Joining the hustle at Zaarly
The past two weeks have been busy for me, but at the same time they’ve been extremely exciting. I recently joined on to Zaarly for the summer! I began my role as the company’s first intern on June 6th at their Kansas City headquarters. That’s less than two weeks ago…what could I have learned already, right? Well, I’m not so sure that was only two weeks ago… In fact, I’m pretty sure the company has done more than most companies do in a month in the past two weeks (with less than 20 full-time employees). Needless to say, it has been incredible to be a part of.
Walking into my first day of work I was greeted at the entrance and guided into a conference room. Here two employees (@Eric_Jorgeson and @DanOnMainstreet) had been drawing on a white board for some time. I exchanged greetings and pleasantries with them, and they then told me something they needed done. Yes, within 5 minutes of walking in my first day I’d been fully-tasked and sent out on my own to make it happen.
Now you, and I don’t blame you, probably are thinking they gave me some menial task to complete that any human with a pulse could do…nothing could be further from the truth. I began working on a project I could clearly see would have an impact on the product’s future, and from that point I knew I couldn’t be in a better place for the summer.
A couple other notes about my time at Zaarly:
My internship all started with a tweet, there was no formal advertising for the position I took, and by which I took initiative to get something I really wanted! It definitely taught me an invaluable lesson I’ll practice the rest of my life.
Since my joining up, Zaarly reached a major milestone which warranted coverage by TechCrunch, my favorite blog. The team was excited (albeit short-lived–so much get done!) and I was in shock that I was a part of a company covered by TechCrunch (hopefully not the last time)!
The team is incredible/insane and the type of people I want to be around; they work 9-9 or longer and do some amazing things that I guarantee will make Zaarly successful. Additionally, in what other company do the CEO, COO and CFO actually make an effort to get to know the intern, where people are playing NERF basketball throughout the day, and where everyone one has an implicit trust in one another?–Yes, even the intern.
If you haven’t caught my drift so far, what I’m basically saying is that this has been beyond any experience I could have imagined this summer, and it’s only been two weeks! I’ve never had a job where I want to go in to work everyday, not fully knowing what I’ll be working on, but I do now. There’s really so much more I could write, but I’ll save it for another time. I really can not wait for what’s ahead!