nate_alexander

Day 8

Today was my last day of the internship while being with the school. I will be continuing my internship over the summer and look forward to being a part of that.

My first meeting was a 1:00pm where we met with one of our newer clients, Equipped, and we went over the mock-ups that the designer had made. The wireframes looked really good and the client thought so too, and the project is getting closer to being ready for development.

My next meeting was at 2:00pm and in this team meeting we looked at some of the wireframes that we had created for BruVue earlier in the week. I thought it was definitely a bit strange that the product manager was asked to make a mock-up for the backend of the service, but I assume that the designer was just looking for some more input on what was needed. We talked over the functions of the design and iterated on the initial drawings. The backend is very complex and requires a lot of forethought before development can occur. We have to balance a user friendly UI but also one that is powerful and can deliver the desired data.

After that Alicia wanted to have a meeting at 3:30 @ Cafe Carolina to discuss the BruVue mock ups. We created a second version that is more promising and closer to what it will be in the later versions. We also talked about the importance of communication and responsibility as the job is for the most part virtual. She reminded me that I need to make sure that I am emailing her if I don’t understand what is being asked of me, because often the task descriptions were vague and hard to work with. This experience has really given me invaluable knowledge that I know I will use and remember for the rest of my career.

Day 7

Today was the 7th day of the internship. Today was an important day but wasn’t as packed as some of the other days in the past two weeks. I started my morning the same way that I have every other day and checked the progress. I was slightly bummed to see that the urgent tasks that we had listed weren’t finished yet, but I think that is something that the engineer heading the project will take care of during his work day.

After that and checking my emails I got ready and headed out for downtown durham. I had an 9:30am meeting at WeWork with Taylor and Alicia to look at the possible work spaces. When I got there I was surprised to see Dr. Mac there! I wasn’t expecting him to be there but I was happy to share everything I had learned and all the cool stuff I was doing. After talking to him for a bit Alicia and Taylor arrived and there we met with the organizer, Stephanie, and she showed us the building again to refresh our memory. It was really cool to see the space again and I look forward to working there in the summer.

We then walked to the new building and saw the spaces that were under construction. The new building opens on July 1st so it is really getting close to the grand opening. After our meeting I drove back home and then worked from home. The time flexibility is really cool and I enjoy having this level of freedom.

Tomorrow I know I have a couple of meetings that I will sit in on, and I think that I might meet up with Alicia and Taylor at some point.

Day 6

The one thing about working at a start-up is that you really have to be committed to working whenever possible. There isn’t really a clear cut schedule (aside from meetings) for when you need to finish your work. The only real deadlines are the days that the client needs to have their MVP or final product finished by. One of our clients needs their app to be finished by the end of this week which has added a layer of stress to the company to make sure that everything is perfect. As a result of this I find myself staying up late for the engineering meeting just in case the developers have any questions for the bugs I reported, and also waking up early to check and revise the tasks depending on their level of completeness.

Luckily I do have time during the day to rest, so it takes the edge off of the long and unorthodox work hours. Today we met with another current client who needs their product to be finished by the end of the summer. Their project is going to be in high demand as soon as the school year starts so they don’t want to miss out on this big part of their customer base. We went over their list of changes that they want to see done, and we talked with them about how they would take place and the amount of hours that we estimate it will take us to complete them.

Another piece of big news is that today we signed another company on. We are almost at our full capacity for projects and so there is another developer that is being hired to offload some of the extra work that needs to be done. It is pretty cool to be in a position where I am working at a company that is a start-up, and at the same time is also helping start-ups grow. As our clients grow and succeed we too grow and succeed which is really interesting to me.

Tomorrow will be a busy day and I will report back with the day.

Day 5

Monday was a slow but busy day in the home office. One of my favorite parts of this internship is the fact that I can work from home most of the time. It really gives me the ultimate flexibility with my schedule. Today my work was pretty much the same as it has been the past couple of days but I also got to work on a different aspect of the project. I started my morning by looking at the Oak City Amaretto website to verify that there was progress being made. Luckily the work looked good and I was able to move onto my next task. For the next company, GoKart, I simulated a ride by being the Driver and I confirmed that the automatic emails after sign-ups were working. That too had been fixed so I then went into the Client/Customer app and there I searched for bugs and any issues with the code. After marking any errors and checking off the improvements it was time to prepare some material for the upcoming meetings.

My first task was to do mock-ups of the backend dashboard that we want to use for the company BruVue. Zach, one of the founders, asked me to do some research to determine the best way to go about it and cater to their needs. After some preliminary research I got to work creating what I thought would bring the ultimate user experience. I created a total of five pages for the backend portal. The dashboard, inventory, “ontap”, settings, and users. I used a design program on my mac to create some very rudimentary ideas for what the functionality should be.

That was pretty much my entire day. I still have a possible meetings later tonight as well as the 11:30pm engineering chat which is a reoccuring daily thing. Tomorrow is going to be very busy so there will be a lot to talk about tomorrow.

Day 4

The 4th day, Friday, was somewhat similar to Thursday. I started off my day by checking the work that the developers had fixed during their workday. The work looked good so I was able to check off on that progress and was able to prepare for the meetings later in the day. The first meeting I had to prepare for was BruVue which is a company that helps Bar owners monitor the amount of liquid that is being consumed compared to the amount that was actually purchased. Their goal is to reduce the amount of money lost for these businesses which are selling high volumes of liquor. They came to Hyperspace to talk about how they could restructure their backend portal for their clients and business owners. We had a good meeting and are looking forward to helping them get their business back on track.

