- Joined
- May 29, 2021
- Messages
- 552
Rep Bank
$1,780
$1,780
User Power: 153%
Sell Or Shell
Hey guys! So I just finished year 1 of computer science and learned some neat tricks like building a website using python, flask, html and css. After which, I began interning at a startup edtech company through school networks as a market researcher. My job was to find leads and place them in an excel sheet for the sales and marketing team I suppose. This meant looking at instagram, mail, youtube etc for my specific category of leads. I'm almost done with it and it lasted for 6 weeks and I learnt a whole lot.BUT, towards the end of the internship I read the forum about how problems and opportunities can be found at a such jobs. In doing the process of finding and messaging leads, I got zero responses usually. I wondered why and went to research it. Turns out the proper way to do these things is to first build a relationship with the client and then talk to them or they ignore you completely. So that led me to knowing I had to warm up to the lead first. This would be through complimenting their art first (Public), and then direct messaging them something like this privately:
Hey, {Name} – I loved the {Drawing}! I’m reaching out from x company to see if you might be able to collab with them. Let me know if you’re interested!
My manager requires us, or at least me as an intern to find and message up to 30 leads a day. But doing this warm based approach would take FOREVER with conventional approaches. So I knew there had to be a better way of doing this. (Side note he does 50 a day).
That's when I came up with a simple software solution that had results like this:

It required me to create a database (csv) like this:

The button above once clicked will take the user to the site (page) on instagram after copying the message created by the app. I can then paste the message and just go back to the same page pretty easily. I was able to message 60 leads with this before instagram restricted me from sending more public messages for the day.
I didn't create the database, I used $5 to get it from scrape hero for 300 total leads. But they even have the $25 package for $2000.
That day I was able to obtain a database of 500 leads from the web scraper but was only able to get 60 to respond in the public section of their page after messaging up to 120 contacts and then dm them privately.
When I told my manager about it at first, he didn't reply yet. He waited until the next day to call and ask for a demo of how I did it, since I did tell him about the web scraper. He says I should upload it to git to make my code publicly available to the team.
What do you think?
My family has recommended me to sell it to them, though I think an internship is just a learning experience to solve even more problems.
Should I ask him to ask the company for a price for the software? How much should I charge do you think?
It is also possible that once they see the solution they may be able to replicate it since they have a product team as well.
Also, the application is just a simple python-flask that uses a Venv, with some requirements, one template, and one hello.py file. But the know how was built from 1 year of computer science of learning python and then flask. This can also be improved so much more by making it possible to copy to separate keys more than one item to the clipboard.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts
Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.
You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.
- Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
- MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
- Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
- Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."— User Richard Peck
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?
