of Mo Nard
• Mo'see up to the Line
• Unwanted Advice!!!
• Mo is Drunk!
• Under the Lights!
• Mo Likes to Hit People
If you want to hear all of the entire episodes just go here!
Carl Landau is the Creative Genius here at Pickleball Media. He is the former Grand Poobah at Niche Media.
