2011 | Page 6 of 7 | Job and Internship Advice, Companies to Work for and More

Mythbusters: Start-Up Company Internships

We do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.

START-UP COMPANY INTERNSHIP MYTHS

Starting your own company can be challenging, risky, and liberating-all at the same time. Does that interest you? Are you a budding entrepreneur looking to hit it big? If you’re up for the challenge, you may want to consider an internship at a startup first. We’ve taken a look at 10 myths associated with start-up jobs and bust’em or confirm’em.

MYTH 1: Startup companies have no money or fame.

You’ve probably heard of Facebook, right? Or Google? Maybe you’re heard of Tumblr, the Khan Academy, Eventbrite, and of course, you’ve heard of InternMatch! Startup companies can be wealthy (just look at Google now) and incredibly famous. A startup company indicates one that’s relatively new; technically, the term refers to a company with “limited operating history.”

MYTH 2: All startups are in Silicon Valley.

This isn’t completely true: there are TONS of startups all around the world, and all around the US! However, the most famous place for startups is “the Valley”, and it’s for a good reason. The climate of innovation and sheer accessibility of money, tech people, and resources make the Valley a great place to go if you’d like to start or intern for a great company.

MYTH 3: If I work at a startup, I’ll get to meet the CEO.

You’ll probably meet the CEO daily. You will definitely talk to him/her. He/She will probably give you individual assignments, and you will probably think the CEO is really awesome. You might even become best friends and go bowling together A startup is pleasantly different from a large corporation- where the poor schmuck who’s your boss has less decision making power than a stalk of celery.

MYTH 4: I need to be a “coder” to work with a start-up.

While coding skills are a great asset for an aspiring entrepreneur or intern, you don’t need to know Python to be hired. Marketing, business, and depending on the company, specialists in a certain topic, are all beneficial to a startup.

MYTH 5: Startup internships are really competitive.

Some internships are very competitive, but some companies just need interns! It also depends on the skill set that you offer-generally, there will always be a quantity of coding internships and room for developers in the startup world.

Business internships are on the whole more competitive.

MYTH 6: Working for startups gives you neither perks nor a social life.

People who work at startups have often left large companies due to a dislike of the overly formal and bureaucratic stricture. Therefore, they tend to be very friendly, informal, and enjoy speaking with interns and getting to know them. Interns can meet other startup interns through a program called “Startup Roots” and engage in company activities, like a company-wide kickball team.

MYTH 7: Startup Interns always work long hours.

If you like all night programming sessions, there’s a place for that. If you want to come into work at 10, that’s also possible. The hours are flexible, but the hard work isn’t.

Hours, in short, are however long it takes to get “it” done, whether that be shorter hours than your traditional 9-5 job, or longer hours.

MYTH 8: Startup companies don’t have a lot of money.

It’s a range, but not at all a universal rule. It’s true that startups try to spend as little money as possible, but they can have millions of dollars in the bank. Initially, some startups live off profits from selling the owner’s socks and shoes, but some startups make it to the stage at which they’re making large amounts of money.

MYTH 9: Startup internship opportunities are few and far between.

We beg to differ; check out the posts already on our site! We’ve got features on interns in startups coming soon!

You can also check out our blog post on the Startup Roots program, and get some great entrepreneurial advice while you’re at it!

MYTH 10: Startups don’t have a lot of work to do; it’s all online, right?

This is definitely false. A smaller number of employees means more work for each employee. Though a startup doesn’t involve the traditional “minding the store” that Pop’s Bagels on Main Street might require, a lot of work is necessary to keep a company afloat.

The Startup Roots Fellowship: Starting Your Own Company Despite the Falcons

“You can’t ever give up. You have to keep climbing higher, over the snakes, and, you know, the f***ing falcons, that are all around you!”

Call me a philistine, but I had never met a CEO before—Jeff Immelt obviously didn’t attend Dad’s office GE Family Picnics. Yet, I was now in a room with at least four CEOs and innumerable potential CEOs, who were staring at one another with a rabid curiosity and a glint of shared passion too intense to concern the pizza.

There was no Immelt-like snifter of brandy-I was alarmed to find these CEOs as much older to me as I am to my sister. They are young, iPhone toting, and clever; they let the f-bomb and its four letter relatives fly with abandon.

How was I there, hobnobbing with the savvy and businesslike? I was lucky enough to be a participant in the 2011 Startup-Roots program.

