Hello everyone, my name is Aaron Ngo and I’m a senior at Depaul University majoring in digital marketing. In the beginning of the Fall quarter, I had the pleasure of interning at a cloud security startup based in Chicago named oak9. I actually discovered this role through DePaul’s marketing internship blog site where I eventually got to meet Koemi Valencia, oak9’s marketing director and fellow DePaul alumni. I would like to take this time to mention that as someone who’s done a total of three internships now, I would highly recommend checking out the marketing internship blog site if you are a marketing major at DePaul, as I’ve found more success acquiring internship opportunities from there. As a matter of fact, all three of my previous internships came from this blog site!
As for my marketing internship at oak9, I had a hybrid work schedule that allowed me to have one remote work day out of my three scheduled days. During my office days, my day-to-day life really resembled the startup culture. Not only were there fewer employees, but everybody interacted with one another as if they were all in the same department. It was strange at first to see how available the CEO and co-founders were to every employee at oak9, both in person and online. However, after understanding how early of a stage this company was at, you really understand how important teamwork is in a startup environment and why people often say “you wear multiple hats”.
My responsibilities during this internship were very timely. Based on the needs of the marketing department at the time I was onboarded, my supervisor would teach me the required tools and practices in order for me to deliver these tasks. I met with my supervisor everyday inorder to learn these new tools and skills, while asking questions along the way. That is also another piece of advice, never be afraid to ask questions. One of my biggest learning lessons interning at oak9 was being intimidated or embarrassed to ask questions that resulted in me wasting more time by attempting to figure it out myself. Luckily, my supervisor reassured me that there is never a “dumb” question and that she understands that I’m here to learn as much as I can.
Other than the responsibility of setting up appropriate 1-on-1s with my supervisor, a daily aspect of my internship consisted of attending department meetings. A majority of these meetings were intended for oak9’s plans entering the new year, more specifically the marketing team’s strategy and goals for the quarter one of 2023. Although I was fairly new and held an intern position, my department really valued my input and I really got to understand how everybody contributes to the startup as a whole. I got to witness, in such a short period of time, how certain ideas and plans can come to fruition. Having attended meetings inside and outside of marketing, I was able to understand how each department depends on one another and how important it is for everyone to be on the same page. For instance, certain marketing tasks would require specific website changes that are assigned by the IT department or certain representatives in the sales team could not do their daily calling practices until the lead lists were updated by the marketing team.
Although a startup may sound fast-paced or stressful, I can confirm that you’re able to acquire a diverse set of skills and experiences in a short period of time. Having been there for 10 weeks, I gained experience in lead generation, marketing operations, public relations, and project management. Across all these different roles I got exposure to marketing tools. I also appreciated learning a lot about the cloud security industry and being immersed in the Chicago tech startup ecosystem. Most importantly, I got a better understanding of what specific roles in marketing I enjoy, or am more interested in. As I’m expected to graduate soon, it’s really important to me that whatever job role I decide to commit upon graduation is something that I genuinely enjoy and will help me grow as a marketer. Which leads me to my last piece of advice, which is to explore different roles and experiences. That doesn’t just mean different job roles, but different types of industries, organization types, remote structures, brands vs agencies, etc. You never know what you might enjoy and it never hurts to expose yourself to something new!