RockawayAcademy

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.