Working for young companies in their start-up or scale-up phase can be so rewarding as people are very open to new ideas and will often give you more responsibility. However, it’s not a working environment that suits everyone as nothing is ever set in stone which can bring along uncertainty. Keep reading if you’re interested in my intern experience at the EVBox Group scale-up, a company at the verge of going public.
The Climate – Embracing the Constant Change
My first lesson in the company was that things are constantly changing. Waves of change are being pushed from upper management, trying to keep the company growing and to satisfy customers. If you don’t surf that wave with everyone else and see it as an opportunity for personal growth, you will feel anxious and go under. I’ve experienced this climate of change from the very beginning while still being in the interviewing process. It turned out that Everon, the software company I originally applied for, would merge with EVBox, and go public together as the EVBox Group. This meant two marketing teams would merge into one big one. When I started, I realized that many people felt sort of new to the job as everyone was trying to figure out their new responsibilities and changed department structure.
My Work – A Typical Week
Most EVBox Group employees work completely remotely during the Covid pandemic. While visited the office a few times to meet some of my co-workers, a typical day for me would start in my home office with a hot cup of coffee. My Mondays would usually begin with an online team meeting to check-in with on each other’s wellbeing and to lay out the tasks of the week. This would be followed by another meeting with the whole marketing team to notify each other about the work to be done and important events or changes. Then I would start off into my personal work week. My tasks are mostly independent and mainly involve researching information about target audiences of upcoming campaigns or conducting research on existing customers as well as visualizing and presenting customer insights to the team. During my week, I have to attend several meetings, such as updates on campaigns I contribute to, feedback meetings with my supervisor on how I’m feeling, and updates on how my projects are coming along. Finally, the week would end with the whole marketing team meeting for a check-in and a presentation on recent developments or marketing learnings.
The Culture – Real Humans at Work
Working at EVBox Group has been such a great experience so far, and I have to say it’s mainly due to the people who work here. The company culture is so casual, open, and non-judgmental, giving everyone the chance to just be themselves. Also, as often is the case in young companies, there is very little hierarchical thinking. I had meetings with people higher up in the company and everyone took a generous amount of time to tell me about their jobs, their views on the changing industry and opinions rather than rushing through the essentials of the meeting. Furthermore, the company is very modern in that there is huge care for employee well-being which can not only be felt by peoples’ concern for each other but also by the many initiatives there are, such as online mediation meetings and other fun activities.