The Quickbase Coach Who Never Stops Learning
When you talk to Mark, you can sense two things immediately:
- he’s been using Quickbase for a very long time
- and he’s still having a blast.
As the founder and Principal Engineer of Your Quickbase Coach—an official Quickbase Partner—Mark has been building, tinkering, and mentoring for more than two decades.
What started as a way to bring order to chaos in a family-run business has grown into a lifelong mission: helping others get “unstuck” and discover the magic of building with Quickbase.
How It Began
The year was 2002. Mark was Director of Operations & IT in his family’s floor-covering distribution company. With over 100 staff and a tidal wave of marketing forms and product sheets flooding inboxes, chaos reigned. “No one could find anything,” he recalls. “We had these massive black binders, and every branch was begging for the latest version of something.”
Mark's cousin found Quickbase and introduced the product to Mark. The result? Mark’s first “killer app”—a searchable document repository that finally tamed the paper monster.
“That was it,” he says. “I was hooked.”
Mark didn’t come from a software background. “I’m an Industrial Engineer by training, with an MBA bolted on,” he laughs. “I was pretty handy with spreadsheets—Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, the whole prehistoric lineup.” That can-do mindset carried seamlessly into app building.
Today, as a Quickbase Partner, Mark builds and maintains apps for clients across industries, and he even still uses Quickbase himself for a slick timekeeping and billing system.
The Qrew Spirit
Ask Mark what he loves most, and he doesn’t hesitate: “That feeling when you can tell a client, ‘Yes, we can do that,’ and know you can deliver it quickly and cleanly in Quickbase.”
His favorite story starts with an innocent forum post. In 2020, he answered a simple question that led to a remarkable partnership. The question was asked by a business owner trapped in “Excel Hell” and searching for a better way. Fast forward five years, and that client’s art-handling startup has grown from six employees to nearly 100, powered by over 1,000 hours of Quickbase development.
“The app runs everything—QR code tracking, truck routing, payroll feeds, client communication, training, CRM, analytics. It’s their whole nervous system,” Mark says. “I could retire, but I’m having too much fun.”
Mark has been part of the Quickbase world since before it was even called “Quickbase”. “I spent so many hours in the early days struggling through obstacles that now seem simple. I just want to help others get unstuck faster so they can keep creating.”
He thrives on connection—whether it’s through the Community Forum, Discord, or in-person Qrew Meetups. “I always learn something new. Even a recorded session played back at 2x speed teaches me something.”
Beyond the Keyboard
When he’s not building apps or mentoring others, Mark is out exploring the world. He and his wife are avid travelers who prefer “active vacations” to lounging on beaches. “Cycling, skiing, hiking, canoeing—we like to earn our meals,” he says. “If I go three months without a trip, I start to twitch.”
After 20 years, Mark still talks about Quickbase with the enthusiasm of someone discovering it for the first time. He’s proof that learning and teaching can be equally energizing—and that building great things is never really a solo act.
As he puts it: “There’s always something new to learn. And if you can help someone else along the way, that’s even better.”
This passion for helping others is exactly why Mark was named the first-ever Qrew Legend at Empower 2024. His decades of contributions, countless forum answers, and unwavering generosity have shaped how so many in the community learn and build with Quickbase. Chances are, if you’ve ever solved a tricky problem thanks to the Community Forum, you’ve learned something from Mark.
Want to connect, learn, or just say thanks? You can find him sharing wisdom and answering questions every day in the Quickbase Community Forum under his handle MarkShnier__You.
