Chicago Booth Continues To Impress  

Posted by Dino in ,

The event bared a slight resemblance to a British TV show (above) called Dragon's Den.

Chicago Booth held an event earlier this week, After the Pitch: Entrepreneurial Financing Insights. The event featured an entrepreneur making a fund raising pitch to a panel of investors, angels and VCs, followed by discussions.

While all the investors had interesting thoughts and the discussion was insightful, Chicago Professor Waverly Deutsch’s insights were by far the most impressive. Every quip and slight sentence she fed into the discussion had the feel of a heavyweight knockout punch that had me gasping for air. She spoke like someone who had seen the entrepreneurial process not just a few times before, but hundreds of times before. The whole experience left me thinking, "what am I doing not applying for this school!".

What I particularly liked was that as well as the main event there was plenty of time for networking before and after the main spectacle of the pitch and discussions / analysis. With perhaps over 200 people, there was standing room only for late comers during the pitch and discussions. The event itself was aimed at helping the school create a world-wide entrepreneurial network, and I think it certainly worked. There were entrepreneurs from every walk of life. Talking to one entrepreneur, who was building a chain of outlets selling Jamaican roti wraps, he shared with me his secret: figuring out what people will want in 3 years time and starting to build it now.

I've posted a full review of the event in a separate post, below (or here).

I've said this before and I'll say it again... With three campuses across the globe, innovative events such as this, a $300M funding boost and all the other innovations... you can almost see why Business Week ranks Chicago number one.

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4 comments

Yup, great school. I just had my interview there last Friday and would LOVE to be accepted there.

BTW, gift is for USD$300M, not British pounds.

24 November 2008 at 13:30

Yup, great school. I just had my interview there last Friday and would LOVE to be accepted there.

BTW, gift is for USD$300M, not British pounds.

24 November 2008 at 13:30

Opps. Thanks. Corrected it to USD now :-D.

Hope you don't tear your hair out waiting for their response - good luck with it!

24 November 2008 at 20:18

Opps. Thanks. Corrected it to USD now :-D.

Hope you don't tear your hair out waiting for their response - good luck with it!

24 November 2008 at 20:18

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