Are You In College In NYC And Thinking About Working At A Startup?
Greg Yardley, founder/CEO of our portfolio company Pinch Media tells the following story about graduating from college and facing the career question:
When I finished school, I had a MA in Russian history and absolutely no idea what to do with myself – I started working as a customer support rep at an Internet startup because they were the first ones to offer me a job. (If the startup was a week later with the job offer, I’d probably be a 911 emergency operator today. Sometimes life can lead you to unexpected places.) I was surprised to stumble across a field that I loved – soon I became a product manager, and now I’m the co-founder of a company. You never know – maybe there’s a career here for you that you’ve never considered.
And so he’s going back to his roots to get some help. Greg’s looking to hire a couple of NYC-based college students who can spend up to 20 hours a week at Pinch Media. Here’s the details:
Pinch Media is a small, early-stage startup working on tools for iPhone application developers. Right now it’s just me and a team of developers – the developers do the programming, and I do everything else. I can’t do everything I’d like to do right now, so I’m looking for some help. The work will involve pretty much everything besides programming – you’ll be doing some administrative tasks, some marketing work, some basic product & project management, some customer support, some research – you name it, you’ll have an opportunity to do it.
I’m looking for one or two interns to work around twenty hours a week each. Our offices are at 20th & Broadway, in the middle of the Flatiron District. The hours are relatively flexible and can be structured around a college schedule. These are paid positions, although the pay is low – we’re a capital-efficient company, and trying to do a lot with a little. Relevant experience is always appreciated, but isn’t strictly necessary for this job – the primary things I’m looking for are raw intelligence, enthusiasm, strong communications skills, and the ability to learn quickly.
We’re happy to consider everybody, but for personal reasons I’d especially like to talk to students who’ve never considered working at a dot-com, because they believed their academic backgrounds weren’t suitable.
After your internship with Pinch Media, you’ll know what it’s like to work at an early-stage start-up, you’ll have relevant experience in a variety of functional roles, and you’ll be well-positioned for a full-time, entry-level role in the Internet industry. (You’ll also have developed a number of strong connections, with ourselves and with our investors, which come in handy when looking for that first position.) If you’re interested, send your resume and a personal note to [email protected].
Comments (Archived):
You brought up some powerful memories with this post, buddy. Remember my first internship/job was with InformationWeek in the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years at college. At the end of that internship summer, they offered me a job. I then worked the next two years by going to school for 12 hours for each of two days and working at the magazine as a reporter ten hours each of three days (and since that didn’t pay the bills I also worked Thursday nights and the weekends).My funniest memory is trying to conduct interviews in-between classes using payphones (Yes, kids, this is before cell phones and the only email we had was Compuserv or something called MCI Mail).The great thing though was that when I finished up, I simply started working a “normal” 50-60 hours a week as a reporter. The thing is, it gave me a HUGE competitive advantage to have worked that internship–especially in a field where I wanted to work. I stayed at the magazine for eight years, eventually becoming its Editor. I stayed on at the company to launch TechWeb and then, as you know, left to become a VC.So folks…don’t hesitate…Do this!
I know that story well jerry and I am so glad you shared it with everyone. This is indeed a great oppty for some college students
Teens out there, :)This is probably one of the best kind of job opportunities you can get. That’s my opinion at least. Why? Because the 4 main advantages are are – Being passionate – Have a drive to do things – Work in different subjects that will build a great experience – Work in a small environment where your work can make a differenceIt is all about you. If i remember looking for something exciting like this. Fun, just fun.We recently hired 2 girls like that and the requirements set the tone to find astonishing people on their early university days. Incentives to show more than just curricular skills got us a nice set of people that made our choice hard, but exciting.Also interesting was, drawn from that recruitment experience, to start finding technical people but focusing on this applicant-will centric approach. As soon as we included two little worlds “computer science” we got a complete shift to technical focus from applicants. Mindset plays a role here and we forced a 2nd interview where there was a non-academic CV and a completely new kind of interaction.
Of all of your posts, this resonated with me the most. I am a recent college grad and was more or less in the same position as Greg when he finished school. Needless to say, I made the same decision as he did, joined a startup, and so far, could not agree more with Greg and Jerry.What was recently a graduate and “go to Law School plan” has now become, a “start your own company” or “get an MBA in finance and become a VC” plan…who knows where all of this will lead.
Good luck with wherever this takes you!