Internship Experience: What I Learned
CPMS230
From my experience interning at Dive Chat, I learned how a startup operates from the ground up and sustains itself. Along the way, I also learned about how to effectively market a product and communicate in a leadership position.
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Startup Culture & Structure
- The initial launch requires ‘making noise’ to get potential users and investors’ attention, while a startup’s next phases emphasize fostering sense of community on app and further improving quality of user experience
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Persuading interested organizations to sign up for early-adoption waitlists to build anticipation for app’s release
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Launch Week: you get out what you put in, so give it your all!
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Taking advantage of LinkedIn algorithms to support viral marketing strategies
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Understanding how to leverage different social media platforms—both mainstream (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) and niche ones (Product Hunt, Reddit)
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- Turnaround is very short, so team members must be able to adapt quickly to the spontaneity
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Restructuring from campus model to cross-university teams
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Receiving projects on short notice and balancing them with other extracurricular commitments
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It takes a village to present a final product; marketing and development must be on the same page for companies to deliver on their promises
- All hands are on deck for testing because if we can’t vet and stand by our own product, who will?
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Testing beta versions on TestFlight and ExpoClient to ensure that app updates work before they go live
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Reporting bugs and collaborating with the extremely dedicated development team to iron out technical issues
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Mindset & Transferable Skills​
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Be open to change: the beauty of startups is that they enable you to take on different roles and gain multidisciplinary experience without confining you to a single function
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Know your limit and when to say no
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Experiencing full arc of interviewing for position to being promoted to staying through restructures to leaving
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Build a rapport with teammates and potential users through empathy
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Adopting a customer-centric approach and delivering features users want to see
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Suggesting changes to company based on feedback received
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Offering positive reinforcement to maintain morale in an online environment
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