1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,400 I'll be talking all about my experience at a startup. 2 00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:04,950 I wasn't located in New York City, 3 00:00:04,950 --> 00:00:07,180 but I was located in Silicon Valley. 4 00:00:07,180 --> 00:00:09,570 I have a pop quiz-- 5 00:00:09,570 --> 00:00:11,620 anybody here except for Kameel, can you 6 00:00:11,620 --> 00:00:14,796 tell me where the Silicon Valley ends? 7 00:00:14,796 --> 00:00:16,170 No, not you-- I know you know. 8 00:00:16,170 --> 00:00:16,670 Yes? 9 00:00:16,670 --> 00:00:17,890 San Fransisco. 10 00:00:17,890 --> 00:00:19,298 Yes. 11 00:00:19,298 --> 00:00:21,768 Does anybody want to elaborate on that? 12 00:00:21,768 --> 00:00:25,520 It also goes Santa Clara [INAUDIBLE].. 13 00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:26,432 Yes. 14 00:00:26,432 --> 00:00:27,640 So I didn't know this either. 15 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,470 I thought Silicon Valley was maybe Stanford 16 00:00:30,470 --> 00:00:32,020 in the middle [INAUDIBLE]. 17 00:00:32,020 --> 00:00:34,340 But it's currently expanding. 18 00:00:34,340 --> 00:00:36,400 It starts in San Francisco-- kind of skips 19 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:38,050 the towns in between, and then you 20 00:00:38,050 --> 00:00:41,170 go into the suburbs, which is called the South Bay, which 21 00:00:41,170 --> 00:00:43,420 is Palo Alto, which is where Stanford is located. 22 00:00:43,420 --> 00:00:46,430 And then you mentioned there's also San Matea, San Bruno, 23 00:00:46,430 --> 00:00:48,395 and it goes off into San Jose. 24 00:00:48,395 --> 00:00:50,884 And that's really important because I, personally, 25 00:00:50,884 --> 00:00:53,300 found location was one of the most important things for me 26 00:00:53,300 --> 00:00:54,550 as an internship. 27 00:00:54,550 --> 00:00:56,770 Some people don't value it as much, but where 28 00:00:56,770 --> 00:00:58,150 you are, the kind of people-- 29 00:00:58,150 --> 00:01:01,780 the weather is fantastic there, so I highly recommend it. 30 00:01:01,780 --> 00:01:04,480 So that's where I was located, and I 31 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,350 think it gives a lot of context into what 32 00:01:07,350 --> 00:01:08,616 my experience was as a whole. 33 00:01:08,616 --> 00:01:42,540 34 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:45,410 My startup was called Osmo, and it 35 00:01:45,410 --> 00:01:47,960 is a fantastic tech-ed startup, located 36 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:49,430 in Palo Alto, California. 37 00:01:49,430 --> 00:01:50,680 And what is Osmo? 38 00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:52,180 I'll just briefly introduce you. 39 00:01:52,180 --> 00:01:55,040 This is what Osmo is-- it's an iPad toy where 40 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:56,630 you're able to use the [INAUDIBLE] 41 00:01:56,630 --> 00:01:57,710 our founders invented. 42 00:01:57,710 --> 00:01:59,440 And basically, you play off the screen. 43 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:01,780 Kids from the age of three all up to high school-- 44 00:02:01,780 --> 00:02:04,820 they're able to use the puzzle pieces to redefine 45 00:02:04,820 --> 00:02:06,560 their learning and playing experience. 46 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,609 And I found Osmo because I love kids, I love education-- 47 00:02:09,609 --> 00:02:11,900 I'm not an education major, but ever since I was young, 48 00:02:11,900 --> 00:02:15,881 I had a passion for children and improving the way they learn. 49 00:02:15,881 --> 00:02:18,380 And here's a question-- how do you get to work at a startup? 50 00:02:18,380 --> 00:02:19,670 If you go to any startup website, 51 00:02:19,670 --> 00:02:21,461 chances are they don't have a careers page, 52 00:02:21,461 --> 00:02:23,070 or they won't have an internship page. 53 00:02:23,070 --> 00:02:25,620 You go to a big company and they'll have an entire process. 54 00:02:25,620 --> 00:02:28,087 But for some of them, it's just, hello at osmo.com, 55 00:02:28,087 --> 00:02:29,488 or hello at [INAUDIBLE]. 