I’ve repeatedly tried to thin down my wallet, but I keep ending up like George Costanza and sitting with a tilt (and it’s not because of all the money). I can’t wait for the day when my phone entirely replaces my wallet, but until then I’ll need to find another solution. I may have found it with the Mighty Wallet from Dynomighty Design (though I’m not sure that I’m ready for another wallet transition). The company was “established in 2002” in New York, NY and “seeks to create a vibrant array of products to complement and accentuate the modern urban lifestyle with the designs of Terrence Kelleman.” It started with magnetic bracelets, but it seems that the Mighty Wallet has really caused the company to explode. Dynomighty Design was named to the Inc. 5000 with 416% three-year growth to $2.2 million in revenue.
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design,
fashion,
Internships,
New York,
post production,
product development
I spend a ton of time outdoors between fly fishing and playing beach volleyball. You’d think I’d have a cooler to take along with me, but I don’t. If I did, it’d have to be one of the models made by Yeti Coolers. They’re an Austin, TX based company that builds coolers that are more durable and keep things colder than any other coolers on the market. Yeti Coolers are built for tough conditions, which is why some of the biggest names in outdoors sports endorse them and the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee has deemed them Grizzly Proof. You may think it’s cooler overkill, but the market for high quality coolers seems to be extremely strong. That’s why Yeti Coolers made the Inc. 5000 with 613% three-year growth to $13 million in revenue.
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account management,
accounting,
administrative,
customer service,
finance,
human resources,
information technology,
Internships,
marketing,
operations,
outdoors,
product development,
research,
sales,
sports,
Texas
If you’ve been reading for a while, you may have noticed that I go on a lot of fishing trips. The problem is that any time my Dad and I go somewhere, he tries to turn it into an annual trip (it’s not actually a problem at all). As long as there’s Wi-Fi so that I can get some work in while I’m not fishing, then I’m pretty much set. This week I’m writing from the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, where I’m salmon fishing. I spend most of the day on the river, and one of my most essential pieces of equipment is probably something that you wouldn’t suspect. Polarized sunglasses are invaluable for fishing. Not only do they help you see through the glare and under the water, but they also protect your eyes from both the sun and stray hooks. Smith Optics makes some of the absolute best sunglasses for fishing on the market. They’re based in Ketchum, ID, and they have about 300 employees.
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apparel,
Idaho,
Internships,
Logistics,
marketing,
outdoors,
product development,
sports
I’m not big on shoes during the summer. I try to wear flip flops as much as I can, and most of the exercise that I get is from beach volleyball where wearing shoes looks about as dorky as you can get. When I do go to the gym, I typically wear my Vibram Five Fingers (which you may also consider dorky looking). So I have no idea why New Balance popped into my head–I don’t even own a pair of New Balance shoes. In case you don’t know, New Balance is a Boston, MA based company that “began as an arch support company in the early 1900’s, developed into a specialized shoe manufacturer in the 1970’s, and has grown to become a leading global athletic products company.” They also own some other brands that you may be familiar with including Aravon, Brine, Dunham, PF Flyers, and Warrior.
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apparel,
communications,
design,
fashion,
footwear,
Internships,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
New York,
product development,
retail,
shoes,
sports
Want to be part of the One Day, One Job/Internship team? Here’s your chance!
I started cooking in my second year at college. The dining halls were fine for Freshman year, but after I moved off campus I decided that I had to learn to feed myself. My mini-Weber grill was my go to, but it eventually got cold enough (Ithaca…) that I had to move into the kitchen. My roommate bought some kitchen set from Wal-Mart, and it was about as low quality as you could get. The tools sufficed, but they were pretty terrible. Now I’m not advocating spending a ton on kitchen tools, but it makes sense to use tools that have a quality design. That’s what OXO is all about. They New York, NY based company is best known for their wide variety of kitchen tools, but they offer a pretty wide range of consumer products from staplers to pruning shears to ice cream scoops.