In the program’s own words, “Startup Roots is a Fellowship program that places the country’s most elite students in innovative startups. [The] goal is to provide intelligent and aspirational students with a summer internship program that introduces them to the San Francisco / Silicon Valley startup scene. Fellows will be placed in a high-potential startup as an intern in either business or engineering. Additionally, students have the opportunity to attend a weekly speaker series featuring elite techpreneurs and venture capitalists.” I was at the first of these speaker series.

This series featured four CEOs of tech startups-all of who had started their own companies within one year of graduating college. Despite their different backgrounds and companies, they all share an almost tangible energy, love of risk, and drive. They’ve had similar experiences cutting through the metaphorical “snakes and falcons,” working harder than they once thought possible, feeling like “the smartest people in the world”, and building the relationships necessary to transform a pipe dream into a multimillion dollar reality. How can I find the words to describe their attitude? One of them said it best: “No f’ing rules.”

These 4 CEOs were:

1) Andrew Maguire-InternMatch

After graduating from Columbia in 2009, Andrew wanted to solve the quintessential problem for every college student -the difficulty and altogether impossibility of the internship search. Andrew, his childhood friend Nathan, and their technical cofounder Kyle raised 100k and moved to Seattle to launch their company, InternMatch. After learning and growing in Seattle, they relocated to the Valley/San Francisco .

2) Matt Mireles-Speaker Text

Matt’s previous jobs as a forest-fire fighter, an EMT, and a journalist taught him how to how to treat people, how to make difficult decisions quickly, and how to lead. He was inspired to found Speaker Text by his career in journalism (“I thought I was the smartest person in the world”). With no prior experience, he headed to the Valley, courted the right investors, and founded his company.

3) Murti Hussain-HiGear

Murti “never had a real job and hopes [he] never will.” After his freshman year at Williams, he dropped out to start his first company, funded by whomever he could find in his school’s alumni directory. After coming to the Valley, he then created a social networking site, sold his company called “Peanut Labs”, and finally started his newest venture, “HiGear.”

4) Gagan Biyani-Udemy

Gagan was an intern at Microsoft and a consultant at Accenture before he realized he “wasn’t the type of person who could just do nothing.” Therefore, he began blogging for TechCrunch while working for Accenture. He “hacked his way to the Valley”, and founded his company, Udemy, with two other cofounders.

These CEOs and founders gave advice on the most significant challenges associated with starting and running a company. Ready for the inside information?

The Essential Challenges of Starting a Company

1) Team Building

According to these founders, a team is the hardest and most important component of a company: “If someone isn’t in it for the long haul, leave them really fast.” Can this be accomplished without the Winklevoss Brothers in hot pursuit for all of eternity? “Figure out equity later-and never, ever promise your flaky cofounder a part of a company.”

Establishing a CEO and including a CTO in the cofounders is essential, as it’s necessary to have a final decision maker and a programmer.

2) The Importance of Execution

Apparently, every idea I could ever have is currently whizzing around in the brains of seventy other individuals and all of their relations. That’s why a company is “99% execution, and 1% about ideation.” It’s important to focus on a business model and move on if it doesn’t succeed. The ideal is to “fail fast”-if a company does not have the potential to work, failure should occur as quickly as possible.

3) Getting Money and Investors

When pitching to investors, “ask for advice, rather than money” as what you’ll receive is almost always the opposite. While pitching, adhere to the law of numbers-if you pitch to 300, at least one should respond! Knowing your audience while pitching is also essential-if there’s a trend in the Valley that investors have been enamored with, engage it however superficially into a presentation. Never be afraid to go again and again to an investor, the founders state. Even if they do not invest, you will improve your presentation tone, cadence, and content for the next investor.

4) Leveraging Momentum

If you’ve hooked one fish, it’s infinitely more likely that you’ll hook others-once you have “precious and hard sought” momentum, “sell the sh*t out of it.” Capitalizing on a success breeds more success-whether with investors, new team members, or others.

5) The Most Valuable Intern Advice

Each of these CEOs manage tons of interns; who better to get intern advice from?

a) Accelerate your learning curve as fast as possible-learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can.

b) Meet and build relationships, as much as possible-building your relationships is the key to the startup world.

c) “Hack your environment”-find “get arounds” and make it work.

d) Meet other interns-once again; they’re the future CEOs.

e) Stock up on knowledge-what you don’t have to learn through experience can be your catalyst to success.

f) “Say yes every single time!” Whenever asked to do something, you should be willing to do it-within some reason.

g) “Don’t make excuses, and deal with your priorities: just get it all done.” This no-nonsense statement needs no clarification.

h) Have one supervisor. You should have one person to whom you are responsible for deliverables.

i) Become the master of something at your office-learn how to be “indispensable.”

