A burnout-prevention conference, built from nothing in two and a half months, with the founders increasingly absent.
JayaUnited was a small startup working in personal development, helping people through burnout with workshops and one-to-one sessions. I was its first intern, hired to help run a conference aimed at employers. When I arrived, almost nothing had been done for it and the date was two and a half months out. Both founders were meant to be supervising. One was rarely on site. The other disappeared for longer and longer stretches.
I wrote the strategy document for the conference and then executed it: a communications plan, the visuals, and flyers. I also pushed a founder to negotiate a spot on the large screen at the park entrance, which we got, and raised the coworking partnership with him. Two more students joined after me, and since nobody was directing them I took that on too.
Building and running something from a standing start, when the people who should have been leading were not there.
Nothing had been prepared for the conference. No positioning, no plan, no assets. With the date fixed and no direction coming from above, the only way to move was to decide what the event was and write it down.
I produced a full strategy document and worked from it. By then the founders were less and less present, which meant decisions that needed their authority stalled.
Two more students arrived after me. Neither studied communication, so I had more event experience than they did, but I had no formal authority over them.
I managed them as peers. Set tasks, checked the work, gave pointers where it was needed. It worked, but it depended on being useful rather than being in charge.
For an audience of HR directors and leadership, the message had to be about early detection and prevention, not wellness in general. That shaped the deliverables: printed flyers, and a spot on the large screen at the entrance to the business park.
The coworking partnership was the same pattern. I explained what the opportunity was and asked a founder to go and speak to them. He did, and it produced a partnership for the event.
It worked, and it could have been better. The founders kept handing me incidental tasks alongside the event, and I took them instead of drawing the line. It cost the conference attention it could have used.