My Internship Story

It was April 4, 2014. We were all excited of having our last examination of 3rd term. It meant no regular classes, no more assignments for next two months. But the bigger challenge was still waiting ahead of us. The uncertainty of working in a start-up, not so known company was prevailing over my head. I headed to Bangalore on the same day. When most of my friends were enjoying the weekend after the end term, our first meeting was being scheduled with the CEO of the company on the very Sunday of 6^th April. To my utter surprise we met in a CCD instead of any office. It was both a surprise and a latent happiness. Because we were meeting for the first time which is not in any office setting, secondly it meant more informal situation and better interaction. We were briefed about the project we were going to work. In my project, we were meeting the CEO directly once or twice in a week and rest of the time we were working from home. We were always connected with the CEO, who was our mentor, via e-mails, calls or any other way of online communication. The first lesson I learnt by working in a start-up is you can directly interact with the higher management and can understand the basics of business and the core of it. It’s like listening directly from the horse’s mouth.

The project was going smoothly with rough patches here and there. The project idea was ready in the brain but the feasibility and the acceptability of the idea was still a big question mark. I tried to verify the feasibility of idea, which well tested my technical knowledge. Having worked in technical field for three years came to my rescue. I somehow managed to recall my technical stuff and able to find out that project is feasible after testing it.  The second learning I got here is that I was given enough freedom by my mentor to try different stuffs, make mistakes and learn. This is the best thing to be worked in a new company.

Still there was a big question was pondering us. Whether the idea will be acceptable in the market or not, if it is implemented? So we need to do a pilot testing of a rough prototype of the product. When all the shortcuts to create a faster and dirty prototype were closed, we chose the path to develop it ourselves and then take it for market testing. Development started with the help of a third party developer. After clearly understanding the project and how it should be implemented, I was able to clearly coordinate with the developer to develop the prototype with all the basic functionality of the product. I got a chance to develop the web page template and the database model. The third learning I got here is that, we can work in different roles being in a start-up company. I really tasted the work of business analyst, market analyst, client etc. along with how to promote a product and collect prospects.

Things were not as smooth as I described above. We were running behind schedules. My internship was almost going to be over but the product was still not open for market tasting. So I agreed to continue the work after joining back to college. It was because; I was also as excited about the product as my mentor and was hoping for its success. We started the product and wanted to feel its path of success or failure also. So after joining the college I continued the work till one more month and the product was launched. The product was market-tested for two weeks after which my excited journey came to an end. The last but not the least lesson I got here is when the work is exciting you, the excitement and the anxiety prevails over the pressure and the hurdles. The taste of working in a start-up with direct mentoring from the top of the company and working from end-to-end in a project is really worthy.