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analyst,
consumer products,
design,
Internships,
New York,
product development,
product management,
research
I’m headed to Atlanta for a wedding this weekend, so I decided to do a little searching for interesting companies in ATL. Pretty quickly (no pun intended) I came across Quickparts, and they stood out because I’ve never covered a business that does what they do before. The Atlanta, GA headquartered company that is “dedicated to providing [their] customers with an online e-commerce system to procure low-volume and high-volume custom manufactured parts.” What does that mean? You can upload CAD drawings for some sort of part or product to their site, and they will instantly offer a quote based on “the part geometry, the required materials, lead time, and quantity.” If the quote meets your specs, then you give them the go ahead to start manufacturing. Yes, this company actually make stuff!
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accounting,
analyst,
design,
engineering,
finance,
Georgia,
graphic design,
Manufacturing,
product development,
project management,
sales
During my Freshman year at Cornell, I took Econ 101. Since I was planning on being a good student, I bought the textbook and went to class diligently. Then I realized that the professor only gave multiple choice exams which were based on the slides from the class lecture. Those slides were posted online after every class, which made attending class and taking the textbook out of its plastic wrap completely unnecessary. I still went to class because I liked the professor and it helped me learn, but I’m pretty sure that I still have the $100+ textbook with CD-ROM sitting on a shelf at my parents’ house in its plastic wrap because the campus store wasn’t buying that book back. What a waste. If I were going to college now, there’s no way I’d buy textbooks. I’d rent them. That’s exactly what Chegg offers. They’re a Santa Clara, CA based company that is saving students a ton of money. When you buy books and then sell them back, you might as well be renting them, so why not actually rent them? According to Chegg, the average college student spends $1,000 a year on textbooks–using Chegg will save them half of that.
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analyst,
California,
customer service,
design,
engineering,
Internships,
marketing,
operations,
paid,
product development,
public relations,
sales,
software development,
user experience,
web development
I’m up in Grayling, MI for the next week or so for my annual fly fishing trip with my Dad. Since I live in downtown Chicago where nature is a rare occurrence, I’ve been anxiously awaiting this trip by visiting all of my favorite fishing websites (sounds pathetic, doesn’t it). On one of the sites I came across a post about a photo contest being put on by Simms Fishing Products. There weren’t many entries, and the prize is “an incredible 6-day, 7-night guided fishing expedition” in Alaska, which is my dream trip, so I obviously entered. Now, I know it does nothing for your job search, but if you vote for my entry (and vote every day until June 20th), I’ll not only keep sending you awesome internship opportunities while I’m on this trip, but I’ll even do it from Alaska. After entering the contest, I remembered that Simms is a company that I’ve wanted to feature for a long time. They’re located in Bozeman, MT, and they make truly excellent products for fishermen. They’re best know for their waders (breathable, waterproof pants that keep you dry when you walk in the river) and their boots, but they’ve been extending into more and more categories.
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apparel,
Internships,
Montana,
outdoors,
product development,
sports
There are two ways to go about your internship search. You can push or you can be pulled. You can seek out companies that you want to be a part of, or you can wait passively for companies to blast their internship openings out to the world. The former will lead to far more rejection, but it can be well worth it. This is why I occasionally like to cover companies that don’t appear to have any internship opportunities posted. If they’re doing something fascinating, they’re worth looking at regardless of what they have posted. One of the coolest things that I’ve seen lately is the iPod Nano watch made by LunaTik. It’s simple, elegant, and totally awesome. Basically it’s a watch band that you can slip a 6th generation iPod Nano into–totally putting calculator watches, game watches, and every other kind of watch to shame. Not only can you tell the time and use it as a stopwatch (with a multitouch interface), but you can listen to music and track your runs with Nike+. If I didn’t hate wearing watches, I’d totally buy an iPod Nano just so that I could get one of these watches. Now, LunaTik is the brand that these watches come from, but it seems that the whole product line came out of a Chicago, IL based product design shop called Minimal Inc.. Both are founded by a guy named Scott Wilson, so they seem to be very closely related if not formally connected.
