your guide to alternative careers · 2017-01-04 · upwork. you can write a book and publish it....

Y O U R G U I D ET O

A L T E R N A T I V EC A R E E R S

W W W . S T A R T M E U P . C A R E E R S


Beyond the traditional grad scheme

You don’t have to give over the best years of your life to train asan accountant. You don’t have to work in supply chains - if youcouldn’t give a fig about supply chains.

You don’t have to sell equities. Or pretend to like balance sheets.

You don’t have to write legal contracts for private equitycompanies.

Nor do you have to devote your life to helping other companiesfire their long-suffering staff.

You don’t have to be an accountant. Or go through theembarrassment of having to admit that’s what you do at parties.

Don't believe us?

We'll show you how.


You’re young, smart and soon-to-be well qualified. And theworld is meant to be at your feet.

So why do you feel like all roads seem to lead toward a lifetimeof suits, gray offices and the 9-to-5?

You go to the careers fair at university for inspiration, and it'sjust the same names popping up again and again.

The problem is that you're being bombarded with marketingmessages from some of the biggest companies in the world -KPMG, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, PWC, Deloitte, KPMG –they all want a piece of you.

They shower you with pens and notepads with theirwatermarked logos. And they are staffed with entiredepartments of people who are paid bonuses to recruit you.

Sometimes they take you out for drinks or canapés. Sometimesthey promise to whisk you away to France for the weekend.

Why are you here?


They send recent graduates to recite the gospel according toGoldman Sachs at your university.

Clad in expensive suits and sporting pearly smiles, theserecent grads tell you how "dynamic" their work environmentsare.

What they don’t tell you about are the spreadsheets. Themonotony. The all-night work sessions. The shitty clients. Theepidemic in work dissatisfaction. The routine bollockings. Andthe Monday morning dread that drives you to drink to excesson the weekends.

So why do so many people pick the same careers afteruniversity?

Work with us!"We are so dynamic!"


Alternative Careers GuidePart of it comes down to marketingand branding. The biggest companies in the world have entireteams whose job is to recruit you.

And if you're like most young people you’re taught to follow thebrand. You follow the brand to a top university, then onto a topemployer. Then you climb up up the ladder.

Because that’s what you’re supposed to do... right?

Then there’s the careers guidance (or lack of it). Many universitycareers services make money from the biggest blue chiprecruiters. So you are only aware of the options that exist rightunder your nose. And those are the well-funded ones.

So it’s hard to deny these giant blue chips are everywhere. Butwhere are the other options?

The other options are harder to find.

The other options don’t always have the money to spend onbranding their logos onto hundreds of thousands of pens.


The other options don’t have the money to pay thousands ofdollars on stands at your university careers fairs. They don’thave millions of dollars to spend on graduate recruitment. Andmost students have no idea what alternatives lie beyond.

This is why every year thousands of graduates go into ‘safe’careers and go to great lengths to secure offers before theygraduate.

We think options are important.

At Start Me Up, we want to help you see there are more optionsout there.

Some of the most interesting and successful people struck offand did their own thing in the world.

They taught themselves to code. They wrote books. They startedblogs. They built communities.

And you can too: there have never been more opportunities tolearn things, teach things and build things.

So what are your other options?

There’s a big wide world out there. And it’s changing morequickly than at any point in human history thus far.


Many valuable skills can be acquired with just you and yourcomputer. In fact, you can do amazing things with just you andyour computer.

You can launch a business right now for as little as a few dollars.

You can launch a freelance career right now using a website likeUpwork.

You can write a book and publish it.

You can sell products.

You can learn programming languages.

You can build apps.

You can learn languages.

You can find a mentor on the other side of the world.

And you can do it for FREE.


So why don’t more young graduates follow their dreams?

Part of the reason people don’t is because many of these pursuitsare solitary. App ideas fall by the wayside. This is why findinglike-minded people to work with on ‘solitary’ pursuits is one ofthe most helpful things you can do. People who will be able tohelp you bring your app, book or blog into fruition.

Start Me Up works as part of entrepreneurial communities inemerging startup hubs where you can get inspired, learn newskills, get mentorship and develop your entrepreneurial ideas in asupportive environment.

What can you do right now?

Try things out

‘The secret of getting ahead is getting started.-Mark Twain, Writer

Experiment. Don’t rush. Why not try an internship at one of thesefirms first to see if it’s for you? If you don’t get onto the graduatescheme straight after university, it’s okay. You can still startearning from other avenues, you don’t have to go back to workingin a bar, you can start being a professional freelancer.


Launch creative projectsLaunch one. Then another. Then another one. People may rolltheir eyes when you say you’ve bought another URL, but creatingprojects and seeing them grow, shrink, succeed (or fail), is a greatway to learn.

Sometimes ideas come by divine inspiration. Often they will comethrough your unique experience of the world or throughconversations. The more ideas and startup models you see, themore opportunities may reveal themselves to you.

Be curious about the world. And be curious about how you canchange it.

Sit at least one personality test before entering the world ofwork

Yes, that's right. Tests. Don't get too carried away with them. Butaccept that knowing yourself is the key to career happiness.

Many of us experience a gap between how we believe ourselvesto be and how we actually are.


