Brandon: Since you’ve started at buuteeq, you’ve become an indispensable and much-needed asset, becoming the “go to” guy for tech questions. When did you first realize that you were good with technology?
Robert: When I was a kid. My dad used to build and repair computers for friends at work as a hobby. I would help him out from time to time. One day we were repairing a custom machine running Windows 95 and I solved the problem before my dad did. That’s when I realized I had a knack for this kind of thing.
Brandon: buuteeq isn’t your first Internet startup to work for, is it?
Robert: Nope, I worked for ***, a daily deals website, before this. It was a great experience for me and gave me my first taste of the start-up world. I worked as inside sales there. We didn’t have our own in-house tech guy, which led to all sorts of problems. We actually outsourced our tech needs. One day I came to work and the phones were down. They were down for two weeks until our tech people out of the country finally solved the problem. It was so frustrating.
Brandon: Do you think you could have fixed it if they had asked you?
Robert: Hah, sure. I enjoyed my job there, but my strengths have always been problem solving tech issues.
Bandon: After that job, you worked at another non-tech position. Can you tell me about it?
Robert: I worked the graveyard shift at ***, a large grocery chain here in Seattle. The work was steady and I was thankful for it, but again, it was a position that didn’t take advantage of my strengths. I felt like my talents were wasted. I was happy to stack lemons and all, but I’m much more comfortable debugging a MySQL database parsing mystery. You know?
Brandon: Since you started with buuteeq, what accomplishment are you most proud of?
Robert: Setting up the Quickbooks server for the accounting team. They came to me with a very difficult problem to solve. I had never dealt with Quickbooks before so this was a challenge. I did my research, focused on it for a while and got it done. Now the accounting team can do their accounting magic using the tools they like best. I was pretty satisfied with that one.
Brandon: What’s your philosophy on work?
Robert: Love what you do. Take pride in it. Find your niche and throw yourself into it. I love the start-up culture of buuteeq because you have so much responsibility. I have to be my own tech guy, my own manager, my own support, and so on. It’s really rewarding work. I’m surrounded by people who are likewise excited about their work and where the company is going. Follow your passion, work hard, and you’ll find an opportunity to make a living doing what you love.
About Brandon Dennis
Brandon is the Technical Marketing Manager at buuteeq, the digital marketing system for hotels. He manages buuteeq’s SEO, paid media channels, content creation, and the company blog. You can connect with him on Twitter @buuteeq.
