Frank BuchananInciting Sweetriots
In retrospect, my time at sweetriot was a combination of working for a startup and joining a cult (minus all the negative connotations associated with the word "cult"). It was as if I had changed my name to Charlie and I was touring the chocolate factory for two months while simultaneously writing a marketing plan. Needless to say - it was a blast.
Before creating any revenue generating business models for sweetriot (lowercase by design), I had to master their vernacular. First, I was not an employee - I was a "rioter." Not only were we called rioters, but we would actually make picketing signs (with positive messages about sweetriot) and take pictures while rioting around town. Next, whenever I did a good job, instead of a pat on the back I would be told "Shazam Frank!" Signing off on emails was fun too, no longer did I have to choose between "Sincerely" and "Regards," email signatures morphed into "Riotly." Until this summer I had only read about companies that marched to the beat of their own drummer, like Google, but now I was working for one - and I loved it.
In case you didn't know, sweetriot is a chocolate company; they make chocolate covered chocolate (i.e. they surround small pieces of cacao bean with dark chocolate) “peaces.” While sweetriot is a profit-seeking company, they are genuinely focused on the welfare of their Latin American suppliers. They take part in "equitrade," which goes beyond paying the cacao growers a fair price and actually produces the final chocolate product in the country of origin.
My job was simply to help extend the reach of the sweetriot brand. As you might expect, interning at a startup meant wearing many hats on a daily basis. One day I was schmoozing with investors, the next I was attending a flash mob in Times Square, and the next I was trying to sell
viral video ideas to Sarah (founder and "Chief Rioter"). This viral video became my baby. I am so passionate about it that I continue to work on it to this day, even after my internship ended, because I was not able to see it through to fruition before I left.
This summer at sweetriot I made some great friends, laughed a lot, and became a rioter for life. Sarah, the founder, is a quirky HBS grad who wholeheartedly believes that sweetriot is helping make the world a better place. I've seen her give impressive speeches to investors about the financial outlook of sweetriot and I've seen her dance around the office in her rollerblades on a whim - she was the best boss I've ever had.
