So, What’s Next?

In 2015, I quit my job, sold pretty much everything I owned in my NYC apartment, and packed my life into a 40L backpack.

Some folks thought I was crazy to leave a 6-figure job at a big tech company, and I did feel a little bad that my parents wouldn’t easily be able to describe where I worked anymore to their friends, but it was time to go—call it a creative itch.

Moves like this don’t really start with a plan. They start with a feeling. I followed that feeling and built Pack Hacker.

Nearly ten years and one acquisition by AllGear Digital later, I’m feeling it again. Building this community has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding things I’ve done in my life, but it's time to move on.

Everyone wants to know what’s next. I wish I knew it myself, but I don’t have a plan, and it’s been quite a while since that was the case. The future feels open, uncharted, and, honestly, a little scary. There’s no goal to chase, and I’m coming to terms with that.

I felt the same way in the early days of that two-year trip around the world. No agenda, just moving from country to country as I felt like it. One night I wrote a blog post about everything in my backpack, just for fun. The post took off and from there I just started reviewing gear.

Within the first couple of Pack Hacker posts, someone asked me what I thought the TAM for urban travel gear was. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell “TAM” meant, so I looked it up. “Hmm, total addressable market. I have no idea, and I don’t really care. I’m just going to keep posting.”

TAM schmam.

I got extreme satisfaction picking out every item I owned (83, to be exact) and truly loved the feeling of carrying everything I needed on my back. Other people resonated with it too, which is why those early posts and videos took off.

All of this came full circle the other day when I was on a call with a founder of a brand I admire, letting them know about the transition. He said it had been great partnering with Pack Hacker and that we’d done an incredible job uplifting early upstart brands and creating a culture around this space.

A culture. I started tearing up a bit.

None of this felt like building and growing a market. It felt like obsessing over the most durable and packable toothbrush I could find for my next trip, and building an equally obsessive community around efficient travel. I’m honored to have built a brand that’s helped elevate the world of travel gear, among so many other talented creators1.

That’s the beautiful thing about the internet. You can create weird, niche content, and no matter what it is, you’re pretty much guaranteed an audience, so long as you package it right, because your reach is the entire world.

Of course I got lucky, and I had a bunch of other dumb ideas I tried in the early days that didn’t work, so I kept getting shots on goal until something stuck.

That’s kind of how I’ve always operated. I don’t start with a market. I start with something I can’t stop fixating on, and, so long as there’s a bit of traction, I just keep going.

So, what’s next?

I’m not sure yet, but I’ve followed this feeling before and it’s worked out. My friend Caio put it best: “Pack Hacker didn’t build you, you built Pack Hacker.”

Welcome to Tom’s Dispatch, where I figure out what’s next and bring you along for the ride.

Until next time, let’s keep unpacking.