Team Munzee Player of the Week: Scott Foster (Coolant)
We’ve received a lot of feedback regarding Player of the Week interviews, and some of the top requested interviews are for the players that make up Munzee as a company. You want to get to know Team Munzee. Who are the mysterious, magnificent faces behind Munzee HQ? Well, this week, we’ve decided to start interviewing our own. And what better person to launch Team Munzee interviews than the man that brought us the new website: Scott Foster!
Who are you?
My name is Scott Foster, 31 years old, married with 2 kids ( 3rd kid due in a month ) and VP of Technology for Munzee. My player name is coolant.
Coolant developed a love of all things Apple and Tech at a young age!
Where in the world do you live?
Just north of Dallas, TX
When did the co-founders first come up with the idea of Munzee?
I met Aaron at a Computer Gaming LAN Event called TANGO (Texas Area Network Gaming Organization). He was one of the founding members of TANGO and I went up to him and asked if they had somebody that ran Counterstrike (a computer videogame) tournaments. He said no, so I said I would do it. Aaron moved on from doing TANGO and I kept doing it for many more years.
Here is a picture of Aaron and I (and the rest of the TANGO crew) from Jan 2001:
Then life happened, Aaron and I lost touch for many years until we reconnected on Facebook… Fast forward 10 years later (2011), my wife and I were moving back to Texas from Pennsylvania. Aaron knew I did coding and asked if I could help him with a project called “Munzee”. Aaron is a very smart individual so I knew I had to help him out, and it sounded cool. So the four founders – Aaron, Chris, Josh, and myself met for a wonderful Mexican dinner ( https://goo.gl/maps/wWId5 ) on a cold Februrary night and started making Munzee a reality.
And here’s a picture when Munzee became an actual business!
We know you’re busy at work, keeping the servers running, and keeping the game going strong. When does your Munzee day start, and when does it end?
When it comes to any website, it’s a job that requires 24/7/365 monitoring. I work mostly 8am – 6pm Monday through Friday, but I am constantly tweaking things on the weekends or late at night just to make things better. For instance, the weekend is the busiest time for Munzee. So I may work all week to fix a problem and find it’s not working so well on the weekend. Also, a lot of Europeans play Munzee and they are 6-7 hours ahead of Munzee HQ. I’ve woken up many times at 4am on a Saturday just to make sure people in Europe can have a great time playing Munzee or stay up till 4am to make sure Australians can have fun too!
When Munzee first launched, did you consider yourself an active player? How would you compare yourself to the active players today?
No. I’ve never been a real active player. I always joke that I am afraid to capture because if it takes a while or doesn’t go through, it’s another thing to fix. Although if I go to a big park, airport, or stadium – I’ll capture some munzees just to prove to Rob that I play Munzee. I also will capture some socials if I know the person or just want to test things. Playing Munzee is like the people that work at a McDonalds will eat anything EXCEPT McDonalds.
What’s your favorite Munzee? Why?
When Munzee first started, anytime Aaron and I were together – we would deploy munzees to grow the map. We went into downtown Dallas and I deployed a munzee at Dealey Plaza. It’s the infamous Dallas location where JFK was shot (grassy knoll, sixth floor musuem, etc…). It’s a popular tourist place and I figured maybe somebody would surely discover Munzee there. Nobody did for a while, and I honestly forgot about it. Fast forward a few months, and I was telling Lance (my boss at the job I had when I started Munzee) about this fun game I made called Munzee. He seemed mildly interested, but nothing happened more from that. He then comes to me the next day and says “Hey! I found that Munzee at Dealey Plaza.” I was shocked. Somebody I talked to actually played Munzee. It was the first time that I thought that Munzee might actually become something more.
Side note – I still talk to Lance and he is very proud of where Munzee is. You can check out that Munzee here: http://www.munzee.com/m/
What surprises you more: new player growth, clan wars, or super high scores (1 million points)?
Wow, that’s tough. I love all 3. I think my favorite part about Munzee is that there are so many different ways to play. You can join a clan and work on beating other clans, you can be #1 on your friends list, you can try to get all the badges, trade social munzees, etc. I can’t wait till Rover comes out and see how people use that.
Where do you see Munzee in three years?
Three years is a long time. Munzee itself is just three years old! I hope it continues to grow; 10 million deployments, 100 million captures, and a million users sounds great. But, I hope that people will still feel like it’s THEIR game. I always want to be a company where people feel that they always have a connection with Munzee HQ. We are so grateful for our players, so we want to make sure we always have a connection to them.
If there were one Munzee player you could meet (or have already), or one Munzee location you could go, who or where?
I really want to meet robje64 – “Dutch Rob”. He has been tremendous as far as helping Munzee grow in Europe and telling me when there are issues. He seems like a great guy and will always have a special place in my heart. Also that mustache he has looks amazing. 😉
Tell us about yourself! If you’re not working for or playing Munzee, how do you spend your off-time?
Playing with my family! I have a 3.5 year old daughter, 1.5 year old son, and another girl that’s due in a month. My kids and my wife make up most of the day when I am not working on Munzee.
But if they are napping or late at night – I still love video games. I love Final Fantasy games – Final Fantasy 6 is my favorite game of all time and has my favorite song in it, “Maria and Draco.” I think all Zelda games are great, and Counterstrike: Global Offensive! I have recently got into watching “Speedrunning” -it’s people trying to beat games as fast as they can using all kinds of glitches, exploits, and timing (something I find very interesting). I also love sports, mostly college sports like basketball and football. Texas A&M is my favorite team – Gig’em Munzee!
Thanks so much Scott for being this week’s Team Munzee POTW!
Check out Scott’s POTW Social here:
If you know a player that should be nominated for Munzee Player of the Week, shoot us a message at iLoveYou@Munzee.com -Please note, this is a super active campaign. We may not be able to get back to everyone, but you’re helping to grow the list of amazing people in the Munzee community!
