Anouk again, from the Amsterdam Roland Berger Gap Year!

However, this time I'm not writing from a Roland Berger office, but from my scale-up of the Roland Berger Gap Year: felyx e-scooter sharing. This is a micro-mobility scale-up that offers an intuitive app with which free-floating, shared e-scooters can be reserved, started and parked. Customers pay a price per minute to ride the green, fun and fast e-scooters. So, although the speed I talked about in my last blog is still a big topic, many other things have changed dramatically.

Working at a start-up or scale-up is said to be much more hands-on than working for a corporate, and this was proven to be true the moment I walked in: new employees mean new working spaces, so my first task was to put together my own chair. Apart from that, changes are made much quicker at a start-up, but this often also means that there is not enough time to get from the 80% to the 100%. Therefore, lots of opportunities arose for me as a 'project management intern' to optimize processes and make a change. This involved meeting with most of my colleagues to fully understand all processes, as well as doing analyses on data and coming up with an optimization proposal. What I really liked about this is that I could use the skills Roland Berger had taught me in a different way (think about building models in Excel and clearly communicating findings and proposals in PowerPoint). Besides, after only three months of working at Roland Berger I could even help my new colleagues improve these skills!

Another thing that is very valuable to me as a biomedical and health sciences student is to see a business from two very different perspectives. While at Roland Berger, you see business from a very strategic - sometimes high-over, sometimes very specific -perspective, working for a start-up or scale-up also shows you the hassle that day-to-day tasks may bring along.

Lastly, cultures obviously differ between different companies, but I am very glad to say that I greatly enjoyed my time at felyx, just as I did at Roland Berger. Working with such a small, young and ambitious group of people allowed me to really get to know my colleagues within this short period of time. Joining felyx meant working hard and learning loads but most of all; making new friends and having fun during and outside office hours.

Only a few more weeks before my time at felyx is over and again, I'm very sad to leave. But, on the other hand, Dubai is calling out my name and I can't wait to learn about this interesting city and mostly, to further develop my consultancy skills!

Anouk