SnapBite: My YC S12 Intern Story

http://startupquant.blogspot.com/2012/10/snapbite-or-how-one-becomes-adult.html

by pwingo • 14 years ago

17 6 14 years ago

startupquant.blogspot.com

tomasien3• 14 years ago

I walked that line with an intern this summer, bringing him onto a startup in the same space when we were probably going to fail by summer's end.

Here's how I mitigated it:

1. Helped get him paid by a grant from a program at his school. 2. Was upfront and honest about the challenges. 3. Made sure we at least had something people wanted before bringing him on.

At the end of the summer, despite doing a lot of frustrating things, he's counted the experience as a massive win and a great experience.

I'm not saying these founders were anything less than forthcoming, it's hard to know what's going to happen, but I think it's important to only sell the dream when you have some reason to believe you can deliver it.

tomasien3• 14 years ago

Apparently Arjun totally accounted for the "Sold the dream" problem in his post, so I'll call him legit on all counts. http://argumentum.posterous.com/blog-hn-my-ycombinator-s12-s...

pwingo2• 14 years ago

Yes, he was very forthcoming. He and I are on really good terms. I decided to write the blog at that moment because I knew Arjun was also writing his, and I thought it would be really neat to see two interweaving sides of one story.

pwingo2• 14 years ago

It's definitely a tough line to walk. I was lucky in that it was a blessing in disguise, and this summer was probably the best one of my life. Your intern won't remember how much they were paid (though non-alcoholic beer money is nice), but they will remember the kinds of things they picked up along the way.

It sounds like you did right by your intern, despite the difficulty of trying to train college kids who have probably never had to make a living as a coder.

Also, a story to tell goes a long way.

argumentum• 14 years ago

Agreed, I made a huge mistake. But I did really believe that we could have pulled something off.. And I think Patrick would agree that I was honest about this whole thing being a huge risk.

tomasien3• 14 years ago

Acknowledged in another comment and 100% agree. You did more than right by these kids, if I got an internship with PlanGrid I'd have written a blog post 1 sentence long: "Thank you for getting me a job with PlanGrid, I'm still out here in the Valley working hard for them full time because they're incredible and going to be HUGE!"

Great posts by you both!

SnapBite: My YC S12 Intern Story

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