Prior to starting my internship at Zeemart, I had never been presented the opportunity to work for a start-up company, nor have the ability to work or study in a foreign country. Aside from gaining the irreplaceable experience of living in another culture and country for the first time in my life, I found my internship with Zeemart to be eye-opening and extremely beneficial in helping to jump-start my career in the business world.

"Feeling cute, might delete this later" - William Bodner

When I came to Zeemart for the first time, I was extremely nervous about the environment I would be working in and whether I would be able to fit in comfortably with the culture they had worked to establish here. After a couple of hours of introductions and meetings with my internship mentors and other employees at Zeemart, my concerns were alleviated almost immediately as I became instant friends with many of my new coworkers. Additionally, I found gaining the respect and admiration of the other employees to be easier than expected, as everyone who works at Zeemart is more than willing to listen to your findings or suggestions in order to help improve the Zeemart service as a whole.

"I don’t sweat in Singapore, I sparkle". Futsal night with the team!

Aside from the warm and friendly culture present at Zeemart, I found my responsibilities to not only be great business experience, but also valuable in improving Zeemart’s service. Upon my first day at Zeemart, I was informed by my mentors that I wouldn’t simply be getting coffee or laundry for my superiors, and would instead be assigned actual work to complete, which was a huge sigh of relief as an incoming intern. Understanding that my work at Zeemart had a purpose and wasn’t simply “busy work” undoubtedly made me feel like a valued employee.

Some of my most notable responsibilities included market research on the food & beverage market in ASEAN, competitive analysis, and constructing a Flywheel growth model for Zeemart. This was an extremely valuable experience for me personally as one of my main career interests is working with or for private equity and venture capital firms. Getting the opportunity to see the point-of-view of a start-up company when it comes to accumulating funding and working with potential investors was definitely a meaningful opportunity for me to have. Furthermore, upon completion of my work, I was given plenty of credit and recognition by my peers, which is definitely satisfying to receive as a new intern.

One of the other positives I had while working at Zeemart was the opportunity to work with and assist other departments of the company. While the majority of my responsibilities was focused on working with Finance and Investor Relations Departments, I was also able to work with the Sales, the Marketing, and the Onboarding Departments at Zeemart. This was another valuable opportunity for me to experience as I was able to expand my knowledge on what each department was responsible for and how they all worked together in improving the Zeemart service like cogs in a well-oiled machine. Overall, my internship at Zeemart was an extremely memorable business and life experience to undertake, and I think it should be internship any individual should at the very least look into.