My Entrepreneurial Journey
As my final week at 2ULaundry came to an end, I began to realize that my entrepreneurial journey was just beginning. All that I have learned and been able to see will help me along my path. This experience as a whole was very positive for me as I was able to work on projects that mattered and leave my mark.
At the very end of my internship, I was able to share the projects I had worked on throughout the summer with the entire company at a weekly company-wide meeting. The key projects I presented on involved a community outreach/engagement project to increase our brand’s reach through community service and researching recruitment/ retention strategies in order to implement changes to our hiring practices and application reach. The other big project that I partnered on with the other marketing intern was creating and designing from scratch a company-wide internal newsletter. This project has been something that we had been working on throughout our internship and to finally be able to present the final edition of the newsletter and get positive feedback was an awesome experience. I worked primarily on the content side of things and dabbled a bit with the design and feel of the newsletter, but the design work was a collaborative effort. The newsletter was intended to be something lite and breezy for employees to contribute to each week. It ended up looking really great and the cool thing is that 2ULaundry is actually using the newsletter we created in an effort to create more company culture.
The beauty that I found in interning at a start-up is that the team that surrounds you each day is your most important resource and can be the thing that gets your business to the next level. I think that is one of the most important things I have learned throughout this experience. The team you have is almost just as important as your initial idea for a business in the realm of entrepreneurship. You can have many brilliant people on your team but if that team does not mesh well together or understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses then things will not work. I think 2ULaundry has an awesome team and its only growing. Finding people who are a good fit can be a daunting task but it’s definitely worth it.
In my final two weeks, two cool opportunities were presented to me. First, I was able to attend my first Atlanta United game with the entire marketing team. As you can imagine, that was very exciting and it’s one of the things that I will definitely miss in terms of the work culture at 2ULaundry. While the game was super exciting and I had a lot of fun with my teammates, I was also able to tag along for the day in Atlanta to help with a brand photoshoot for our 2ULaundry vans. These photos will be used in recruitment efforts and future branded advertising. The entire day was fun and super productive.
All in all, I am really going to miss my 2UFamily and I can’t believe I won’t be going into the office on Monday morning to work on some cool new project. I can honestly say that I have had a very fulfilling experience working at 2ULaundry. I really want to thank the entire team and give a special shout out to my manager Trasee for being an awesome boss, colleague, and mentor. I would also like to give a special thanks to Sara for always being an awesome resource when it came to anything that I may need and for keeping me in the loop. I already miss all of you and our lunch-time adventures. Thank you for giving me this opportunity and making it a place where I was able to grow professionally.
Written by Donovan Martin, #WakeEntrepreneur