What I learned this summer as an intern @ a tech startup

Yesterday was the last day at AdAdapted, the company that I interned at this summer via Spark's Summer Digital Marketing Workshop program.  I wanted to take the time to share some of my experiences, good and bad, as an intern at AdAdapted.

In a nutshell, AdAdapted partners with leading CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands and grocery/list-related app publishers to provide effective mobile advertising solutions.  <--That took me a few months to really refine how I personally describe what the company does.

I'll start with the bad (there aren't many).  The only problems I had with this summer's internship stemmed from personal problems and are in no way the faults of AdAdapted or the Summer Workshop:

• Consistently being on time
• I am known for being fashionably late, and I am not proud of this in any way.  Living about 30 miles from work, my only real commute option was to take US-23; two lanes and under construction.  The time it took me to get to work ranged from 27 minutes to an hour and a half; leaving my house at 8am everytime.
• Pursuing 'side quests' instead of focusing on the Primary Quest
• I spent about 20 hours redoing the Publisher Outreach database (CRM database via Google sheets).  A lot of the time was spent watching YouTube tutorials learning different Excel/Google Sheets formulas and I didn't bill for the tutorial time.  This is valuable to AdAdapted and they plan to continue using it instead of the previous version.  The only thing is, had I spent that 20 hours reaching out to different app publishers (primary objective), I could have set up more meetings; more valuable to AdAdapted.

Time for the good, which most definitely squashes the bad:

• I learned so much about what I have been studying for years (marketing) through application instead of only theory/examples.  I tend to learn faster and more effectively, as most do, through exercising theory and practicing it.  This internship gave me that in spades.
• Networking
• To be honest, I am not a huge fan of organized networking when it comes to 'selling myself' or my skillset.  I do however, see the value in this form of networking.  Personally, I prefer to network organically and Spark is the best place in the world to meet new, relevant people in a casual manner.  
• Email marketing
• In my previous work, I became familiarized with touches and maintaining professional relationships with customers.  Prior to this internship, I was only familiarized with B2C email marketing.  I found that B2B marketing was a lot more fun when I decided to steer away from 'canned' emails and start to tailor each individual email respective to the company I was reaching out to.  I learned to expect a way hire response rate with this approach.
• Job opportunities
• At Spark, you are always surrounded with a wide variety of professionals that work in a variety of industries.  It's the perfect opportunity to learn more about yourself and find what industry suits you best.  

The Summer Clinic is built to help individual people and small businesses succeed.  I think that the 10 hrs/wk cap is a brilliant way to 'get your feet wet' without jumping into a career headfirst.  I met a lot of awesome people that I plan to keep in touch with.  Everyone was very supportive, patient and respectful; from the instructors to the interns.  I am very appreciative of each and every person that contributed to this summer's workshop, thank you!  

I would highly recommend this program to anyone that is still unsure about what they want to specialize in or anyone that already knows exactly what they want to do.  It gives you a chance to contribute to the community and support small businesses as well as picking up and practicing professional skills.