In the last two weeks, I spent one week walking around San Francisco with another two students from Pitt -Josh and Jerry – who are also taking the International Internship Program in San Francisco, and I started to work as intern in Dreamfunded, an equity crowdfunding platform.

The first week was very relaxing. I took the cable car from the Union Square to the North Coast and visited the Pier 39 and the Coit Tower with Josh and Jerry. We also went hiking in the Lands end and breathed the fresh air. What’s more, my middle school and high school friend from China – Kaifeng- who is a senior student in University of California, Davis, came to San Francisco and drove me to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We walked through the bridge and enjoyed a magnificent view.

Besides hanging around, I also ate many delicious foods in San Francisco. The bread bowl soup in Boudin Bakery & Cafe in the Pier 39 is so great! It is my first time eating or drinking bread soup. The Dim Sum in Yank Sink in downtown are delicate but a little expensive, but the dim sum in Good Mong Kok Bakery in Chinatown are cheap but delicious. And the pizza in Pizzetta 211 is one of the most delicious pizza I had ate in U.S.

I started to work on the second week, which is this week. Including me, there are only four people in the office. One is the CEO and founder called Manny, a successful angel investor who created this equity crowdfunding platform. One is Alex, the co-founder of company and maintainer of the whole online platform. One is Susie, a new coming marketing and sales employee. I am a due diligence intern, responsible for checking the background of the company that wants to raise money from the massive investor. I used the insider information provided by the company like financial statement and independent review from CPA to verify the financial condition. And I searched the internet to find people’s review about the company, and I downloaded document about the company from the government website. My boss, the CEO, guided me hand by hand, and I learnt a lot about the process of conducting due diligence survey. Recently, my boss lets me conduct case study about three companies that raised 1 million dollars, the maximum amount that is allowed on equity crowdfunding platform. The purpose of this case study is to find the reason why these companies can raise so much money from investor, but from due diligence perspective, these companies got lots of problems.

Besides the work assigned by boss, I am also learning the development of equity crowding and the law about the fundraising money for the small business. There many academic paper about it and the document from SEC is very long. I guess I may take a while before getting deep in this industry. But for now, as I can see, this new industry has lots of opportunities as well as problems. As an investor studying finance, I am very interested in it.

One more thing, the Arizona watemelon juice tastes so great, but why I did not see it when I was in Pittsburgh?

The picture below was taken when Jerry (left) Josh (middle) and I (right) went hiking on the Lands end.