On Endings & New Beginnings

Ten years ago here in Vancouver, several of my friends and I co-founded Navarik (http://www.navarik.com), a company to build software for the maritime shipping and energy trading operations industry. As of this month, I’ll no longer be a Navarik employee, and while I’ll remain a strategic advisor to the company, as well as a member of Navarik’s Board of Directors and a key shareholder, I’m happy to be able to move on to other things as well. It’s the right time, both for me and for the company.

I’ve been lucky to have the amazing experience of envisioning, starting, leading and contributing to Navarik with my co-founders Martin Ertl (now co-founder and CEO of http://lexpubli.ca/about) and Don Hitchen, and our management team. It has been a remarkable journey. Navarik now delivers data for some of the largest companies in the world, in ways we could hardly have imagined at the turn of the decade. Sometimes it’s been hard to remember to look up and see how far we’ve come.

Over the last few years, I’ve been able to move away from day-to-day management, so that I could help Navarik in a more strategic and creative way, freeing up my time to evangelize our service and bring in new clients as partners. But it has still been exhausting, involving lots of travel and time away from home. Now, as a strategic advisor, I can continue to add value for our customers and the company’s efforts, but more efficiently and effectively, while creating time for other things I want to do.

The last few years have been a great experience, but it has been difficult for me to excel at my new role when I’ve been engaged so much in the day-to-day operations of the business. This different way for me to work with Navarik has only really surfaced in recent months, because of the growing sophistication of our business, and the growing ability of our whole team to tackle our different projects and goals. Navarik is an established company, no longer a startup, and that’s wonderful.

I will be contributing to Navarik’s strategy as needed by the management team, but will also be pursuing a wider range of opportunities in software, business, and energy operations. This is extremely exciting for me, and takes me back to the first day I spent in Navarik’s first office (http://www.flickr.com/photos/penmachine/44221427/in/set-439971/).

Starting right away, I’m going to be working with Ryan McCuaig, an old friend and programming colleague (who designed Navarik’s logo several years ago), at Difference Engine Codeworks, Ltd. (http://diffengine.ca/). It is a software development house, building products for the iPhone and mobile markets. I will also be exploring strategic consulting opportunities with various software, trading, shipping, and energy companies through my own company, Bent Circuit Software Ltd., as well as re-orienting myself with the state of the wider software world.

There is no way I can ever adequately thank those who helped bring Navarik to where it is today. The team that is in place now—led by Patrick Rooney and our Board of Directors—is bringing the vision of Navarik that we imagined so long ago into something I am extremely proud of, and occasionally didn’t think was actually possible.

I’d also like to personally thank our early-stage customers and investors: the friends, family, companies, and employees who believed in us and invested in us personally, in our company, and in what we saw Navarik could become. I’d particularly like to single out Haig Farris, who led our first major external round of financing almost four years ago and has been a source of support, energy, endless encouragement, ideas, and vision.

It is an exciting and emotional time for me as Patrick, the management team, and the Board help me move into this next exciting phase of my life. I look forward to the continuing journey. I’ll see you all soon, with a renewed energy to connect with friends old and new.

Posted on October 20, 2009