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The Wharton School of Entrepreneurship
By Davis Smith, Cherif Habib, Stephan Jacob, Ayo Omojola (WG '11)-->Published: Sunday, April 3, 2011
Updated: Monday, April 4, 2011 15:04
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Entrepreneurship at Wharton is thriving. In the last year, we've seen several successful exits of student-launched companies, including AdMob (GOOG), Invite Media (GOOG), Milo.com (EBAY) and Diapers.com (AMZN). On the other side of the table, Wharton alums Fred Wilson (USV), Aydin Senkut (Felicis), Yuri Milner (DST), Josh Kopelman (First Round), and Michael Aronson (MentorTech) have stayed busy investing in the next generation of great companies. Closer to home, the class of 2010 is having a strong run with Warby Parker, PayDivvy and Clipik doing exceptionally well, and Hector Beverages recently receiving a $1m angel investment from the founder of Infosys.
Student entrepreneurs at Wharton have benefited immensely from the resources here. The folks at Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, the Weiss Tech House, the Venture Initiation Program, Founders' Club, e-Club, Tech Club, classmates, faculty, and alumni have all helped tremendously. But we still have a lot of work to do, to strengthen the startup community at Wharton and Penn. Here's how you can help:
1. Use the products: Give feedback - nothing is more valuable to an entrepreneur than users and buyers of a product.
2. Tell your friends: Your word is better than any advertising we could do. If you like what we're doing, email your friends, or better yet, share on Facebook or Twitter.
3. Introduce us: You probably know venture and angel investors, advisors, and industry and product experts. We'd love to meet them.
4. Help us directly: You could help shape the product, craft the message or model the business - your skills and time make a huge difference.
5. Give back as an alum: When a student entrepreneur reaches out, please take the call.
Many of our classmates and our accomplished undergrad friends are working hard to launch real products, generate revenues, attract top tier press coverage, and raise venture capital. This sample is by no means comprehensive - please do what you can to help Wharton's wonderful startups:
- Careercup.com - Career prep for tech jobs (Gayle Laakman - WG '11)
- Catapulter.com - Door to door ground travel search (Adam Waaramaa & Jenny Cheng - WG '11)
- Coursekit.com - Changing the way you interact with your classes (Joseph Cohen & Dan Getelman - W '13, W'12)
- Gamma Basics - Radiation safety compliance software (Mike Kijewski - WG '12)
- Meeteor.com - Taking the work out of networking (Philip De Cortes & Chris Lee - WG '11)
- Mooblue - Real-time bidding for mobile ads (Nimit Maru & Roberto Sanchez Garvin - WG '12)
- Osus Athletics - Weight lifting you can wear (Steve Dong & Corey Lerch - W '12)
- PoverUP – Student microfinance lending network (Charlie Javice – W '14)
- Rendezwho.com - Make new friends in your city, over dinner (Matt Stephenson - WG '11)
- Squid.by - Make videos with your friends (Bill Kang & Marty Brown - WG '11)
- Stylitics.com - Analytics for fashion brands (Rohan Deuskar - WG '11)
- TerViva BioEnergy – Low cost, environmentally responsible biodiesel production (Sudhir Rani – WG ‘11)
You can find out more at vip.wharton.upenn.edu or by following @WhartonEntrep & @wfounders on twitter.
Lastly, we urge you to launch a startup, or help one. If you have an idea, get in touch and we'll help you launch. If you don't, then help a startup - you never know what it might become.
Davis Smith (davis@baby.com.br) is the founder of baby.com.br, an e-commerce site focused on the baby space in Brasil. Cherif Habib (cherif @kembrel.com) and Stephan Jacob (stephan@kembrel.com) are co-founders of Kembrel.com, a private shopping community for students. Ayo Omojola (ayo@flicsy.com) is the founder of flicsy.com, a service for sharing photos with groups.
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