Unexpected company growth
Luckily for us, in every risk, there is an opportunity. The lockdown had some surprisingly positive turns in store for us: Due to the fact that the majority of companies put a halt to recruitment and universities were closed, a large number of students were looking for internships or places to write their theses. All of a sudden, our two-man startup had transformed into a team of over 20 employees. Due to the current lack of interest and inquiries from the industry, we were able to use the initial stage of the Media Startup Fellowship to focus on developing one of our core strengths: our AI algorithms.
This led to the inevitable question: How do we handle a team of this size, how do we organize it, how do we work together efficiently? Companies that have been around a while are already versed in these processes, have all the required software and established team structures. Our interns may have been highly motivated and smart, but they weren't yet experts on one topic that we were yet to define in specific terms. Thanks to many coaching sessions, an open dialog with Media Lab and the community, we were able to develop a growing number of structures and create a functioning team from nothing (with a healthy dose of trial and error along the way) that supports us in our daily work.