Lastly?

• “Don’t die and it will all work out.”

Starting a company is a struggle. It undoubtedly requires determination and confidence to succeed. “They’re going to say you suck, everything sucks,” Matt warned. “You need to turn [the negativity] around and go for it.”

Yet, these founders love what they do. They’re energized, genuinely interested, and hungry–for knowledge, for success, and for more risk. (I’ve also never heard so much swearing in my life, and I’ve been to a truck stop in West Virginia.) They’re self-described as “dudes in crazy situations, running around,” are passionate, and driven with a sense of purpose and confidence. Is there any doubt that they have fun? Is there any uncertainty that they’re enthusiastic about what they do?

Don’t die-and that might be you, too.

Mythbusters: Consulting Internships

We do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.

CONSULTING INTERNSHIP MYTHS

Ever considered a career or an internship in management consulting? Many people do-it’s generally thought of as a great industry for new grads. We’ll discuss 10 myths associated with consulting, and bust’em or confirm them.

Are you ready? (Don’t try this at home, folks.)

MYTH 1: I need to be an expert in something to consult!

Not at all! Entry-level positions and internships are there for a reason: to help you build expertise. Consulting firms are most often looking for analytical and critical thinking abilities. Show them you can think!

MYTH 2: What are the “Big 5” firms? Do they even exist?

They do exist, but which firms are specifically meant by that title vary. When people refer to the Big 5 firms, they often mean the older accounting firms. When they are discussing strategy consulting, there are simply 3 “Big” firms. Names you will often hear in this context include: McKinsey & Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Deloitte, Accenture, Bain & Co., KPMG, and Ernst & Young. Firms often merge and recombine.

MYTH 3: Consulting interns and entry level positions make a ton of money!

Yes, the myth can be true. At Deloitte, intern salaries can be $24 per hour, significantly above the minimum wage in most states.

MYTH 4: Consulting internships have to be acquired through connections.

Not at all! Consulting firms like Deloitte and Accenture recruit heavily on campuses, and have established intern application programs. Search for some cool positions through WayUp!

MYTH 5: Consulting internships are really competitive.

Some internships are very competitive, especially those with the big consulting firms, and others are not as competitive. There’s a range in the market!

MYTH 6: Consulting interns work long hours.

It’s plausible, as it depends on the firm. Many consulting firms do require their employees to work long hours, yet, consultants are usually paid by the hour!

MYTH 7: Management consulting is all there is.

Not at all! While many people only think of management consulting firms when they think of consulting, the industry is made up of technology consulting, environmental consulting, healthcare consulting, and many others. Specialization can occur based on interest in a particular field. For example, the Albright-Stonebridge Consulting Group consults in international affairs, while IBM has many arms, including an Environmental Consulting division.

MYTH 8: Consulting is evil corporate America.

Firms often never resemble “Corporate America,” including Frontline Solutions and other firms that specialize in nonprofit consulting and social entrepreneurship.

MYTH 9: Nobody knows what consulting interns do all day.

We beg to differ; here’s a day in the life of an intern at Deloitte!

MYTH 10: John Legend worked for BCG before launching his music career.

We’ve heard it from Ramit Sethi, and it’s therefore got to be true. John Legend: that soulful crooner, midshipman of the Love Boat, and captain of our hearts, was once in fact one of the lucky few to work with one of the best management consulting firms in the biz.

Mythbusters, Mentos, and Diet Coke: Coming Your Way!

It’s an understatement to say that we love the Mythbusters-their experiments, including the Archimedes Death Ray, Catching a Bullet in Your Teeth, and the 22,000 foot fall, have simultaneously delighted us… and tempted us to try many dangerous things.

In fact, our love of Mythbusters has grown to an obsession: We have decided to create Mythbusters experiments of our own! In our experiments, we’ll discuss, bust, and confirm myths about common, really cool, and amazing internships. We’ve included internships in consulting, marketing, fashion magazines, journalism, politics, and many more arenas!

