Author: josg128

It has been quite a journey getting to the middle part of my internship. In the first few weeks at Charity Miles, my supervisor gave me an overview of what was expected of me. The expectations sounded like a lot, but her reassurance helped me be aware that I was not alone in this internship as she was a message away on Slack and a few steps away in person.

With more than a month into my internship, I still had a lot of work regarding my HubSpot project, which I had been working on since my second week. This project consisted of finding company sales contacts in order to build possible partnerships with. I was still fairly new to the HubSpot software. However, I had the basics down which helped me to complete the task. My supervisor was kind enough to give me the option of becoming certified with the HubSpot sales software through the subscription the company held.

She gave me one day in the week to dedicate myself to watch the videos associated with the certificate. At the end of all of the training videos, I took the exam—which I had to take more than once as I was not able to score high enough the first few times to get certified.

I was fortunate enough to be able to set up a phone call with a company that had reached out to me. The company’s intentions were not too clear but my supervisor worried less about that and worried more about me sitting in for a call in which she would be speaking about Charity Miles and potential partnerships. It was a great opportunity to see the integrity that my supervisor had during the phone call.

After a month and a half of working on finding contacts for the companies, I was finally able to say, “I’m finished finding the person of contact for these 900 companies.” It was a great relief because it was very tedious work and at times, would take a long time.

Though I had finished the first part of this HubSpot, the second part was right there waiting for me; linking the new person of contact for these companies in the HubSpot program. Some of the companies were new that were trying to be contacted so for those companies, I also had to build a profile. This became a great practice for me in learning how to network and not give up in attempting to build relationships among companies. This gave me practice and knowledge that I can transfer to any workplace when it comes to working with clients or actual companies themselves.

The last few days have approached during my summer internship at one of the top-rated mobile health apps—Charity Miles. Waking up early in the morning, hitting the gym and getting ready to hit downtown Manhattan became a routine this summer.

A great friendship has developed between the other intern, my supervisor and myself. One day, my supervisor decided to switch up our workspace and do work at another WeWork location in Times Square. It was a great day and I got to meet an old partner of my supervisor who gave me insight into the marketing aspect of sales. She explained to me how marketing can be done for free through the use of social media. But to top it off, it was also a nice bonding experience with the other intern and my supervisor as we were able to go into the game room and spend some time there.

The great part about my supervisor is she is always on the lookout for me to attend events. Recently she got me a ticket for a tech expo and though I attended alone, it was a great way to expand my network. I also got to see computer scientists doing work which is great because it is one of my majors. As the day went on, I was able to speak to a lot of companies, get free items, and also sit in for a few talks from some very successful entrepreneurs.

Back in the office I finished off my second part of my HubSpot project and moved onto the third. Now that I had finished creating and linking new contact profiles with company profiles, it was time to actually start reaching out to companies. This third part consisted of building a sequence of five emails to be sent out to companies. This became the last part of the project which I finished the second to last day at the office.

By the end of my internship, I successfully met the learning goals that I had set myself up with. By constantly deciding which companies to reach out to, after a while I became familiar with what classified a company as successful and worth reaching out to. To add on, I decided I favored my computer science major, as it is very sought after by a lot of companies and work can be done remotely. Nowadays, coders carry a big importance. Last but not least, I learned a lot about a startup company and the many struggles it experiences during the early stages.

The advice I could give to a student interested in Charity Miles is to not be afraid to ask questions because you are there to learn. Also, not to become discouraged when companies do not get back to the emails you send to out.

On the last day, my supervisor took the other intern and me out to lunch as a way to say thank you for our work. We spent time speaking about how work had gone that summer and all that had been accomplished amongst us as a team. My time at Charity Miles was great because of the people I got to meet and my supervisor, most of all who made it enjoyable. The bond developed with her and her knowledge encouraged me to continue persevering.

My first week has gone by and even though I had an idea of what to expect when arriving at the office space in downtown Manhattan in a WeWork building, I still wondered how things would go. To my surprise, there was also another intern who was starting on that same day. It made me feel a little better knowing that someone was at the same stage that I was and that we could figure things out together.

After settling in, I got started on my first task which was to work within Trello and create an account. Prior to my arrival, my supervisor had set up tasks for me on a Trello board made up of readings about sales and what makes a good salesperson. On that same day, I was also given my Charity Miles email which made me feel like an official member within the organization.

The days that followed consisted of me continuing the readings as there was a lot to cover. It was not until the final days of that first week that my supervisor told me to stop with the readings and move on to new tasks. One of those tasks included finding the POC (person of contact) at companies and compiling a detailed list to be used for outreach. I was excited to start doing some research and work with the other intern on this project.

By the end of this internship, I hope to have a greater understanding of how small startups work and the decision-making process of finding potential partners and investors.