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design,
engineering,
Illinois,
industrial design,
innovation,
international,
Internships,
Italy,
Oregon,
product development,
project management
I often hear from readers that I don’t cover internships in their preferred location or in their area of interest. On a day to day basis that may be true, but over the past three and a half years I’ve written about a truly wide range of companies, industries, internship types, and locations. Just check out our archives to see them all. (Remember, the goal of these daily profiles isn’t just to get you to look at the company we’re featuring–it’s supposed to be a jumping off point for you to generate new ideas for your internship search.) However, the companies I cover are going to be skewed towards areas with job growth, both in terms of geography and industry. Sometimes you have to move where the action is to land a great internship and set yourself up for a great career. I find that readers get most frustrated by the plethora of available software development positions that seem completely out of reach to students who aren’t studying computer science. Today we’re going to try to relieve some of that frustration by looking at Seilevel, an Austin, TX based company that is “exclusively focused on IT Product Management services for Fortune 1000 companies.” They’re working hard to change the way that companies write software requirements. You may not know what that means right now, but you can learn. Just like a One Day, One Job reader who told me about Seilevel after landing a job there with no background in software development.
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design,
engineering,
Illinois,
industrial design,
innovation,
international,
Internships,
Italy,
Oregon,
product development,
project management
Volunteering is a great thing to do while you’re in college. It’s an opportunity to do good while building valuable skills and putting yourself to work doing something other than studying (which is really helpful when you start looking for a job). Obviously volunteering isn’t only for people who have time on their hands, yet many non-profit organizations treat it like it is. Why would you have a top notch software developer running around picking up trash when he or she could be fixing a few bugs on the organization’s website? Why have a brilliant investment banker building a house when he or she could be managing the organization’s endowment? If the volunteers want time away from work and would prefer to do something different, that’s totally cool. But what if they want to offer pro bono services? Where do they find organizations who can make the best use of their time? Catchafire is a New York, NY based B-Corp (a for-profit company with a social mission–we actually featured internships with B Corporation) that aims to fix this problem. They want to “make it easy for every professional to use their skills for good, and to make it easy for every nonprofit and social enterprise to access and effectively use pro bono as a way to build capacity within their organization.”
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business development,
consulting,
esign,
Internships,
marketing,
New York,
paid,
product development,
product management,
sales,
social entrepreneurship,
social venture,
software development,
user experience,
web development
There’s a long history of poking fun at Martha Stewart, and it started well before she went to prison. There’s just something funny about someone who takes perfection in domesticity as seriously as she does. My family even played an integral role in the satire of Martha with my little sister’s appearance in the parody magazine Martha Stuart’s Better Than You at Entertaining
, which was a follow up to Is Martha Stuart Living?
(here’s a picture my sister as young Martha Stewart in the parody). We can keep laughing at Martha Stewart, but she’ll always get the last laugh. She has an amazing track record of reaching the top in nearly everything that she has done–from babysitting for Mickey Mantle’s kids to starting a successful catering company in her basement to building a New York, NY based media empire in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Martha Stewart is apparently now worth well over half a billion dollars, and has used her personal brand to build amazing print, television, online, and merchandise properties.
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accounting,
animals,
animation,
apparel,
arts,
communications,
copywriting,
crafts,
culinary,
design,
editing,
editorial,
events,
fashion,
finance,
food,
graphic design,
human resources,
information technology,
interactive media,
interior design,
Internships,
law,
licensing,
magazines,
marketing,
media,
merchandising,
New York,
online media,
paid,
photography,
product development,
project management,
public relations,
publishing,
radio,
sales,
software development,
style,
television,
unpaid,
web development,
writing
One of my favorite daily activities during college was doing the crossword puzzle in The Cornell Daily Sun. It was a nice diversion during lunch (or an especially boring class). One of the best things that you can do while working on a crossword puzzle is to get one of the large horizontal words in the middle of the puzzle. These words are often 32 or 33 across, which is where 33Across got their name. They’re a company that “uses social graph data to dramatically improve online marketing” and “unlock the puzzle of social connections.” In other words, they have built a platform that targets advertising to people whose online connections already use the products or services that are being advertised. 33Across is based in New York, NY, and they have another major office in Sunnyvale, CA. Social advertising really is a lot like 33 across on a crossword puzzle–it’s really tough to solve, but when you do it opens a world of opportunities.
