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Since I moved to Chicago in October of 2008, I’ve been getting more and more involved with the local startup scene. I’ve met a lot of cool people ranging from founders of some of the city’s most successful startups to the awesome people at Jelly Chicago (it’s a co-working group, and you should join us). One of the better events that I’ve been to was midVentures Launch. I even got to introduce myself to the guy who makes me feel bad every time I go to the gym because he a) always seems to be there no matter when I go b) is always doing ridiculously difficult workouts. That may seem completely irrelevant, but it turns out that he’s a Project Manager at Sandbox Industries, which is a Chicago, IL based venture capital firm. They have three distinct areas of focus: their incubator, the Sandbox Venture Fund, and the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Fund. As I was doing my daily browsing for interesting opportunities, I came across some postings from Sandbox Industries, so I figured that it was time to take a closer look at them.
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The world of high finance is mind-bending. Billions and even trillions of dollars are being exchanged, yet no paper money is actually changing hands. It gets even crazier when you realize that real people are behind all of these transactions. They’re constantly making decisions that affect more money than you’ll probably accrue in your lifetime—and it’s not even their money (some of it might even be yours). When it comes to finance, research is crucial to sound decision making, and as technology has evolved, research has become more and more plentiful. FactSet Research Systems is a Norwalk, CT based company that provides investment analytics tools. As they put it, “FactSet enhances productivity of the global investment professional by providing superior workflow solutions.” It does this by consolidating “all the tools you need to monitor global markets, public and private companies, and equity and fixed income portfolios in a single, intuitive interface.”
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Did you know that you can get Amazon Prime for free
if you’re a college student? That means unlimited, free two-day shipping on everything you buy.
For the past couple of months we’ve been including more numbers than usual in our daily posts—things like three-year growth rates and annual revenues. Since we’ve been looking mostly at companies on the Inc. 500, we figure that it’s useful information. If simple numbers like those intimidate you, then today’s company is definitely not for you. However, if your response to our daily posts is to seek out more numbers and dig into annual reports and other similar documents, then you’re in luck. MCG is a Providence, RI based company that does mathematical, statistical, and strategic consulting. Their motto is “Nothing is too complex.” The first person listed on their Management Team page is their Chief Analytics Officer, so that should tell you a lot about MCG’s focus. And I almost forgot—MCG has grown at an 834.4% rate over the past three years to $2.2 million in revenue (they were only founded in 2006).
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Liquidity can be a big issue in college. Your parents gave you money for food, but it’s all in the form of “meals” at the dining hall. As far as I know, there’s no market for converting these meals into cash, so you’re stuck on campus with the same slop that you’ve been eating daily for past 7 weeks. In the real world, liquidity can be a much bigger issue. There are plenty of people who are millionaires on paper but can’t pay their bills because all of the assets they hold are illiquid or hard to sell quickly. SecondMarket is a New York City and Palo Alto, CA based company that provides the largest secondary market for illiquid assets. In other words they help buyers find sellers and sellers find buyers for a variety of financial products. It’s not like eBay where you can turn Pez dispensers into cash—it’s for serious financial instruments that just don’t have thriving markets like publicly traded stocks do. SecondMarket is yet another Inc. 500 company—they came in at #270 with 1,156% three-year growth to $35 million in annual revenue.
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Up to this point I’ve been able to build my business with only my own investment and a little from my family. I don’t know if I’ll ever take outside capital, but I do know that most businesses require some form of investment to get off the ground. In the United States getting capital is pretty easy—there are both equity and debt options to fund your business. In developing nations, capital isn’t nearly as free flowing—mostly because the investments are far too risky. The microfinance movement has helped, but many upstarts are too big for the kind of capital that they offer. Root Capital is a Boston, MA based non-profit that has created “a new class of capital sitting between microcredit and commercial lending, enabling rural communities to unlock wealth and build sustainable livelihoods.” They seem to be modeled after for-profit investment firms, but there investments are obviously done with a very different focus.
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When you think of optimizing your investments, you probably think about asset allocation, picking the right stocks, getting a better interest rate, and other things related to your personal finances. But what about spending $27 on a job search course that will help you get a job and start making money faster? Let’s say that you’re going to make $800 a week (that’s a pretty decent entry level salary). The things that you learn in the course help you get a job two weeks earlier than you would have otherwise. You just turned $27 into $1600. You couldn’t have done that in the stock market, but how do you know that your investment will pan out? You can’t. You have to take a risk. At worst, you spent $27. But what if you’re a huge business? You can’t just make guesses—you need to know that your maximizing your return on investment. That’s why huge companies like Microsoft, Novell, and EMC use Lattice Engines. They’re a San Mateo, CA based company (with offices in New York City and Boston) that “provides analytic solutions that help customers maximize their return on sales and marketing investments.”
