6 Reasons why everyone should intern at a young startup

The clock is ticking (tic tac, tic tac), the years are passing, and the end is near (to all the seniors: woohoo or booh, depends on your partying-studying-balance). Whichh, also means that books have to make place for experience. And that choosing the right internship is valuable to make the first step into the corporate world. We are stepping into adulthood, how freakkyy is that???

So, like most of us, we will seek out a prestigious multinational to perform our internship, like a company as Google, one of the big 4, Microsoft, Quintiles, and so on. The story goes that these type of companies look good on a CV...

Myths or not, this latter is very personal to the recruiter's/company's specifications for selecting freshers or not. And if they are not convinced by your actual CV when you go to the interview, "I'm the one" of JB could be your last-resort, or last-last-resort, only Heaven knows if your singing talents can get you straight to the heart of this (handsome/pretty) recruiter. Give it a try and let me know!

In any case, even if a startup and an established company are both doing business, the way they do it day-in-day-out is COMPLETELY different.

Geeeeeet readyyy.

1. You'll learn everything and anything.

As an intern for a large company, you'll not be exposed to all the aspects of the business and the focus of your internship will mainly remain on the given task.

As a business student you learn a lot about how a business is working, which parties are involved, how to react on market dynamics, etc. So you think: fine, all this stuff pushed in my brain will solve all the problems the startup is facing. Well, your books are just fooling you. Period!

From there on everything becomes freakking exciting. Really! Everything you learned/you think you know is challenged, including who you are as a person. Hihi, feeling the adrenaline pumping?!

You'll understand fast that having your finance-, operations-, logistics-, law- and marketing-skills in check are valuable, to find ways to get the business to evolve.

But no panic, you'll learn. A lot.

• You learn about setting targets and meeting them. You learn about the importance of having a business model, discipline, trust and PATIENCE.

• You'll learn about HR: which employees are good suits for your company, the 'standards', no kidding these ones are really required. You'll learn to manage the costs, rethink the margins & prices.

• You'll learn to reach out to the right people & mentors to reassure you along the way and to prevent you to make stupid mistakes.

• Sometimes you'll also learn to shoot for an advertisement you need to launch. To invent a slogan, to do a market research, ways to get more clients, to have brand awareness, ... And SO MUCH MORE.

2. You'll learn what it really means to establish a company.

When we look at these prestigious companies the first thoughts go to the magnitude and power these ones have established. But we rarely remember that these too once started from scratch and that a lot of dedication, sweat and tears have been the building blocks of these huge names today.

As newbie we tend to want everything done and acquired as fast as possible. Here you'll learn about being patient, trial-&-errors, and that having a name in the industry takes much more time & work than you thought it would.

• You'll learn about these famous values, culture, mission/vision-things, which were boring you in classes because they seemed so obvious and easy. Well fellows, they ARE really the backbone of this baby-company and the way of making its first steps.

• Then again, running a business with a limited budget is not only a phrase heard in classes or a case on your exam anymore, but a real business case who seems more difficult to solve in reality than on paper.

3. You'll not feel like an intern.

At a young startup you don't feel like an intern. You feel like you got the space to be yourself. As the intern you'll search your way to become an added-value to the startup by your own.

Thereby you'll have more responsibilities to get along with and see your impact faster than when working for a big company. You'll be respected for who you are and work on things that you really want to do. Considering you've the choice to decide where you direct your focus on, you'll be more motivated to deliver good work and see the startup grow.

Since you are not only an intern, the team will involve you in their projects, ask for your opinions and engage you in their decision making process. You have a say and your little experience and knowledge are not looked down upon.

Sometimes you'll be CIO and search out which program to acquire for the accounting, at other times you'll be CFO with the remit to tackle financial problems, at other moments CEO with management responsibilities and finally being grounded again when coffee is needed to tackle bottlenecks that bring head aches.

Further at a young startup people are usually not a lot older than you are, as opposed to bigger companies. This makes place for fun, exchanging on common topics, listening to the same type of music, etc. Thereby with the time these people become your friends and by the same token you expand your social circle with a new type of interesting people.

4. You'll be pushed out of your comfort zone.

Over time you'll establish an emotional bound with the startup since every contribution that is made into it is seen. Thereby you want to do everything in your power to make it grow. You'll see yourself reaching out to investors, CEO's, going to special events and conferences to take on more knowledge to get the startup propulsed. By doing so, you gain a sense of purpose which pushes you to get into the motion. Where the interests were basically alive, but somehow you managed to never really act on it, you suddenly see yourself going for what you want without a lot of resistance. Congrats you're killing the fear, officially badassing.

At school and at big companies you are taught to play between the lines. At a young startup success is achieved by breaking the damn rules. A young startup is a school for badasses. A dreammm coming true !

5. You'll learn about the importance of being a team player.

Suddenly the courses received about adapting your language and the Business/IT/People-alignment get an even clearer dimension in your brain.

Talking business to someone with other technical skills, is like talking Chinese to a cat.

Communicating in the other ones language and point of view is a very important skill to develop, to deliver your message clearly and making sure you all are on the same wavelength. Therefore taking in consideration: background differences, cultural and social clues are a starting point to establish a team spirit in the team.

Since everyone is spending time and (personal) finance on a business who is momentarily not paying a salary, being strong together is vital for the baby.

You'll as a result learn to see things from other people's standpoints, to persuade, to take on blame, to make friends and spot good coffee bars to work together.

In addition you'll influence others and be influenced by the different energies, personalities and perspectives of every team member, which are most of the time from very different backgrounds. Moreover this makes you realize the power of diversity, and authenticity in business.

6. You'll learn a lot about yourself.

Last but not least, you'll learn about the person you live with 24/7/365, yourself.

• You'll learn about what you really like and dislike.

• You'll begin to acquire insights into the field(s) you want to grow in.

• You'll discover (hidden) skills/talents & weaknesses (if you are open to them).

• You become more confident. A startup life can be resumed in one enormous question mark. You never know what tomorrow will bring, what you'll do, where you are heading to and if everything is going on the right track. And by accepting instead of resisting or tring to control this uncontrollable routine, you'll learn to dance in the mist of the unknown. By learning to trust the process and learning to be confident about being unconfident, you'll see your self-esteem skyrocketing.

• By being immersed in this business world, you'll find yourself applying your courses more efficiently on reality cases related to the startup.

• You'll learn about the importance of soft skills.

• You'll learn to become patient, even if the urge to become the overnight next big thing will get the best of you at times. Reality will humble and keep you grounded. No needs to rush.

• You'll learn about the power of optimism and progress. As long as you do not stop, it doesn't matter how slowly you go. Thank you Confucius.

Overall: A young startup only has a viable product to start with, all the surroundings are very fragile and needs a good management to be kept alive.

As the startup grows, your skills and knowledge grows with it, you'll find yourself searching for even more information, talking to even more people and going to even more events just to get the knowledge required to get the startup making a step ahead. You'll even find yourself wide awake at night because your brain keeps running its way into finding that secret solution. Which doesn't exist by the way, so don't skip your 7-8 hours of sleep.

Foremost you'll learn that you can actually only learn about business, by doing the business. By learning the job on hand you understand the business even better. In a world where business changes as fast as lighting, you got to learn to feel the business, to really make an impact.

To interning.

To learning.

To starting.

And.

To badassing.

Feel the fear and do it anyway !

With taco-flavored kisses, Rizlène.

PS: I give a special shoot out to Joachim Badejoh who makes this adventure possible and became more than just a supervisor, a real friend!

Thank youuu!

Oriomi One Team!

(Oriomi, iPhone reparation on location, heeere to help you ! www.oriomi.be)

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