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advertising,
business development,
California,
Internships,
market research,
marketing,
New York,
online marketing,
operations,
product development,
research,
software development,
web development
I was a senior in high school on September 11, 2001. We were told what had happened during our morning announcements period, and a few of who had free periods after went to the beach across the street from our school’s campus. We knew that on a clear day you could usually see the Twin Towers from there, but all we could see was a plume of smoke. We listened on the radio and heard reports of the towers falling and rumors of other attacks in the works. I was deeply affected by what happened that day, and since then I have been waiting for our country to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Yesterday, a group of NAVY SEALs did just that under the command of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is based in Washington, DC but operates all over the world. I am extremely grateful to all of those who were involved–especially for those who risked their lives to make us safer. It’s a reminder of how important it is for our government agencies to have top talent working for them. WIthout great people working at the CIA and in our armed forces, bin Laden would still be at large.
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accounting,
analyst,
cartography,
defense,
engineering,
finance,
government,
graphic design,
information technology,
intelligence,
interactive media,
international,
Internships,
law,
library,
Logistics,
medicine,
military,
nationwide,
paid,
photography,
product development,
publishing,
research,
science,
security,
software development,
Washington DC,
web development
When the phone was relegated to only the home and office (and phone booths), it wasn’t a big deal to hold it against your head. If you really used the phone a lot, you might get a headset or one of those rubber things that makes it easier to hold the phone between your ear and shoulder. Now that we take our phones everywhere, holding your phone becomes a big pain in the butt (or hand). It makes your hand cold in winter, and it’s a risk while driving. I’m completely happy with my iPhone headphones, but some people just can’t be tied down like that. That’s why Jawbone has been so successful. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that creates “products and services for the mobile lifestyle unparalleled in their innovation, ease-of-use and sophistication of design.” They’re best know for their bluetooth headsets, but they also make wireless speakers/speakerphones and develop some mobile apps.
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California,
design,
engineering,
Internships,
mobile,
product development,
product management,
telecommunications
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone but an oil executive who isn’t excited at the prospect of electric cars. Yet, the only ones that I’ve seen on the road are from Tesla Motors, and those are few and far between. The problem is two-fold. First, the technology is just getting to the point where it’s actually reasonable to have an electric car as your everyday automobile. Second, the infrastructure for charging electric cars away from home is nearly non-existent. Better Place is a Palo Alto, CA based company that is working to change this. They “build and operate the infrastructure and systems to optimize energy access and use” for electric vehicles, so that they can achieve their mission of “accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation.” They have a long road ahead of them, but they’ve already made a big impact.
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analyst,
automotive,
California,
cars,
energy,
green,
Internships,
marketing,
product development,
product management,
research,
strategy,
sustainability,
training,
transportation
I’m a fly fisherman, so I occasionally get frustrated with living in downtown Chicago. There just aren’t many opportunities to go fishing without a decent drive, and winter seems to last forever (it’s supposed to be spring now, and it’s not). To get through the coldest months I’ll often visit fishing stores, look at websites, and read through catalogs. It’s not much, but it’s enough to get me through the winter. Cabela’s is a company that gets a lot of people through the winter. The company is based in Sidney, NE, and they’re the “largest mail-order, retail and Internet outdoor outfitter in the world.” It all started in 1961 with a tiny classified ad that Dick Cabela placed in a newspaper because he wanted to sell some fishing flies that he purchased while visiting Chicago for a furniture show (since Nebraska is even less of a fly fishing destination than Chicago is). Despite a lackluster response to the original ad, Dick Cabela kept trying. The company grew organically, and now Cabela’s is dominating three major retail channels. The truly amazing part of the story is that Cabela’s has been able to maintain their commitment to customer service throughout all of the growth. I’m not a big customer (I try to support local shops), but I have quite a few friends who are extremely loyal Cabela’s customers because of the quality of products and service.
