Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Why Start at a Start-Up?

Beginning my internship experience, I had the mentality of completing one role throughout the entire summer. I was greeted with a huge surprise on my first day when I was asked to help with operational tasks as well as manage their online systems. I walked into a room with 12 other interns who were working hard on different tasks to help advance the company. My official position was to perform market research while collaborating with the Chief Marketing Officer. Throughout the first three weeks, I was also tasked with project management and even consulting different athletes as a coach position for the company. That is when I realized the true value of working with a start-up.

Being a member of a small startup gives me the opportunity to voice my own opinion and directly impact certain areas of the company. I am constantly called to provide my input on different content that is being introduced to the company’s brand on the internet. I realized that if I were to work a corporate internship, I would not have as much freedom or say within the company and would be forced to remain in the position I was hired to complete. This suits me completely because I frequently change my interests and want to fulfill multiple positions in a company to find what I am truly passionate in. While I have learned a lot about doing market research, I also learned how to sell products to a consumer properly and learn to follow up after a sale. Going through this internship has moved me to expand my search for my next internship for the Summer of 2018. I have learned about new roles and adopted new skills which will then be placed on my resume for future employers.

The Start-up culture is very exciting! There are people running up and down in the office calling out different ideas they might have that could benefit the company. Everyone is comfortable with the CEO and executive staff so that everyone is having a good time in the office while also being productive. Since the start up I am involved in is more of B2C, we interact with a lot of clients and learn behaviors of the consumers of the product. If you were to be at a B2B start-up, you could have the opportunity to talk to top level CEOs through your startup and forge relationships accordingly. There are so many benefits to working with a startup and I would recommend anybody apply to a startup for an internship regardless of how much they will pay. The experience earned will be far more valuable than the money for the long term.