The Case for Not Taking a Vacation in August

Everyone knows that the French are famous for prendre des vacances this month. VCs are in Lake Tahoe; Wall Street heads for the Hamptons. But, at our startup, it's one of the most important months of the year. A time of great effort and energy and enthusiasm. Quite simply, we are stacking the deck for a huge autumn selling season. And we are doubling down when our competitors are checking out. We have over 200 team members now, but only two are on vacation this week -- our CFO and our Building Engineer. These are two of the hardest working guys in the whole company, guys that have earned the right to do whatever they want.

But the rest of us are here. And cranking. Which gets me to my point -- taking vacation is the province of the made man. In our startup, more than half the team have been here less than one year; they are still fighting hard to earn their spot. We'll hire about fifteen new team members in August and we will fire about five. This is not a time to be eating cheese and drinking beer in Door County. Not if you work at Trunk Club. Or any rapidly growing startup.

Much has been written recently about the importance of vacation and recharging. For the record, we don't have a vacation policy at Trunk Club. Actually, we do: take as much vacation as you want. And our team enjoys that. But we derive much greater satisfaction from working at a company we love and believe in. Often times, that is even more fun than visiting the Grand Canyon. We have made a ton of headway in three years but we aren't ready to kick back and relax in the summer -- we're maniacally focused on building a bigger and better company. What are you doing these next few weeks?

Photo: Sven's Point in Peninsula State Park, Door County, Wis. (Willard Clay via Getty Images)