56 00:02:29,488 --> 00:02:30,890 So what do you do? 57 00:02:30,890 --> 00:02:32,800 You just do it-- you take initiative, 58 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:35,460 you write an email to them, and chances are 59 00:02:35,460 --> 00:02:37,297 they're not going to hate you. 60 00:02:37,297 --> 00:02:39,380 I guarantee you they'll be more than happy to hear 61 00:02:39,380 --> 00:02:41,214 about an enthusiastic undergrad who's really 62 00:02:41,214 --> 00:02:42,421 interested about the startup. 63 00:02:42,421 --> 00:02:44,960 And even they don't have an internship program, if you just 64 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:46,580 let them know you're so passionate, they'll definitely 65 00:02:46,580 --> 00:02:48,980 remember you, because chances are, they have a small team. 66 00:02:48,980 --> 00:02:49,910 Who knows-- your email might even 67 00:02:49,910 --> 00:02:52,159 make it to the CEO, which is what happened in my case. 68 00:02:52,159 --> 00:02:53,960 So what I did is I asked to grab coffee-- 69 00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:55,240 they grabbed coffee with me. 70 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,180 They loved my passion for Osmo, and a week later, they 71 00:02:58,180 --> 00:03:01,140 said join the team, we want you for the summer. 72 00:03:01,140 --> 00:03:02,840 And what do you do at a startup? 73 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:04,850 So you saw the long stats and lists-- 74 00:03:04,850 --> 00:03:07,400 what that had is very similar to mine-- 75 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:08,585 you do everything. 76 00:03:08,585 --> 00:03:10,126 Now, if you're an engineer, you might 77 00:03:10,126 --> 00:03:11,210 have a more specific task. 78 00:03:11,210 --> 00:03:13,620 But even as an engineer or coder at a startup, 79 00:03:13,620 --> 00:03:14,730 you do more things-- 80 00:03:14,730 --> 00:03:16,069 maybe you deliver mobile, web-- 81 00:03:16,069 --> 00:03:17,735 whereas at a big company, you would just 82 00:03:17,735 --> 00:03:20,160 have one sole project to work for two to three months. 83 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:21,680 At a startup, you do a lot. 84 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,840 Here's what I did-- 85 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:25,620 I'm not going to read through them. 86 00:03:25,620 --> 00:03:29,064 However, I am going to say that it was challenging, 87 00:03:29,064 --> 00:03:31,605 but also so much fun learning about all these different skill 88 00:03:31,605 --> 00:03:34,300 sets, especially because we're not all one sided people-- it's 89 00:03:34,300 --> 00:03:36,170 not like I can only write an essay, 90 00:03:36,170 --> 00:03:38,690 or I can only code-- there's a lot of things I love to do 91 00:03:38,690 --> 00:03:39,842 and I want to learn to do. 92 00:03:39,842 --> 00:03:41,300 So it really extends your capacity, 93 00:03:41,300 --> 00:03:43,911 and you grow as a person professionally, 94 00:03:43,911 --> 00:03:46,160 and academically as well because you're learning a lot 95 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:48,707 of skills-- like, I learned how to wireframe and design-- 96 00:03:48,707 --> 00:03:50,540 things that aren't offered at Mount Holyoke, 97 00:03:50,540 --> 00:03:53,810 but I got to learn over the summer. 98 00:03:53,810 --> 00:03:58,362 So here's the first challenge I had-- was trust me, I'm right. 99 00:03:58,362 --> 00:04:00,862 You work with brilliant people, but sometimes, the bad thing 100 00:04:00,862 --> 00:04:03,080 about brilliant people is that they know they're brilliant, 101 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:04,955 and they're very confident in their solutions 102 00:04:04,955 --> 00:04:06,430 and what they've done so far. 103 00:04:06,430 --> 00:04:07,450 A lot of what I struggled with-- 104 00:04:07,450 --> 00:04:09,783 I spoke with the teachers, and the schools, and the moms 105 00:04:09,783 --> 00:04:12,480 firsthand about the product, whereas the engineers, 106 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:14,934 they didn't get that customer service experience. 