Summer Entrepreneurial Experiences

WeWork Update #3

Wednesday, June 28, 2017 10:51 am

The summer has been flying by here in New York, and I continue to love my job more and more. WeWork has been such a great experience, both from a learning perspective as well as a social/personal perspective. I’ve met a lot of inspired people who have changed my view as to what I want in a future job or career as well as the path I plan on taking to get there. WeWork speaks frequently about their mission to change the culture in the workplace for all companies of all industries, so one can imagine how great the energy and atmosphere is here at Headquarters. I feel like this company can accomplish any goal it sets it’s sights on.

On the personal side I’ve had a really exciting week as I closed my first personally organized and managed deal! I sold desks to a company in two separate locations that will generate over $30,000 in revenue for the company over the next year. I’ve also assisted on and gotten the opportunity to see the inner-workings of deals 10x the size of my sale. My team is on pace to meet our sales goal — it’d been a really great month.

Outside of the day to day work, I’ve spent a lot of time going to each event in the WeWork Internship Program Monday Speaker series. One of the most inspiring people that I’ve listened to speak over the past few weeks was co-founder and CCO Miguel McKelvey – who put together the initial idea for WeWork with fellow co-founder and CEO (and recent college graduate) Adam Neumann literally overnight, around 9 years ago. We listened to his podcast in the office event space the other day, and it truly was a remarkable story. I encourage all to visit this link to listen to the same podcast and learn more about WeWork’s inception, Miguel’s story about growing up under unusual circumstances in Oregon, his rapid transition to becoming an owner of a multibillion dollar firm, and also to hear about all the entrepreneurial trials and tribulations WeWork has faced over the years (I loved the stories of Miguel and Adam renting zip cars to haul building materials a hundred miles while building and wiring the first office spaces by hand). The entire podcast is really great and very similar to the talk Miguel gave our intern class at orientation.

This opportunity has shown me that if you really have an idea that you believe in or are passionate about, you have to take calculated risks, never-ever give up, and always chase what you believe in. The founders of WeWork heard no from the same guy so many times, and never once let that stop them from turning their business idea into a success story. I hope to carry this same level of grit and entrepreneurial tenacity into my career.

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