Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Nathan Parcells
Hello Seattle 2.0 readers – I am incredibly excited to be writing to you with my first weekly column. As a young entrepreneur I feel honored to be a part of the Seattle 2.0 community which is loaded with talented founders, early adopters, columnists, advisors, supporters and more. Thank you Jennifer and Marcelo for the opportunity!
For all who don’t know me, my name Nathan Parcells, I am 23 and I am one of the co-founders of InternMatch. This is the first company I’ve started, so I look forward to sharing with you about the ups, downs, successes and failures, we experience tackling the challenges of building InternMatch.
But, before anything else I wanted let you all know briefly, who I am, how I got here, and how I fit into the Seattle tech scene.
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Mom, about law school….
While some entrepreneurs graduate knowing that the only office they will fit in at is the one they build, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 2009, planning to start law school in the fall.
Looking for an interesting project for the summer, I began talking to my current co-founder and friend since 2nd grade, Andrew Maguire about the company he was starting in Seattle. I convinced him (although maybe it was the other way around) to let me come out for the summer to work on InternMatch and get a taste of entrepreneurship before starting school again in the fall. I am here writing now because after those three summer months were over I was so hooked on the company we were building I called off law school entirely and committed myself to the mission of building our scrappy start-up into the premier online internship platform.
In reality I should have seen this coming — I have always been happiest in challenging situations that force you to grow rapidly. Whether it was joining my high school wrestling team as a freshman with no experience or deciding to join my uncle and four other crew members sailing a 50 ft. boat to the tip of the North Eastern Canadian coastline, also with no experience, I have always loved attacking new projects from the ground up.
I missed the light bulb
One thing that is worth noting is that I wasn’t a part of InternMatch during the light bulb moment (or at least the original light bulb). I was an early adopter of the InternMatch idea and having not been here from the very start is something I feel a tad guilty about from time to time. However, I have quickly learned that being a founder means a lot more than coming up with the initial idea for a company and the litmus test usually shows its colors through perseverance and a commitment to the idea and company.
What I call “the leap” is the moment in which I convinced myself that the company we were building was not only incredibly viable, necessary, and exciting, but that I was ready to commit 100% of myself to the challenge of making it a reality. This happened roughly near the end of my first summer with InternMatch, when after sleeping on a futon for three months, and having to master the process of cold calling to acquire Beta partners, I was still more excited and dedicated to the company every day.
My decision to make the leap was solidified when I talked to my friends and family who despite the title of this article offered full support for my decision to leave law school and join InternMatch.
I now have the entrepreneur’s bug and I look forward to sharing it with you:
After a year working on InternMatch I can no longer see myself as a lawyer or working in any other traditional office environment for that matter. The potential of using innovative technology and smart execution to build a solution to the current internship discovery process has blown the ceiling off of what my goals were just a year ago.
I look forward to sharing more of my experiences as a first-time founder with all of you and am excited to hear your thoughts and feedback.
