As I arrived at the parking deck at 8:39 am, I thought to myself, “Man, I hate downtown Raleigh”. The previous night, I texted one of my colleagues, Adam Cervenka, and asked him to walk into HQ Raleigh with me. I was nervous as we walked through the doors but soon realized that it was pointless. HQ Raleigh was a communal workspace with a chill vibe, the perfect recipe for discovery, innovation, collaboration, and excellence.
There were many amazing amenities in HQ Raleigh, including free coffee and water, pretzels, fruit (peaches and bananas), a latte machine, and even a beer tap.
It was a cool main lobby with many rooms for various companies to have a home-base. I was blown away by the aesthetically pleasing design and coffee-shop, professional feel.
Scott Matton, another colleague, revealed later that there was free parking right around the corner, which made the day even better. Downtown Raleigh wasn’t so bad and the internship wasn’t as daunting as I thought.
Our workspace was a generous gift from a company called R!OT, a company geared towards helping start-ups by providing them with 12 weeks of free space and resources with no equity. It was the perfect space to encourage collaboration.
Our boss and potential CEO of Vector Textiles, Mark Self, gave us the task of proving why Vector Textiles is important and who they will provide for as an end goal. He arrived at HQ Raleigh with his dog and gave us a brief overview of his plan for us. We kicked off Day 1 by making a game plan and researching. Mr. Self introduced us to a widely known instant messaging platform called Slack, and throughout the day we made sure to run various things by Mr. Self before putting it into action.
Our first task was to research what was already in the market. As we soon figured out, there was nothing in the market of insect repellent clothing that was all-natural and organic, like the special weave that Vector Textiles had created. Almost all fitted insect resistant clothing underwent chemical treatment with permethrin, an FDA-approved chemical. Upon further research, we found that although seemingly harmless, permethrin was toxic to cats, fish, and can negatively affect pregnancy. When ingested by humans, the chemical acts as a neurotoxin and a number of other harms. Additionally, it does not evaporate easily, posing harm to the environment, as permethrin is harmful to fish.
We then decided to create surveys to gather statistically relevant data to get a better feel of the target consumer and consumer market availability. We ran it by Mr. Self, and with a few tweaks, we sent it to Dr. Mc to hopefully send out to the CA community, a network with a plethora of people. With that, it was time for a lunch break.
Our self-declared team, Team Mawan (Mark, Amy, Will, Adam, Nevett), ventured to Cookout for a team lunch. We followed accordingly to the schedule we had previously drawn up, listing “lunch” from 12:00 – 1:00 pm.
We headed back to HQ Raleigh to get back to work. After filling Mr. Self in with loads of information we had collected, including stores to visit, the harms of permethrin, and general consumer profiles, he instructed us to construct a compelling powerpoint that contained an organized version of our research. We worked all the way up until 4:30 pm, the end of our workday.
Originally, Mr. Self was going to drop by the office at 4:00 pm, but since we had kept up plenty of good communication and clearness in the Slack group chat, he deemed it unnecessary. Tomorrow we are planning on going off-site to sniff out the competition from outdoor activity stores. It was a very positive experience, and there was plenty of organization and self-motivation, with Adam even creating a well thought out lunch plan for the remaining days.
I learned that even without shadowing a boss, we were capable of self-directing the project, a level of maturity and compassion needed to succeed in any real-life job. Specifically, working with Vector Textiles is a unique experience, since it is a start-up company. Team Mawan gets to experience first-hand the extensive research and data analysis needed to successfully launch a product. I hope that I will continue to learn the gist of marketing and how to effectively communicate and present, just like in a real job. I am looking forward to finishing the presentation and presenting our findings, and am very excited for Day 2!
I am impressed by how much Team MAWAN have accomplished in the very first day. Can’t wait to see the results of your research and how you make a compelling business case. Way to go, MAWAN!