How I became an intern for beehiiv (Part 1)

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This past Friday was my last day as a growth marketing intern at beehiiv.

In this deep dive, I want to share a bit about why I wanted to intern there, what my experience was like, and how you can leverage the internet to accelerate your career.

This one’s a 4 min read — let’s dive in…

Why beehiiv?

For my OG readers, you know I’ve been writing this newsletter on beehiiv for the past year and a half or so.

beehiiv is an all-in-one newsletter platform for creators.

From an outside perspective, it was incredible to watch the beehiiv team constantly ship new features and iterate on the product.

As a user, I was a satisfied customer. As a kid beginning his career, I wanted to learn more about this team of rock stars.

So I did some digging.

I created a Notion page to dump everything I was learning from my research. A few things I wanted to know more about:

• Who are the founders?
• How did it get started?
• What’s the company’s mission?
• What’s their current strategy and positioning?
• What do they need help with? How can I add value to them?

My goal was to show that I did my homework. If I didn’t have a ton of previous experience, at least I’d be the most prepared applicant.

I also talked with a ton of people about the interview process and how to approach asking for an internship.

(Remember, I’ve never had a “real” job before this, so this was all new to me).

I talked to:

• Abbhi Sekar (A career coach and great friend)
• Abhi Shah (who interned with beehiiv last summer)
• Noah Zender (had 6 internships before graduating college)

They were super helpful in giving me advice on how to nail the cold email, show up to the interview, and maximize my time at beehiiv.

For the sake of length, I won’t go in-depth on the cold email and interview process — but if that interests you, just reply and let me know. More than happy to help you out/write more about it in a future deep dive.

As a matter of fact, let’s run a poll. If we get more than 30 votes for yes, then I’ll write part 2.

The Youngest Bee

Being the youngest person at beehiiv was sometimes awkward. I’d often face imposter syndrome and think things like, “Who am I to be here?” “I don’t belong.” “What if they find out that I don’t know what I’m doing?”

But the team embraced and welcomed me like I was one of them — and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

During my first week at beehiiv, I wrote a Twitter thread about my observation on the beehiiv team. It still rings true today:

I know many reading this pride themselves in being entrepreneurs and not “selling their time for money”. But I’m a big believer that early in your career you should focus on curating learning experiences more than chasing money.

Ironically, the principles I learned while working at a fast-growing startup actually helped me improve my own online business.

The Third Door

There’s this concept by Alex Banayan called ‘The Third Door’.

“The idea is that life and business are both like a nightclub.

There are three ways in.

The First Door: the main entrance, where the line curves around the block, where 99% of people wait around, hoping to get in.

The Second Door: the VIP entrance, where celebrities, billionaires, and people born into wealth slip through.

But no one tells you that there is the Third Door. It’s the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, climb the gate, bang on the door a hundred times, climb a few crates to get in through the window, sneak through the kitchen and make your way into the club.”

I love, love, love that analogy because it’s SO true. You can either wait for things to get handed to you (apply the traditional way). Or you can go make it happen (find a connection, cold email, do permissionless work).

When I cold emailed Tyler to intern at beehiiv, they didn’t have the “Growth Marketing Intern” position available. It wasn’t even a thing.

If I applied the traditional way, I wouldn’t have gotten the internship.

I don’t say all this to beat my chest and say I’m so awesome. I say this to say if a 17-year-old high school kid can do it… so can you.

Learning a marketable skill, growing an audience, doing research on a company, and cold emailing a CEO are all permissionless things.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to start.

Jay “Use The Third Door” Yang