Marshall Haas

Monthlong Motorcycle Adventure Part 1: Where and Why

Several weeks ago, I finished an adventure I’ll always remember. It was me, my motorcycle, and 1 month on the road to California. The above image is the exact route I traveled. First, some stats… 

• Miles traveled: 5,600
• Vehicle: 2007 Yamaha R6 motorcycle
• Gas fillups: 42
• Number of different places I slept: 11
• Timeline: March 11 – April 11 (exactly 1 month)

It all started with a movie. Back in February I began getting the itch for a little adventure. One night I put in one of my favorites, Into The Wild. I’ll let my good friend IMDB give you a quick synopsis of what its about.

After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.

I should add the movie is a true story. Now, I had no intention of hitchhiking or giving up all my possessions. However, it did inspire me to start looking into riding my motorcycle from Dallas to California for a couple of weeks. The idea started as a two week trip to San Francisco and blossomed into 4 weeks with main stops in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.

The trip was to serve three main purposes:

1. I wanted to stay in San Francisco long enough to get a feel for what it would be like to eventually move my company there. I wanted to meet some other founders and get plugged into the startup scene.
2. I wanted to clear my head and hear some varying opinions from successful people about their thoughts on entrepreneurs dropping out of college to pursue their business. One person I got to discuss this over coffee with was the founder of Priceline.com. Unforgettable. More on that in a future post.
3. I just wanted a good old fashioned open-ended adventure, just me and my bike. I had already taken the semester off and I wanted to use the time to the fullest. Have fun and meet amazing people, that was it. 

The plan was to leave Friday March 11th and ride to Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, back to San Francisco, and then head back home to Dallas. I would use a mixture of friends couches, Airbnb, and hotels for places to stay. The length of time spent at each location would be mostly up to me.

Why these locations

The original plan was to just ride to San Francisco and stay and ride around there for a week. The extra week would come from travel time going and coming from my home in Dallas. After hearing about the trip, my friend Jillian offered to let me crash on her couch at LMU in Los Angeles for a week. Extra stop, numero uno. 

I had become friends with Lance Walley, the CEO of Chargify through our common interest in startups and motorcycles (he rides as well) so he suggested I come hang with him for a day in Sacramento when I would be in San Francisco.

I then realized that the time I planned to leave fell right around Austin’s SXSW. I had planned to attend the last 2 years but for various reasons couldn’t make it. I didn’t want to miss it a third year so I planned to hit Austin first, and then leave from there. 

When my dad heard about my plans for the trip, he wanted to join. We hadn’t taken a long moto trip together yet, so I agreed. Unfortunately in order for him to be able to go, I would have to do Austin first, then come home for a few days, and then leave with him. He could only take a week off so we planned to ride the first 5 days together and then he would head back to Dallas. I would then go on to LMU, San Francisco, and Sacramento on my own.

About 3 weeks before I would leave, I began prepping my bike and buying a little bit of gear. Since I would be traveling on a bike specifically designed for racing and not comfort, I needed to make some adjustments. I bought some moto luggage for my clothes, a ‘no drag’ Ogio backpack for my computer stuff, and a large tank bag for miscellaneous items like a rain suite. On the afternoon of March 11th, bags were packed and I left for SXSW. 

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The ride to L.A., randomly meeting Matt Leblanc (Joey from Friends), LMU Shenanigans, first advice on dropping out, and more in part 2 soon.

May 12, 2011

I’m Moving to Chile: How and Why

Somewhere during 2010 I decided I wanted to take some time off from school. I either wanted to travel or raise capital and start a new company. After the Fall 2010 semester, I would be finished with 60 hours of ‘basics’ and would be ready to transfer to a new school. So before I landed at a new school, I decided to take off 1 semester plus the summer. The plan was to transfer to a school in California after the break.

Around this time I heard about a program by the Chilean government called Start-Up Chile. They were bringing in 24 new companies from around the world as part of a beta group. The participants receive $40,000 and a 1 year visa to come and build their companies. What was interesting is they weren’t taking any equity for the money. Instead, the program was an incentive to attract outside entrepreneurs working on innovative companies to come and build their businesses in Chile. The way I understand it is Chilean entrepreneurs do not take very many risks. Most of their companies aren’t very innovative either. They mainly focus on imports and exports. By attracting outside entrepreneurs working on innovative projects, their hope is to make Chile the ‘Silicon Valley of South America’. 

With the success of the beta group, Start-Up Chile would open applications in February of this year to bring in an additional 100 companies. By this time I had already formed the new company (Obsorb, Inc… more on that in a future post) and raised some cash for it from an angel investor. One of my mentors, Shonika Proctor, had moved to Chile a few months back to work with some of the university entrepreneurship programs over there. I kept hearing all sorts of awesome things about the country from her and others.

On February 15th, they opened up the applications and I applied with my new company, Obsorb. After a long wait, yesterday I got an email with an acceptance letter. I’m beyond excited. Things are going to start moving incredibly fast. I haven’t picked an exact date yet, but I will be moving there around the end of May or the beginning of June (About a month out). I have to be there for a minimum of 6 months so I won’t be back until at least December, although I can come and go as I please.

Now its time to get everything ready. Unfortunately for me, I thought taking French in high school was a better idea than taking spanish. Luckily a lot of the college graduates there all speak english, so we’ll still be able to hire and communicate with a team.

PS: Consider this an open invite to any friends that want to come down and visit. I plan to rent an apartment with at least 2 bedrooms.  

Chile is 2,700 miles long and an average of 109 miles wide. It has the Andes Mountains on the east and Pacific Ocean on the west. Needless to say its a beautiful country.

April 26, 2011