Interning at a Startup Taught Me More Than My Entire Degree
I learnt more in the last 8 months interning at a pre-seed startup than I have during my entire uni degree.
Partly because I didn’t watch my lectures, but mostly because the pace of learning is faster when the feedback loops are tight and your decisions have consequences.
In retrospect, the best lesson hasn’t been about Go-To-Market strategies or Sales Ops; It’s been finding a job so fun I’d do it for free.
“What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?” — Naval Ravikant
8 months ago, I wouldn’t have guessed the answer for me was: building a CRM, rewriting copy, designing a website, and analysing funnel metrics at a supply-chain SaaS startup.
When I first started interning at Switchboard, I thought it was a stepping stone to my career in Consulting, Big Tech or VC.
But within a week, I couldn’t see myself leaving startups for anything else. I was having a great time and looked forward to work every day.
On occasion, I was under too much stress to have fun, but motivation still came naturally because I was:
1. Solving problems that matter, with insanely high ownership
2. Learning from a talented mentor, coach and founder (ty Hugh 🙏🙏🙏)
3. Part of a community filled with high-agency people who love what they do
Whether a problem was handed to me by my founder or pursued on my initiative, I’m grateful because each instance has been an opportunity to find a solution and mature as an operator.
It’s felt like playing an infinite game, and I’m levelling up as fast as I possibly can to become the best founder I can be.
I’ve made it this far with help from lots of kind people — DM’s are always open, I’m happy to help/chat or connect if you’d like to follow along.
This was originally a LinkedIn post but I wanted to share it here to reach people outside the little Sydney Startup bubble :)
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