Kathryn McSweeney: From Wine-thusiastic to Vinolytics
Kathryn McSweeney is a rising senior at Bentley University majoring Corporate Finance and Accounting. She discovered her interest in wine after taking a wine tasting class in Italy, and that new interest and curiosity led her to to intern at Vinolytics, a startup that helps wine lovers better keep and enjoy their wine. Kathryn sat down with us sharing how she met Vinolytics and her internship experience there.
What’s your role at Vinolytics?
I am a data analyst at Vinolytics. I do analysis about wines and the sellers. It is not directly correlated to my major, but I’m not very sure if Corporate Finance and Accounting is for me, so I wanted to try something new. I’ve studied abroad in Italy and took a couple of wine tasting classes, so Vinolytics is in line with my interest. It’s a perfect fit for me!
How do you know about TechGen?
A friend of my friend at Northeastern worked at TechGen, so when I was looking for internships she said: “you should definitely check out this website!” So I signed up at TechGen and applied for 2 internships there. Then Jennifer (Founder of Vinolytics) got back to me right away, interviewed me and gave me an offer.
Sounds like Vinolytics stood out to you because of your wine tasting classes in Italy?
Yes. I don’t know a lot about wine management but I love wine and I want to learn about it. Before I joined the team, I was looking up Jennifer online, and I found that she had a background in investment banking. And since I’ve been studying finance and accounting, I think if she can pivot from investment banking to Vinolytics, I can do it, too.
How did you know that the data analyst role would be a good fit for you?
To be honest, when I first applied for it, I didn’t know a whole lot about what the role would entail but I was just really interested in the company. After meeting with Jennifer and learning more, I wanted to give it a shot. I found this role pretty cool and I love it, so I became a data analyst in the team. Some of my responsibilities are just data entry, but some of it is about going to sellers and looking at the information about wine, such as how to drink them and how much they worth — it’s quite cool because it involves a lot of analysis, not just cut and dry.
What is a day like at Vinolytics?
It changes from day to day because it’s a startup. I usually get in at 8:30 or 9:00 am and we start our own tasks. Jennifer is doing a lot of demos for the platform and when she sends me the wine information I’ll compile them in a way that’s more compatible with our system. Besides, we talked a lot about how we can fix the website to make it more user-friendly. My responsibilities change a little bit during my internship.
Any highlights during your internship?
The MIT Innovation Night was really cool, and we presented Vinolytics at the event. I had never watched Jennifer’s pitch before, and it was cool watching her describe the company. A lot of people at the event were interested in Vinolytics because there were a lot of hard tech companies, and many people found it refreshing seeing us there. It was really cool to see people who are not wine experts interested in our companies and want to know more.
How much do you interface with the rest of the team?
Not that much because we were on a little island in the office. There were 2 marketing girls, the developers and me, and another co-worker is working off-site in Chicago. Sometimes I will ask the two girls sitting next to me about the cool things they are doing. They are very nice and they will explain them to me.
Where have you interned before? Have you always been in startups or big companies?
I was a military assistant for tax accounting, and that was it. That was a little more stable but could be a bit boring. That was a totally different experience. I appreciated the stability, but working at Vinolytics is definitely a great experience.
What’s your experience with TechGen?
It was so easy. I remember going to all the internship websites, and I found it was so easy to fill the information at TechGen — it didn’t ask for too much of your information. I have applied through many websites and this is the one where someone actually got back to me afterward. I applied for some internships through my school and had several interviews, but this is the one that actually turned into an offer.
