Don't get an internship. Start a business.
sean-johnson.com
sean-johnson.com
But you can learn this also by interning at an existing business, learning how they do things, learning what they do wrong and what they do right. You'll bask in the experience of people who have already done this, and from their partners and connections. If you want to learn from a startup, then intern or work at a startup.
Outright cutting off this possibly important and valuable experience is borderline insane. This is not an absolute. This one-sided recommendation should be taken with a spoon of salt.
Both internship and entrepreneurship are valuable experiences. It's entirely dependent on who you are, what you're interested in doing, and the opportunities you find are open to you.
I have had a couple of internships. One stood out as the best learning experience. It was great to learn sales/client relations. But, most internships focus on only on role.
This is were starting a your own business makes a difference. I co-run a dog treat business. I have learned more in a year than in school or interning.
I advocate doing both. During my internships, I am always asking "why." I am curious to learn why things work a certain way. Running my own business I tend to ask "how." How can I accomplish X task(s).
Obviously, there is crossover. But, I doubt I would have been able to get a business of the ground without some experience.
It's called "outside of the box" thinking for a reason. If you join the box, it ain't outside the box.
Assuming you figure out the correct answer.
I think you're right, chatmasta, about the benefits of being an employee, especially in the context of a given craft. This is exactly what I was thinking between reading the title of the article, and reading the article. Just yesterday on HN there was a very moving confessional about hacking on a production DB without transactional safety, and everyone agreed: in a sane world, junior staff learn not to do this from senior staff, rather than just trying crap and getting burned. How many things are there left to get burned on? Oh my FSM, so many. Please, please, let me learn from experienced hands, and reinvent as few wheels as possible.
But, that said, I found this article really convincing. I think all of TFA's points about the benefits of early -- crappy -- entrepreneurship are very compelling. Far more compelling than I expected. When I look around at people who're doing better (at their careers and their contributions to the world in general) than me, and people who're doing worse than me, my feeling is this: the strengths mentioned in the article (selling, managing, and focus on creating value ) are really big differentiators in determining success and impact.
I've never had my own business, so maybe I dunno what's up.
For instance, running a record label I've learned how to do things on literally zero budget, network like crazy and the stubbornness and determination involved is probably the only reason I've ultimately been able to learn how to program.
That said, I did a non-technical internship at Mixcloud a couple of years ago and the exposure to the environment as well as pieces of advice and experience have repeatedly been useful to me since... plus it was probably the first step on the road to learning to code as well.
All that considered, I have no idea why you'd see it as an 'all or nothing' thing - I once released two EPs while I was interning at NME... that's what evenings are for.
But speaking as somebody who relatively recently set one up, this seems to ignore how expensive it can be to get even a simple business off the ground without someone willing to help bankroll you to begin with.
No, you don't need millions of dollars but you probably need at least a couple of thousand $ spare to cover your living expenses for a few months + whatever up front costs you need to fork out on.
You get problems like clients who pay very late, or for whatever reason try and not pay you at all. And since you're the new guy with no track record people don't want to give you much up front and know you're going to struggle to lawyer up so put you at the bottom of the payment list.
Not the sort of money who somebody who is likely without savings (and who probably also has debt) is likely to be able to spare.
Also the advantage of having a job before you go out on your own is that you already have some track record with a company people have (hopefully) heard of as well as more connections and hopefully knowledge that you have acquired on someone elses dime.
Great leaders are a vital asset, but transforming every person into a leader is akin to alchemy. And remember, gold is only of higher value because of its relative scarcity, not because it is intrinsically better than other metals. :)
If you love to do a good job, and you find yourself without experience, you will spend more time on it, taking care about the details a professional will know to overlook.
Best learning experience ever- tough times help make a tough mind, and the best part is after university cost and life cost, it even left a profit. My clients were satisfied, and kept coming back for more - which made me raise prices (market demand you know).
And what can I say about the referrals- that really make one feel proud, because it means you did a good job not only by your own standards, but also by the other person standard, enough than he feels like taking a risk and recommending you to friends & family.
Basically, internship is passive. Entrepreneurship is active.
If you want to be a salaryman, you should really do an internship.
If you don't, you know what you have to do.
I came on looking to expand on my development abilities, but I soon realized that very little of the is spent actually sitting and programming. There was meeting with customers, getting requirements, creating some sort of plan then figuring out how to break it all into a roadmap/schedule where the delivery is satisfactory and on the proper date. I had little to zero experience in any of those tasks.
I struggled to gain comfort during meetings and lacked confidence while I would be setting up the schedule, I assume it stemmed from my beginner status and an overall lack of successfully completed tasks to look back on (whether as a sub-contractor or just even hobby projects).
There were times I'd ask my father for advice (he had started a company that was rather successful), read a book or two, tried some online resources, but really, I was probably just too young and not wired to be a sub-contractor at that point in my life. Sometimes I do look back and see the mistakes I made and what I could have done to correct them, so in a way, it was a great learning experience - but not in the area that I wanted.
I've since done some "internships" (one where I was paid less than minimum wage and worked full days - but I really wanted a job experience) and realized that I came away with way more than I could have ever discerned from my experiences as a sub-contractor. However, I strongly believe this was due to the fact that I wasn't all that great development back then. Nowadays, I find that the business aspects come a lot easier now that my programming/development understanding are eons beyond what they were even 4-5 years ago.
I should also make certain to mention that my experiences are my own - I wouldn't be surprised if someone younger than I were thrust into that situation and would came out successful. However, given my past personal experience (and not even running my own business) I have to hesitate at the article's implication.
Anyway, I hope that was some good info - feel free to ask any questions if you'd like, I'll do my absolute best to answer.
Internships and first jobs are all about learning the realities of the work world and building up your professional network. If you're trying to build a B2B SaaS app, it really helps when you understand at least one of those "B"s instead of just guessing.
There will always be anecdotes of "I started my first business at 14 and have been my own boss ever since" but my (anecdotal) experience shows that most successful entrepreneurs are people who leverage their professional experience and network in order to get their first customers, co-founders, and so forth.
The whole point of an internship (or underpaid, monkey coder job) is to get your foot in the door, to get some residue on your resume, and to work with a real team trying to deliver something for other people.
You're naive if you think that you, by yourself, can imitate the processes, procedures, best practices, tools, standards, guides, and mechanisms that a large company can provide, and learn from it all to boot.
I'm all about "hoisting yourself up from your own bootstraps", but sometimes you need other people. Internships are about immersing yourself with other people, not trying to take the mantle of some superhero and thinking it's going to help you fly better.