My Deep Dive Into Business

The first summer I worked at the University Impact Fund I was a bad intern.  I wasn’t good at combing through large amounts of research to find relevant information.  I could not fit my thinking into concise bullet points on a slide deck, and excel was not a tool I could use to develop an analysis.  However, I kept showing up and it was an an environment where I had no option other than learn and become better. 

The University Impact Fund (UIF) was a new program being developed in conjunction with the University Venture Fund (UVF), a $18M student driven venture fund developed by alumni of the University of Utah.  UIF was in the process of working on  projects for venture funds and entrepreneurs in the impact investing space.  The hope was that the fund could develop a network that would support raising a fund to manage and invest in a manner similar to UVF. 

The projects were diverse and demanding, and they kept coming.  Among other things we developed deal screens on seed stage investments in biomedical companies aimed at the BOP, wrote investment memos on private equity funds that were buying African banks, created financial models for entrepreneurs starting new software companies, and developed research around the Sub-Saharan point-of-sale software market.   Every time I worked on something I was told how it could be better.  There was no room for ego; there was too much work that needed to be done.  Being part of a young dynamic organization was very exciting, and the work was engaging. Without even realizing it I was being taught how to manage small teams, communicate with clients, present analysis effectively, and perform under conditions with high responsibility and tight deadlines.

I worked at UIF for most of the next two years.  When forced to choose between studying for an exam, or preparing for an investment pitch the next day the choice was simple.  It was clear that my real business school education was occurring at UIF.