Learn how a company actually runs.
A selective fellowship for college students who want real responsibility — not a term of coffee runs and invented projects.
Atlanta, hybrid · Rolling admission, year-round · Term built around your semester · Unpaid, built so it can count for credit
Most internships waste your summer.
You already know the version where you fetch things, sit in on calls you cannot contribute to, and leave with a line on a résumé and nothing you can actually do. We built the opposite of that. Fall and spring do the same thing to a semester.
Here's the part that's different. This company runs on a documented operating system modeled on the Toyota Production System — the most studied one in the world. You're not interning at a rental company. You're spending a term inside a system, being taught it by the people who run it.
See the operating system you'll learn →One person. Every week. The same question until it holds.
Coaching is the part everything else here is built around. The work gives you something to be wrong about. The coaching is where you find out why.
Every internship page on earth promises mentorship. Most of it evaporates in week three when everyone gets busy. So here is exactly what this is, in enough detail that you can hold us to it.
Who
A senior lead who actually runs the function you're working in. Not a recruiter, not an HR handler — the person accountable for the numbers you're touching.
The same person, all term
You get one coach for the whole fellowship. They run your sessions, review your work, sign your school's evaluations, and write your reference. A rotating cast of whoever's free is not coaching.
The cadence
One-on-one, every week, in the same slot. It's on your calendar before your first day, and a session that gets cancelled gets rescheduled the same week.
What happens in a session
You bring work. They ask why. Then they ask why again, about the answer you just gave, until your reasoning either holds up or falls over. Both outcomes are useful. After a few weeks you start pre-empting the question yourself.
What you get in writing
A written midpoint review and a written final review — the same instruments we use on our own operators, and what your school gets when it asks for an evaluation.
If it stops happening
Tell us. If your coaching isn't happening, that's a program failure and we want to hear about it while there's still time to fix it.
The way we coach you is the way we solve problems here. Go and see the actual thing, ask why until the answer stops moving, then fix the system so it can't happen again. It's one instrument. We point it at processes, and we point it at people.
Four tracks. Real ones.
You'll be placed in one track and go deep rather than wide. Whatever the track, the pattern is the same: you're given work with a clear standard, someone senior reviews it with you, and then the standard goes up.
Leasing
Trace one week of inquiries from the first message to a signed lease and find the exact step where people fall out. Measure how long it takes to answer a new inquiry, and what changes when that number moves. Sit in on tours and write down every question a prospect asks that the listing should have answered.
Afterward: Read a funnel and say where it leaks, why, and what it costs.
Hospitality
Walk into a unit the way a guest does and write down everything wrong in the first ten minutes, then check your list against the standard. Read every review from a defined period and code them into themes until the top three causes of friction are undeniable. Then trace one of them back to the process that produces it.
Afterward: Tell the difference between a bad review and a broken process, which almost nobody can.
Operations
Time-study a turn. Chart the calendar days step by step across a set of recent turns and find where the days actually go — the answer is almost always waiting, not working. Then follow one work order end to end, in person, and write down what the process document didn't say.
Afterward: Look at any process and see the waiting. You'll never unsee it.
Data
Take a report someone rebuilds by hand every week and either make it take a quarter of the time or make it answer the question it was actually meant to answer. Find a metric the team argues about, write a definition everyone can agree to, and get it adopted.
Afterward: Recognize that most data problems are definition problems.
None of this is invented for you. It's work we wanted done and hadn't gotten to, scoped so that doing it teaches you something.
We didn't invent this. Toyota did.
TruPorch runs on an operating system modeled on the Toyota Production System — not as a poster in a break room, but as the actual way decisions get made here. Five ideas you'll use rather than read about:
Go and see
Decisions get made at the actual home, looking at the actual thing. This is why the fellowship is hybrid and why you're in Atlanta. A spreadsheet can't smell a foundation problem or hear the highway two streets over.
