Pros
I was convinced by the CEO to take up so much unpaid work as an intern that she had to hire me.
Cons
Once I was hired and working full time as a college student, I only made 1000$ a month. I would travel for work, build out products, and was convinced to give a prototype of kit to a traumatized SA victim for her to use even though the kits weren't admissible in court in the state we were in at the time. I was finally brought on as an employee making 40k a year and told to start building out a new product with the assistance of a contractor I hired. After the budget proposal for the project they laid me off. When I was an intern I was asked to hire and interview contractors (unpaid), handle payroll, (unpaid), develop onboarding processes (unpaid), go to investor meetings and sales meetings (unpaid), lie to universities about the products we offered and then invent them off the fly (unpaid). At 18, I was so inexperienced. I was too excited by the idea of doing these things to realize I was being taken advantage of. I was convinced that working for the CEO and accomplishing her dreams added more value to my life than achieving my goals of finishing college. The CEO is a cult leader/sl@ve owner and she ruined my life.