Last week we said goodbye to our two interns that had worked with us for 6 months and really helped us take some big step forwards.

In addition to all the hard work they put into the company, they also helped me learn and grow as a manager.  Specifically, today I am much better prepared to work with all of our future interns that come through the company. To help ensure all parties get as much as possible out of the internship we now have a few established practices.

First, we require that all incoming interns fill out an entry evaluation.  This allows them an avenue to communicate their expectations for the position and what they want to get out of it early on.  We can use it to temper expectations and catch any potential issues early on.

Second, we are now holding bi-weekly team meetings on Mondays and Fridays.  We have always held a weekly meeting with our team, but by increasing the frequency to twice a week I hope to increase the accountability of everyone (including myself) to get as much as possible done during the week.  On Mondays we go over the weekly expectations/projects for the week and on Friday we see how everyone did.  I like a little pressure to perform and this helps add it.  These meetings have also proven to be great times for brainstorming and cross-pollination of ideas.

Third, we are requiring some in-office work hours.  This was tough to do in the past as we didn’t have an “official” office.  I am a fan of remote work environments, however I think the accountability of required hours will improve performance.  On top of this it gives them an opportunity to have each other and myself near by to bounce ideas off of one another.  We are requiring that everyone spends about 1/2 their time in the office.

Finally, we have established an official exit review.  All the interns were informed up front that they will have an exit review and they were provided a template of what they will be reviewed on.  This should again increase accountability.  It also provides us another great opportunity to receive feedback on our internship positions, management style, and anything else that is on their mind.

This week we welcomed 3 new interns that will be here for the duration of the summer.  Hopefully these new additions to our internship program will really allow them and us to maximize the value of the internship experience.  I know we are getting better and better at it every day.

Working for a start-up company I have learned that you need to take advantage of anything free. With this in mind, the main focus of my work so far has been using social networks and online media for marketing Scrubadoo.com I have had mixed success so far. I have tried traditional networks like Facebook and MySpace as well as targeted networks for nurses like ultimatenurse.com and allnurses.com.

In general the one thing we have done very well is having a singular end point, our Facebook page Scrubaoo.com. This has simplified my work by allowing me to post in forums and networks and direct everyone to a location where we can manage discussions with customers. I think this is very important not only for saving time, but also to avoid double-counting “fans” that you may have if you were to have say a Facebook and MySpace group.

I have also found that for our company’s situation, it’s more efficient for us to interact with potential customers in forums and networks where we can converse with multiple people at once. Facebook is the medium that I am most comfortable with, but their is a lot of competition for people’s attention in Facebook through ads, groups, and pages. Nursing networks like ultimatenurse.com and allnurses.com have been very helpful. To be able to find a high concentration of potential customers for Scrubaoo.com is invaluable, and then being able to converse with them relatively easily by posting in forums is incredible. We were lucky to have established networks with tens and hundreds of thousands of our target audience.

The two most important things I have learned about using social media for marketing are:

Cast a wide net – focus on networks and media that have many potential valuable contacts.

Don’t Advertise – you have to blend in at least a little to maintain credibility in a network.

We are currently up to a team of 5 working on scrubraisers and scrubadoo.com.  I increasingly find myself doing more and more overall strategy and managerial work and less of the nitty gritty stuff.  We still all wear a lot of hats but my roll is steadily changing little by little.  I think this is fairly normal for a company at our stage and it will be interesting to see how my roll and the companies evolution move together.

So far I think things are going fairly well with the team and I am pretty happy playing my roll.  It has only been about two weeks since we expanded past Meredith and myself so we have a long way to go.  One downfall is that I have found myself passing off projects that I would normally enjoy undertaking and it seems that a lot of what is left is sometimes very monotonous (like editing and reading through a 35 page operating agreement).

The upside is obvious, we have a ton of brainpower working on making the company better.  We are going to get a lot more accomplished in the next three months than if we were without all the talent we now have.  A lot of these projects are things that we would never have had the time to explore.

Managing and evolving your position is a challenge that almost all successful entrepreneurs will have to succeed at.  If anyone has any tips, feel free to post away.  The ongoing challenge of entrepreneurship is what attracts many to it and trust me, so far the challenges have yet to run out.

-Brett