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administrative,
analyst,
apparel,
banking,
compliance,
conservation,
customer service,
e-commerce,
human resources,
Internships,
inventory control,
marketing,
merchandising,
Nebraska,
operations,
outdoors,
planning,
product development,
product management,
research,
retail,
social media,
sports,
strategy
Ever tried a Craisin? You probably ate about 100 of them, right? The only ingredients are sugar and cranberries (hopefully not in that order), but I’m convinced they’re adding something else that makes them highly addictive. Ocean Spray has made a name for itself by consistently finding new ways to market the fruit that they produce.They’re an agricultural cooperative (I figured some monster corporation owned the brand), which means that they’re “owned by large group of cranberry growers throughout North America.” The large majority of the 600 members are cranberry growers, but that number also includes about 50 Florida grapefruit growers. This means that Ocean Spray is all about finding new ways to increase demand for the two tart, but delightful fruits that their growers grow. The company is based in Lakeville-Middleboro, MA, and they’ve been “the leading producer of canned and bottled juice drinks in North America” since 1981.
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agriculture,
beverage,
business development,
farming,
food,
information technology,
Internships,
Logistics,
Massachusetts,
paid,
product development,
quality assurance,
supply chain
Big day today–not only is it St. Paddy’s Day (in the past we’ve looked at General Mills, Shamrock Foods, and Luck Stones) but it’s also the first day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. What ties those two celebrations together (besides being excuses for drinking during the day)? Shoes! It’s a little-known fact that all leprechauns are shoemakers, and we know that all basketball players love a good pair of kicks. That’s why we’re going to take a look at Wolverine World Wide, a multi-brand shoe company based in Rockford, MI. Their brands include Bates, Cat Footwear, Chaco, Cushe, Harley-Davidson Footwear, Hush Puppies, HyTest, Merrell, Patagonia Footwear, Sebago, Track ‘n Trail, and Wolverine, almost all of which are targeted towards rugged, outdoorsy customer bases. Most of the brands don’t offer great footwear for playing basketball, but they have plenty of shoes for leprechauns that wants to cause mischief and trek to and from the end of the rainbow.
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accounting,
apparel,
auditing,
design,
editing,
finance,
footwear,
holiday,
human resources,
information technology,
marketing,
Michigan,
product development,
product management,
retail,
sales
The Washington Media Scholars Program Case Competition opens today! Get all of the details here.
Now, I haven’t heard of any internship seekers who use flashcards for interviews, but I’m sure there are some out there. I haven’t touched a flashcard since I stopped taking French, and that was a long time ago. I don’t miss them at all. It’s probably because my French teachers forced me to write hundreds of flashcards for homework. If I could have found a way to use a computer to automate the process, I would have. But those teachers wanted to see a handwritten flashcard. Today’s students probably don’t feel my pain. That’s because you can make all of your flashcards online, share them with friends, and use them on your smartphone thanks to Quizlet. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that aims to “creatively harness technology to provide powerful, free learning capabilities to hundreds of millions of people.”
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business development,
California,
design,
education,
engineering,
Internships,
marketing,
operations,
product development,
product evangelism,
product management,
software development,
user experience,
web development
The Washington Media Scholars Program runs a case competition for college students every year. Participating can get you a scholarship, a trip to DC, networking opportunities, and even extra credit for a class. Learn more here.
Everything that I know about aerodynamics I learned from MythBusters. Ok, that’s not completely true–AP Physics taught me a little bit too, but MythBusters does a remarkable job of explaining how different objects (from bullets to cars) react to the drag forces of air and water. Today I found a company that puts MythBusters to shame, at least when it comes to aerodynamics (but definitely not when it comes to explosions). Their name is Exa, and they’re a Burlington, MA based company that “develops, markets, and supports simulation software for the fluids engineering marketplace along with a full suite of engineering consulting services.” They typically work with companies in the “automotive, aerospace, architectural, environmental, electronic, and heavy equipment industries,” so I’m sure that you can imagine what kind of cool projects they’ve been involved with. Think optimizing the USA 4-man bobsled that won the Olympic Gold Medal or providing simulations for a Discovery Channel TV show called Ultimate Car Build-Off (ok, it’s not MythBusters).
