Bendik Skrede: Internship Experince at 11Sight

Ten Weeks at 11Sight: What I Expected, What I Found, and What I Take With Me

Before I met the people at 11sight I expected this summer to be tough and that I was going to be challenged a lot. Combining the internship at 11sight with studies, my own startup and social activities outside of work, was going to be a lot of work. I did get many tasks and deliverables, and I did get challenged a lot, but it was not what I expected. This working experience has been wonderful, and I have learned a lot. When I first got introduced to the team, I knew this was going to be a lot more enjoyable than my initial expectations of an American work environment. In the first meeting I had with Bora (VP of Sales and Marketing) and Kjartan (Product Manager) I knew it was going to be a fun time working with them. 

Reflecting on my time at 11sight, it has been a great learning experience, with short days, long days and amazing coworkers. It’s the best internship for a motivated person with energy, and curiosity to learn new things. 
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What I actually worked on

I joined the marketing team, as it matched my studies and my previous experience. My first project was persona work, mapping customers 11sight wanted warm introductions to. It was a good way in. I learned a lot about the industry the first week doing this task. From there the work shifted. I spent most of my ten weeks on two things, finding new potential customers and finding the events worth attending. Along the way I wrote LinkedIn posts, blog posts, and worked on a customer's website.

I will be honest about the workload, since it is what I would have wanted to know before starting as an intern. It was not overwhelming but there was always work to be done. It was about right. And if I wanted to work on something else, I could always ask for that. Questions were always welcome as an intern at 11Sight, and they wanted me to challenge myself.

The most useful lesson was being present in meetings, and learning how to run a startup from the founders. Everyone at 11sight knows what the others are working on, and everyone is in on the changes happening. This was made clear when one of the competitors seemed like they were going out of business. 11sights reaction to this was to double check if this was true, then taking immediate action and implementing changes. Everyone in the team was on board, and implemented the necessary changes. When building spreadsheets I iterated, talked with Bora and Alex (CEO Co-Founder) about it, then kept rebuilding it for weeks as we worked out what actually makes a company a good fit. At first I read all that reworking as failure. It is not. At university, cases arrive finished, and the variables are handed to you. Here you invent the variables, defend them, and throw most of them away. Nothing is delivered once. Everything iterates.

The people, which is the real answer

If you are reading this because you are considering interning here, this is the part that matters.

Most of my mornings started in a meeting with Bora and Kjartan, and that rhythm shaped my whole summer. It meant I never spent three days guessing, because a two minute question the next morning would sort it out. 

At one point Bora helped me work through a conflict inside my own startup, which had nothing to do with 11sight at all. Although this was unrelated to 11sight, he gave me good advice and helped me get through that conflict. The people at 11sight are all helpful, Kjartan, Yağmur, Ceren and Artun have all taught me many different skills. Before this internship I didn't know how to make and push a website. Now I can confidently do that, and much more. 

Kjartan deserves his own note. He is also from Bergen and got a job at 11sight last year after his internship. It was nice to be able to talk about running my own startup, and how to think about my work at 11sight. We had daily meetings together with Bora. I really liked this workflow. 

Hybrid work

The work was mostly hybrid, and I would not have wanted it any other way. I lived close to the Berkeley office and I was given keys to enter early on, so I could work there whenever it suited me. Some days that meant a full day at a desk. Other days it meant two/three focused hours and then I could work from anywhere else. Flexibility was the best option for me this summer. 

I am also building my own startup, so I had to learn to structure days that held two things at once. That is a skill I did not have in June. It also gave me space to do social activities with other students, during the weekdays. I did plenty during the week and more during weekends, and I never felt it was at the expense of 11sight. When I informed my teammates about my plans, they always found a way to work around an event during the work week. This gave me the flexibility to manage my time more efficiently. 

What I take with me

Three things.
How to work in a startup: Draft the task, ask early, deliver something, improve it. The momentum is more important than absolute certainty and open conversations help a lot. 

Concrete skills: I learned Apps Script in google sheets, which I did not know in June, so a sheet could keep iterating and researching itself every week without me. I have also made a website, done a lot of market research, customer research, built reports and wrote linkedin and blog posts.

Confidence: How to keep momentum and work online with people from all over the world in an industry that is constantly changing. I gained a lot of  tacit knowledge from personal connections with the CEO and the VP of Sales, and the other people in the company. Learning how they think and make decisions, will help me to make better choices in the future. 

Three things I would tell the next intern

• Ask questions in the morning meetings, that will help you and the company a lot. 
• Get keys to the office early, then use them.
• Be critical of your own work before anyone else has to be. The version you are proud of is usually version three.

And then

Next I am off to Ningbo, China for an exchange semester, and I will keep building my own company while I am there. The mustache is coming too.

Thank you to everyone at 11sight for this huge learning experience. It's been rewarding and challenging, but overall a good time. 

If you want to talk about the internship, startups, or anything in this post, reach me at bendikskrede@gmail.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bendikskrede/