The real story.

I am a first-generation father — which means I am making it up as I go, with no script and no template, figuring out what kind of man I want my son to grow up watching. That is not a complaint. It is the point.

By day I run Hickey Avenue, a marketing agency built on the same principle that runs this site: value by design, not by default. We help businesses figure out what is actually worth doing — and then do that well. The personal brand and the agency are one degree apart. Same surname, same philosophy, different job.

This site is not a portfolio. It is not a resume. It is a publication — a running record of the things I notice, drink, run, bet on, and think about. The tastes look scattered: running, beer, whiskey, gambling, fatherhood, the outdoors, money. They are not. The throughline is the same instinct that runs the agency.

I notice what is worth it.

A $13 whiskey that drinks like $40. A free match that beats a paid sports package. A morning with Oscar that no money can buy. The work of discernment is the same whether the subject is a marketing budget or a bottle of bourbon.

The motto — "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken" — is not decoration. It is the thesis of the whole project. We cannot help clients see what makes them distinct if we haven't first done the work of discovering it for ourselves. This site is that work, practiced in public.

If you are here because you're thinking about working with the agency, read a few posts first. The writing will tell you more about how we think than any pitch deck ever could.