Standardized work
The current best way, written down, so the next person doesn't have to rediscover it. You'll find the gap between how something is documented and how it actually runs. That gap is where most of the money goes.
Kaizen
Small improvements, constantly, from whoever is closest to the work. That includes you, by about week three.
Stop and fix
You're allowed to stop the line. If you see something wrong, you say so, and we go look. Week one included. Nobody here will tell you that you haven't earned the right to point at a problem.
Waste
Learn to see waiting. Once you can, you can't stop.
You don't start where you finish.
Go and see
You're in Atlanta. You walk homes, sit in on tours and turns, and shadow senior leads on purpose. You read your way into the curriculum and ask questions that feel stupid and turn out not to be.
By the end: You can describe one process end to end from memory — including the parts nobody wrote down.
Do the work
You take work with a clear standard and you do it. Your coach reviews it with you and the standard goes up. Then it goes up again. Your scope grows; the review doesn't shrink. This is the flat part, where the people who wanted the résumé line and the people who wanted the work stop looking the same.
By the end: You have an opinion about how something here should work, and you can defend it to the person who owns it.
Improve the work
One process. You go and see it performed, write down how it really runs, measure where the time or the money goes, propose one change, get it adopted, and measure again. Then you present it to the people who run this company and answer for it.
By the end: You've changed how a real company does one real thing, and you can explain exactly why it worked.
Finishing isn't a credential. It's the first time you've seen the inside of a company that's run on purpose. That changes what you're willing to accept in every job after this one, which is the part nobody warns you about.
Not a title. A craft.
Real work, with a coach on it
The work you get is chosen for what it teaches you. A senior lead owns the outcome and reviews it with you. You'll shadow in week one, on purpose. You won't shadow for three months.
The curriculum our operators train on
Not a login and good luck. A sequence, with reviews where you're asked to reason out loud rather than recite. (The Academy is our paid program for the operators who run this company. Fellows get the curriculum and the coaching method.)
A project you keep
You finish by presenting one improvement to the people who run this company. It's yours — you can show it in an interview and explain it in detail.
How a business really works
Unit economics, operations, systems, the cost of getting something wrong. The things a classroom cannot teach you.
A reference with substance
You leave with someone who can speak specifically about what you did — plus a written final review you actually get to read, from the person who supervised your work.
Credit, handled
You don't have to enroll for credit to be a fellow. It's built so you can. We sign the learning agreement, complete the midpoint and final evaluations, and sign your hours.
It's unpaid. Here's the honest reason.
The program is built around teaching you. The time our senior people spend coaching you, reviewing your work, and re-doing the parts you got wrong costs more than the work produces. We'd rather say that plainly than dress it up as an opportunity.
If you need income this term, take the paid job. That's the right call and we'll tell you so. We build the schedule so you can keep a paying job alongside this — but if the math still doesn't work, it doesn't work, and we'd rather you knew that now.
The research says unpaid internships are worse. It's right.
Unpaid internships do have a worse record than paid ones, and the reason isn't mysterious: most of them are unstructured. No curriculum, no supervisor, no deliverable, nobody who can speak to your work afterward. Four things here are the answer to that — a real curriculum, one named coach on a fixed weekly schedule, a project you present and keep, and a written evaluation. Ask every program you're considering for those four. Most can't produce them.
We are not screening for a perfect transcript.
The major on the transcript has never predicted who does well here.
Curiosity
You ask how things work and are not satisfied with the first answer.
Ownership
You finish what you start without being chased, and you say so early when something is off track.
Coachability
You want to be told what you got wrong. The fellows who grow fastest are the ones who ask for the hard feedback.
Comfort with ambiguity
Real operating work is messy. You are willing to make a call with incomplete information and own the result.
Who this isn't for.
- If you need income this term. Take the paid job.
- If you want a guaranteed offer at the end. There isn't one, and we won't imply there is.
