Teen blogger/entrepreneur Jessica Mah has a new startup that cost her $500 to launch. It is an internship job board called InternshipIN aimed at college students who want a dedicated instead of having to trawl through the major job boards. Mah, who operated her own Web hosting startup in high school, is now 18 and a junior at Berkeley. She started InternshipIN with two other students. It cost them less than $200 to get a prototype up, and another $300 to get the Web design sliced so that it would load faster. Says Mah:
The project is bootstrapped with a few hundred dollars to cover hosting. Part of my reasoning for starting internshipIN was to show my friends (and the world) that it doesn’t take more than a $200 to throw a website together. The manpower required to put together the site was absolutely minimal.
You can tell. The site is still pretty raw. It scrapes internship listings from Simply Hired and allows employers to post their own. By default, the internship search page figures out your location by your IP address and lists internships in your area. You can refine the search by location or keywords. But there is no way to browse through different categories or see recent listings. The navigation and search needs work.
There are alternatives, such as After College. But a site that just does internship listings could work. What would be better would be a site that combines listings with ratings. Maybe Mah should try to pair up with InternshipRatings.
As an employer, the listing process is pretty straightforward. Although, one major drawback is that the email you sign up with for an account is listed on every job posting. That is just asking for spam (the email should be hidden and mediated through the service instead). I created a listing for a TechCrunch internship. Okay, I basically copied Twitter founder Evan Williams’ recent job posting for an assistant, and made a few slight changes:
This is a unique opportunity for an ambitious, multi-talented individual who wants to see the inside of a fast-moving blog startup and work closely with the co-Editor. The ideal candidate is a future journalist or entrepreneur who is willing to work hard and do a wide variety of non-glamorous tasks for a few months in order to get their foot in the door, learn, and make connections. You will work directly with TechCrunch co-Editor Erick Schonfeld, with the simple goal of saving him time. Which means: The level of work you’ll do is only limited by your capabilities. Are you capable of: Writing blog posts under deadline? Researching a company? Coding? Great, as long as you’re also willing to do Google searches and make phone calls. Essentially, you should be overqualified to be an assistant, but not have a problem doing assistant-like tasks. In exchange, you’ll get unique visibility into a unique media company, a great learning experience, and the chance to move on to do many other things (at TechCrunch, or elsewhere—with a strong endorsement).
If there are any takers, email me at erick [at] techcrunch. It is unpaid, but who knows what it could lead to (any out-of-work journalists are welcome to apply as well). We also have an opening for a Crunchbase analyst, and that even comes with a salary.
Good job and good luck! It may become the craigslist of Internetship jobs.
Getting a TechCrunch post with the absurd 500$ headline is a good start for their marketing
the ‘only’ reason this got a mention on TC is because she is part of the SV love-in club. Its a crowded market, and many startups start on $500 or less. Get over it, pls stop this nepotism
That’s great Jessica! Wish you all the best!
Young entrepreneurs should take Jessica’s message to heart. Yes you need smart people, yes you need an idea, and yes you need to be organized, so it is hard, but the huge threshold in most cases is simply starting development. So the message I take from this, and value extremely highly, is like Nike says, “Just do it!”.
“Part of my reasoning for starting internshipIN was to show my friends (and the world) that it doesn’t take more than a $200 to throw a website together.”
Um, it depends on what kind of a website you’re throwing together. Hell, a site could be put up on the net for $10 if you wanted one.
Nice feel good story.
That nails my sentiments exactly. It doesn’t take much cash to get a site going, its making that site productive and monetizing it that takes all the work.
How many would be entrepreneurs out there slave daily to try to make ends meet? Where are the feel good stories about them?
And that’s how much all startups should cost.
Your statement is very general and vague. What type of startup are we talking about?
Heck, I started one before for $50. Not sure if I would call it a startup, more like a late night hobby experiment or code mash.
Taken from their About Us page.