Many swear by Myers-Briggs. There are many versions online butyou can try www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Research, research and more researchThere’s never been so much information available. Many startupfounders are prolific bloggers and podcasters. And there aresome excellent business books you can pick up for a fraction of acost of a university degree.

Learn new skills It’s great to master an in-demand skill. It’s alsogreat to be prepared to learn another skill. And another one.Startups typically need a mixture of specialist and generalistknowledge. In the early days (and even in the latter days), youmay wear many different hats.

Try interning with a startupStartups can’t afford any dead weight. So internships are a greatway to prove yourself in a startup setting. And if you join at anearly stage and prove yourself at the beginning you might landyourself a full-time job (and an equity stake in the company).


How Start Me Up can help you

Start Me Up connects young people with internships at startupsand supports young people through mentorship with their ownstartup ideas.

We discover your personal and professional goals and thenmatch you with projects and mentors that best support those.

Want to learn marketing, app development or how to launch astartup? We can help.

Here are some of the projects recent interns have been involvedin:

Growth hacking

Microsite creation

Content creation

Affiliate programs

Business model consulting

VC investor outreach

Marketing strategy

Designing analytics dashboards


Nadhila Wardhana is studying a BA Management and Marketing, at theUniversity of Leeds. She enrolled in a one-month Start Me Up internshipwith a startup in Bali.

I was quite nervous to hear that the other interns were working for moreestablished startups. I'd chosen to join a brand new startup, which was justan idea in a startup founder's head. But I needn't have worried. We wererunning a fully functioning site and had our first clients within a week ofarriving.

I applied for a marketing role and what I got was so much more than that. Inmy first week, I learned about coding, content writing and web design. Iprobably got more out of being here for a week, than I would have duringone year in a corporation.

My tasks varied from coming up with target markets, to writing content, tosetting up both a website and social media account. It was a lot of learningtoo.

I think that the word incredible would be an understatement. I was directlydrawn to the atmosphere at the coworking space where we worked.Everyone I met here was so dynamic. Everyone has a unique story of howthey got there and that, I found very inspiring.

It has been eye-opening. It showed me a whole different side of work – itcan be casual, fun and still productive. Choosing to come to Bali wasworrying. It was different to my other friends who went off to work forL’Oréal or Unilever.

But none of them can say “I launched a startup in a week”.

“I launched a startup in a week”


Ollie Rodney is a recent graduate from the UK. He worked with a startupin Bali and was part of Start Me Up's accelerator program to get supportand mentorship with his startup idea.

On my first day, I went surfing and then spent three hours coding an app forthe first time. This has pretty much set the tone for my experience so far:fast-paced fun and lots of learning.

As part of the accelerator program, I got access to mentors to help me withmy business idea. I was paired with an accomplished developer, who gaveme a good overview of web development and creating an MVP (minimumviable product) while also giving me an insight into his own experience withventure capitalists and running multiple tech startups.

I made so much progress with my idea during my time in Bali. I changed thename, pivoted the idea, learned about landing pages, marketing strategies,and UX. The contacts I made were amazing. Within two weeks, I wasspeaking with two venture capitalists, an ex-software engineer at Facebookand three marketing experts about my own startup idea.

I got lots of responsibility as part of the practical project-based part of myplacement. Part of that work involved re-designing how the startup acquiresand nurtures customers. So I got a crash course in web design, marketingand methods for bootstrapping a startup at minimal cost.

I had input in the strategic decisions for scaling and have been involved indiscussions for new products and services.

I learned a huge variety of essential skills from marketing to webdevelopment. I have also had access to mentors and industry leaders to helpme with my own startup idea. The wealth of experiences and contacts wereinvaluable.

“Within two weeks I was speaking with twoventure capitalists, an ex-software engineer at

Facebook and three marketing experts about myown startup idea.”


Rob Hoefnagel is a student in international commercial communication atthe University of applied science in Utrecht. He worked with two startupsin Bali.

I’ve worked with two startups during my time in Bali. The first one wasPublishizer, a book publishing startup that was last year accepted into theCalifornia-based 500 Startups accelerator.

The second one was an education startup called GrowthCasts, which wasfounded by a Dutch entrepreneur in his early twenties.I’ve learned a lot in an incredibly short space of time and had moreresponsibility than I could have ever expected.

For Publishizer, I was straightaway given the responsibility to create ananalytics dashboard to help management pivot the business model. Thingsmove quickly in the world of startups – Publishizer pivoted and the newwebsite was wireframed and launched within a month.

I spent the second part of my internship at Growthcasts, an educationstartup that teaches other startups about growth hacking. I was responsiblefor creating and marketing a website to improve customer acquisition. Thisassignment was a good fit for my study since I’m studying marketing andcommunications.

Early stage startups have a low headcount. At GrowthCasts, I was workingwith just four people, so you get lots of responsibility, and the ideas youbring to the table are taken seriously.

"I was working with just four people, so you getlots of responsibility, and the ideas you bring

to the table are taken seriously."


Apply here

Internships with better views

http://startmeup.careers/placement-abroad

your guide to alternative careers · 2017-01-04 · upwork. you can write a book and publish it....

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