Hometown
Holliston, MA
Education/Major
UMass '07. Dropped out.
What brought you to Dailybreak?
I started the company in the dorm rooms of UMass Amherst during college. It's been an awesomely wild ride.
Do you have any favorite stories from your work life?
After building the first version of Dailybreak I got some of my dorm mates together to create some banners to advertise the site. We spent $12 on two shower curtains and some markers. We snuck out in the middle of the night and tied them up on the campus center. They stayed up there for 2 weeks before the maintenance staff took them down. At that point over 2/3 of the UMass Amherst campus was using the website on a daily basis. Not bad for a $12 marketing budget!
What does the typical day look like for you?
I work about 12 hours a day on average. Sometimes 9 hours, sometimes 18 depending on what I'm working on. I monitor and maintain the servers that Dailybreak runs on, and make the decisions on how to best utilize technology in the company. I spend a lot of my time at a command prompt. I also work on User Experience and User Interface design, ensuring that our website is easy to navigate and fun to use.
Why do you come to work in the morning?
Knowing that there are thousands of people using Dailybreak each day motivates me to come into work and continue making the experience better for them. I have a lot of fun coming up with new challenge ideas that push the envelope of creativity and technology.
What lessons has your work life taught you?
Don't give up. Ever. If you're building a business, seek out the best possible people you can find. Success will follow. Don't listen to people who tell you something won't work. Unless they have already tried and failed at it they have no idea. Rules are meant to be broken.
What advice would you give someone who is interested in pursuing a similar line of work?
Seek out mentors who have had great success in the field of work you're pursuing. Most people are happy to offer advice and tell you of the mistakes they made along the way. If you can learn from the mistakes of others you can dramatically shorten the time it takes to get to where you want to be.
What is the best part of working at Dailybreak?
Coming to work doesn't feel like work. We have an awesome team here and always manage to have a lot of fun. We don't have your typical corporate style here. We have an awesome office in downtown Boston with an open floor plan, huge desks, comfy chairs, foosball, ping pong, unlimited coffee and regular company outings.
What's the coolest thing you've accomplished thus far working at Dailybreak?
Turning a small website that was a just hobby of mine into a legitimate company with dozens of employees and hundreds of thousands of users is an accomplishment I'm very proud of.