“…They were only a couple of bites into their pasta when the laptops were busted open and they were discussing implementation and design – internshipIN was born.But Jess knew she was going to need Andy on board to make it happen. Arielle’s stomach went crazy waiting to find out if Andy would agree to join the team or not. She didn’t wait too long, however, because a couple of hours later, Jess and Andy were already working on a prototype. (what a great way to procrastinate math homework!) With only five nights of coding, the two of them were able to launch the first beta.”
WTF???
That’s hilarious.
While I agree that anyone with the time and skills could easily put together a site like this, other sites obviously can’t garner a mention from Michael Arrington on TechCrunch.
It really is amazing that this is newsworthy.
I have to think there are 18 year olds (or even 30 year olds) putting together companies that actually make money… Just don’t see this as being in that category or ever being relevant.
Looks great
I owe credit to the people who’ve helped out — Andy Su as my technical co-founder, Arielle Patrice Scott as our biz-dev co-founder, and plenty of others who’ve contributed to marketing, design, and general advice.
Just wanted to commend you for your approach to pursuing your interests.
You’re inspiring!
Good luck Ms Mah!
p.s. love the plug for your assistant job hahah
Peter
http://www.thewebwar.com
A novel layout, a crowded playing field.
Any one else not seeing the website? This is what I get when I go there.
http://farm4.st...e4a222f91_o.jpg
Weird… try again — still works on my end.
If you guys find any bugs, please do let me know! (contact@internshipin.com) … this is literally a weekend-type project, so don’t expect anything too novel.
I had alwasy thought there was an internship job listing site, but maybe it was just combined with the real job listings. Sounds like a good idea though becaues most internsthips are short-term and un-paid.
Wow. Ugly. Poorly designed. Etc.
Damn, people, you get what you pay for.
“startup” – ?
so, a site put together over the weekend makes it into techcrunch, what’s so notable about this site apart from the age of the author?
nothing, exactly
I think it’s a good inspirational example.
Ok, the site is not that great and isn’t expensive either, but at least they managed to startup and get going with very limited budget.
Things like this remind me a question “What the heck I’m waiting for?”.
Dias
Wait – she’s 18 and she’s a JUNIOR at cal? So she started college when she was 16… with two startups already under her belt? OMG – this is when I know my career is so over! good luck I guess although you clearly dont need it
Actually, at Berkeley, junior/senior refers to standing (units). It is exceptionally common for students to enter with sophomore or junior standing. As far as I can tell, she’s an 18 year old first year.
Though that is a true statement, Jess is actually a (real) junior. She finished high school 2 years early. No surprise there for someone so forward thinking. Good job Jess and keep up the amazing work!
nerd ddddddddddddddddd
Jessica is beyond smart and savvy, watch out for this one, tons of potential.
Hey, you should see Andy — he’s 17 and he’s already got junior standing.
As a way to procrastinate homework, Andy and I coded the first release for internshipIN. Wayyy more exciting than homework!
Well, 5 nights of coding (~5 hours/day), depending on how much you think your time is worth, this “startup” of yours cost much more than $500. Perhaps you should have finished your math homework after all.
And how is this going to change the world again?
It doesn’t need to change the world. I’m only a few years removed from college and I vividly remember trying to sort through the large job boards to find internships. Something like this would have been appreciated back then. You don’t need to swing for the fences every time. Just get on base and go from there.
Hmmm, the site is not loading over here. Guess she needs to scale it better, so the site could actualy hold beeing featured on a techcrunch post, lol.
Hey, you can’t ask for much especially from a $500 startup. Not sure if I will call it a startup after all. More like..$500 website.
Depends on what kind of website. If you’re Mapjack.com then I’m sorry, it does take more than $500. How many more times will we have to listen to the web 2.0 adagio: it doesn’t take much to create a website.
haha, fixed a few bugs over here.
It doesn’t take much to launch a website, but if that’s the case, why do so many companies raise so much money before launching a private beta?
Beats me. A video you guys should check out by David Weekly on starting startups:
http://www.yout...h?v=s7LVideRX7M
Still not working Jessica ….