One of the people who we met with actually owns 28 Jimmy Johns locations, and the office was attached to one of the restaurants. We walked through a door and we were inside of the main dining area. Being the owner he asked us what we wanted and we didn’t have to pay which was pretty cool. This internship has allowed me to gain so many connections with entrepreneurs and other people who I can learn so much from.

The secon meeting of the day was with a company that allows women to find companies that are scored on a 5-star scale on how fair they treat women. They also have a component of their web-app that is an anonymous community and allows women to ask questions that they don’t necessarily want their name to be tied to. They came to Hyperspace in search of an iPhone and Android app so they could expand their ever-growing user base. They currently have 600,000 users and are rapidly growing. Im excited to see where they go, and how we will be able to create something so crucial for the further expansion of their business.

Day 3

Today was a very busy day. I spent the majority of my day in meetings discussing the products that our hopefully future clients are looking to comission with Hyperspace. My first priority of the day was to take a look at the website that the developers had created for Oak City Amaretto and evaluate it. I took note of any bugs and then reported them to the Asana portal. I was only able to find a couple of things that weren’t correct, so that was fairly easy.

I started work on that around 8am and I was able to finish that around 9:00am and began to prepare for the meetings later in the day. My first conference call started at 11:00am and there we had a debrief on the clients that we would be talking to later that day. We went through their contracts and talked about their goals and how we could achieve them. Both companies had not signed to Hyperspace yet so we were trying to make sure that we understood what they were trying to accomplish. They both had created MVPs which are Minimum Viable Products and that is the first step in the process. Hyperspace creates the MVP to show a proof of concept and garner a general following behind the idea to assist with future investors. I can’t talk in great detail about what the two companies are working on, but they are both excited about the partnership and are ready for the development phase.

The first call started at 1:00pm, so I had just under an hour for lunch, and with the first company they wanted to discuss different ideas about how to make their proof of concept a reality. Comprised of a doctor at UNC and a teacher of the e-Lab at UNC, they both were really smart and had a clear vision of how they wanted to help children who are stuck in the hospital. They are working on a really cool project and I look forward to seeing the progress.

The second call of the day was at 3:00pm and this company was slightly ahead of the previous one. They already had the mock-ups of their MVP and wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page before the development of the app begins this Monday. Their project was very different but it was cool to see how the team worked through different issues and questions that arose. Tomorrow my day is very similar, and very packed. We have two different companies that we will be talking to tomorrow and hopefully they will soon be clients!

Day 2

Day 2 was slightly more relaxed than Tuesday. Today for the first half of the day I worked virtually from home and was tasked with checking the work that the overseas developers had finished. In the program Asana the project managers are able to look at the website/app that is being created, and from there they can leave feedback and comments for the developers. The developers then see what needs to be arranged, or if their work was sufficient and the task is marked as complete. Today there was an already pre-existing list of things to do, but tomorrow I will be in charge of creating the list after visiting the websites and apps. The three projects that I am working on right now are: Oak City Amaretto, Learn2Win, and GoKart. I’m responsible for finding bugs and things that need to be changed and then creating an itemized list for the developers to work on. Oak City Amaretto is a local liquor company that has a family recipe that they are best known for. Learn2Win is a really cool program that allows coaches to assign their players quizzes for the different formations and plays that they can use while in game. The program is very interactive and allows the coaches to draw out their plays and fine tune the assessments for their specific needs. Lastly GoKart is like the Uber or Lyft for children. Sometimes it can be difficult for parents to get their children to all of their activities on-time but GoKart has drivers who go through extensive background checks, and can get the children to where they need to be. It is a really interesting idea and I know that my parents would’ve liked to have had it when I was a child.

The second half of my day was a meeting at Cafe Carolina with Taylor and Alicia. We talked about their current projects but also the ones that they might possibly have in the future! They have worked with a lot of clients so it is cool to see how they are able to make such a positive impact on the lives of their customers. We also discussed the plan for tomorrow consisting of more debugging, a conference call, and another meeting. The last thing that I have to do today is hop on the engineering chat, which starts at 11:30pm, and help talk about what needs to be done for the next day.

Day 1

Today was the first day of the Work Experience Program. My first meeting was at 10:00am at Cafe Carolina in Chapel Hill with a company that is working with Hyperspace on a site that is like glassdoor, but specifically for women. I thought that was pretty cool, and there I met Alicia who is a Technical Product Manager, and someone I will be working with throughout the next two weeks. There I was also offered a summer-long internship, and I am very excited to be working with them even after Discovery Term.

Alicia and I went to lunch on Franklin St. and then headed to downtown Durham to meet another client, and look at possible office/incubation spaces for the next couple of months. The second client has a patented product that helps arrange fishing lures so they don’t get tangled or broken when transporting them. It is often the simple ideas that prove to be incredibly useful and can help us focus to enjoy our lives. We went to this shared workspace called ‘WeWork’ and we looked at a variety of offices that we could rent over the summer. I was treated like part of the team and was a part of the conversations about what we would need and how the team could work there too. We then went to a new building that was under construction and it was cool to see the layout of the new offices. I really enjoyed my first day and am looking forward to my next couple of days.

Author: nate_alexander