Internship with JFDI
Why we host interns
There’s a good body of research that suggests we can only learn some of life’s most valuable lessons through experience. The strongest careers are nonlinear.
When the founders of JFDI.Asia were starting out on our careers, we had the chance to learn ‘on the job’ alongside some great people. So we host internsbecause it just feels like the right thing to do. We’re paying back the love by paying it forward.
Many people give their time, free, to support the community around JFDI.Asia. We don’t view interns as a substitute for paid labour or as people we are trying out for employment. Our starting point is that an internship should be a personal development experience for someone who is willing and able to create something that benefits the community around us.
Fitting in
We love the passion, questions and fresh perspectives that interns bring. For many it is a defining moment at the start of a career that they will remember all their lives. Some give up valuable opportunities and travel around the world to be with us. Yet interns come, and interns go, and our work continues anyway. So there is an inherent imbalance in an internship relationship. Anyone thinking of an internship with us should understand that they won’t be the focus of our attention. Internship is not like college where every student is a customer.
ost formal education is also highly structured. If you are a star student, used to jumping through well-defined hoops set out for you at school, you are probably very motivated by the sense of achievement and recognition that brings. Be prepared for culture shock when you enter a world where everyone must build their own gymnasium from whatever is lying around.
It can be a further shock to discover that success means working effectively with a very diverse team of colleagues, who you do not choose. You may not share their communication style, preferred modes of thinking, cultural expectations or IQ level.
Join us with confidence, but also some humility, and a willingness to enjoy diversity rather than fighting it. If someone or something does not meet your expectations, own the learning by asking yourself “What have I assumed that has led me to feel this way?”. A key maxim for us is “assume good faith“.
Still interested?
We have no fixed process or schedule under which interns join us. Some are students in formal education, others are not. Most are undergrads on break. Some are MBA graduates or mid-career executives. Some are in the Army.
Before contacting us, please read these notes fully. Research what we do and the world in which we work. Bear in mind that we do not have the resources to teach you what you can find out for yourself and that nobody pays us to answer speculative questions about what an internship might mean for you.
Contribute a question or an insight to our free Open Frog community, read our posts and watch our videos. If you can, visit one of our many events and, especially, read the books we recommend. Only then write to us and tell us what we could achieve together. We are biased towards people who are cogent and succinct in expressing what they’re looking for and what they can offer the community around us in return.
Issues to consider
What do you want to achieve during your internship and how will you know that you have achieved those goals? Write and tell us.
Be prepared to be social as you will meet a lot of people and attend many events. This will give you a chance to make contacts as well as an opportunity to talk to, and learn from, industry players in the startup scene here in Singapore and in the region. You are likely to meet people such as seasoned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business mentors, policy makers, geeks and startup founders.
We are entrepreneurs who believe that it is generally “better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” A big part of your learning will be about communication and the interaction you have with people and organizations outside JFDI.Asia will affect relationships into the future beyond your internship.
From time to time stuff won’t happen as you expect. JFDI.Asia does not believe in failure – only feedback. For feedback to work it has to be timely, candid and focused on work and behaviours, not people. Be prepared for honesty.
Our working environment is casual and informal but also professional. You need to deliver what you promise and always avoid letting others down by not promising what you can’t deliver.
You must express yourself in good English when you are representing JFDI.Asia.
There is confidential material about us and other people in the office and our online systems, so bear in mind that what you hear and read discussed as part of your learning experience often cannot be shared openly.
If you are approached by journalists or bloggers, use the opportunity to talk with them and find out how they work. Then refer them to your main contact.
You are welcome to make JFDI.Asia your second home during the time you spend with us. You are now part of the JFDI Asia family. You are free to spend as much time as you want here and to use the facilities that we have: just please don’t abuse that because someone has had to pay for everything you use.
We have no “normal working hours” and we regard weekends and public holidays as conventions that are a matter of personal choice. We are interested in what you achieve, not how, when or where you achieve it. Do not be surprised to see people napping or working in unconventional ways that suit them.
However you do it, experience has taught us that the best way to get stuff done is to give it full attention and focus. So we don’t take interns who are in employment or doing freelance work while they are with us. We recommend that you set aside some time for an internship and make the most of it, then move on and stay in touch.
Interns are not employees of JFDI.Asia so pay and vacation don’t come into our relationship. Where we are able we like to make a contribution towards your expenses.
While you are with us, any product, documentary and graphic materials that you produce, solely or jointly with others, shall be and remain sole and exclusive property of the JFDI.Asia. You may however, credit yourself as being part of its development.
You are not to disclose to any party any information about JFDI.Asia without the prior written consent of the JFDI.Asia for the term of the internship and for 10 years thereafter.
You need to make your own arrangements to cover your costs and any visa arrangements required to join us.
