From the fifth employee at Webmail.us to No. 50 for KC-based Super Dispatch, a startup leader with a long track record of building innovative operations has joined the executive team alongside founder and CEO Bek Abdullayev.
Ben Hubbard and Bek Abdullayev, Super Dispatch
“Super Dispatch is taking off,” said Ben Hubbard, the company’s new chief operating officer. “They have things figured out from an engineering and software standpoint, but they are continuing to bring on new customers at a rate that they could tell was going to strain their sales, support, accounting, and other business operational teams. My job is to remove obstacles to unconstrained growth.”
His first order of business: assess the current state of Super Dispatch, prioritize opportunities, and help execute the mission of delivering an end-to-end platform for vehicle shipping in the U.S and across the globe, said Abdullayev, noting Hubbard will oversee growth initiatives, customer success, finance, and human resources.
Hubbard’s skill set includes talents Super Dispatch — a national leader in automotive logistics software — needs amid rapid scaling, the founder noted. In the past year, the startup has nearly doubled in size, both in revenue and new employee hires. It now operates two global offices and a distributed team that spans five countries, Abdullayev added.
Click here to read more about Super Dispatch’s success as one of Startland’s Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2018.
Experience bringing structure and processes to such growing companies made Hubbard an attractive candidate for the executive role at Super Dispatch, Abdullayev added.
“The timing could not be better for Ben to join our growing team as employee No. 50,” Abdullayev said. “We’ve hit an inflection point at Super Dispatch that puts us on track to complete a mission of modernizing an industry stuck in the dark ages. … Ben is a startup and enterprise veteran. His experience spans from building a company in a garage, scaling B2B SaaS, going through a successful acquisition, and thriving at an enterprise level organization.”
Hubbard previously worked at such cloud-based companies Webmail.us, Rackspace, Cratejoy and VidGrid. He is most known in the business community for his 12 years at Webmail.us/Rackspace, where the B2B company grew to $10 million in annual revenue under his watch. After Rackspace acquired Webmail.us, Hubbard’s role grew to include all operational aspects of his department.
“He’s one of the few people I’ve met who’ve successfully applied their skills to building and scaling multiple startups,” Abdullayev said.
After his career at Webmail.us and Rackspace, Hubbard joined an Austin-based startup called Cratejoy where he ran business operations for 2 ½ years, while the company’s subscription customer base increased seven-fold.
He most recently served as COO of VidGrid in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“I had a few options, but the opportunity at Super Dispatch was the most exciting because it is a fast-moving company that is bringing technology to the auto transport space, where it is long overdue and this creates a great opportunity to do something special,” Hubbard said.
Interviewing at the Kansas City startup helped sell him on the company culture, he said.
“I got really excited and just felt like I belonged when I met folks on the team,” Hubbard said. “Every one of them seemed like they genuinely cared and were enthusiastic about helping our customers solve major issues. Customers love the products, and that’s tremendously important.”
Kansas City itself was another — unexpected — attraction, he noted.
“When I came to visit the team here in Kansas City, it was a wet, snowy, and rainy day, and still I could feel the awesome vibe of the city. People were out and there was a buzz of activity, even on a random Tuesday night when the weather was foul,” Hubbard said. “I’ve heard that Kansas City has boomed a lot in the past decade, and that’s part of what drew me as well.”
“It’s happening, it’s exciting, and whether it’s colleges and universities, established businesses growing, or new businesses emerging, things are happening in Kansas City, and that makes it something special and fun to be a part of,” he added.