We can’t wait to answer everything you’ve wanted to know about those fields, give you insider information, and bust old wives’ tales heard on the street. Easy to read blog posts combined with mad science? Our favorite combination!

Our excitement about these upcoming posts can’t be contained, which is why we invite you to the Intern Match Mentos and Coke Battle. We intend on battling, just like the Mythbusters, with crazy Mentos and Coke rockets!

While we do so, we welcome you to tell us about your Mythbuster experiences via all types of media: Twitter, this blog, Facebook, videos, pictures, presentations and facts. We want to hear how you bust internship myths, take names, and even make Mentos and Coke rockets!

Stay tuned for videos of our battle, our Mythbusters posts, and news about our experiments! Are you ready for this?

Proving that you are worth your salt.

Are You Worth Your Salt?

The saying “worth your salt” has been used since Roman times when soldiers were given a certain amount of money to buy salt. Sometimes, they were actually paid in salt, a rare commodity when away from the sea, especially valuable as a necessity for the body’s physical survival. The word “salary” is derived from the Latin for salt. So to be “worth your salt” means to be worth what someone is actually paying you.

There are several ways of proving your worth even when the salt is not much by way of monetary remuneration.

The Big Mamma Salt that interns should be striving for includes proving that you are worth hiring after the internship is over, as well as securing great references for any other job you might wish to pursue. Other big payoffs can be a great grade that improves your GPA or fulfills a requirement that cannot be achieved any other way. It is important to keep these goals in mind. It will make your work a lot easier when things get tough.

Employers universally say how important it is that interns perform their tasks cheerfully, no matter how simplistic, or distasteful those tasks are. Your colleagues have all paid their dues and will have little sympathy with the idea of you not paying yours. In addition, performing your tasks with a smile on your face makes the work environment a whole lot more pleasant. Nobody likes sulking, complaining, or sighing in and around the workplace. Bring in some donuts, (everyone will love you), and perform that menial work as efficiently and pleasantly as possible.

Keep in mind that you are not ruler of the universe. In a recent, well researched, published study in the British journal Self and Identity, author Jean Twenge says that current college students are more self-centered, than past generations. Her data shows that they also feel more superior about themselves than their elders did when they were young. She also sees a growing disconnect between self-perception and reality. Thinking and acting as if you are just so grand can have serious negative consequences when on the job. No one likes someone who thinks they are better than every one else. Acting as if you are capable of performing functions that you are not able to can also have serious consequences for the company.

Being bored on the job can be a real drag, but you may be able to parlay that into some big bonus points for yourself. Think of ways to increase your daily contribution. Volunteer to assume increasingly more responsibilities, and be prepared with a few suggestions on how to do that if they don’t have any ideas, themselves. Ask to shadow your boss or someone else for rotating parts of the day. You can learn a great deal about how jobs really work on a daily basis that way. Volunteer for a team project, ask if you can write a guest post for their blog or help with their twitter campaign. There are many ways of increasing your involvement that will show you are interested and ready to learn.

Take the initiative in preparing for the internship. Don’t sit back and wait for someone else to tell you which tools will be needed for the task at hand. If you will need to be using a certain computer program, learn it. Professors who are specialists in that field might be able to direct you. If you need to familiarize yourself with certain technical terms or industry related buzz words, go to a library or start a search in Wikipedia. Be proactive. Research the industry you are going to be interning in. Research the company you will be interning at. Research the field of expertise your internship will be related to. Learn everything you can in advance, and then get in there and impress them.

Former Interns Cite Job-Specific Tools as Unmet Need

This post was written by Alex Lassiter a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina and current member of the InternMatch student advisory board. The board is an independent group of seven current students and recent graduates that meets once a month to discuss key issues and challenges for students looking to transition into the professional world. The board has unique insight into the tools and resources that students need to be successful in the career process.

While college students everywhere are frantically preparing their resumes, cover letters and elevator pitches to attain theidealinternship, how many of them are preparing to succeed in the internship itself? Schools and career services are doing everything in their power to push students in front of potential employers, so that they can lock in internships—but there is a difference between preparing to get a job, and preparing students to succeed in a job. This was the topic of the most recent InternMatch Advisory Board meeting. How many students feel that their schools prepared them for the skills necessary to succeed in their internship? Alternatively, does this responsibility lie within the bounds of another party?

