The short version? I build things that work — teams, systems, cultures, and the occasional neon sign.

Hi, I’m Mark Mercer.


I'm a Chief of Staff at a Series A AI startup, an interior designer, an MBA, and someone who started running stores at 19. The through-line is operations — the discipline of making complicated things work.

I started in retail at 16 and, by 19, was running an Express store — hitting 115% of sales targets (the highest in the region) and learning to lead teams, read rooms, and build structure under pressure. Along the way, I also did time at Best Buy and West Elm.

Then I spent 13 years in education, building nationally recognized performing arts programs from scratch. I directed 2500+ performers, managed 1000+ volunteers, and produced 50+ award-winning productions. I founded Revolution Theatre Company and a national festival that drew 35+ teams from 10+ states and 5,000+ spectators. I was named Teacher of the Year and earned the Yellow Rose Award for my work with students with special needs.

That chapter taught me something most operators never learn: how to build a culture so magnetic that people fight to be part of it.

I brought all of that into tech at Wefunder, where I built the entire customer experience organization from scratch. I cut support volume by 57%, decreased customer complaints by 94%, improved online reputation by 141%, led a redesign that increased conversion by 40%+, and reduced onboarding time-to-value by 50%.

Then I joined Firecrawl as employee #12. In my first months, I opened the SF headquarters, stood up all of People Ops, initiated 76 global tax registrations, recruited our Head of Legal & Finance (cutting outside counsel costs by $25K/month), conceptualized and produced a YC hackathon that drew 495 applicants and $60K in sponsorships, and created "Firecrawl After Dark" — a monthly late-night developer shipping arena in San Francisco. Along the way, I picked up a new toolkit — Claude, Claude Code, and Cursor — and started shipping internal automations that would have taken an engineering team a year ago. Onboarding flows, weekly digests, internal dashboards. The kind of tooling that compounds.

Outside of all this, I live in San Francisco with my partner, Anthony, and our Boston Terrier, Milo. I run an interior design practice on the side because making spaces work for the people in them turns out to be the same job as everything else I do — just with different inputs.

I also finished an MBA in Finance along the way, solidifying my third degree — 4.0 GPA, President's Honor Roll - because apparently I don't know how to sit still.


MBA, Finance
SNHU
4.0 GPA · President's Honor Roll

MM, Music Education
Kent State University

BA, Music Education & Piano Performance
University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music

E D U C A T I O N

A F T E R H O U R S

The theme parks? They're not just a hobby.

The way great parks orchestrate story, engineering, logistics, and joy — that's my mental model for operations. High stakes. High craft. Lots of moving pieces.

I live in San Francisco with my partner Anthony and our Boston Terrier, Milo. When we're not working, you'll find us traveling, hunting down the best roller coasters, or exploring whatever city we've landed in.

I'm also a design nerd, an interior design enthusiast, and someone who believes the best work happens when people genuinely love where they are and what they're building.