RockawayAcademy

My typical day varies – sometimes I come in the morning, sometimes after lunch, sometimes I leave and sometimes I’m here all day. This is mainly because I’m working while I’m still at school. I get the greatest pleasure from situations when I’m given a task that I initially think I can’t handle. And then I can bring it to a successful conclusion despite the fact that I didn’t know anything about it at first.

Why did I sign up with Rockaway? There were two reasons. One was the company itself, because I was looking for more of a start-up environment. And the second reason was the position, because being a blockchain intern was truly a challenge for me. When I came here, everything that I was supposed to do was explained to me, but then no one led me by the hand and I had to throw myself into the process and work.

I signed up for a Rockaway Blockchain internship because I wanted to learn new things and because it was a challenge for me – the blockchain world is relatively new and there is a lot that I can learn. It developed in every possible way. I started with an analysis of the implementation of cryptocurrencies, but it ended with writing some texts or helping with organisation of the Hackathon.

The ideal candidate is someone who wants to experience something a little different than they would experience in a corporation. It is someone who is not afraid to discover, who is not afraid to be himself. It is not an internship for office rats, but rather a place for people who have their own personality, who have ideas and are not afraid to voice them. I would definitely do it again.

I was surprised by the fact that it’s not a standard internship, as people would ordinarily imagine. It’s not about administrative work and carrying coffee – it’s about getting a hold on projects and actually learning something and working on it. I learn something new here practically every day. Our plans change rapidly, so you always have to keep getting better.

It was a very pleasant change when I came to Rockaway, because I was working in audit before and there is definitely no need for a dress code and the atmosphere is much more relaxed and you generally work much better in this environment. The work is great, my colleagues are great and it’s really nice here, but you have to realise that it’s necessary to work hard and that there is really a lot of work to do. I’m completely satisfied with how things have turned out. And if I had to send a message to my younger self, I suppose I’d just say: “You’ll have a good year.”

I was hoping that I would get to work on real projects and not tasks, where someone was trying to check, whether I am able to cram two thousand rows into an Excel sheet within 2 hours. That expectation was more than fulfilled. I have spent 1/2 year at the biggest portfolio company – Mall Group, an E-commerce giant in CEE. I worked directly for the board and key decision makers. I solely led projects that will have a positive impact on MG in the neighbourhood of millions of Euros.

I very much appreciated being thrown into the deep end and taught how to swim. My greatest experience was when my boss went away a couple of days after I got here and I had to completely take over for him. I was simply surprised that everyone accepted me as an equal member of the team – I think that one has the opportunity here to engage in work and meetings at a level that would normally not be possible at our age. At the same time, everyone is very supportive, so there is no reason to be afraid of that.

I spent a day researching the latest payment methods, the next day in meetings with Czech start-up entrepreneurs, the third day calling representatives of German firms so I could help them solve a problem. The work was very diverse. This internship is not for anyone who doesn’t have courage and isn’t prepared to learn new things. The most important thing is that here you feel like a part of the team. You get the impression that the others are counting on you, that you’re not just doing something in the background that you send off to someone and go home.

I was most surprised by the tremendous flexibility here. I expected that I would analyse start-ups and present my findings to the more senior members of the team…. And that’s what happened in the first month or two, until the era of blockchain arrived. And that was something completely different than what I had expected. Blockchain is a highly complex field. I learned a lot about it and I greatly enjoyed it. I would gladly do it again ten times over.

A major advantage of this internship is that you get a position according to your strengths. I have long been interested in finance, so I worked at the start-up Fundlift, which is the biggest investment crowdfunding platform in the Czech Republic. The work there changed a lot from week to week, while the biggest challenge was preparing materials for technically complex projects, such as for a nanotechnology company, where I could describe how it works while first having to understand its operation, which isn’t entirely easy.

When I come into a firm that is doing such great things, I soon find out just how much I don’t know. I am surprised by the level of detail at which you have to work in order to understand how the business operates. It occurs to you that you still have a lot to learn and that motivates you – you just need to jump in and get going. You have to get your hands dirty, because otherwise you won’t get anything out of it. I would definitely do it again.

I started here a year and a half ago at Košík, the online grocery store, and I worked on various projects, from small to large. I was in charge of some of them from start to finish, so I was given responsibility. The work changed basically from one day to the next, more or less, as the projects overlapped and I would work on one and then another and then get back to the first one… It was dynamic and I enjoyed it. I got bored with my previous job, but here? It’s impossible to get bored here.

I want to work for a company where I can deal with people who truly know the business, not a firm managed by people somewhere in America whom I will never actually see. This personal dimension was there from the first day – when I came to Ventures, we discussed specifically what I wanted to learn and set up my agenda according to that. I most enjoyed meetings with the founders, when we talked about their start-ups, looked for opportunities and problems and discussed every aspect of their business. My internship gradually evolved, so I learned and was able to take on new tasks.

When I come into a firm that is doing such great things, I soon find out just how much I don’t know. I am surprised by the level of detail at which you have to work in order to understand how the business operates. It occurs to you that you still have a lot to learn and that motivates you – you just need to jump in and get going. You have to get your hands dirty, because otherwise you won’t get anything out of it. I would definitely do it again.

I expected a strict environment and emphasis on performance, but I discovered something completely different. I found a firm without pretensions; it is very friendly, which makes it unique. You get to experience various things. I worked with perhaps absolutely everyone from travel to finance. I learned so much that I have the impression that this internship was invaluable.

I definitely got what I expected, and actually much more. The most important thing I learned was to find the courage to do things on my own. Not to wait for someone to assign me something or suggest something to me, but to simply set my own task and find a way to bring it to a successful conclusion. Don’t expect anyone to lead you by the hand.

I would definitely do the internship again, especially because of the people I got to know here. Furthermore, I was frequently in personal contact with the top management and practiced a lot of things on major projects, which was perhaps the greatest added value that I could get. This was not my first internship, but it was definitely the most open, personal and amiable.