Five cities, five days, unbounded opportunity

I spent last week meeting hundreds of top talent student and faculty members at Purdue University, University of Chicago, Notre Dame, University of Illinois and the MKE Water Council. My mission: find great talent for our companies and find the next great company to invest in. Thanks to the many folks at each campus who hosted us; I’m excited about the companies and people we’re now engaged with after the trip.

There were a few common themes I observed on campuses:

Entrepreneurship is finally an established career option: Even only 18 years ago when I was an engineering student, no one talked about “entrepreneurship” career options. 20 years ago at top MBA programs, “entrepreneurship” was a dirty word. Today, entrepreneurship is the top concentration at U of C’s Booth School of Business, and Purdue now counts 1900 students in their entrepreneurship certificate program, with 400 new students joining per semester. Wow. Yes, entrepreneurship is risky and volatile, but it can be taught, or at least coached.

Starting young is low risk: Of course, the entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught. It emerges in macro and micro cultures – on campuses, in countries, in families – over decades and generations of attempts, successes and failures. Our modern cultural heroes of Zuckerberg, Levie and Jobs help as well. The beauty for students is that starting a company or working for a startup young is a great time to do it. Students and recent grads have little “expertise or experience” – and so may not be at the point in their lives to maximize chances of success – but cost of failure is very low. Students and recent grads without families and responsibilities can live cheap, and if they fail, they can hit the “reset button” of grad school or joining a big company. Moreover, students at top schools have not yet experienced failure – they are at a unique point in there lives where everything seems possible. Make it happen.

The only regret I have from the trip is that I couldn’t visit more places in one week, so I’m planning some follow-up trips. So far on the list:

• Monday, February 20th  – UW Madison
• Tuesday, February 21st – Marquette University
• Rose-Hulman and Northwestern are also in the works

If you couldn’t make one of the stops, here are some resources for you:

Slideshare startup/VC primer: To learn more about startup internships, careers or raising capital, check out the Slideshare below of my deck from the tour. You can also check out my recorded presentation from Purdue’s Anvil at this YouTube link.

Find jobs: Our team at Hyde Park Venture Partners recently launched a talent portal to match top talent within our 50+ portfolio companies across the Midwest, Atlanta, and Toronto – please share your resume with us, so we can find a few opportunities for you: Hyde Park Venture Partners Talent Portal. Please also checkout TransparentCareer, the best place to find salary and comp stats for early career roles (shameless portfolio plug!). 

Career decision making: At many of my stops, I referenced this framework about how to think about career decisions: Career advice: don’t listen to it, but if you must…

Enjoy and see you on the road for the Midwest Startup Tour Round 2!