Internship search engine: subscribe, search, make career!

By Vladislav Vorkel
Product designer at Yandex.
Founder of the service for finding internships: https://t.me/Intern_Sheep.
Author’s blog: https://t.me/designvorkel

My internship search product currently has over 300 paying users, and it generates a monthly income equivalent to the salary of an average IT professional. I dreamed of creating a product that people would use, even if just a couple of them.

Hello, I’m Vlad Workel, a product designer at Yandex and the creator of InternSheep, a community with internships for designers. I’ll share how I really wanted my product and how I made it happen.

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Roughly, this is how my dog helped in creating the product.

Internship search: where did the dream originated

I am a product designer and have worked in product roles, but I have always been interested in looking beyond the design field. I wanted to experience a product from all perspectives, from the idea, development, and demand to working with my team. Moreover, having my own product means it’s solely my responsibility, my decisions, and only my success or failure.

In simpler terms, it’s like crafting a wooden bow for a child that actually shoots, and then proudly running to show it to the adults.

The first attempt

About 1.5 years ago, I decided to embark on my first project – Gradeup. It’s a test for designers that, upon completion, allows you to assess your skill level and receive a competency map. It is still operational, and you can find it here: gradeup.vercel.app.

I found a developer acquaintance who was just learning front-end, designed the interface, and created a test consisting of competency cards from various companies. Initially, we tested the demand for the MVP test using Google Forms, where the result was a PDF that I personally drew and sent to each test-taker. I initially found the first users through my channel, which had about 500 people at that time.

There were many different hypotheses on how to monetize this test, but we never got around to it. Perhaps it was because there was a lack of understanding of how to do it, or maybe it was because I had already burned out and lost faith. That’s when the idea of gathering internships for designers came to mind, as it is something everyone needs!

The second attempt

Yes, that’s the one: InternSheep. So, the main story will be about testing the hypothesis, how we implemented the service in a couple of days with a developer in a hackathon format, how we attracted the first users, how the internship bot turned into a community, and how we created an educational program.

How not to start

The first week, I spent on absolutely unnecessary research, thinking I had to do it the “right” way. I scripted interviews, found respondents, and asked them about their job search experiences, problems faced, and so on.

The truth is, research is necessary when you don’t understand the target audience or when launching the product costs more than the research itself. In my case, I had a clear understanding of the target audience’s problems because I had personally gone through internships, and everyone around me was job hunting. It was literally part of my daily life. As a result, I abandoned the research and started building the product.

My opinion (it’s just mine, but I like it): in personal projects, it’s better to solve your own problem, then you won’t need extensive research. If your solution works for you, it will likely work for someone else – we are not unique.

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The simplest hypothesis test:
There is a website where only internships are published. Internships of all cool companies immediately appear on the website after the company posts them on its official website. You will receive a notification. Are you ready to subscribe to the service for 200 rubles?

Yes: 52%
No, I don’t need internships: 18%
No, I’m sorry for the money: 17%
No, I’ll write in the comments why: 1%

From idea to the first revenue in just a few days

So let’s begin! The idea of implementation was to write parsers for career websites of top Russian product companies, we started with 15. Write a bot in which parsers will instantly send internships to users. They decided to sell the service by subscription – 200₽ per month

I assembled Landos in 1 day using nocode. I found several respondents for a decision interview and sold 3 subscriptions to a non-existent product. I just remember how I almost begged for real payment – only the money on the card could confirm the hypothesis in my case. It was a little awkward, but I overcame myself))

So, 600 rubles on the card, 0 developments, 3 people are waiting for the product within 2 weeks.

Let’s start development

I messaged Roman, a developer from Yandex, shared the idea with him, and we immediately started implementation. We needed parsers!

What parsers? Are you stupid or what?
Roman Dubinsky

Roman’s righteous laziness prevented us from making that mistake. Finding a student from Voronezh who browsed 15 websites several times a day turned out to be 100 times easier and cheaper. Later on, we did write parsers for some websites, but that’s not as important now.

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Those very parsers…

In less than a week, we did the most essential thing: a bot and its admin panel where we uploaded internships.

The bot consisted of…

The bot consisted of:

Choice of Specialty: We had 5 options, but in practice, only designers subscribed.
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Subscription Payment: Done through the external Donate bot directly in Telegram.
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Each Internship had a link to the vacancy.

