How OweYaa Can Help Your Startup
By: Terry Lee
Note From Luke Jenkins: Terry recently joined the OweYaa team. As part of joining the group we asked him to tell us in his own words, how he thinks OweYaa can help veterans and growing startups everywhere. Here is his thoughts.
Are you an early stage startup founder overwhelmed by the competing demands of launching your business? Do you wish you had more time to focus the long term direction of your company, as opposed to small scale tasks such as website maintenance? If you answered yes to any of these questions, OweYaa may have a cost effective solution for you.
According to David Skok, five time entrepreneur turned VC and creator of forEntrepeneurs, ranked #2 on Forbes list of 100 best websites for entrepreneurs, one of the top five reasons startups fail is because they run out of money. Startups run out of money in many common ways such as unsuccessful seed rounds, improper allocation of resources, and bad product/market fit. Especially in smaller scale startups with low initial funding, the founding team can easily get spread thinly trying to get the business off the ground. The OweYaa solution for companies with these problem is to supply trustworthy military interns that can help shoulder some of the burden for founding teams.
OweYaa is a recruiting and training agency created in 2016 by Luke Jenkins, Barika Edwards, and Marie Roker-Jones. While studying systems engineering at the United States Military Academy, Luke explored the development of a veteran service program, after researching the needs of both companies and service members. He found that companies need talent and productivity in order to enhance performance, while transitioning veterans need a clear way to demonstrate their skills. Relying exclusively on civilianized translations of military experiences can create barriers to understanding with companies when a veteran attempts to join civilian industry. The solution Luke envisioned was a limited internship, allowing interns to showcase their abilities and mitigating risks for company needing work done and additional hires. I was privileged enough to join their team in summer 2017 as a Military Outreach Specialist and have been hard at work trying to expand the reach of OweYaa within the military community.
OweYaa helps military members and their spouses display technical proficiency and gain a footing in the highly competitive tech industry by coordinating short term, often off site, internships with companies for them. Companies have the option of purchasing a three month OweYaa internship for $3000, allowing them to post projects to the OweYaa platform. Prospective interns indicate skills they have currently and would like to develop, and are placed into training programs to aid in learning. After completing training programs, OweYaa interns are matched to submitted projects based on their skillsets and interest, and are expected to work 40–50 hours a month on these projects. Companies benefit further because they are not required to pay OweYaa interns a salary, as OweYaa takes care of it. OweYaa interns benefit through gaining technical skills and applying them to an actionable project, which enhances their resume and can potentially earn them a job offer from the company they worked with.
A startup founding team that lists a project on OweYaa is able to get quality work done for their company at a premium price, allowing them to focus more on the direction of the company and lobbying support from potential investors. Examples of tasks that OweYaa interns can aid a startup with include Website Development, Social Media Marketing, Graphic Design, and metrics. Help at this critical stage of the startup process has the ability to prolong the life of an early stage startup or help an established company sharpen their existing platforms. Find an intern with OweYaa today!
