It’s hard to believe that my time at Spare to Share as an intern has already come to an end. No more cool experiences and fun times like lunches at Millennium Park and hanging downtown. It has been a great experience, one that started months ago back at Georgetown University. I remember getting out of my Abnormal Psychology class to see that I had a voicemail from Greg Jaros, the founder and CEO of Spare to Share. I crossed my fingers and upon returning to my apartment to listen to the message, I learned that I had been offered the position of Awesomeness Intern with Spare to Share. I immediately accepted and set myself up for what would be a summer in which I would learn real world skills and do valuable work for a small start-up tech firm in Chicago. I would be an intern who could actually influence the product and the company’s strategic direction.
In case you are not aware, Spare to Share is an exciting new company in the sharing economy focusing on P2P sharing, rental, sales and swapping of items, space and skills within existing closed, trusted networks such as residential and commercial buildings. I had heard about the collaborative consumption space from companies like AirBNB and Relay Rides, but had not seen one that focused on existing physical networks. Spare to Share’s initial focus is the residential property space, giving residents of apartments and condominiums a way to share, rent and sell within their building, as well as get to know their neighbors. The property managers like it because it enhances the community feeling in the building, which often equates to residents turning over less often. It sounded like something that as a college student I would actually use!
My first few days were spent getting set up and learning about collaborative consumption. I conducted market research and learned about our competition and companies who we could potentially partner with. From here, I was thrown into the thick of everyday activities at Spare to Share. One of the reasons this was such a valuable summer for me is precisely because I did tasks that were critical to the business succeeding. There was no time in a copy room for me.
The first portion of my summer was spent working on sales. I created a list of hundreds of residential buildings who could be potential customers and mapped out their locations in the city. Then I worked directly with our SVP of sales, Samir Patel, to use this list to aggressively pursue customers. I learned how to effectively pitch a product and communicate with people, particularly over the phone where I made my first inquiries/pitches. I called the property managers of numerous buildings, trying to get them to buy our product. We then followed this up with a market research adventure, walking down Michigan Avenue and stopping in at every residential building seeking input about our products appeal and feasibleness. This served to not only provide us with details about our target market but also to find buildings we felt were ready for or wanted our product. I also created two fictional personalities on the site to have a demonstration platform for potential buyers. I found it fun to interact between these two characters, “Barney Stinson” and “Rachel Green”. I gave them items to have on the site and had them talk over the bulletin board and share numerous items.
Soon, my work moved more towards the tech side. I would work with Greg and our product manager on testing the site’s functionality. I was tasked with finding errors all over the website and trying to make it more user friendly. We prioritized a huge list of activities and then I was set loose to explore every aspect of the website. I truly learned to pay attention to even the most minute details and, probably most interesting and helpful to my development, think like a customer. I had to get in there head first to see what I thought they would like, dislike, want, need, etc. This also included making the site more aesthetically pleasing. I helped to design where things would go on the website and gave my opinion on how things should look. A nice thing about being at a fast-moving startup, I could suggest something one night then see it live in production the next day!
The last third of my summer was geared towards my degree and deepest interests, finance and accounting. I first designed a template for the invoice that we could send property managers once they signed up for the service. It took some time, and learning how to mess around with Microsoft Excel at a deeper level, but eventually I came up with a satisfying end result for our COO, Gint Rudis. He then put me on my largest and most enjoyable task of the summer, reviewing and redoing the revenue model.
This took me weeks but upon completion was the most satisfying part of my summer. It didn’t necessarily start well though as my original changes had us $89 million in the hole every year. After a moment of panic followed by some fresh air to clear my head, I re-attacked the model and started making real progress. I was pleased that I was even using equations from my finance class this past year. I noticed issues in the calculation of free cash flows and an error in which rent expense was being capitalized as an asset. Discovering these errors in the original model was such a cool feeling. I had taken the basic information I learned in my classes at Georgetown and used it in a real life situation to find issues in the financial model of a real company. I resolved these issues and adjusted our revenue drivers to focus on the residential buildings we target (vs. users using the site) because they are the ones who pay our fees.
The model was looking great although for anyone else it meant nothing because it had nearly 30 tabs with formulas criss-crossing everywhere. I then spent a few days narrowing this to 6 tabs and making it much easier to navigate. I had finally completed the revenue model and had left my mark on the company. I have just sent that final version to Gint and looking back on this summer, I couldn’t have been happier.
I learned more working for Spare to Share than I could have in any other situation and got to work with a team of great people. For not being a morning person, it was easy to get up at 6 in the morning to get to work knowing I was going to the offices of Spare to Share. I am now embarking on adventures in the land down under, studying abroad in Sydney, Australia for the remainder of the summer and the entire fall. I am anxious to see the growth and success that Spare to Share will be experiencing when I get back, I know they are on the right track!
