In Spring 2020, I was able to intern with the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. I was sponsored by the Venture Intern Group, led by Deb Williams and Sarah Goforth in the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which was a cohort of 24 students interning for different companies that matched their majors. I continue to be inspired every day by the grit and motivation that all the students in my cohort possess. Some of the greatest lessons I grasped from this experience are that you can learn from each person that you encounter and that mentorship can be transformative for a student’s education, as it is easier to connect theory with application.
Benefits of Being in a Startup Environment
Being in a start-up environment allowed me to become close with my co-workers, ask a lot of questions, and stay busy. I never had a dull day in this role and enjoyed the fast-paced nature of being around entrepreneurs and new businesses. It was an awesome experience knowing that I was making a real impact on our clients and the center, rather than just doing busywork.
About my Internship Sponsor Company
ASBTDC is a nationwide non-profit that helps small businesses draft business plans, make financial projections, and scale opportunities. Due to the nature of the office, I worked on a variety of tasks ranging from marketing to industry research. We are powered by the Small Business Administration, so a lot of tasks involve recording impact on how we are helping our clients, which I was able to do through a social media project. In March, we had ‘ASBTDC Day’ where we shot out pictures every hour of our clients and their stories; this was one of my favorite projects because I was able to meet with fascinating companies and learn more about their unique entrepreneurial paths. In addition, I gained knowledge about client confidentiality, effective market research, and detailed business planning.
My Venture Cohort
It was amazing to see how the other students in the Venture cohort were able to shift gears and be an asset to small businesses during this hard time. COVID-19 has been a learning experience in how companies respond to a recessionary downturn and how to utilize a remote-work environment in an effective way. I was able to make connections with these students and form friendships that I hope to keep after college. In addition, I was able to help others in their venture companies to intertwine resources that my office offered and gain insights from their experiences. I also was able to help a fellow peer with beta-testing an awesome new online platform for ideation, which walked me through the process of true user-testing and how it can be extremely effective to see your product from a fresh perspective.
Favorite Part of the Role
My personal favorite part of this internship was being able to sit in on consulting meetings and hear stories from a diverse group of people that are passionate about kick-starting their entrepreneurial careers. It was inspiring to see a range of clients from college students all the way to retirees who want to invest further into starting their own ventures. In addition, I was able to help clients who were high-tech, restaurant owners, fitness studio owners, franchises, floral shops, and graphic designers. I recognized that it was difficult for me not to get too excited about someone else’s ideas and that it was important for me to be able to pivot my thinking during back-to-back meetings with all different kinds of companies. Each of these experiences has brought me new-found inspiration to discover how I can continue to be an innovative thinker and solve problems in my own creative ventures.
Another favorite aspect of mine is that I was able to attend a core workshop series through the Brewer Hub that included a weekly 1-hour session focused on a different entrepreneurial skill each time. These workshops were amazing for making connections in a collaborative environment and challenging my creativity and critical thinking.
Valuable lessons that I learned from these core workshops:
1) Start with the problem — Do not waste your resources or time on a problem that has already been solved or does not need solving.
2) Always listen to your customer— Qualitative research with your target customer can offer valuable insights on how your product can help them to the full capacity.
3) Prototyping — You must be ready to fail fast and iterate quickly when prototyping your product. This is a time meant to find goofs in your product and learn from mistakes.
4) Art of pitching– Find a way to connect your idea to your audience in a meaningful way. Connection with others is key in explaining how your product can make someone feel or what frustration the product can solve for them.
5) Failure— Any entrepreneur will experience this; it is the beauty in your journey!
Challenges
I have found in my career development thus far that I sometimes shy away from expressing my opinion; this role has transformed that shyness and empowered me to recognize that it is okay to have a differing opinion and that a contrasting idea often sparks something incredible. I feel that a lot of students experience this initial nervousness or “imposter syndrome” when hopping into a role that is unfamiliar to them, but this is where the most substantial personal growth happens, and it is a process to fully embrace. In addition, towards the end of my internship, this role turned into a remote job that I was able to do at home in Dallas after COVID-19 struck. ASBTDC remains as busy as ever walking clients through funding options that they can use to support their financial situation during this sudden stop in the economy. I have been able to learn alongside the consultants about how the CARES ACT and SBA Economic Injury loans can benefit our customers. Through this pivot in my role, I was able to further utilize technology such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom to stay connected with my co-workers, internship cohort, and mentors.
In conclusion, this program was incredible. I truly cannot highlight everything that this program has taught me and the connections it has helped me make. I truly find passion in continuous learning, and this program embraced that and allowed me to grow in a very short amount of time. I look forward to continuing my relationships with mentors and staying connected with the Brewer Entrepreneurship Hub.
Daniela “Dani” Salonen was a Venture intern at ASBTDC from Spring 2020 to Summer 2021. She graduated from the University of Arkansas this past May with a degree in International Business with a concentration on Information Systems and a minor in Spanish. This summer, she moved to Chicago where she is now a Rotational Technology Specialist at McDonald’s Corporate Office.