Interview: The places we have lived make us who we are

This is very true of Helvetiq: the places we have lived make us who we are.

We’re a Swiss company, but our team has lived all around the world. Founder and CEO Hadi Barat takes a moment to tell us about some of the places he has lived, and how those places have inspired him.

In this first video, Hadi talks about fearlessness—and Algeria. He got his sense of fearlessness from his father, who grew up during the Algerian Civil War and lost both his parents when he was only fourteen. That tragedy made him the head of his household when still a child. Hadi talks about how his father always inspired him with a sense of fearlessness. He showed no fear as he built his career and cared for his family. When Hadi was seventeen and went to his father with his own dreams—to study in Europe—his father praised Hadi for that same fearlessness. Hadi has tried to bring his father’s fearless spirit to the constant challenges of publishing.

Some things are just good luck. In this next short video, Hadi talks about the stroke of chance that put us in touch with Doug Mayer, who has written four bestselling books about trail running for Helvetiq, including the forthcoming graphic novel The Last of the Giants. Doug has helped us gain a reputation as a publisher of books that explore that natural world in all new ways—including our Beer Hiking Series.

Helvetiq was based in Boston during its early years—Hadi was running the nascent company from Cambridge, Massachusetts. One day he got an order through our Swiss website for a copy of our bestselling game—and the delivery address was Car Talk Plaza, Harvard Square. Hadi grabbed a copy of the game and within ten minutes had delivered it to Doug Mayer, a producer of the legendary show. The unbeatable customer service got Doug’s attention—and the two became close friends and collaborators.

Hadi talks about how the experience of living in a country where you don’t speak the language is central to Helvetiq’s spirit.

He and his wife moved to Denmark with their two young daughters. At the time, Hadi was growing Helvetiq, raising two toddlers and learning Danish. The challenges and joys of discovering a new language and culture is familiar to so many of us at Helvetiq—a majority of our team have left one country for another. And Hadi sees that as part of our success—it gives us a tremendous respect for other cultures. Our current team speaks more than a dozen languages, which helps us to find great books all around the world.