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aerospace,
automotive,
California,
cars,
design,
engineering,
Germany,
Internships,
Massachusetts,
math,
Michigan,
paid,
physics,
product development,
research,
science,
software development
I know it’s hard to believe right now, but it actually gets warm in Chicago sometimes. And during those warm months I try to play as much beach volleyball as I possibly can. There’s a group of guys that I often play with, and we organize via text message. The problem is that one guy controls the text list, and it’s always unclear how many people are going to show up. I actually think that e-mail is a much better alternative, but for some reason people love SMS, which is a terrible platform for group messaging. At least it was. GroupMe is a New York, NY based startup that “lets you effortlessly group text with the people in your life that are important to you.” It’s a free service that works on any phone (ok probably not a rotary phone).
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analyst,
analytics,
business development,
data,
design,
engineering,
Internships,
mobile,
New York,
product development,
software development,
telecommunications,
user experience,
web development
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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Alabama,
analyst,
California,
communications,
Connecticut,
consulting,
data,
engineering,
finance,
human resources,
Illinois,
Internships,
investment,
law,
Massachusetts,
New Jersey,
New York,
paid,
product development,
research,
software development,
Texas,
training
The other day I read a fascinating article about a Canadian guy who figured out how to determine whether scratch-off lottery tickets would be winners… without scratching them off. He decided not to take advantage of his discovery, because he realized he made more money as a statistician then he would have made taking advantage of the flaw. When he tried to tell the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, they thought he was some crackpot and ignored him. Finally, he got their attention when he sent them 20 tickets with predictions of their outcomes—he was right on 19 out of 20 of them. The article mentioned the names of a few U.S. based companies that work in the scratch-off lottery games, and I instantly wondered whether they had any internship. One of those companies is Scientific Games, which is headquartered in New York, NY but appears to be operationally based in Alpharetta, GA. Lotteries in the U.S. are a $50 billion market, and Scientific Games is “the primary instant ticket provider for 8 of the top 10 U.S. lotteries.” It may not seem as though there is a lot of room for innovation in lottery games, but Scientific Games has consistently proved otherwise.
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behavioral science,
business development,
casino,
communications,
design,
finance,
game design,
Georgia,
graphic design,
information technology,
Internships,
lottery,
New York,
product development,
research,
sales,
science
During this vacation beach volleyball has been one of my main activities—along with reading, fly fishing, and eating. I started playing the sport a few years ago, but I’ve become more and more serious as I’ve gotten better. And as I’ve met lots of beach volleyball players, I’ve noticed that almost all of them carry around the same ball—the official AVP ball. However, the AVP is currently defunct (but I bet they make a comeback), so the future of the ball is uncertain. Luckily, the ball is produced by a company that is still going strong—Chicago based Wilson Sporting Goods. They are a leader in ball sports—baseball, basketball, softball, football, golf, platform tennis, racquetball, soccer, squash, tennis, and volleyball. The popularity of their balls and other equipment vary from sport to sport, but Wilson has very strong positions across a number of markets—especially tennis, baseball, American football, golf, basketball, softball, badminton and squash.
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apparel,
brand management,
design,
Illinois,
Internships,
marketing,
product development,
public relations,
sports
Happy Thanksgiving! In past years we’ve taken a look at internships at Pilgrim’s Pride and Jennie-O. This year we’ve been influenced by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so we’re going to take a look at internships at Macy’s. They’re headquartered in both New York City and Cincinnati, and they are “one of the nation’s premier retailers, with fiscal 2009 sales of $23.5 billion.” The company operates more than 810 stores across 45 states. Over the past decade or so they’ve absorbed a number of other retailers, but the Macy’s brand has reigned supreme—and I bet the popularity of today’s parade has had at least a little something to do with it.
