Building Intern with Icon
The idea of building Intern with Icon occurred when Uber turned our proposal down and partnered with LetsIntern do to an internship campaign – sulking with disappointment and unable to do anything about their negative response, I thought I would do something bigger than this. The idea was why not place an intern under Travis Kalanick* (though idea was great, but thinking so out of anger was silly).
After putting enough thought & discussing with team, we decided to launch ‘Intern with Icon’ - a program aimed at building future leaders by providing an opportunity to work directly under iconic people from different walks of life.
The first step was to build a database of people we thought were fit for this campaign & start reaching out to them.
My first mistake – I mostly added top business leaders to my list a. who, naturally, wouldn’t have time for this and b. it would be difficult to place an intern to work directly with them (especially when it’s a novel concept without any previous record).
I then started reaching out to people in the list. And then, I waited. Nothing. I followed up. Nothing. I waited….and this was a very frustrating. Only after following up many times – I got my first response, and it was from Shashi Tharoor’s office! Though the response said it wasn’t possible that year (as internship positions for the year were closed), it gave me hope – that people did read my email, they did consider the possibility of participating. ??
After enough follow up, I got another negative response – it was from Jeff Bezos (yeah, I also couldn’t believe it for a moment, but it was there in my inbox!); his executive responded on his behalf. The response said that he would not have enough time to spend with interns.
I got yet another response, this time it was from Ursula Burns, Chairman Xerox – the same reason; she would love to engage with interns but doesn’t have enough time.
And then I received couple of more ‘nos’ – Chris Gardner (Pursuit of Happyness guy ??), Anand Mahindra, Chanda Kochhar, Indira Nooyi, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Narayan Murthy, Anu Aga, Javed Akhtar, Neeraj Kakkar (Co-founder, Hector Beverages), Kunal Bahl (Co-founder, Snapdeal), and some more.
I found all these ‘nos’ very encouraging, because they had taken time to read my proposal & given it a thought. Also, I forgot to mention Harsha Bhogle’s response: it was encouraging –
I just kept writing. And one day, when it was least expected (I was out on a trip), I got a call – and bang! This was the first positive response. The call was from one of the very noted start-ups in India; they said they would be excited to participate in Intern with Icon.
And then in next few days we got another yes – it was from Prof. HC Verma. We readily announced the launch of Intern with Icon 1.0 on Facebook.
My second mistake: It was a confirmation over a call, not in written. We got a complaint from the company & we had to take the announcement back. Ideally, I should have taken a formal confirmation over an email & involved my PoC in all the process thereon.
I then began another round of outreach effort, and (luckily for me) Nandida Das was looking for an intern to work with her on her upcoming movie, Monto – and we got her on board.
We launched the campaign (here) with 2 icons on board & students loved it. When we did it for second time in 2017, we had 6 icons on board – Mr Amitabh Kant, Bhaichung Bhutia, Saheen Mistri, Gul Panag, Rahul Ram (founder, Indian Ocean Band), and Ashish Vidyarthi (here) And we didn’t have to struggle too much this time.
We will again be launching the 3rd edition in coming April; if you know anyone in your network & could connect me with, it would be BIG help.
* I have been trying to reach Travis Kalanick, but haven't succeeded yet. If you know someone in his office, and can connect me with the person - I will be mighty grateful :)