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Former pro poker player, University of Iowa law school grad builds moving empire
Nathan Berns played the odds to turn a small business into holdings across three states
Jan. 30, 2026 6:00 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — No matter the state of the economy, owning a business is never a sure bet.
For Nathan Berns, owner of Two Men and a Truck franchises across Eastern Iowa, Maryland and New York, knowing the odds has been part of a long-term strategy that has paid off well.
But if the Eastern Iowa native has learned anything, it’s not how to play the numbers — it’s how to understand the humans around him.
Here’s how the owner of one of the moving industry’s most recognized brands turned “Two Men and a Truck” at a Cedar Rapids franchise into multiple locations with over 300 employees.
How it started
Growing up in rural Luana in northeast Iowa, Berns said the idea of business ownership always intrigued him, but the path to owning a growing moving empire wasn’t straightforward.
After graduating from college with little direction in his career, he took up a master’s program in accounting before going to law school at the University of Iowa — all components he thought would help make for a solid foundation in entrepreneurship.
After a roommate in law school introduced him to online poker, he developed a habit that would get more serious after graduation in 2009.
“I tell people I got a professional degree in online poker, because during that time it was very hot,” he said. “It was on TV, it was being advertised with UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), stuff like that. For whatever reason, a lot of law students gravitated heavily toward online poker.”
The logic-based, probability-oriented nature of it may play a role, he speculates.
And, coming from a family with seven brothers, Berns was predisposed to poker after card games with relatives would get serious with only a dollar or two on the line.
“There was a fair amount of people in my circle once I started that were doing it, and I got very captivated by it,” he said. “Sometimes, what you need in life is somebody to give you the idea that something is possible. We can be our biggest limiters in our thinking.”
Unlike some players, he learned to take an analytical approach. Every hand was captured with a software program to be studied, gaining an edge that was about more than a gut feeling.
With some stoicism and discipline, it paid off through mostly small, no-limit games of $200 to $600 across multiple websites. His largest win, with a quad aces hand, won him $32,000.
After learning accounting and the ins and outs of business law, poker was his master class in psychology and human behavior that many business owners don’t take into account as a prerequisite for entrepreneurship.
First on the syllabus, he learned how to do more than “read” a person, the way outsiders think of poker games. When competitors lost in one hand and then acted erratically in the next, recognizing inconsistencies in the non-verbal “story” they told demonstrated the universality of human nature.
“You would see the way they would play various hands. You’d see how they play with a very powerful hand,” he said.
Controlling the way that story is told through not only facial expressions and “tells,” but the way a hand is played on the table can mean the difference between winning and losing — in gambling and in real life.
“Some of the biggest things I learned about poker was, by nature, things would frustrate me. But if I allowed my emotions to take over, it led to bad decision making,” said Berns, 41. “I think poker helped me significantly in business, because it made me realize if you allow emotions to take control and affect your decisions, those decisions made in those moments are less optimal.”
Poker also is about knowing your limitations and learning how to roll a series of small wins into something bigger than the sum of each bet.
“Everybody has unique and specific skill sets. Play games with those skill sets you have that you can win,” he advises.
After finishing law school in 2009, the job market for graduates was bleak, he said. Playing poker professionally — a skill he had exercised extensively — was something that paid as well as many of the jobs his friends were taking during the subprime mortgage crisis that led to a severe recession.
In fact, poker helped him skip a couple of steps in his long-term plan.
“I always had a plan to get into business ownership. What poker allowed me to do was skip that part of being an attorney to get the connection, to get the money, to be able to do it,” he explained.
A moving empire
The moving business may, to some, seem mundane and unchanging. But to Berns, it’s become something of a small empire.
Eventually, changes in the law made it illegal for payment processors to fund online poker accounts. After working through virtual private networks and a Canadian bank account where he could bet with British pounds, euros and other currencies, the hassle became more than it was worth.
His business started in 2012 by purchasing his first Two Men and a Truck franchise from a manager looking to get out of the business.
Today, Berns has franchises in Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, three in Maryland started around 2015, and several locations in upstate New York started with a business partner five years ago.
In the last 14 years, he has grown the business from three trucks and 10 employees to 24 trucks in Iowa and about 300 employees nationwide.
Last year alone, they helped with 13,000 moves.
The self-described disciple of Warren Buffett wanted to do on a smaller scale what the prolific billionaire became famous for. Rather than buying businesses worth billions of dollars, he could buy businesses for thousands of dollars.
“Yeah, I don’t get to his level. But even if I fall significantly short, I’m still better off,” he said.
How he got moving
Having watched his father build green bins for storing harvested grains and other equipment, he decided his business venture should be something that didn’t require reinventing the wheel.
“I wanted to be able to do something I could understand. I understood blue collar people, because we did build vans,” he said. “A fleet of moving trucks isn’t that different from tractors and machinery.”
Passion can help start the idea of a business. But when an owner is successful enough, the day-to-day will become dominated not by baking cookies, or selling your craft, but by dealing with vendors, staffing, payroll and the tedious facets that passion doesn’t prepare you for.
“It was just recognizing that, eventually, I would be doing the same thing no matter what the business was, and that is managing people,” he said.
Today, that translates into making sure that both customers and employees have the best experience they can have — the human foundation to success.
He imbues the lessons of poker into the often younger men who are the backbone of his daily moving operations. By giving them a safe space, like working out together in the basement gym or playing video games to decompress, the workplace becomes a place for them to escape from some of the stresses of life.
Even after four knee surgeries, he sets a physical example for his movers by running six to 10 miles a day. And by helping his workforce learn to process their emotions productively, he gives them one key to a career that can take them beyond a physically demanding job.
Another valuable lesson he conveys is the definition of failure and its role in success. For much of his life, the fear of failure and judgment held him back.
“Failing, to me, is not trying,” Berns said. “If you try, you’re going to be put in a position where, even if it doesn’t work out, you can still gain such valuable information.”
That translates to encouraging his staff to make decisions with confidence, even if they lead to a mistake here and there.
“What makes a company more agile is when people feel safe,” he said. “We’re going to die as an organization if we’re unwilling to try new things. That’s going to stifle innovation.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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