I'm curious, why for three days? I can't imagine you could accomplish much in three days (at least, I couldn't) since you need to setup your environment, get accesses, familiarize yourself with the release system, etc...
Probably means 3 days a week
When I said 3 days, I meant 3 days only. I think it'll make the founders think about the most important things they need to improve on, which can also be handed to someone with little credibility, kind of similar to the idea of contributing to open source projects.
Thanks a lot for your suggestion! I agree with you that this will help me in a long run for my programming skills. However, what I'm actually looking for is experience at running a business/startup.
I agree with Anu here. You won't be able to learn too much in 3 days, and also none of the guys at a startup will take a lot of interest making you understand things considering the short tenure. Pick up a small idea - some pain point that you see in your daily workflow. There are so many possibilities with free infrastructure today, Heroku, Google App Engine, and of course Amazon WebServices. Start contacting people…
I believe 3 days is enough. A new marketing idea can be implemented in 3 days; a new UI mockup can be done in 3 days. To me, I'll be learning things, but to the founders they can actually benefit from my ideas or executions. It's free after all, and they can definitely take it further after the 3 days (maybe hire me something).
I agree with Anu here. You won't be able to learn too much in 3 days, and also none of the guys at a startup will take a lot of interest making you understand things considering the short tenure. Pick up a small idea - some pain point that you see in your daily workflow. There are so many possibilities with free infrastructure today, Heroku, Google App Engine, and of course Amazon WebServices. Start contacting people…
I believe 3 days is enough. A new marketing idea can be implemented in 3 days; a new UI mockup can be done in 3 days. To me, I'll be learning things, but to the founders they can actually benefit from my ideas or executions. It's free after all, and they can definitely take it further after the 3 days (maybe hire me something).
I assume when one says for 3 days, he/she knows that they won't have time after that - or else, they would have agreed for a week/two or so on. What if the idea/mockup was not completed in 3 days, and the trainee was not willing to spend more time...
From a founder's perspective they lost the time. Probably for mitigation they would have someone else implement the idea too... which would indicate that they might not provide the same attention to your implementation.