Lever, North Adams, MA
This summer, I worked as a Market Research intern at Lever, Inc. in North Adams. Lever is a non-profit business incubator whose aim is to foster start-ups that could generate economic development in the local area. For most of my internship, I filled the role of a market research consultant. This entailed first reading up on business frameworks in order to have an understanding of the venture capital world and get a grasp of business jargon; then meeting with local entrepreneurs to understand their ideas and their research needs; learning about industries as wide-ranging as personal password management, music education, computer-aided design and manufacturing software, and non-profit theater; analyzing data to arrive at meaningful numbers that my clients could use to inform future business decisions or present to potential investors; creating tables, charts, and other reports and PowerPoint slides to present to clients; and interviewing relevant competitors, customers, or potential buyers of products. As a summer intern, I also joined many other interns associated with the Berkshire Business Interns to organize and run Lever’s annual “Demo Day,” an event held at the end of the summer during which local entrepreneurs—all of whom I’d done research for over the course of my internship—compete in the North Adams Arts Enterprise Challenge. More established start-ups, such as Valt, the password-management app with which I worked, also presented their business models and products.
Working at Lever was a great opportunity to become more versed in both business jargon and general professional behavior. I have had lots of previous job experience, but in a wide range of fields, ones that might lead me out of the office to cover news stories (as a radio intern) or with unusual workplace workflow (as a lab technician and later as a museum registrar’s intern.) For that reason, Lever felt like the first purely “office job” environment I’ve been in: interns worked 9 to 5, often at our desks on computers; formally scheduled meetings with our supervisors using a shared Google Calendar; were expected to contribute during weekly team meetings; and were expected to work independently, as many supervisors not only had projects of their own to work on, but might also have many engagements and meetings out of the office with business leaders, investors, and other community members. My coworkers and I wore formal business attire every day, which was a change of pace from wearing casual attire at college or even from previous internships where I and the other interns were very obviously over-dressed. While it may seem like a small thing, I was glad to work in an office where both the interns and supervisors were dressed formally—sometimes this environment can seem intimidating, but I quickly became comfortable with everyone’s more formal appearances and felt more confident in the business space.
I was surprised at how much I took to the rules and formal scheduling of our relatively small office: I liked how efficiently our time felt like it was being used, and appreciated having time set aside for both team and one-on-one interactions. I was also both surprised and surprisingly pleased with the level of autonomy I was able to have over my projects—when I was left on my own to research a new topic, the time at work flew by, and I felt incredibly productive. I was also extremely grateful for the level of investment my supervisor Brent Filson took in my workplace skills: when we met (sometimes daily, during the earlier weeks of my internship) for check-ins on my progress, he was an abundant resource of new materials I could reference for some particular problem I was having or concept I needed to better understand—from how a start-up should operate to how to create a professional-looking PowerPoint deck, he had a book, website, or other resource from business school to share with more information. Having a mentor who had gone to business school was a great chance for me to ask questions relevant to what form of graduate school I was thinking of pursuing, and gave me a sense of what I’d be able to learn and do if I pursued business after college.
Beside my supervisor, I was also fortunate to work alongside two other interns in the office, one who worked on a research project exploring the efficacy regional branding might have in the Berkshires, and another who worked on the curriculum and social programming for the Berkshire Business Interns Program, an arm of Lever through which I myself heard about the Market Research internship. By talking with them and learning more about their work, I was able to gain an even greater insight into the importance of business development in Berkshire County: the social planning intern gave a presentation on the importance of social programming and cohort building among the Berkshire Business Interns. Through her work, she hoped to prevent the “brain drain” of young people away from Berkshire County, which they may view as “generally depressed,” towards cities such as Boston and New York City. The other Lever intern was originally from Berkshire County and also a Williams student; her ten-week project on the potential of regional branding focused on how the Berkshires and its products are perceived by consumers outside of the region, and how forming a regional brand would help buyers recognize the quality of a non-diverse marketplace for food products and goods similarly inundated with “organic” and “green-friendly” labels, certifications, and packaging. These insights helped me see the value in my own work as a way to help add value to the economy in North Adams and the surrounding area.
The past ten weeks as part of the Berkshire Business Interns Program and Lever were extremely informative for me as I go into senior year and start to think about what my first job after undergrad might be. As a student from a liberal arts background, I was very interested to learn more about the business world, and Lever was an excellent opportunity to get a sense for market research along with other forms of “consulting” within the non-profit sphere, which is more familiar to me from my previous internships and volunteer experiences. By gaining first-hand internship experience, I have been able to better parse out what placement I think I would find most interesting going forward. Personally, I was most surprised to realize how interested I was in the legal side of the business world: as I learned more about seed funding for start-ups and the necessary regulations/ protocol for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs entering into agreements, the more interested I became in learning more about legal processes behind the work I was doing. I was fortunate enough to have mentors at my internship who were just as interested in my career exploration as I was, and pointed me in the right direction to learn more about this potential interest.
I could not have worked at Lever without the generous guidance and support of the Kraft Family and the Williams College ’68 Center for Career Exploration. Thanks to your kindness, I was able to strengthen my background in business, gain first-hand experience with innovative economic development, and learn more about businesses in the Berkshires.
Megamenu Social