107 00:04:14,934 --> 00:04:16,350 So when there's bug in a feature-- 108 00:04:16,350 --> 00:04:18,149 when something needs to be changed, I go to the engineer-- 109 00:04:18,149 --> 00:04:19,300 I'm like convincing him-- 110 00:04:19,300 --> 00:04:20,680 you need to change this. 111 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:23,680 And he's like, it's perfect the way it is-- like, I made this-- 112 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:24,840 I know the best. 113 00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:26,605 You really have to sit them down-- 114 00:04:26,605 --> 00:04:27,910 ask them to see you eye to eye. 115 00:04:27,910 --> 00:04:29,743 Even though I might be way younger than you, 116 00:04:29,743 --> 00:04:32,230 that I really understand the user, and we need this change. 117 00:04:32,230 --> 00:04:33,866 And chances are, they'll respect you, 118 00:04:33,866 --> 00:04:35,740 and if you're able to really assert yourself, 119 00:04:35,740 --> 00:04:37,330 they'll believe in your knowledge 120 00:04:37,330 --> 00:04:40,540 and do what you asked for. 121 00:04:40,540 --> 00:04:43,646 And my second challenge was asserting my authority. 122 00:04:43,646 --> 00:04:44,520 So here's the thing-- 123 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,080 I don't know about you guys, but if I have to ask someone, 124 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:48,538 especially if that person's older-- 125 00:04:48,538 --> 00:04:50,720 maybe it's a professor or exec-- 126 00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:51,880 I take a lot of time. 127 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:53,990 I'm taking 30 minutes at my desk-- 128 00:04:53,990 --> 00:04:57,460 like, can I ask him now, or like, is she busy-- 129 00:04:57,460 --> 00:04:58,779 I don't want to be annoying. 130 00:04:58,779 --> 00:05:00,070 That was the biggest challenge. 131 00:05:00,070 --> 00:05:03,980 It would take me, sometimes, an hour just to ask a question, 132 00:05:03,980 --> 00:05:06,270 and nobody had any idea that I was like this. 133 00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:11,477 So learning that was so much this internal reflection-- 134 00:05:11,477 --> 00:05:13,310 and asked myself why am I so self-conscious, 135 00:05:13,310 --> 00:05:15,950 whereas x person can just go up and ask, 136 00:05:15,950 --> 00:05:18,585 hey, Melissa, can I ask you something, 137 00:05:18,585 --> 00:05:19,876 even though Melissa is working. 138 00:05:19,876 --> 00:05:21,960 How come she's able to do that, but I'm not able to do that. 139 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:24,710 And I'm still working on it, but I really encourage you guys, 140 00:05:24,710 --> 00:05:27,260 if you see yourself doing this at work, 141 00:05:27,260 --> 00:05:28,480 don't just glaze over-- 142 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:30,490 like, oh, it's because I'm not good enough. 143 00:05:30,490 --> 00:05:33,430 Really ask yourself why am I having such a hard time asking 144 00:05:33,430 --> 00:05:36,110 questions-- raising my voice? 145 00:05:36,110 --> 00:05:37,616 And then unpack it-- 146 00:05:37,616 --> 00:05:39,657 is it because of how I was brought up? 147 00:05:39,657 --> 00:05:40,157 [LAUGHTER] 148 00:05:40,157 --> 00:05:42,310 That's a good philosophy-- gender studies 149 00:05:42,310 --> 00:05:44,039 may be discussed. 150 00:05:44,039 --> 00:05:45,580 Nah-- I'm just letting you guys know. 151 00:05:45,580 --> 00:05:47,020 And it's really valuable-- 152 00:05:47,020 --> 00:05:48,160 I'm still working on it-- 153 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:51,290 I'm hoping that I'll work on it every year in my internships, 154 00:05:51,290 --> 00:05:54,910 and also, of course, at Mount Holyoke. 155 00:05:54,910 --> 00:05:57,300 The pros and cons of a startup. 156 00:05:57,300 --> 00:05:58,800 There is this illusion that startups 157 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:00,320 are really great and amazing-- 158 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:02,510 they really are, so I'll start with the pros. 159 00:06:02,510 --> 00:06:04,580 The food is fantastic, usually. 