Cost of operation. You will realize sometime, that you can not eat your laptop or the site you put together. Your potential employees can’t either. And since most start ups don’t make money, somebody has to pay the bills. Oh reminds me: What’s does your business case for this startup look like?
Hey Marcel,
Great question!
We are actually focused on providing recruitment resources to startups and small companies, not so much on being the Craigslist of internships.
Our listings are simply a small and easy way to do so, but the bread and butter of our company comes from our premium, yet affordable features to help startups recruit. All of which are scheduled to go live later this month.
You go! Thanks for doing this and giving me a great example to show my daughter that young people can do great things. If you make a ton of money great. If you don’t with this it doesn’t matter because with a work ethic like yours and the follow through to get it going you will be a success. Not to mention what you have achieved in academics. Don’t worry about the haters.
doesn’t work for me either …
funny part: does not even have a error page coded yet…
I guess I will have to launch another internship site myself tonight .. It would be a great story .. internship web-site in couple of hours … with a cost of $0 ???
Would Michael Arrington cover this….. ??
It seems to work for me, Rahul, what web browser are you using?
I tried it on Chrome, FF, and IE in respective order…
still doesn’t work….
nice!
I think this is a good example of just getting your site out there. Get feedback and improve on it.
I want to say this is the lowest for TC, but every time I turn around they lower the bar. One of my favorite quotes “Maybe Mah should try to pair up with InternshipRatings.” I wonder what the people at InternshipRatings think about this?
There’s nothing wrong with doing a little website like this… as a site project… but some words should be avoided when doing so… Here are a few: “Founded by”, “startup”, “change the world”, “co-founder”, “biz-dev”, “marketing”, “company”, etc.
Can anyone tell me what you people are smoking??? (And where I can get some of that?)
They sell it in vending machines in SF, so there is that…
great idea. some bugs to fix. but overall its a good one for that “investment”. there are other startups with much much more money and much less output
Congrats to Jessica on the launch! I think it’s amazing that you were able to create a substantial website in such a short amount of time.
InternshipRatings.com plans on launching an internship listing application at some point in the future.
We wish you the best of luck. I am wondering though, is this just a weekend activity or are your pursuing InternshipIn as a business?
Hey Lauren,
Congrats on launching the internship listings app for internshipratings!
internshipIN is, indeed, an actual business. Our listings aggregator and service is just the tip of the iceberg. It serves as an additional resource for students looking for internships at small(er) companies on top of our other features, which will be available very very soon!
I’d love to connect with you to chat more about what we are both up to. Feel free to shoot me an email at arielle[at]internshipin.com.
I think it’s a great concept… Kudos to Jessica and her team for getting this thing up and running.
I coded 11SquareFeet in a couple of days, on my own (Rails FTW), We have clients signed up – not data scraped off another web site (which is probably in violation of SimplyHired TOS) but actual, honest to goodness clients. We actually have a business plan and a growth plan going into a recession. But I’m not 18 or a girl so getting attention like this is nearly impossible. I’m sure we’re not alone. Like they say, let youth (youth and gender in this case) be your calling card.
It’s been difficult to get everyone of our clients and will continue to be.
Putting up some web site is the simple part, building the business is the hard part (especially when competing with CraigsList, which we are and they are). I wish them the best of luck, they’ll need it.
Dale
True. But then think of how Craigslist started. It started out just like this, and the point is more young people (or anyone in general) should have a why not attitude. It’s already served Jessica well on her past projects.
Totally with you on the fact that young people should be more entrepreneurial, couldn’t agree more (although they shouldn’t sacrifice their youth in pursuit of money, that’s never a good idea).
I disagree on CraigsList – different time, different parameters, and don’t let the outward appearance fool you CraigsList is all business and have been for years.