The entire flow seemed quite convoluted and makeshift initially, or at least, that’s what we thought at the beginning. In reality, it turned out that almost no one got confused, and people joined us smoothly.

So, the launch!

Actually, when I received the first prepayments, I started warming up the audience in my channel, talking about the service and collecting applications.

I asked all my acquaintances with channels to mention the service, and many responded absolutely for free. Thank you, if you’re reading this, it might not have worked out without you.

In the end, before the launch, we had over 300 applications.

As a result, we decided to sell it for 290 rubles to everyone who left a request, and then raise the price to 390 rubles.

We announced a broadcast where I presented the product and talked in more detail, but we started registering applications and opening access a few days before the launch.

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The very broadcast where I tell you why you need to pay me 290₽.

At the time of the launch, we had sold about 200 subscriptions.

Couldn’t believe it when my card had not just 600₽ but 60,000₽. The amount may be modest, but it’s not about the money. I did something useful, and I’m getting paid for it! Wow!

Creating a community

Initially, we didn’t plan on doing anything like that. The idea was just to create a bot with internships – that’s it. But users suggested that it would be cool to have a chat where people in similar life situations could connect, receive support, and exchange experiences.

Both we and the participants saw significant value in this. Over time, it evolved into a community where we engage in various activities, communicate, and build friendships. People come to the product for internships but stay for the community. Many have found jobs or internships but continue to be a part of our community.

I was building a product and found friends.

What’s happening in the community now?

Continuous communication – and this is the most important aspect. People share test results, discuss who received invitations and who didn’t, seek advice, and find support when things get tough. Natasha, the community manager, and I have established a culture of zero toxicity and maximum friendliness. Throughout our time, we can count on one hand the instances of toxic conversations.

Lead designers conduct reviews several times a month where anyone can submit their portfolio or test work and receive a quality analysis.

We regularly host online meetups in our Safe Space, where you can come and simply talk when facing challenges at work or when despair sets in.

There’s also a book club and a poster art circle. Together, we read design-related books and discuss them, and in the art circle, we create posters with a designer from Yandex.Eats.

We are creating a small, warm, and friendly world where one feels inspired to grow and develop.

Periodically, members of our community would share internships that we didn’t initially have information about. We started keeping track of new companies, and as a result, the count increased from 16 to 26.

The product after 9 months

We haven’t closed down.
We are working!

Currently, the InternSheep channel has 2500 subscribers, with around 300 paying users in the product. Over 30 individuals have secured internships in top companies.

Throughout this period, I’ve hardly invested in advertising. There were trial sowings that yielded no results. Our growth is solely organic, which is great, but it’s time to learn how to attract more.

The team consists of three part-time individuals, including myself – a community manager/SMM, a designer, and me. Occasionally, we bring in others for one-time tasks or consultations.

What are our metrics?

As in any subscription-based service, the primary metric is retention.

We retrieve data from the Donate bot, which tracks all charges, subscriptions, and cancellations. We create charts that illustrate retention across monthly cohorts.

Currently, our average conversion to payment in the second month is 75%. I’m not sure how good of a metric that is, but it certainly seems quite favorable.

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Retention from February to October.

I won’t talk about the number of paying users. It’s obviously important for us.

The second key metric is monthly revenue. From the start, we increased the cost twice – from 290 to 390, and then to 490. Subscription is not the only monetization model in the service – we sold partner products and channel advertising. Currently, we are developing our educational program and assisting companies in hiring talented interns, but I’ll write about that in the next article.

Let’s summarize

I dreamt of a product, and now I dream that it continues to live and grow. It’s a wonderful platform for experiments, for personal and professional growth. The most valuable thing I gained in the 11 months of working on the product is experience and passion.

Currently, the product brings in a monthly income comparable to that of an average IT specialist. A worthy reward.

Thank you for reading my story – perhaps it will inspire you to embark on your own pet project, or maybe it will just brighten your day a bit.

I would appreciate it if you subscribe to my Telegram channel (5000+) – I share stories about my projects, my work at Yandex, and the journey of self-discovery. I also throw in some humor occasionally.
The channel “InternSheep“: the product I talked about in this article.