Timothy Kim – Porch
This summer I interned at a start-up called Porch.com as a search marketing intern. Porch.com is a start-up whose focus is to utilize data in a way to connect people with home improvement professionals, bringing one of the last major industries into the digital age. Through profiles for professionals, consumers can see previous projects through cost and pictorial history to bring transparency to their work. We also offer a premium package that professionals can purchase to get more marketing exposure within a zip code. As an intern, I assisted with the premium program and helped manage premium accounts online marketing efforts through Google Adwords and Yellow Pages.
Before coming to Porch I had little knowledge on search engine marketing in general. But through my coursework in my concentrations of Supply Chain Management and Information Systems I developed analytical skills and technical experience to help me shine. Using those skills I learned the fundamentals of search engine marketing and helped create online advertisements for professionals which brought traffic to small businesses. At Porch this all happened at a very fast pace which is a tenet of the company’s culture.
Working at Porch made me realize how important company fit is when looking at a job. The company culture at Porch was what truly made the internship for me, because they truly epitomize the work hard play hard mentality every day. Given that it is a startup, it is a fast paced environment where value needs to be delivered every day to truly grow the business. But at the same time they know how to have fun while doing it. It was very easy to talk to anyone in the company, in fact they encourage it. Even if I sat at lunch the environment was relaxed enough to be able to meet and have a conversation with whoever sat next to you in the lunch room. My favorite part about Porch was our weekly companywide meetings, where the executive team would present what was going on with each team of the company and bring a level of transparency that I have never seen from a company.
I worked with a fantastic team over the course of my internship, from whom I learned a great deal from. Being able to work with a talented team, including a former IBM consultant and a Google executive, taught me so much about search engine marketing along with how to simply work effectively as a team. All of these things and more contributed to what made Porch a fantastic internship that has developed myself in so many ways. Although Porch may be small, it was one of the best working experiences I have ever had and developed myself in countless ways with co-workers that make work so enjoyable I forget I am even at work.
