Initial Thoughts from the Zipingo Intern

Hi, well I guess you should be saying that to me. I’m the new Zipingo intern. I started last week and I will be hanging around until the beginning of August. I am currently a senior at a fantastic university in the state of Missouri, and I am just in Mountain View for the summer.

Now that you know a little more about me, I guess the big question is: why Zipingo? What is it that I am looking for from an internship at a small growing venture like Zipingo? Well, I think these are the easiest questions for me to answer. I love the concept behind Zipingo not only because I am a young consumer who uses the web to make all decisions, but I actually own a small shipping and storage company at my university. Zipingo is a product that I hope will both help me in future decisions and also be a useful tool to help me improve and grow my business.

Hopefully, by the time I leave I will learn a lot about growing a business, reaching out to customers and how to properly handle myself in corporate America. So in case you’re interested, I thought I would keep you updated on what I have been up to and all the learning I am doing.

Since I started as an intern with Zipingo I would say the most important thing that I have learned is that Zipingo is not built around making money but rather on helping people. Coming from business school, it seems that all they teach is how to make money. It is more often than not I hear a professor tell me, “…and that simple calculation will make you and your company a ton of money,” but it seems they forget to teach the part about how good it feels to provide a product/service that helps someone be or do better.

From what I have seen, Zipingo has one goal in mind — help consumers make smarter decisions and help businesses better understand and reach out to their customers. The interesting thing is that this attitude is not just a goal on the Zipingo team but rather a way of life. If you asked any person on this team what the short term goal of Zipingo is, you would hear that we want to provide the best tools and services to help consumers and businesses. I have been overly impressed with the team’s constant desire to ask the difficult questions in order to stay focused on the important people: you.

Key Learning in my first week: On Zipingo, it is all about what Zipingo can do for you!

Regards,
Intern Ari