Roll of Honour
2016
2015
2014
2012
After being exposed to and involved in the growth of a mobile technology startup environment in Sri Lanka, I was left with growing curiosity in tech startups. During my final year in University, I kept in touch with the entrepreneurs of the Sri Lankan accelerator program, had conversations with venture capitalists and angel investors in the Cambridge area and tried to stay informed about what was going on in the United States tech startup scene. As I wanted to learn about how such ecosystem can develop, grow and affect society as well as contribute to it, though marginal, it seemed a natural fit to pursue an internship opportunity with JFDI.Asia.
Before venturing to Singapore, without much knowledge of the intern team or setup of the internship and information sourced from the JFDI.Asia website and random blogs I stumbled upon, I was excited to just be in a new and dynamic environment. In that respect, my experience with JFDI.Asia has lived up to my expectations. Working at JFDI.Asia, every week has been drastically different than the week before and I’ve been exposed to the vibrant nature of Southeast Asia’s tech startup scene through working in it and have the opportunity talking to entrepreneurs, investors and angels.
I wanted to be challenged, to do something new and to learn from other members of the JFDI team. Though this internship experience was less rigorous in terms of work to be done as well as technical and business skills needed, it still provided a unique learning opportunity. The challenges and learning experiences were less task related but more team dynamic and working environment related. I did appreciate the venue to practice teaching and explaining concepts, relating to peers with different levels of work experience and coming from varied backgrounds. It was engaging to work with the team on a project in a realm all three of us were unfamiliar with while being able to rely on a network of experienced mentors found in Hugh, Meng and Chiah Li.
Nicholas Gerard
Unlike traditional internships where companies use interns as ‘cheap labour’ to do miscellaneous activities, JFDI.Asia has given me the opportunity to learn the Lean Startup methodology and get my hands dirty by engaging in the customer engagement process; as well as building a minimum viable product (MVP). It also provided me a fantastic platform for me to network and meet industry players (in the technology startup scene) and gain their personal insight into the industry and understand how and what they think about.
The intimate and close setting of working in a small team of interns has been a good fit for me. Having the opportunity to have autonomy and decentralisation of tasks has been really good experience to take on bigger and more responsibility, instead of having a ‘boss’ assign tasks to me. Getting to work directly with Hugh, Meng and Chiah Li has been very enriching. I am truly grateful for the relationships I have formed with them and the experience and knowledge that they have shared. I highly recommend an internship with JFDI.Asia for anyone looking to start a business, be an entrepreneur or do a start-up. Even if one intends on being or starting out as an intrapreneur, this experience will definitely reap rewards.
Huang YiGe
I get to work with really cool and creative people. In my previous work experiences, the company usually maintains a rigid structure where newcomers are to handle miscellaneous work, follow orders, hand in assignments within due dates. But my experience with JFDI is so much more fun in the sense that everybody can contribute cool ideas and we get to execute the ideas after prolonged discussions or personal interactions with the management team of the company! (who happen to be the least bourgeois people in the world!)
It’s also a good experience for me because I get to meet and talk to people who’re from different walks of life; entrepreneurs, VCs, angels and our mentors are hugely different groups of people. I realized that there are so many different sets of communications skills involved in interacting with them and that to become a truly respectable and admirable person by all is very difficult. (Queen is actually having a hard time) I have also observed that getting information from someone less keen in offering them is indeed an art, so is listening to someone and reading their underlying thoughts without being distracted or sidetracked. Sometimes I feel like a ten-year-old in front of my excellent team members with their great interpersonal skills.
I love working with my team members! They are super talented people and have so many interesting experiences and insights. I realized that there are many more books to read, places to see, habits to be inculcated and skills to be enriched than I could imagine. I think I have a long way to go to be as good as them.
During the internship, a lot of new information comes to me everyday (Or I’m expected to go look for them, either way). I appreciate this regular flow of useful information very much and have tried to generate a learning curve as steep as possible. It’s something vastly different from mundane school life — to get some knowledge new and relevant to working life (most importantly, interesting). I think this has to do the vibrancy of ecosystem and the creative people I work with, for which I’m forever grateful.
Another thing I really enjoyed is the novel working environment. Apart from the less formality engaged, we‘re allowed much freedom to take initiatives, make decisions on our own and voice different opinions/friendly arguments. I love the idea and the potential of dinner clubs and feel a bit sorry that I can’t witness more occasions of these. In short, I love this experience because I have cool boss, fantastic coworkers to work with and that I really like our brand image and the logo (and the story behind it!).
2011
This page is part of JFDI.Asia’s archive of Frequently Asked Questions on innovation and entrepreneurship. For more, Read The Frogging Manual. If you’re here because someone at JFDI gave you a link, please don’t be offended. We get a lot of questions from people, and these pages are the best way we have found to offer a comprehensive, helpful response. If your question remains unanswered, please post it to our OpenFrog Community and we will compile the best of the answers here.