Hi! My name is Juhi, and I’m a rising sophomore in the school of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Economics with the Pre-med track. I will be graduating in May 2023.

This summer, I have had the opportunity to work with Baur Distribution, a local startup based in St. Louis that designs and sells CBD-based products through their two companies, CBD Worx and Hemp Outlet USA. I am currently completing my sixth week in the Skandalaris Internship Program, and I have learned and done more than I could have imagined.

As I’m sure all startups have experienced, there is a lot of work to be done in the initial stages of building a company from the ground up. In my first few weeks, I focused mainly on onboarding and learning how to use the programs used to keep track of customers and social media. However, I was quickly able to dive into the plethora of projects waiting for me in areas such as marketing, outreach, and even building a website, which I had never done before.

My favorite project so far has been creating a blog for the CBD Worx website. This blog is necessary to give our customers information on what exactly they are buying. Many people don’t know a lot about CBD, as it’s only come into the public eye very recently, so giving them information on how CBD can help their ailments will convince them to give it a try. This project has involved designing a website on WordPress, doing research, writing articles, and sharing them on social media. I’ve even gotten the opportunity to work with a professional graphic designer!

I plan to use this blog to start an advertising campaign and boost the number of hits both on the blog and the main website. I’ve been given full rein on what I can do and found that the responsibility has been a huge motivating factor. This project could be what the company needed in order to drive more customers to their website, and I’m excited to be a key player in what comes next.

I was looking forward to doing this internship in person, but with the pandemic happening, that was not possible. However, my experience in the program was not diminished because of this, and I was still able to learn and apply the same skills that I did virtually over this summer. In the future, I plan to become a doctor and start my own clinic. No two startups are the same, but I will use the skills and experience I acquired through this program to aid me in my own ventures.