Lever, Inc., North Adams, MA
For the past ten weeks, I have been working as a management consulting intern in North Adams for Lever—a non-profit incubator that typically incubates high-growth start-ups in the Berkshire region. This year, however, Lever is also hosting their very first Intrapreneur Challenge, in which various established companies around the Berkshire region develop an innovation within their company and compete in a pitch competition to win $25,000. My primary role as a management consultant was to serve these intrapreneurial companies by conducting market research and competitive analyses to help them develop and strengthen their pitches.
Since the very first day, I really enjoyed my time at Lever. This internship has been a gold mine of learning opportunities. Up until this point, I had never had much contact with start-ups or the business of innovation or any type of consulting. Although I looked at this internship as a hands-on way to learn about the above, I was still a little nervous about my lack of knowledge and was worried that I was vastly underqualified for what I might be asked to do. However, I’m really grateful to Brent Filson, my supervisor, for being flexible and letting me, along with the other interns, take the time to experiment with and explore the concepts and theories behind innovation. In fact, on the second day of our internship, Brent took Sameer, David, and me on a field trip to a start-up demo-day in Springfield, Mass., where we got the chance to explore a variety of start-ups, from a web service supporting self-publishing authors to fuel converted from cooking oil waste from restaurants, and listen to their pitches to numerous investors. It was especially interesting to hear Brent’s thoughts afterwards on what made each pitch appealing or unappealing to him.
Nevertheless, working on my first consulting project was very difficult and required a lot of trial and error. My first client was an entrepreneur hoping to develop a mental health tool for college campuses. At first, I was very uncertain about how to obtain what our client needed. I began with scouring the internet and published academic papers for already-conducted research to very little avail. Luckily, since my first project heavily depended on college operations, I was able to utilize my connection to Williams and conducted interviews with key administrators to get a better understanding of the college and mental health industry. Furthermore, after exhausting most of my online resources, I began cold-calling potential competitors as well as experts in college mental health tools. My breakthrough came when I discovered the government database, National Center of Education Statistics, and was able to data-mine information for my client. Finally, at the end of three weeks of diligent research, I prepared my first slide deck to present my findings and strategy recommendations to my client.
Through this initial painstaking process of conducting research and preparing a report, I discovered what kind of information I actually needed and what information ended up being superfluous. I learned that it was best to calculate my own numbers from publicly available datasets (ideally from the government) than to try to find a “shortcut” and rely on a secondary source’s numbers. Finally, I also better understood what questions I needed to ask. In my interviews with potential customers and competitors, I discovered that, while I might have asked the right questions in my original line of questioning, I did not necessarily ask the right follow-up questions. My interviewees tended to give very general information at first, and in order for me to find the information I actually needed for my research, I needed to follow up with increasingly specific questions.
Since my first project, I have vastly improved in my research methods and efficiency in getting a deliverable ready to present to clients. For comparison, my first project took about three weeks of research to complete. By my fourth project, I spent a total of two and a half days gathering and analyzing data, formulating recommendations, and creating a polished presentation. I have also improved my public speaking skills. With practice in giving presentations to clients, I have gained confidence in my own voice and ability to communicate with others.
Overall, I am very satisfied with everything I have learned from this internship. Originally, I wanted to do this internship at Lever because I wanted to try new things. In the past, I have worked as a fencing coach, a national fencing referee, a congressional intern, and a psychology research assistant. Management consulting, specifically, was attractive to me because it was not only something new, but also because I believed I would learn so much from it. Back in February, I attended the ’68 Center for Career Exploration’s Consulting Career Trek and was introduced to the career of management consulting. From this trek, I was astounded by the in-depth degree of exposure each consultant gained to various industries, which could include anything from health technology to media and entertainment. This really appealed to my sense of curiosity and desire to explore many different kinds of jobs. While I did not think I would ever stay in management consulting for more than a few years, I did believe that it would help point me in the direction of the industry or career path I wanted to pursue long-term. As a result, I began working for Lever as a way to “dip my toes” into management consulting and see if this was a role I wanted to work in for longer than a couple of months.
My management consulting internship has not let me down. It’s been an incredible experience getting to work with such a wide variety of companies, including a B&B, a tiny homes manufacturer, Kripalu, the largest yoga retreat in North America, and Boyd Technologies, a technology company operating in the medical devices and life sciences market. I’ve learned about jobs and industries that I had never thought to imagine before. Additionally, as a result of working with these companies, I’ve gotten the chance to fully step out of the “Purple Bubble,” educate myself on the local economy, and actually immerse myself in the Berkshire region, rather than remaining cloistered on the Williams campus.
I am very thankful for my alumni sponsors, Peter and Laurie Thomsen, as well as the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for allowing me to have this incredible opportunity to be a management consulting intern for Lever. It has been an amazing experience that has really helped with my career development and skills.
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