I have to admit that the “jobs” that I’m most concerned with today is Steve Jobs. I can’t wait to find out what Apple is announcing today, and I wish that I had some relevant internships to bring you. I don’t, but I did come across a really cool list yesterday called 5 Butt Kicking Companies You (Probably) Never Heard Of. The list is exactly what it promises, as it features 5 later stage startups that are growing rapidly and hiring lots of people. The first company on that list is Palantir, a Palo Alto, CA based company (with another office in McLean, VA) that “is working to radically change how groups analyze information.” They were founded by former PayPal employees and Stanford computer scientists. Right now the company is focused on two verticals: Government and Finance. Both areas deal with massive amount of data and information, so it makes sense that Palantir is starting with them.
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Happy MLK Day! For last year’s holiday we featured internships at The King Center, so check those out. Today’s company has nothing to do with MLK, so instead of trying to make a tenuous connection, I’m going to jump right in. Datran Media is a New York City based digital marketing technology company. They help “advertisers, publishers and agencies manage their branding, acquisition, retention and monetization campaigns across multiple channels.” They started as an e-mail marketing company back in 2001, and since then they’ve expanded into a number of different business areas. Datran Media has worked with huge names like NASCAR, eHarmony, The Ad Council, and Microsoft. To get a better feel for what Datran Media does, you may want to check out these case studies of award winning campaigns that they’ve done for the PGA Tour and Sony.
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If there’s ever a time for retail stores to be firing on all cylinders, it’s right now. Consumers are often very sensitive when it comes to making purchases, so it’s no surprise that a substandard retail experience can cost companies money. It may be an employee with a rotten attitude or a poorly laid out store. It could be that the employees are uninformed about the products that they’re selling or they may not be offering the promotions that they should be. Whatever it is, Louisville, CO based Market Force Information will find out. They’re “the leading customer experience information and insights partner for multi-location businesses.” Through their “integrated suite of mystery shopping, direct customer feedback, on-site merchandising and analytics services,” they can tell a company why one of their stores is underperforming or identify ways that all stores can improve.
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Last spring when sports fans on the North Side of Chicago were still hopeful, Amy and I decided that we wanted to go to a Cubs game. It was the day of the game, and we didn’t have tickets. We checked out StubHub, and saw some pretty good prices, but we decided that waiting would get us even better prices. We waited. The prices went down. We waited some more. The prices went down some more. And then disaster struck. StubHub stops selling tickets 2 hours before a game. We were shut out. We ended up heading to Wrigley and buying from some “ticket brokers” outside of the park. We got a pretty decent price, and we had a great time (I may or may not have been listening to the Yankees game on my iPhone at the same time), but we were left with the question of when is the best time to buy tickets on the secondary market. Apparently SeatGeek has the answer—they’re a New York City based web startup that predicts the price of sports and concert tickets. We’ve seen similar startups succeed in the travel market, and I think this business may make even more sense for event tickets.
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I remember being in middle school and deciding that I wanted a drum set. I already had a snare drum, but I knew that a full set would be much cooler. My mom bought me a copy of the Bargain News, a local paper full of classified ads, and helped me pore over the listings in search of a drum set. That’s certainly a relic of the past, but classified ads are far from dead. They’ve just moved online. You’re probably most familiar with Craigslist, and maybe you’ve considered using Facebook Marketplace or something like that. What you probably didn’t realize is that there is still a huge business behind classified ads. Take Chicago based Classified Ventures for instance. They’re another Inc. 5000 company, and they’ve increased their revenue from $146.7 million to $297.5 million over the past three years. They’ve done this with four distinct businesses: Apartments.com, Cars.com, HomeGain.com, and HomeFinder.com. You’ve probably noticed at least one of those sites before, which is exactly what they’re looking for.
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I guess it’s a little awkward when you find a company that immediately makes you think of a very similar, more successful company. In this case, when I came across ideeli, I immediately thought of Gilt Groupe (which we covered a while back). Both are New York City based startups that offer online sample sales that give shoppers the opportunity to buy luxury goods—mostly clothing and accessories—at serious discounts. According to Wikipedia a sample sale is “used by retail businesses in order to discard excess merchandise.” That’s exactly what these companies do, but they’ve moved the entire process online (which is way more efficient). Both sites require invites to get in on the deals, so if you want to try ideeli click here and if you want to try Gilt Groupe click here. Although I haven’t made any purchases on either of these sites, my girlfriend Amy loves this way of shopping. There’s the element of surprise, because you never know what you’re going to find, yet you still get to enjoy the ease of shopping online.
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Let’s say that you wanted to come visit me in Chicago. You’re not afraid to do touristy things, because you’re willing to accept the fact that you are a tourist. You’re going to visit the Art Institute, the Hancock Observatory, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Sears (now Willis) Tower. Then you want to take a ride on the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel followed by an Architecture Boat Tour. That’s a lot of separate admission fees (and an exhausting day). With a Go Chicago Card from Boston, MA based Smart Destinations, you can pay once and do all these things and more. The card will even get you a discount on your Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. Smart Destinations offers the same service in quite a few other cities, and it seems to be pretty popular. While the Travel industry is struggling with the economy, Smart Destinations has managed 424.7% revenue growth over the past 3 years and #652 on the Inc. 5000.