Our panelists cited multiple skills they wished they had during the course of their internships; however, most noted job-specific tools as largest disconnect between college and internships. Skills in job-specific software like Microsoft Excel and TweetDeck topped the former intern wish-list. But who is responsible for teaching these skills, and if they were available, would students take advantage of them prior to starting their internship? The answer to the latter is likely dependent on the student; however, to encourage students to take advantage of intern-prep, some universities offer job-specific ‘boot camp’ classes to students who are interning in a specific field.

One example of this is UNC-Chapel Hill, who offers a class for future investment banking interns. The curriculum targets banking specific software like Bloomberg, and CapitalIQ, which enables students to learn the practical skills needed to succeed during their summers. Still, with many career departments facing strained resources, the majority of universities can only afford to focus on preparing students to get the internship. So, who can provide students with these extra services? This is where the board feels that InternMatch can help. InternMatch could give prospective interns crash courses in job-specific tools, thus enabling students to better succeed during their internships.

The implementation of such a plan would require more planning and testing to determine if students would take advantage of the proposed service.

Please respond with your thoughts on the topics mentioned above, or any other topic we discuss. We welcome all comments and questions, and would love to hear from you.

Win a Mentorship Lunch with Robert Scoble

Do you ever wonder how rapidly changing technology will impact the world in the next 2, 5 or 50 years? Curious who are the most innovative new startup companies and learning how they came to see the light of day? Interested in building online communities and seeing how one grows a Twitter following to over 180,000 tweeps? Ever wonder what it would be like to interview tech leaders like Mark Zuckerburg?

Today InternMatch is launching a life changing opportunity to meet with renowned video blogger and technology evangelist Robert Scoble. You will get to swap roles with the man who is known for bringing his flip camera everywhere, and you will be given the chance to interview him about how he got his roots in the tech world.

Robert’s Storied Career:

Robert has been spending his time and energy helping spread excitement for innovative tech companies and entrepreneurs for nearly a decade. He started developing a following in 2003, working for Microsoft, and pioneering new blog tactics for the tech juggernaut — offering the public unique insight into the work and vision of the company. Robert left Microsoft in 2006 and began working full-time filming and broadcasting breaking stories on tech companies. First at PodTech on the Scoble Show and later at Fast Company on ScobleizerTV, Robert became famous for taking his camera to interviews and meetings with entrepreneurs across the world. Robert has now filmed hundreds of tech companies and founders from Mark Zuckerburg at Facebook to Biz Stone and Evan Williams, founders of Twitter.

How to Win the Competition:

Aside from blogging and filming, Robert is known for being incredibly active on new forums for open communication. He has over 180,000 twitter followers and is known as one of the most prolific Tweeters on the web. He also has embraced new Q and A site Quora to share deep responses to technology questions that are asked on the site.

To win this competition you will have to engage on Quora and share your opinions on technology trends. Three questions have been posted by Robert and the person with the most upvotes for each question will be a finalist as well as 2 individuals selected as having great overall repsonses, regardless of vote count:

Finally Tweet Your Answer: Check out my answer on why I want to interview Robert Scoble [link to answer] @scobleizer @internmatch #killthecoverletter

The competition will run through July 15th — so there is plenty of time to be creative in your answers and to find ways to get the community to support and upvote your answer.

The finalists will get a chance to interview and be selected to have a paid for one one one lunch with Robert where they can interview him about the future of tech.

Interns feel lack of ‘soft skill’ preparation

This post was written by Kristin Hillmann a recent graduate from the University of Washington and current member of the InternMatch Student Advisory Board. The student advisory board is an independent group of seven current students and recent graduates that meets once a month to discuss key issues and challenges for students looking to transition into the professional world. The board has unique insight into the tools and resources that students need to be successful in the internship and job search process.

A college internship is an unparalled learning experience. While performing an internship, an intern can gain exposure to a variety of very useful “hard” skills including industry specific software, reports, projects and formatting as well as “soft” skills related to that industry and work environment. While often not included in the internship job description, some of the “soft” skills an intern may become more knowledgeable about through their experience are: professional email protocol and usage, the art of networking, navigating office politics, deciphering expectations, taking constructive criticism/feedback, emotions in the workplace, how to ask questions, and many other aspects of interpersonal communication in an office environment. With four different and unique generations currently working together in the workplace, there are also many different work and communication styles to consider that greatly affect the selection of “soft” skills listed above.

