Job Final

The job that I will be writing about is an internship in a startup app. I learned from this internship that I didn’t want to be in the startup industry and it led me to discover that real estate is the right industry choice for me due to my passion for it.  I have always been debating over starting a career in technology and real estate. At one point I had a considerable amount of interest in someday starting my own mobile application but thankfully because of this work experience I realized it wasn't for me.

The mobile application is a tutoring app that connects students with tutors on demand. The user base is broad because the app has a network of over two thousand tutors in the Los Angeles County. The clientele ranges from kindergarteners to graduate students. Additionally, a portion of the app users aren’t even in school, and they just want to learn or brush up on a different language or skill. The company is based in Santa Monica, and the founders are two young driven entrepreneurs. A lot of high power and due to its location famous individuals are investing in this application. Hollywood actors are now frequently investing in many startups especially the app's closer to their homes. The mobile app recently changed its platform to text messaging where students can just take a picture of their homework and a tutor will respond with instructions on how to tackle the homework problem. I started the internship in my senior year of high school and continued the internship in the fall of my freshmen year. As a freshman, I had a good idea of what industry and career I wanted to be in, but I was still confused.

 I started off as an ambassador for the app in high school. The role of the ambassadors is to market the app to their high schools or colleges and the ambassador's network of friends. Being an ambassador was fun for me because it is an active yet minimum stress job. I would post about the application on social media and have my friends repost it on their Facebook or Twitter feeds. Additionally, I would hand out and put advertisement cards in lockers around my school in places such as the math lab. I also reached out to the entrepreneur club and arranged the founders of the app to come and speak to the students about their experiences of starting a business.  I heavily valued my time to work for the app in high school because it led me to develop networking and marketing skills at an earlier age. Additionally, working for this app caused me to be less timid and being okay with putting myself out there and accepting rejection. I find that just in general it is hard to put yourself out there in high school because of all the social pressure. The entrepreneurial qualities I gained are still aiding me now in applying for jobs out of college. Due to my positive work experience, I decided to continue working for the app but now in the headquarters in freshmen year.

While working in the company’s office, I realized that the startup world wasn’t for me. My internship primarily focused on user acquisition and marketing, but I got to learn the environment of the startup industry because I was allowed to be in the majority of meetings. I was responsible for acquiring new users interested in learning or teaching subjects and executing creative marketing strategies on the college campus in my region. I also managed a team of ambassadors to implement marketing strategies. Lastly, I attracted and secured a multi-thousand-dollar investor. Acquiring new user was probably the worst part of the job sometimes. When I was with the head of marketing watching and helping to create ads for the app, it was exciting, and I did enjoy that aspect of the job. What I didn’t enjoy was when they had no work to give me, and they made me post ads on people’s twitter or Instagram based on hashtags they used. I felt like a telemarketer, and I was just wasting my time. Managing my team of ambassadors and figuring out creative market strategies was slightly intriguing to me. I did learn valuable managerial and marketing skills in that sphere of my job. The last highlight was when I was heavily involved in the process of attracting and securing investors because it was a thrilling experience to gain capital for the company.

I was gradually starting to realize that I disliked the startup world while completing this internship. I realized working for a small company was not for me because you genuinely don’t know if it will be successful and there is a lot of risks involved. I also detested anything to do with coding it was the most boring and uninteresting thing to me. I have coded a little bit in high school, but I never emerged in it as I did in this internship. Additionally, I found that I had no passion for the startup world. To truly enjoy working in a startup you had to be okay with the thought that the majority do fail and one day the company could not be able to gain funding, and it will have to shut down. I was not okay with this instability. I found it agonizing to think that all this work and dedication can just be for nothing. If in six months there is no growth in the app nor quality investors intrigued with the app it will shut down. I also found that in the production stage it can be very slow just like real estate development. Since I have no passion for technology, the production stage felt slower than it does while working in a development firm for me. I started to realize that the finished product of an app wasn’t enough for me. I get a big thrill when witnessing the completion of a building, and I didn’t get the same excitement with an app. 

I also realized I did not connect with the people in the startup industry. The founders were very connected and encouraged me to go to many networking dinners or events. In retrospect, it was very kind of them to invite me and telling me when a networking event was coming up. Some of the events weren’t tech-based, so I did gain some contacts in real estate while going. I just found that especially in the startup world you continuously have to sell your company that you own or work for to everyone you meet. I also felt that the majority of startup founders believed that they were going to revolutionize or change the world based on their app. I honestly found it quite annoying to listen to people selling me their app regularly. Even people who created the video game apps which I would only download if I am looking to kill time believed they are shaping the future. The egos of founders drove me insane while talking to them.

I appreciated the high school and even freshmen year internship, and I do not regret working for the app. I realized rather sooner than later that the app world wasn’t for me and that it was just a phase of interest in my life while working in that industry.

Flesch Reading ease: 60.2

Flesch- Kincaid grade level: 9.8