- If you want to be told exactly what to do. You'll be given a standard and a coach, not a script.
- If you want the line on the résumé more than the work. It'll be a long term.
None of that is a character flaw. It's a mismatch, and finding out now is cheaper for both of us.
Built so it can count. Your school makes the call.
You don't have to enroll for credit to be a fellow. The program is built so that you can — and this section is written so you can send this page straight to your adviser.
What we do
- We sign your learning agreement and return it quickly.
- We complete a written midpoint and a written final evaluation.
- We sign your hour logs.
- Faculty and career centers can reach us directly at info@truporchhomes.com. If your adviser wants to talk to a person, we'll take the call.
The learning objectives
- 1.Describe how a vertically integrated residential operator makes money, and where it loses it.
- 2.Observe a live operational process, document how it actually runs, and identify the gap between that and how it is documented.
- 3.Measure one process and defend a recommendation to change it, in front of the people accountable for it.
- 4.Ship one improvement and measure what happened afterward.
- 5.Communicate a recommendation in writing to a standard a working team will act on.
Most schools convert somewhere around 40 to 50 clock hours per credit hour — yours may differ, so ask. And one warning, because nobody else will give it to you: some schools don't approve unpaid internships at for-profit companies, and that's becoming more common. Ask your career center early, because credit registration usually closes at or before the start of term.
Who
U.S. college students
Where
Remote by default, with regular days in Atlanta — you'll know the schedule before you accept
When
Rolling admission, year-round. Hours and term set with you before you start, around your class schedule
Pay
Unpaid. Built so it can count for credit at most schools — your school makes the final call
Two things we'll say plainly. Fellows complement our paid team; they don't replace anyone, and a fellow is never used to cover a role or a shift. And the fellowship carries no entitlement to a paid job at the end — there's no promise here, and we won't pretend otherwise.
What you leave with is the work, the project, a written review, and people who can speak specifically about what you did.
The things you're actually wondering.
How many hours a week, and how long is the term?
We set both with you before you start, around your class schedule. The hours are blocked on your calendar, we don't add them at the last minute, and nights and weekends aren't part of this.
When does it run?
Year-round. We take fellows on a rolling basis and shape the term around your semester, so the right time to apply is whenever you're ready.
Can I do this with a full course load?
Yes — that's how it's built. Send us your class schedule and exam weeks before the term starts and we schedule around them. If your semester turns on you, tell your coach and we'll change your scope rather than have you quietly disappear.
Can I keep my paying job?
Yes. Tell us in the application — we'd rather know.
Do I need real-estate experience? Do I need to be a business major?
No, and no. The major on the transcript has never predicted who does well here.
Do I pick my track?
We'll talk it through together. We place you in one track and go deep rather than wide.
Will I get stuck with busywork?
Some. Every job has some. If your week is mostly busywork, that's a program failure, and your coach wants to hear about it in the next session.
Why is this unpaid?
Because the program is built around teaching you. The time our senior people spend coaching you, reviewing your work, and re-doing the parts you got wrong costs more than the work produces. We'd rather say that plainly than dress it up. If you need income this term, take the paid job — that's the right call and we'll tell you so.
Do I have to enroll for credit?
No. The program is built so you can, and we'll do the paperwork if you do.
Does the credit cost me money?
Sometimes — your school decides that, not us. Some charge tuition per credit hour; some offer a zero-credit transcript notation that costs nothing. Ask early, because registration deadlines usually fall before the term starts.
Is there a job at the end?
No promise, and we won't pretend otherwise. This isn't a pipeline. What you leave with is the work, the project, a written review, and people who can speak specifically about what you did.
My school won't approve unpaid internships at for-profit companies.
That happens, and it's becoming more common. Ask your career center before you apply. If a conversation with us would help, we'll have it.
Applications are open year-round.
Applying is free and takes place on our official portal. We never charge fees or ask for payment details, at any stage.
Free to apply · a clear answer either way