Wanting to Work vs. Needing to Work

A couple of years ago, I read this post by Mark Suster .

It really hit home for me. If you haven’t read it, you really need to — particularly if you are a founder or a member of a fast-growth startup.

At the time, my daughter was just about to celebrate her first birthday, and we had just returned from our first trip as a family from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I committed to never falling into the trap of being so busy with work that I wasn’t a present father or able to spend meaningful time with her. I’ll give myself a solid B in that department.

COVID lockdowns gave me even more clarity. It was difficult having two working parents with a 3 year old in the house. She needed our attention, but Michele and I also had jobs to do. We may have relied on iPads and Disney+ a little too often — but I will always be thankful for being able to step outside for a 15 minute swing set session between meetings. I was blessed to be able to spend that time with her — time that would have been missed had I been at the office or she at preschool.

As we approached legal day 1 of the HubTran and TriumphPay acquisition, I began thinking. As much as I wanted to help build the freight industry’s first payments network, I didn’t NEED to. TriumphPay has all of the resources they need to make this successful. Sales chops? I built a phenomenal team and TriumphPay has great people already. Marketing? They’re rich with talent. Sales Operations? They’re bigger and better than what I cobbled together at HubTran. Customer Success? They do great work which will be made better by the HubTran folk.

After nearly two years of hard work, a natural pause presented itself. My little girl is starting kindergarten this fall. my wife is on sabbatical through the end of the year.

It hit me. I could actually take the summer off and spend it with my family — with ZERO conflicts. There would be no sneaking away to take a phone call. No emails or slacks that take you out of the moment. I could actually hit the road for 4 weeks and drive out west to see the national parks like my grandfather did with my mother back in the sixties.

So, I have made the hard — but not too hard — choice to not continue on as part of the combined company. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to take the summer off and do things that most people only dream about.

This is all possible because of the hard work Team HubTran put in over the years. We built a great product, team and company. So great that TriumphPay saw it as the missing link to building something even bigger and bolder. I will be fiercely cheering them on from the sidelines. Thank you to everyone at HubTran and TriumphPay. You are rockstars, and you are profoundly changing the world.

6/18/2021 was my last day, and the girls and I are currently enjoying the first of many road trips. See y’all in the fall.