I’m also a little unclear about these past projects of Jessica’s that keep getting mentioned. The details are always hazy, and I’m pretty sure I heard her pitching a completely different idea recently (within the last 18 months) that has kind of disappeared. I’m not saying that starting something that doesn’t work out is the end of the world, I’ve certainly had my share of companies that failed, but I haven’t yet seen any convincing evidence that any of her past companies have been successful, and yet every time she’s mentioned it’s as if everything she touches turns to gold. Nothing against her personally just haven’t seen any solid evidence so far.
…actually CL started out as a mailing list and gained a follwing from there which gradually evolved to the web presence we see today. Anyone cna still start a craiglist type site today, but it probably wouldnt get much traffic without developing name recognition and solid following..
For a start, get a better domain name.
I would have to agree with you dale. So true!
Site’s architecture needs cleaning.
meta name=”description” content=”description here”
meta name=”keywords” content=”keywords here”
Nice work overall all.
When does slapping a site together qualified as a startup? I am a web designer and I put sites like this up almost every week for clients. I call B.S on this one.
“that it doesn’t take more than a $200 to throw a website together”
yep..anyone can do a startup these days just like anyone can get a biz license and call themselves a ceo. the harder nut to crack is to develop a viable business model with a significant ‘barrier to entry.’
..everything else is simply feeding one’s ego and need for recognition.
I think its a great story, kudos to mah, for doing what most will just talk about. It takes a lot of dedication, it’s hard work but the most important ingredient is courage.
Btw
Check Out http://www.jobstaxi.com
New Jobs. Blizzard Ent. Loopt. RockYou. Songbird
Wow. A lot of jealous people over here. Jessica, I wish you the best of luck, hopefully the website is a success.
BTW – I’m 16, give me a call
Woop di fkn do.
Today, I lent a friend $5 so that she could buy a Coke. Guess what, I’m a banker!
great work, that’s the way to bootstrap. I love the design too
I think some college career offices should help find internships, but those offices usually aren’t that helpful. If a job-internship can get marketing into the college career services then they can quickly gain market share.
Good for her! Great job!
Jessica has a bright future ahead, I wonder what she’s studying at Cal. But learning how to run a company with very little capital is an essential skill. It’ll make things especially easy when you raise capital or start making money.
Sooo many websites about internships popping up with listings and reviews. Nothing new here.
Here is the showcase of a couple more:
http://www.youintern.com
http://www.rateinternships.com
http://www.interneval.com
One more for you…http://www.usaintern.com. Monster and CareerBuilder are also in the game, albeit not as good as you might think.
In my opinion Ultimateintern.com is the cleanest of these internship review pop-ups and looks to have great potential.
It’s awesome so many people are giving feedback on internshipIN!
Jess, Andy and I are working extremely hard to make sure it adds value to both students and our target employers – startup companies.
Just had a few quick things to add:
internshipIN is not planning to actually become simply a listings service. We think Craigslist and all the other listing services do an awesome job in this industry.
We started internshipIN because we love startups, and want other students to know about the opportunities available at small companies and startups. So, we provide resources to help connect these companies and students/potential interns.
One of the ways we do this is via listings, but we are almost done with additional great features to help these two groups connect. These features will be available at an incredibly affordable price to help fill the recruitment needs of the early to mid-stage small company.
You can also give us your opinion and feedback directly at contact[at]internshipin.com.
Thanks everyone (again)!!
I could throw a site to together for nothing more than the time I spent on it and the monthly Media Temple hosting fee of $13. Those who spend $200, $300+ are obviously inexperienced developers.
Dwayne.
http://probablysucks.com
Somewhat interesting, but overall, not anything amazing. Here’s a much better startup by a Harvard teen:
http://www.rant...om/?page_id=199
You guys should cover this story when it fully launches.
Success Jess
“Just do it” attitude is extremely important for any startups who don’t have too much money but have creative ideas. It definetly will not be perfect at the begining but it is good to put it out there and get the feedback from users and keep improving…..
We launched http://www.HappyTutors.com at less than $100 in a very short period but we put more money and hardwork to promote our service ( we obviously can’t get a free review from TechCrunch
Goodluck to all startups out there!
HappyTutors.com
~ Connect Tutors with Students & Parents ~