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Since I’m too young to remember it, I’m sure that many of you are too. In 1989 “a major environmental disaster shook public confidence in corporate America—the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.” It made the environmental costs of business finally feel real to many people, and it resulted in the founding of a non-profit organization called Ceres. They are “a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups” that work “with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.” With the BP oil spill among other environmental crises, it’s quite clear that Ceres has lots more work to do after 20 years of operations. Still, Ceres, which is based in Boston, MA, has accomplished quite a bit in their mission to “integrate sustainability into capital markets.” They launched both the Global Reporting Initiative, which is “now the de-facto international standard used by over 1300 companies for corporate reporting on environmental, social and economic performance,” and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, which is “a group of more than 70 leading institutional investors with collective assets of more than $7 trillion.” They’re obviously a major player in sustainability, and they’re taking the right approach by working with businesses instead of fighting them.
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I was considering writing about McDonnell Douglas after having my apartment building buzzed by F-18s all day yesterday (they’re practicing for the Chicago Air and Water Show), but I had a friend send me a link to a posting that was way too cool to pass up. It’s from the venture capital industry, which is notoriously hard to break into. Lowercase Capital is a new Angel Fund that was launched in June by Chris Sacca, who was formerly the Head of Special Initiatives at Google. I’ve spoken with a few venture capital companies who were interested in my business, and most seemed buttoned up (at least compared to the startups that they invest in). This is definitely not the case with Lowercase Capital, unless you mean buttoned up with a Bolo tie. Yes, Lowercase Capital has a Western theme, which is fitting because they’re located in Truckee, CA (I was in Truckee two days ago, and it’s awesome). It almost seems gimmicky, but the whole thing really speaks to how Chris is trying to change the way venture capital works with Lowercase.
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Believe it or not, I started thinking about retirement right after I graduated college. No, I didn’t win the lottery or have a big entrepreneurial success. I started investing and contributing to my IRA. It was a good way to stay productive and get ready to be an adult. If you start thinking about retirement in your early or mid 20s, you’re likely going to be in great shape 40 years down the line. Unfortunately, many people don’t plan that far ahead, so they end up needing help much later in life—and often they don’t have access to good advice once they realize that they need it. Financial Engines is trying to change that. It all started with Bill Sharpe, who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. By combining “Bill’s pioneering investment methodology with proprietary technology” Fiancial Engines is able “to provide all investors with cost-effective, expert advice and management—the kind previously available only to the world’s largest institutional investors.” Financial Engines, which is based in Palo Alto, CA with offices in Boston, MA and Phoenix, AZ, partners with both retirement plan providers and large employers to offer their services and change the way that people get retirement help.
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I love featuring startups here. They offer so many exciting internship opportunities for college students, and they’re often representative of the future of our economy. The problem with startups is that they often have trouble generating enough profits to grow quickly in their early and middle stages. That’s why I usually make it a point to mention how much funding a given startup has—so you’ll know that the company is financially sound enough to actually pay your paycheck (if they aren’t taking advantage of unpaid interns, of course). The amount of funding a company has can only tell you so much, but if an investor is willing to put up millions of dollars for some equity in the company, at least you know that you’re not the only one putting a lot of trust in the company’s future. Typically these investors are venture capital funds like Boston, MA based OpenView Venture Partners. They are “an expansion stage venture capital fund, with a focus on high-growth software, internet, and technology-enabled companies.” Expansion stage means that they typically make moderate sized investments (think $4 million to $11 million) in companies that have already established themselves as viable businesses (but need outside money to speed up growth).
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It’s hard to go a week on One Day, One Internship without seeing me mention some company’s venture capital financing. I’m sure that some of you have no idea what I’m talking about, so here’s how it works. Venture capital firms provide investment in (typically early stage) companies to help them grow more quickly. They get a piece of the company, and they provide cash to help the company do things like hire people, buy more servers, or get office space. It’s the reason that you see companies that may not be profitable (yet) spending money. We feature a lot of venture funded companies here, and a number of them including 10gen, Etsy, Meetup, Pinch Media, Twitter, and Zynga are portfolio companies of New York City’s Union Square Ventures. Without money from Union Square these companies may not have been able to add jobs and end up featured on One Day, One Job or One Day, One Internship. Typically Venture Capital is an extremely difficult field to break into, but I just got word that Union Square Ventures is hiring, and I figured we could also take a look at potential internships.
