In a time where anonymity is valued on the internet, we want to do the complete opposite. After all, complete transparency is one of our core values! At the end of this blog series, you will (hopefully) feel like you know much more about us than you ever bargained for.

Next in our Meet the Team series is Head of Operations, Andrew Schwartz. He's a red head with a girlfriend who's also a redhead. If that doesn't tickle your funny bone, you are probably a monster. He's a wicked smaht, cat-loving, amateur outdoorsman who knows the value of hard work and dedication. Who is he? Well, you're about to find out in our latest interview!

**Let's start with the basics. Where did you go to college and what did you major in? ****And what brought you into that major?**

I graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology of Boston, MA in December, 2015. At first I was attending school for industrial design, but I switched majors to management with a focus on entrepreneurship which I found a better fit. My professors encouraged the switch as they believed it would be a better fit, but ultimately I made the decision to say and switch majors because my credits would transfer to another school. Wentworth brought me to Boston and it’s come to be my home.

What’s your philosophy towards your work?

Hate it or love it, you still gotta do it because at the end of the day we all need to live. I want to work hard and feel like I’ve achieved something so I don't have to worry about anything. The hardest part was finding something that I enjoyed doing, until now.

Sounds like you're a hard worker. What’s been the greatest challenge so far with running a startup?

Gaining a reputation and building clients. Also collaboration, it's not difficult but it takes time to come to agreements and determine the best way to go about something. I always want to hear everybody's input when we’re overcoming a challenge.

Overall, how would you define success?

Living on an island, alone, with millions in my bank account. I’d probably try and help some other people out too but I’m mostly for helping animals, if I could help own and run an open wildlife sanctuary, that would be fantastic.

Sounds like you're a nature lover! What do you like to do in your free time?

When it comes to the outdoors, I love skiing and biking. I just recently went to Switzerland to go skiing in the Swiss Alps (yes! I went all the way to the top) and I’m hoping to go back in my lifetime to experience mountain biking there. I guess you can say I love adrenaline when it comes to outdoor sports. There's nothing I enjoy more than good company and skiing/biking. I have lots of GoPro footage!

When I’m trying to relax and take it easy, I enjoy walking on the beach and searching for sea glass. As you may know, I live in Quincy, MA right across from the beach! Sometimes when the tide is out, you can walk all the way across the bay to Thompson Island, although not for too long.

Above all, my favorite, and most secretive thing to do is learn about computers. Since acquiring my father’s IBM Aptiva with 4 MB of ram (I upgraded it to 32 MB) and a 40 Mhz CPU, I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can. I now have 2 Macs, 2 PCs (dual booting Ubuntu), and one server with Ubuntu server. I love everything from taking computers apart to clean- you’d be surprised how much better a laptop runs when its not full of dust- to upgrading the RAM, hard drive, or even the software layer on top. This has been my recent interest over the past 5 years, and it has helped me gain a true appreciation for those build the digital world.

What kind of music do you work best with, and why?

Hard, thug music. It gets me in the “ride or die” mode.

Sweet potato fries or regular fries? Waffles or pancakes?

It all depends on how they're cooked. You can't reasonably think all french fries are better than sweet potato fries or vice versa- there's a time a place for everything! Sometimes the choice is obvious and sometimes not. What's always true is that things vary and you should always be willing to try something new. Not all waffles are created equal.

Honestly, that was deep. What do you worry about at night?

Failing more than succeeding. Some say failure is the key to success. I think they’re right. You can’t be successful without failure; it's all about persistence. If I fail 2 out of 3 times, but I repeat it over and over again, I’ll still have lots of success even at only 1/3rd of the time. So I’m not worried about failing once, I just need to make sure it doesn’t happen repetitively.

To end on a positive note, what are you looking forward to right now?

I’m excited to see Make Directory grow, I know that even if everything doesn’t turn out as planned it will still be our project for the future. I want to see it grow immensely but the truth it I’m happy to work my ass off for nothing, as long as I can say I was a part of that.

That wraps up Andrew's interview, you can find more information on his portfolio page. Stay tuned for more posts in this series, or follow us on social media to keep up with us!