Career update
Moving on from FareHarbor
I wanted to take some time and reflect on my 7+ years at FareHarbor as it was truly a wild ride. For those unfamiliar, FareHarbor provides the software that powers tour, activity, and experience operations across the world. For most of my time at FareHarbor I legitimately loved my job. I traveled around the world to tourist destinations meeting with tour companies. I always joked that my job was “made up” because it did not feel like a job.
I started at FareHarbor in early 2015 straight out of college, with an industrial engineering & business management degree from Clarkson, a sales role at a SaaS software was an unlikely career path. At the time FareHarbor was a self funded startup, had less than 50 employees, our office in Needham was really an apartment, and paychecks were occasionally late. A few months into the job one our largest competitors abruptly went out of business prior to the 4th of July weekend. The FareHarbor team worked through the weekend, gobbled up a huge portion of their clients, and ultimately came out as the top player in the space. We also developed a close knit company culture that felt similar to a sports team locker room. “NO HR!” was frequently shouted as a bunch of “professionals” in their 20s made jokes that would that would not fly in corporate America. It was a fun time to be working at FareHarbor!
More on the 4th of July story can be found here
Over the following few years we continued to grow at a rapid pace adding bigger clients and improving our product. Employee count was at least doubling every year and we moved offices 3 times to accommodate the growing team. Max Valverde, our mainland US sales leader kept things upbeat, and was one of the few adults in the room. As a self funded startup there were many funny moments including:
- 50+ employees sharing 2 bathrooms
- lack of parking causing 30+ people to park in the street making it look like there was a high school house party. The town of Needham put up “NO PARKING” signs every 10 yards as a response.
- some “interesting” employee hires including an employee eating a rotisserie chicken with his hands at his shared desk
Personally I had some great experiences including attending the WSIA (Watersports symposium) and Pedal pub conference multiple years, going to Vegas to onboard Vegas Indoor Skydiving, and meeting with other clients in the field. Again, this sounds like a made up job.
In spring of 2018 booking.com purchased FareHarbor. It was suppose to be a big secret, but our leadership's google calendars were visible so after dozens meetings with employees with titles like “Head of acquisitions for booking.com” everyone knew what was coming.
In June of 2018 I moved to Sydney Australia with a small group of FareHarbor employees to expand our product to the APAC region. A big chunk of our team moved to Amsterdam to expand FareHarbor to Europe and be closer situated to the booking.com headquarters. The founders of FareHarbor got PAID but were contractually obligated to stay with FareHarbor for several years.
My first few months in Australia were interesting to say the least. I had some great trips visiting clients in Melbourne, the Sunshine Coast, Queenstown New Zealand, and Margaret River. We were making inroads in Australia but things were a bit chaotic as we navigated this new market. Myself and other employees had to take “visa trips” every 3 months as our visa only allowed us to stay in Australia for 3 months at a time. At the time I was happy to take a free trip to New Zealand - in hindsight this was a red flag!
In September I traveled to Europe on a 2 week personal vacation to Oktoberfest. In that time it was discovered that most of the FareHarbor Australia office was actually working in the country illegally! The result was spending an unplanned 3 months in Amsterdam waiting for my Australia working visa to be approved. I had some amazing experiences spending 3 months in Europe traveling around. I also traveled to Rovaniemi Finland for FareHarbor and saw the northern lights. The visa was suppose to take 2 weeks…
Upon my return to Sydney it was a year of ups and downs! The APAC office was very similar to the start up vibe at FareHarbor in the first few years. We had a lot of learning to do and went through some struggles with hiring and product. Still, we persevered and after half a year or so as a real office in Sydney we were really in a great spot. Our product was extremely competitive and our client base was growing rapidly. Our team was growing and we finally had a good group of competent employees. Hiring in Australia was different and we had a few 20 year olds on the team that always kept things interesting. We maintained a tightknit company culture aided by the free beer provided by WeWork.
Traveling to tourism destinations across Australia and New Zealand to show tourism businesses how our software would save them time and make them more money was truly a dream job. I spent time in Perth, Margaret River, Queenstown, Cairns, the Sunshine Coast, the Whitsundays, Hobart, and Melbourne. I think there are very few jobs that will pay for you to visit the Mornington Peninsula to watch penguins come to shore or to go scuba diving in Cairns.
We also had an epic conference in Bangkok Thailand. The conference was almost pointless for FareHarbor because we were not working in Asia - but who can complain about a free trip to Bangkok.
I traveled home to the US for a personal trip in early 2020 just as the COVID pandemic was beginning. Unfortunately Australia shut their borders to everyone besides citizens and permanent residents. Holding a skilled working visa I was not allowed to return to Australia despite having my entire life there. Yes, I was “stuck or trapped” outside of Australia twice in a short period of time! Ironically as the initial panic of the covid pandemic subsided some of the most lucrative opportunities for FareHarbor arose in Australia and New Zealand. Massive clients were taking the downtime to upgrade their software and I onboarded some of our largest clients from my parents house in New York during APAC working hours which translated to 4 pm to 2 am Eastern Time. Sadly, my visa was set to expire and to renew my visa I needed to be in the country of Australia which was impossible to do because of their closed border policy. Just like that I was forced to return to the US sales office.
After officially moving back to the US office the magic of FareHarbor never felt the same. Maybe it was the remote work setup or the employee size of the office. As a now massive company the inevitable bureaucracy of managing such an operation had set in. I jokingly said I worked at FormHarbor instead of FareHarbor. It is possible I stayed too long! We always joke to be successful at FareHarbor you had to drink the Kool-aid. Either I stopped drinking the Kool-aid or the Kool-aid stopped being good. Almost all of my original colleagues in that tight knit Needham group had since moved on. This is in no way a negative statement towards FareHarbor and likely the natural progression of companies. When you watch something get built and then see those processes morph overtime it can be frustrating. I wonder does anyone really know why they are doing things or are they just doing them because that’s “the process” and it allows them to keep their job?
There are many stories and moments I missed in here - I am excited for new endeavors ahead but will always have great memories of my time at FareHarbor.