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Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is convinced that everyone in Chicago is a consultant. I know a lot of consultants here, but my take is a little different. I’m pretty sure that every guy that I’ve met here who is between the ages of 23 and 32 is a “trader.” They never tell you what they trade unless you ask—it almost seems like they’re being evasive. Maybe it’s all about creating a mystique about being a trader. Anyway, one of my “trader” friends happens to work at Jump Trading (he likes it), a high-frequency trading shop based here in Chicago. From what I can tell on their website, Jump Trading is less concerned with what they’re trading and more concerned with how they’re trading. They put a huge emphasis on technology, and they’re trying to take advantage of the fact that “the world financial markets are becoming faster, more complex, and more automated every day.”
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I was lucky enough to graduate from college without having had to take out any student loans, but even if I had needed to take out a loan, at least it would have been before the “credit crunch.” These days it’s a lot harder for students to finance their educations than it was just a couple of years ago. Credit in general is extremely tight right now, and beyond that, lenders are being very picky about whom they lend to. For students with no credit history, getting a loan can be a big pain in the butt. People Capital is a New York City based startup that is aiming to change that through what they call a “peer-to-peer lending platform.” They’ve developed a Human Capital Score “to assess the creditworthiness of those just starting their credit histories,” and they’re now building out a network of borrowers and lenders to bring the idea to life. It’s kind of like Kiva for education, but with a for-profit incentive keeping things efficient.
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After I graduated from college, I decided to take a responsible approach to my personal finances (and I wish I had done it sooner, so all of you current students listen up). It took me a while to get my act together, but once I did I started investing in the stock market through Scottrade, an online discount brokerage company that is headquartered in St. Louis, MO. (And before I go on with more information about Scottrade’s jobs, I need to give Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich
, a plug because it just came out and is the best personal finance resource for young people that I’ve come across.) So, Scottrade allows me to buy and sell stocks at 7 bucks a pop. They also have a solid web interface that gives you access to all kinds of information, and they have 399 branches with helpful employees to answer you questions and get your accounts opened. If you’re interested in opening an account with Scottrade, let me know at willy@onedayonejob.com and I can give you a link that gets us both free trades. If you’re interested in interning with Scottrade, keep reading, duh!
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As we noted when we featured Blizzard’s entry level jobs on One Day, One Job, video game sales tend to do really well when unemployment is high. Although looking for internships can be frustrating, and buying a Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 and camping out in your parents’ basement for the summer may seem like a good idea, it’s not. That’s why Jason Seiden and I are announcing our 21 day online job search training course today. It’s called Found Your Career, and it’s open for enrollment. We’re offering an introductory price to the first 100 students to sign up, so get in before the price goes up. It’s a great way to put all of that video gaming energy to good use (and it’s much more affordable). The course is intended for entry level job seekers, but all of the lessons apply just as much for interns. Another way to put that energy to use is by considering internships with Santa Monica, CA based Activision, the company that is behind Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and many more games. Video games are hot now, but now’s not the time to hone your expert level skills on Guitar Hero, it’s time to hone your internship search approach by developing new skills and focusing on industries that are still growing in tough times.
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If you’ve been keeping up to date with our daily internship posts, you know that we’re starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. We’re not saying that the Summer opportunities that are available in late (yes, the 22nd is late) May are necessarily of lower quality, but it’s like a Black Friday Sale – the good stuff usually goes fast (and the best internship programs usually do their hiring months in advance). Well we were shocked to come across a company called Russell Investments that is one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2008 and is still hiring Summer interns. We actually found out about these internships from the Twitter profile of Amod Damle Russell’s Manager of College Recruiting.
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We’ve spent the last few months dreaming up ways to trick you for April Fools’ Day. We considered writing about six figure internships or writing about an internship with an A-list celebrity, but nothing really seemed all that funny – or believable. The web is all about pranks on April 1st, and we’re just going to stay out of it. Instead we’ve found a company that is not only relevant to today’s holiday, but is also hiring college students for Summer internships. We’re talking about the Motley Fool, a company that aims to “educate, entertain, and enrich” its customers with excellent financial advice. What company could be better to feature on April Fools’ Day than the one that owns Fool.com?
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