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apparel,
credit,
design,
e-commerce,
fashion,
food,
hospitality management,
information technology,
Internships,
management,
nationwide,
New York,
Ohio,
operations,
paid,
product development,
retail
Usually, when you start a company, you do it with a specific purpose in mind. Maybe you want to create and sell a line of products or offer a suite of services. When Bill Gross started Idealab in 1996, his approach was a little different. For him and his Pasadena, CA based company, products are actually new companies. In just under 15 years, Idealab “has created and operated more than 75 companies with 30 IPOs and acquisitions.” I’m sure you’ll recognize many of the names—there was eToys in 1997 and Picasa in 2002. They also had NetZero, PetSmart, Tickets.com, Citysearch, Commission Junction, and lots more. You may not be familiar with many of Idealab’s current companies, but you will be if their track record is any indication. Idealab continues to generate and test ideas, and the best ones get more attention and are eventually turned into companies.
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California,
design,
engineering,
incubator,
innovation,
Internships,
product development,
software development,
web development
Last night as my girlfriend and I were getting out of the car, she dropped her phone. It’s still works, but she put some serious gouges in the back of her beautiful white iPhone 3GS. Maybe I should buy her a case, and by that I mean the most hardcore, rugged case you can find. Maybe something like this (it’s an airtight, water resistant case that looks like a submarine). It’s made by OtterBox, a Fort Collins, CO based company that is “dedicated to all the klutzy, spontaneous, chaotic, graceless individuals who have broken a device or valuable due to their active lifestyle.” They’re also an Inc. 500 company that has seen 744.1% three-year growth to $48.6 million in annual revenue. They make serious cases that are built for all kinds of conditions. They’re not focused on enhancing the looks of your phone—they want to make sure it’s nearly impossible for an idiot like you to break your phone.
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buyer,
Colorado,
design,
engineering,
fashion,
Internships,
mobile,
product development,
sales
I’m constantly amazed by the beauty/cosmetics/consumer products industries. They seem to be constantly coming out with new stuff, yet most of their product developments are just marketing fluff. Yes, some soaps are better for your skin than others, and some shampoos smell better than others, but I rarely get the sense that a new product actually does its job better than its predecessor. Still, we all have our brand preferences. For me, I find the best way to wash my face is with a simple bar of Dove soap, but if you take your face washing a little more seriously, you may want to check out Bellevue, WA based Clarisonic (their parent company is Pacific Bioscience Laboratories, but all of the branding seems to be focused on Clarisonic). They “develop and market products that use sonic frequency to cleanse skin and help reduce dry patches, blemishes, and wrinkles.” Now, sonic technology isn’t something that you’re going to find in a face wash, so maybe there’s something more to Clarisonic’s facial brush skin care system. I’ve never tried it, but if buying it only gets you to spend more time washing your face, it’s already done its job.
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administrative,
consumer products,
customer service,
design,
engineering,
health care,
Internships,
Logistics,
marketing,
operations,
product development,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
Washington
Headphones are pretty much a modern necessity. I have a bunch of devices that I carry around with me whenever I’m working from a different location, and they all have headphone jacks. By plugging in I can hear phone conversations better, tune out when I’m trying to focus, or educate myself while sitting on the train. Despite this, I still kind of hate headphones because I always lose them and whenever I wrap them around my phone the phone immediately rings and I have to unwrap them. I also spend a ton of time untangling my headphones. These are problems that probably can’t be fixed, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t innovation in the headphone industry. Tucson, AZ based JLab Audio is a perfect example. They are yet another fast growing Inc. 500 company, and they “design and market portable audio products and accessories, including the JBuds line of earbuds and the B-Flex Portable USB Laptop Speaker.” They were only founded in 2005, but they’ve already reached $3 million in annual revenue.
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Arizona,
brand management,
Internships,
marketing,
music,
product development,
sales
