Journey of a TTT'er with Jose Hernandez

For this week’s Journey of a TTT’er series, we’d like to introduce Jose, our CEO. Trained as a lawyer, Jose is the guy you want on your side anytime a business decision gets made. He has a mind for business like no one I’ve ever met before.

He was a bit of a tough one to track down as he’s a busy man, but I managed to steal some of his time last week to get to know him better.

Tell us a little about your background

“I was born and raised in Mexico City, and spent about 2 years living in Edinburgh, Scotland. From a very young age, I had my heart set on becoming a Lawyer- like the kind you see on TV, but it’s very different from reality”, he laughed.

“So I returned to Mexico, worked like crazy, getting through law school while working part-time at a law firm. After putting all the work in, and finally getting my degree, I quickly realized reality as a lawyer was quite different from the ‘fighting for justice’ image I had in mind, so I decided to give business a try. I decided to start my first business venture, but when you know nothing about forming a company you tend to think that you have it all figured out. Of course, that didn’t last long. I failed very quickly and went on to work for Yellow Pages because they were doing a similar thing. There, I helped develop a SEO based product for small businesses which became the most successful digital product for the company.
At that moment, my previous boss and mentor from the law firm asked me to join him and his two brothers in opening a new logistics company in town. My first task was to acquire as many new customers as I could. I started doing everything from cold-calling to closing the sale. As the company grew, that morphed into hiring new talent for each step of sales process, and before we knew it, we were a 100 employee company in Mexico and China, doing 20M USD a year in revenue.
Soon after that, my wife and I decided to find a place to live with a better quality of life, so naturally we came to Vancouver, the 2nd most livable city in the world. Here I started my MBA degree at UBC and working for TTT halfway through until I completed the program. Now I’m onboard full time and enjoying life in Canada.”

What are some interesting things about yourself?

“I have a natural curiosity for things, I like to understand how things work, and what the story behind them is. On another note, I really enjoy travelling. I’d like to be able to explore a different country every year. I really enjoy public speaking as well, and I happen to love rum. No, not Tequila…I know what you’re thinking.”

What is your most memorable moment working here?

“Soon after joining the company, I remember a conversation around the lunch table, and everyone (mobile engineers & designers included) was very engrossed in solving this math riddle. It was then that I recognized the level of intelligence at TTT. At your average company, you usually have 2-3 people that drive the show and the rest work hard to achieve those objectives. In TTT everyone has a unique set of skills, it’s an extremely talented team, where every single individual delivers a very high calibre of work. I felt like I joined a team of superstars.”

I swear we did not pay him to say these awesome things about us.

What is your secret super power? (something you’re very good at, that not everyone knows)

“Jumping over walls.” He then proceeded to laugh very hard. Trump joke, nice!

“I guess I’m also not bad at concocting cocktails.” He added.

What do you enjoy working on the most?

“I love the discovery stage. Transforming an idea in someone’s head into a new project/product, seeing how it all comes to life, It’s a very satisfying feeling.”

What do you like to do in your free time?

“Ideally, I like to spend my time exercising, biking, meditating, and reading, but what really happens is I end up watching news and videos of my favourite football team, FC Barcelona.”