4 Reasons to Intern at a Start-up

Start-up companies are extremely unique places to start your career as an intern. Here are 4 reasons why you should intern at a start-up, along with insights from my personal experiences interning at Vigorousity LLC. Vigorousity LLC is a company in the process of creating a highly complex reward based economy using a new form of social media.

1.) Flexible Roles

I entered my internship with the predisposed idea that I would obtain the responsibilities of the company’s graphic designer role. This was due to my previous experience as an intern at a medium sized company known as: “POP! Promos.” Being a graphic design intern there wasn’t a bad thing, I just realized after all was said and done that my work was small compared to the full-time employees working there. Interning here at Vigorousity is hugely different. Here, I enter into the realm of not only graphic design, but also: User Experience design, User Interface Design, Animation, Market Research, and even the interview process (yes, I actually interview people to work here even though I am only an intern). This goes to show that startups are extremely versatile with internship roles. They allow you to be a flexible team member, which significantly changes the traditional corporate internship experience.

2.) Small Scale

Start-ups usually have a small team when they begin to start hiring interns. Vigorousity only consisted of four in-house team members including myself when my internship experience started. We recently hired three more employees and are currently making a decision on a fourth. The benefit of this small scale environment is communication. A small team can communicate ideas back and forth very easily in comparison to a company consisting of 50+ creative employees. This prevents confusion, and gives interns the chance to give their input without being intimidated by a large team of people who have seniority in corporate companies.

3.) Impact on Brand Development

An internship experience at a startup allows you to have a significant influence on brand development because of reasons one and two. Throughout this internship, I have seen the company rise from having an obscure brand to a fully fleshed out identity. This type of brand development journey allows interns to see a brand grow because of their collaborative work and ideas. Start-ups give interns the perfect chance to come along for this journey.

4.) Daily Networking

Networking is extremely important for any intern. However, some corporate interns are unable to attend company client meetings, trade-shows, and exhibits due to role restrictions. In my experience working at a startup I have had the chance to meet with the owners of over 10 businesses because we work in a collaborative work-space. A collaborative work-space is an office that a company shares with other businesses. These spaces are usually occupied by small independent businesses, and of course start-ups. Interns have the ability to network with these businesses in this type of environment on a daily basis.

I hope you learned about the opportunities a start-up can give you as a potential intern or employee from reading this blog post. Now go and start-up something amazing today!