As the InternMatch Advisory Board considered university education and what tools and classes universities could offer to better prepare students for internships and life after college, we came to a united conclusion that hindsight is 20/20. After completing an internship, as with most things in life, it is very easy to look back and analyze what you wish you had known before you started. That being said, the Advisory Board considered a variety of tools and resources that would provide students with useful skills prior to starting an internship experience. But after examining the complex life of a student and all that it entails, we weren’t sure we ourselves would have taken that extra class or attended a Sunday seminar on a topic or skill we didn’t even necessarily know was something we would need. But maybe these preparatory resources aren’t necessary or worthwhile? Could it be that the discomfort experienced from having no previous knowledge of, or exposure to, some of the “soft” skills encountered in an internship, and working through the process of navigating the uncomfortable situations that arise, in fact help to build an individual’s “soft” skills? Would educating students before they begin an internship remove this process and take away from the overall learning experience? Certainly more discussion is needed around this contemplative topic. Until then, to all the soon to be interns out there, don’t stress! Keep an open mind and embrace the experience. It is supposed to challenge you. The process itself is priceless.

Connect with Kristin Hillmann on twitter @khillmann!

Maya Ghosn 2011 Student Ambassador: Being an Intern at Demo Days

Maya Ghosn is a Sophomore at Stanford and was an InternMatch Student Ambassador during the Spring 2011 semester. She represented InternMatch at 500 Startups Demo Days as InternMatch pitched to a crowd of investors and press.

On April 7^th, I went to my first-ever Demo Day. I’ll be honest with you—I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the most fun and rewarding days of my entire internship. It took place at the 500 Startups office in Mountain View.

Demo Day basically consisted of 22 startups from the 500 Startups incubator giving a 5-minute overview of their start-up to potential investors and press in the audience. Given that each start-up had so little time to give their pitch, you can imagine that they got very creative. Visual.ly used an amazing and breath-taking introductory video to capture the audience, while the Punch’d Co-founder tagged his start-up as a “hyper-local deals platform… in your pants” (See image 1), and Speakergram used the 500 Startups founder Dave McClure to send a powerful message. (See image 2)

After the pitches were over, everyone moved to another room to give investors and the press a chance to speak to the start-ups one-on-one. Each table consisted of a laptop, at least one member of that start-up, and a freebie (always a must!). With the start-ups excited to share their progress and talk more about what they do to investors and the press, the energy in the room was trulyunbelievable.

Wearing my InternMatch t-shirt and standing at the InternMatch table with a fellow intern from CalPoly, I nervously dreaded speaking to investors. The responsibility of representing InternMatch and making a lasting and correct impression on investors was honestly pretty tantalizing. But the second I started talking to investors, I immediately relaxed and appropriated my role as a representative of the start-up. As someone who had been working with InternMatch for a couple of months, I started to feel very attached to it, and really feel like part of the team, so I inevitably found myself working very hard to ensure that all of InternMatch’s resources and tools were communicated and clear to investors

Driving back from Demo Days that night was the first time that I realized just how amazing and enthralling the start-up world was, and just how lucky I was to be able to be part of it through my involvement with InternMatch.

15 Unreal Job Apps — Dave McClure Shadow Finalists

We have narrowed our finalists for the Dave McClure Shadow position to 15 all-star candidates. They come from over 5 different countries, 14 different universities, and all share an exceptional interest in entrepreneurship, technology, and pushing ideas to the next level.

On May 1st they were tasked with the challenge of telling Dave why they should be his shadow and to use interesting social media channels to convey the message.

While the competition got heated responding to Dave’s Quora post, the applications themselves are mind-blowing. Enjoy some of the most creative job applications I have ever seen (ps if you are looking to hire someone for your startup, this is a pretty good place to start).

Mimi Newton:

Mimi is finishing her first year as an MBA at the University of Chicago. She hustled to get Mark Suster’s opinion on whether this shadow position could truly launch her career better than an MBA. Now she wagers that if gets the position and this is truly the case that she will drop out and go and do a startup. See her Startup Analytics for Vampires slideshow to see how her ability to listen, learn and take action has contributed to numerous startups already.

Mimi’s Application

Stefano Bernardi:

Hailing form Rome, Stefano has helped galvanize the Italian startup community as an active blogger, writer for TC Europe, hacker and startup founder, and is now an analyst for a leading Italian VC firm. In his application he presents a re-worked Startup Metrics for Pirates slideshow, a shadowing Dave term sheet, and a blog post that sums it all up. His post on Quora got over 150 up votes and sits atop the responses.