160 00:06:04,580 --> 00:06:07,130 I have some friends who intern at some non-startup place, 161 00:06:07,130 --> 00:06:10,642 and you have to pay for your own lunch, or it's not enough, 162 00:06:10,642 --> 00:06:11,350 or it's not good. 163 00:06:11,350 --> 00:06:13,700 But I was lucky enough to have really great food-- 164 00:06:13,700 --> 00:06:15,000 of course, it's paid for. 165 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:16,640 And even dinner-- if you work overtime, 166 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:17,598 they will pay for food. 167 00:06:17,598 --> 00:06:19,490 And you think, oh, that's not a big deal, 168 00:06:19,490 --> 00:06:22,170 but when you're working a new place for two to three months, 169 00:06:22,170 --> 00:06:25,770 and you pay, let's say $10 to $8 a meal every day, 170 00:06:25,770 --> 00:06:27,267 that's a lot of money, and you want 171 00:06:27,267 --> 00:06:29,683 to save as much as you can if your a broke college student 172 00:06:29,683 --> 00:06:30,630 like me. 173 00:06:30,630 --> 00:06:32,957 The salary is pretty great-- 174 00:06:32,957 --> 00:06:35,540 I did not need Lynk funding for my Osmo internship even though 175 00:06:35,540 --> 00:06:38,300 I was a non-engineering position-- 176 00:06:38,300 --> 00:06:40,970 I was more on the marketing and products side. 177 00:06:40,970 --> 00:06:43,310 I also had to sustain myself, and some startups 178 00:06:43,310 --> 00:06:44,360 offer even more. 179 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:46,660 The range is quite large-- it depends what [INAUDIBLE] 180 00:06:46,660 --> 00:06:47,618 are in the [INAUDIBLE]. 181 00:06:47,618 --> 00:06:49,240 But I like to say still try it out-- 182 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:51,050 if salary is a concern for you, startup 183 00:06:51,050 --> 00:06:53,200 might be a great answer for that. 184 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:54,510 It's a relaxed environment-- 185 00:06:54,510 --> 00:06:58,160 I think I already told you guys-- we did yoga. 186 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:00,410 I played video games for an hour every day 187 00:07:00,410 --> 00:07:02,150 for lunch break with the engineers-- 188 00:07:02,150 --> 00:07:03,980 they could not care less-- 189 00:07:03,980 --> 00:07:07,580 as long as you get your work done, they trusted you. 190 00:07:07,580 --> 00:07:10,619 Flexibility-- so I didn't have normal work hours. 191 00:07:10,619 --> 00:07:12,910 Usually, I'd come in maybe between 10:00 and 11:00 AM-- 192 00:07:12,910 --> 00:07:15,410 I'm not a morning person-- they totally understood-- 193 00:07:15,410 --> 00:07:16,970 and I left when I wanted to. 194 00:07:16,970 --> 00:07:19,570 I had a small project update and I got it 195 00:07:19,570 --> 00:07:21,480 done early-- that's fine-- you did your work, 196 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:24,097 and you were efficient-- they let me go early before 3:00. 197 00:07:24,097 --> 00:07:25,930 But if I wanted to stay late, that was fine. 198 00:07:25,930 --> 00:07:28,990 Sometimes, I'd even ask them a week before-- like, hey, 199 00:07:28,990 --> 00:07:30,900 my friends visiting, can I take one day off 200 00:07:30,900 --> 00:07:32,594 to go to San Fransisco-- they're like, yeah, have fun. 201 00:07:32,594 --> 00:07:33,800 I would get a text from my manager-- 202 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:35,870 it'd be like are you enjoying San Francisco? 203 00:07:35,870 --> 00:07:38,120 It's really great, and that's something hard to find. 204 00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:39,510 Some people enjoy that, some people don't. 205 00:07:39,510 --> 00:07:41,051 But for me, that was really important 206 00:07:41,051 --> 00:07:44,602 because I'm not a strict, constructed schedule 207 00:07:44,602 --> 00:07:46,470 type of person. 