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At some point during my Junior year in college (by the way I’m back at Cornell for the weekend), I got the bright idea that I could wear slippers as shoes. These weren’t flimsy slippers, these were sturdy leather ones with shearling lining. They were made by Orvis (where I interned and had an awesome 50% employee discount), and they were great. I loved sitting in class knowing that my feet were more comfortable than everybody else’s. Then I came back from Thanksgiving break. I was admiring the Christmas lights that my roommates had adorned our otherwise aesthetically unpleasing house with, and I slipped. See, my slippers had flat rubber soles. My feet came out from under me as I fell down a muddy slope. My right hand came down hard on the sidewalk, and I had a broken wrist. I gave up wearing slippers for a while, but when my Mom bought me a pair of UGG slippers with proper soles, I reverted. Now UGG slippers are my go to shoes during the winter, and I’m a huge fan of Deckers Outdoor Corporation. They’re the company behind UGG, Simple, Teva (is it Tee-va or Tevv-a?), Tsubo, and Deckers, and they’re headquartered in Goleta, CA with a location in Flagstaff, AZ as well.
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A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking internships at NPR.
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When I lived in the suburbs of Connecticut, finding local news was easy. We got a bi-weekly paper that covered our town. There was also a larger daily newspaper that covered any bigger stories that happened. Now that I live in a major city, you’d think it’d be easy to find local news, but it’s actually more difficult. First of all, now local means within a few blocks, not a few miles. Second, there’s so much clutter with so many people and so much going on, that what may interest me doesn’t even get covered. Luckily, there’s a startup based in New York City that covers the news that interests me. It’s called Outside.in, and they don’t have any reporters. What they do have is technology that aggregates relevant news and discussions from my area.
Outside.internships
Although Outside.in is a local news company, they’re also a technology company. They’re trying to get a jump on what’s next in news, since the printing press is pretty much dead. That’s why an internship with Outside.in would be an exciting way to spend the summer. They’re looking for interns in content, community, technology and metrics at their Brooklyn office. The internships don’t appear to be paid, but you’ll get some awesome experience doing real work in a startup. They don’t offer a ton of information on what the internships entail, but I’m sure you can connect with them online to get more info. If you’re interested in applying, let them know at interns@outside.in.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Have you used Outside.in?
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The world of non-profits is built on fundraising. Organizations big and small take money from donors and put it to use how they see fit. The system works, but it leaves a lot to be desired. What if you want to know where your money is going and whom it is helping? What if you want to decide where your money goes? You often can’t. With San Francisco based Kiva you can. You can loan money directly to the working poor. And if you make a wise investment and the person you loan money to succeeds, you’ll get your money back and get to loan it again. You can lend money to a man who runs a food market in Togo or a woman who sells traditional coats in Tajikistan. The choice is yours. Kiva is all about “connect[ing] people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.” It’s a really simple idea that couldn’t have taken hold before the Internet. Now it’s changing the way that we think about giving through microfinance and microfunding.
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I remember the days of browser wars. It was Netscape vs. Internet Explorer, and it was ugly – the Internet that is. Back then it was all about whether or not your browser displayed pages properly, and people were passionately in favor of one browser or the other (or maybe some weird 3rd option). Now it’s all a lot simpler (unless you’re still using Internet Explorer) – your browser probably displays most sites just fine, and you’re more worried about speed and bells and whistles. That’s where Mozilla shines with their Firefox browser. They’re absolutely dominant with web savvy users (except with me – I still use Safari), and they are constantly making their products better. The Mozilla Corporation is a Mountain View, CA based wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. The Foundation is a non-profit, while the Corporation calls itself a “public benefit organization.” That means that they are “dedicated not to making money but to improving the way people everywhere experience the Internet” – even if by definition they’re still a for profit.
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Newspapers are dying. If you’re a college student, there’s a good chance that the only newspaper that you ever read a physical copy of is your campus’ daily. When you graduate, you probably won’t subscribe to a newspaper. Everything is moving online, and the industry is suffering financially because of it. With all of this change, there’s also a lot of opportunity. Interning in a traditional newsroom can offer some amazing learning opportunities, but the future is working in an interactive newsroom. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is the digital arm of The Washington Post (and we think that it may eventually be the only arm). WPNI consists of WashingtonPost.com, Newsweek.com, Slate, BudgetTravel.com, Girlfriends Getaways, Sprig, The Root, The Big Money, Loudoun, and Ad Specs and they are looking for a ridiculous number of interns.
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Say that you need to ship something – a mini donkey for instance (this is a real example). UPS, the USPS, DHL, and Fedex don’t ship donkeys. With uShip all you need to do is list that you need to ship a mini donkey, receive bids, select a winning bid, and ship that donkey where it needs to go. You don’t need to worry about your prized donkey, because you can check the shipper’s feedback and see that he has shipped all kind of livestock to all kinds of places, and every time his customers have been happy. It’s pretty simple, huh? A lot easier than bringing the donkey into your local post office only to find out that even mini donkeys are too big to ship. uShip calls themselves “the online shipping marketplace” and they back it up with their raving fans.
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If you’ve bought a plane ticket or stayed in a hotel any time since about 1994 (ok, maybe a little later than that) you probably used a third party booking agent to at least look up fares or rates. Although the way airplane fares and hotel room rates are determined remain mysteries to most of us, it’s become a heck of a lot easier to travel economically when you have the Internet to help you plan. We’re probably not telling you anything you don’t know, so let’s start talking about internships at a company that you’re likely already familiar with, Expedia.com.
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