Stefano’s Application

Ronald Angsiy:

Is a student at Indiana University who wants to create a college startup network that encourages top students to forgo bigger companies and explore tech startups. Using Final cut pro, Wordle, Adobe Premiere, Camtasia, Animoto, Prezi, Powerpoint, and more he made this powerful video that leaves a strong impression.

Ronald’s Application

Johnson Nakano:

A current junior at Cal Poly Johnson has a hunger for learning and entrepreneurship. He designed a simple, clear and down right beautiful presentation and has already started a few companies including MyCollegeLoop.com in his free time.

Johnson’s Application

Austin Bowlin:

Better known for his twitter alias, Startup Paparazzi created more buzz/controversy than anyone else in this campaign. Getting RTs from Robert Scoble, Dave Schappell and more is an impressive feat for a student. After being called a spam bot by some and a G by others he did what any good entrepreneur would do — pivoted and summed up what he learned in an awesome blog post.

Austin’s Application

Jennifer Turliuk:

Is an active Canadian entrepreneur. She is the Founder and President of the Young Entrepreneurs Club in Canada, ran Canada’s largest business competition, was featured in the NYT, and spends her free time as a DJ and extreme sports enthusiast.

Jennifer’s Application

Corey Hoffstein

Corey is a passionate hacker. After getting a CS degree from Cornell, Corey got a masters at CMU’s Tepper School of Business and built Newfound Research which develops new financial models using CS algorithms. His blog post is simple and witty, and he demonstrated his leadership skills by bringing the 15 finalists into an email group that is already churning out new ideas and possibly new companies.

Corey’s Application

Greg Mathews:

Serial entrepreneur and student at San Jose State majoring in software engineering. Greg was an intern at Intel before helping create and develop content for Hacker Dojo, and more recently starting Testt.me a site to help SJSU students improve their studying. Snagging Davemccluresshadow.com definitely gets a big +1. Greg made a cool website and has a stand out hacker profile.

Greg’s Application

Andrew Swiler:

Is a former lawyer who converted to a blogger and entrepreneur after realizing he had chosen the wrong career path. In Barcelona he worked with Brote International helping startups find capital and launch. Recently he moved to San Francisco with an interest in the edu tech space. His blog posts include predictions for the next big startup out of Spain!

Andrew’s Application

Crystal Cyan:

Crystal has written some great blog posts, but mainly she is doing BIG things on Quora! Crystal is an Amherst student who has done more things on campus than seems possible. She works as a designer and marketing specialists for multiple non-profits on campus, she hosted a highly successful social entrepreneurship summit and this summer she is interning for Wednesdays a hot startup in the 500 startups accelerator. Ambitious, creative, and an upbeat personality.

Crystal’s Application

Krishna Nandigam:

Krishna graduated from the University of Michigan and is now attending the Wharton School of Business. She created this website and wrote this snarky post to apply.

Krishna’s Application

Stephen McInnis:

Stephen just graduated from High School and is headed for Purdue, with a life goal of becoming an F-18 pilot. His cover letter for the initial application may have been the best we saw — crisp, witty, and demonstrated knowledge about Dave and his portfolio companies. His recent twitter and www.davesshadow.com application do the same.

Stephen’s Application

Daniel Marienthal

Is a digital media student in Stockholm. He has a lot in common with Ferris Bueller and wants to use technology make the world more fun. He won a HS film festival in 2008, developed the “Luke Soundwalker” iPhone app in 2010 and brings creativity and talent to all the projects he works on.

Daniel’s Application

Luke Richter:

Luke Richter is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in Business, Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He is the president and founder of the Cal Poly entrepreneurship club, and won the CalPoly Venture competition with his company SC Lights. His application combines design, crisp content writing and strong personality.

Luke’s Application

Jason Martin:

Made an awesome blog post, tied to a QR Coupon and Facebook app that turns his shadow application into a buzz machine. Jason is graduating with a degree in entrepreneurship from the University of North Dakota this spring and is currently working on a new web startup called The Sky District.

Jason’s Application

Chris Yin:

A serial entrepreneur who turned his house into a profitable coffee shop at age 15 and who made a successful tutoring and note sharing company in college. He has since started Pathway Ventures in San Diego and designed a slick video/blog for his app.

Chris’s Application