Step One: Get An Internship

There is something oxy-moronic about an internship in entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, I feel I’ve been fortunate to find a Summer gig that allows me to both build my traditional resume and hone my entrepreneurial skills.

My internship journey began in January (ok let’s be honest here, March). I was targeting intellectual property licensing firms, hoping to get some experience on the patent side of product development. One of my professors (Marc Lowe) helped me understand the market and made several introductions. I landed an interview at Sun Microsystems, but the Oracle deal ended that. Getting desperate, I turned back to Professor Lowe. His firm (Adaptec) was launching a new product and needed to assess its potential in the cloud computing marketspace. I knew nothing about cloud computing, but was up for the challenge.

Well to be honest, it was a stretch for me. My background is in consumer packaged goods marketing – not high-tech cloud computing. The first thing I did was to connect up with two engineer classmates – a former Amazon systems architect and a former Sapient consultant. Best two friends I made at business school. Seriously, Myles and Harpreet took the time to point me in the right direction and bring me up to speed on the key issues in networking.

I was able to demonstrate I understood enough of the technical side to be dangerous. I got the internship and am moving to the Bay Area!