Professor Danny Warshay’s advice about internships and the value of working at startups was originally published on Intern From Home.
We hope you’ve been enjoying the interview series with Professor Danny Warshay, the author of the forthcoming book “See, Solve, Scale.” This is the final part of the Q&A series with Professor Warshay. The post shares Professor Warshay’s perspective about how students can best think about internships and get involved with startups, even if they’re not necessarily ready to start their own ventures.
IFH: Professor Warshay, thank you for joining us once again. We really appreciate all the time you’ve been spending with us—it has been so wonderful to hear your perspectives about such important questions.
IFH: What would you recommend to a student who knows they’re curious about entrepreneurship and they want to do an entrepreneurship-related internship or job? Where should they start?
DW: In my class, I do something that has developed a brand called “the rant.” The rant is toward all the students who come to me with similar kinds of questions and have an interest in potentially starting a venture, yet they go like lemmings to Wall Street and to consulting jobs that really have nothing to do with the dream of starting something.
You don’t have to start something on your own right out of the gate in order to learn about entrepreneurship. You can go work in a big company—there’s nothing wrong with working in a big company. I did that! It ultimately was not a good long term fit for me, but I learned a lot about scaling a big business through my experience at Procter & Gamble. I worked on the Duncan Hines brand and I got to learn lots firsthand about marketing and branding at a place [Procter & Gamble] that does it better than anyone in the world.
Whether you’re interning from home or doing it in a physical office, it’s great to learn from other people who have demonstrated an ability to do something really well. There are all sorts of ways through big established companies to learn something on their nickel, and to even make mistakes in the process. It’s better to make mistakes (and learn from them) while working for another company than to make them on your own which is more costly. You’ll also probably develop a series of mentors through your work.
IFH: And what about interning at a startup? What do you think of that?
DW: There’s lots of ways to get internships at startups. A pure startup, like under 50 employees, provides the ability for you to be a generalist. It’s why liberal arts grads are really good in the context of an early-stage startup. Before you hit the 50 person level, I have learned that it’s best not to give people titles. One day you might be doing finance, the next day you might be doing PR, and the following day maybe some graphics. You’ll be exposed to a whole variety of things and learn informally in an early-stage startup. Eventually, you might like to break out on your own after seeing a problem that you want to solve.
You might think about it as a doctor becoming qualified to practice medicine. They aren’t going to be practicing medicine the day after they graduate. They’ll be doing an internship, a residency, maybe a fellowship. It may be many years between the time they learned the skill in medical school and the time they’re on their own operating on a patient.
You might think about that in the context of what Intern From Home is offering: opportunities to learn by doing beyond the sheer interest of being an entrepreneur. Remember that there will be many opportunities, no matter what you’re doing or what context in which you’re doing it, to apply the “See, Solve, Scale” process which I talked about in a prior Q&A. It’s amazing to see how many students I have taught who are using these techniques in unexpected ways.
IFH: If you had to pick, what kind of internship do you think students should do, especially if they’re interested in entrepreneurship?
DW: I just talked to one of my students from last semester. He had all the great internship opportunities in the tech world and all the big names after him. But, he just knew from a prior experience that wouldn’t be as rewarding as diving into an internship at a startup where he would be employee #3. He asked me what I thought about the opportunity.
Almost without fail, to all the students who come to me, I help them realize that you don’t have a lot to lose, but a lot to gain by diving in early somewhere… no matter what happens. You might learn how to not run something.
But I’ll tell you: more often than not, those early employees have latched on to something that has become really successful, and in the process, they’ve landed a full-time job and equity (in that early stage of a company’s development which has become worth a lot of money over time), and they’ve seen the process firsthand so that when they decided to eventually go start something on their own, they felt more confident, more comfortable, and more capable to go implement the “See, Solve, Scale” process and actually do it.
IFH: Is an internship an opportune time to work at a startup?
DW: I’m totally biased, I admit! But I do think it’s worth working at a startup, especially on an internship basis. What do you really have to lose? Even if it’s a disaster, you chalk it up to a learning experience and you move on. But again: most of the experiences I can think of have been really worthwhile.
There’s typically no such thing as bureaucracy in a startup which means you can kind of make your own way. You can knock on things and push the envelope and add value in all sorts of ways that would be impossible if you were in a big company with lots of rules and restrictions. Especially at some point early in your career, it’s worth having an internship in one of those crazy environments that you look back on and maybe laugh at or maybe replicate depending on how well oiled that machine is.
A book I might highlight is by Harvard Business School Professor and venture capitalist Jeffrey Bussgang called “Entering Startup Land” which is a good companion to “See, Solve, Scale” because it helps people understand how to enter a startup.
IFH: Professor Warshay, we want to say a big thank you for sharing such amazing perspectives throughout the series this week. We are inspired by your teachings and greatly appreciate you spending so much time with us this week.
As a friendly reminder, Professor Warshay’s book “See, Solve, Scale” is now on pre-order and will be officially released on March 22.
Did you enjoy this guide? You’re in for a treat: this is just one of dozens of guides created for students about how to handle the recruiting (aka: getting an internship/job) process. To see all of the other guides, subscribe to Intern From Home’s newsletter (it’s completely free!) where we talk about all things from using LinkedIn to preparing for an interview to making the most of your role.