208 00:07:46,470 --> 00:07:49,370 Skills and exposure-- so like you saw, 209 00:07:49,370 --> 00:07:51,351 I learned a lot about design, product-- 210 00:07:51,351 --> 00:07:53,225 speaking with engineers-- and you get exposed 211 00:07:53,225 --> 00:07:54,620 to so many different fields. 212 00:07:54,620 --> 00:07:58,300 That's the umbrella of our panel is that you work 213 00:07:58,300 --> 00:08:00,100 with so many different fields-- 214 00:08:00,100 --> 00:08:03,110 marketing, design, product-- with exec, 215 00:08:03,110 --> 00:08:05,342 managing-- it's so valuable, again, 216 00:08:05,342 --> 00:08:07,300 because we're not one-sided people-- especially 217 00:08:07,300 --> 00:08:09,800 as liberal arts students, I feel like we each have 218 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:12,310 a lot of skills and places that we can learn, 219 00:08:12,310 --> 00:08:14,750 and build our capacity up. 220 00:08:14,750 --> 00:08:18,170 Also respect-- half the time, they didn't even think of me 221 00:08:18,170 --> 00:08:19,060 as an intern-- 222 00:08:19,060 --> 00:08:21,210 they regarded me as the same level employee, 223 00:08:21,210 --> 00:08:23,690 and I really valued that. 224 00:08:23,690 --> 00:08:25,970 For cons, there isn't a formal internship program, 225 00:08:25,970 --> 00:08:28,130 so things can get a little bit messy-- 226 00:08:28,130 --> 00:08:29,540 like, am I doing this, or this-- 227 00:08:29,540 --> 00:08:31,201 what do you want me to do? 228 00:08:31,201 --> 00:08:32,659 Gender diversity-- this is an issue 229 00:08:32,659 --> 00:08:35,480 the tech industry is trying to work on. 230 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,880 Engineers alone, it's less than 20% female, 231 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,480 and at a startup like mine where engineers are really important, 232 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:44,270 we had 25 people-- of them, five were women-- 233 00:08:44,270 --> 00:08:45,040 20 were male. 234 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:47,232 It is something they're working on-- 235 00:08:47,232 --> 00:08:49,690 it is definitely challenging, especially if all the females 236 00:08:49,690 --> 00:08:53,724 are mostly in HR and PR-- it perpetuates the stereotype 237 00:08:53,724 --> 00:08:55,140 of all women in the tech industry. 238 00:08:55,140 --> 00:08:58,190 But I personally think I want to be a risk-taker-- 239 00:08:58,190 --> 00:08:59,160 I want to see it-- 240 00:08:59,160 --> 00:09:01,320 I want to be exposed to it-- learn it the hard way. 241 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:03,070 So for me, I learned a lot about the cons, 242 00:09:03,070 --> 00:09:05,390 but also it helped me grow as a woman in tech. 243 00:09:05,390 --> 00:09:07,730 And reputation prestige-- some startups don't 244 00:09:07,730 --> 00:09:09,590 get to make it to Google or Facebook, 245 00:09:09,590 --> 00:09:12,680 so at times, it's hard to talk with your recruiters 246 00:09:12,680 --> 00:09:14,589 for other positions-- like, oh, what is Osmo? 247 00:09:14,589 --> 00:09:16,130 But as long as you own it, and you're 248 00:09:16,130 --> 00:09:19,280 able to tell them Osmo is great, I learned about all this, 249 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:21,810 they'll usually be like, wow, Osmo seems like a great place. 250 00:09:21,810 --> 00:09:23,310 But some places, they might be like, 251 00:09:23,310 --> 00:09:25,292 oh, we don't know what that is, so therefore we're 252 00:09:25,292 --> 00:09:26,263 going to discredit it. 253 00:09:26,263 --> 00:09:29,780 So that's something you want to balance out. 254 00:09:29,780 --> 00:09:32,420 That is basically my summer at Osmo. 255 00:09:32,420 --> 00:09:36,400 That's me and my team, and our adorable dog, Lupin. 256 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:37,930 If you have any questions-- there 257 00:09:37,930 --> 00:09:40,485 are Osmo internships available during winter and mid-summer. 258 00:09:40,485 --> 00:09:42,360 There should be an email-- if you're curious, 259 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:45,510 I'd be more than happy to answer questions. 260 00:09:45,510 --> 00:09:46,710 Thank you. 261 00:09:46,710 --> 00:09:48,560 [APPLAUSE]