My First Quarter At Wharton: Definitely Not The Place If You Struggle With Quant

A New Data & Analytics Club at Wharton

I’ve mentioned in past posts that the WCAI and some of the work being done by Peter Fader and Eric T. Bradlow greatly inspired me to choose to come to Wharton this past spring.  Since my arrival, I’ve gotten to know Prof. Fader very well and my foot work combined with the resources and backing of the WCAI have resulted in a new club geared at Wharton students who have an interest in analytics.

Wharton West recently had a panel in San Francisco featuring panelists from Amazon, Wells Fargo, Electronic Arts, Deloitte and StubHub among others that gave Wharton students and alumni an opportunity  to explore how customer-level analysis is applied across industries, understand recent trends and analytics methods, and to network with professionals from leading companies in customer analytics roles.

We’re looking to duplicate that effort on the east coast with some additional programming, including a People Analytics conference in the spring that is being organized by one of my classmates who formerly worked at Google. Fader and I were pretty happy to see the overwhelming interest in the club when about 70 or so people showed up for our informational meeting.

A lot larger things are coming down the pipes to benefit students who are interested in this area as we begin to ramp up and organize.  A part of the reason why Wharton sent the most interns to Google a summer or two ago had a lot to do with a rigorous data analytics class taught by Fader that has become an unspoken required course for people who want to walk out of Wharton as data rock stars. A lot of the momentum that we’ve been able to build a in a short amount of time is due to the efforts of Rocco Spinelli from the WCAI office and Mike Foley, who was hired full time to specifically focus on increasing student-facing initiatives in analytics for Wharton students.

The US Open 

A while ago, about 250 or so of my classmates descended on Queens, NY in Wharton t-shirts to take part in the US open. It was a perfect example of some guy in my class who randomly asked “hey, who wants to go to the US Open” in our Facebook group. A month later, 4 charter buses were leaving Philly full of drunken Whartonites. It was an absolute blast, and I just might do it again next year.

The Wharton White Party

A more planned big event that I got to experience was the Wharton White Party, thrown each fall by Out4Biz, the school’s LGBT organization. Needless to say, it was a helluva good time for all.

On Recruiting

One issue that I’ve been going back and forth about is recruiting, which is weird, because I had decided that I was not going to recruit before I even got here. The conflict is that all of the best companies recruit here; which, can lure even the most anti-recruiting person to want to leverage just a bit of that access.

In my case, I’ve grappled with whether or not vie for a Google internship over the summer to experience the culture and learn what I could about how they conceptualize and roll out products. Sounds innocent, doesn’t it. The deal, however, is that my cofounder–barring unforeseen circumstances–planned for us to spend the summer in the San Francisco Bay area working together and networking prior to both enrolling in Wharton’s Semester in San Francisco program for next fall.

For a while, I told myself that I might be able to handle both. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. It was a preposterous notion. I came here to finally get the opportunity to go balls-to-the-wall on entrepreneurship. I can always get a job if I need one, especially with the Wharton brand, which is why you come to a school like this in the first place; thus, my decision is final. No interning or recruiting for me short of a startup disaster. There; its settled. Let’s move on before I change my mind again.

Entrepreneurship at Wharton

So a few days ago, my co-founder–a classmate of mine–and I applied for Wharton’sVenture Initiation Program (VIP). The VIP is kind of a mini accelerator that helps start up teams validate faster with the help of mentorship, accountability and a little cash. More importantly, it is  pre-requesite and gateway into other entrepreneurial support programs and larger cash awards here. If we don’t make this cycle, we can apply again for the summer; but it would be good to go through the school year with that support.

We submitted an application, a 2-page executive summary, our resumes and a 3-4 minute video pitch–all of which I felt were pretty strong. Regardless of this one outcome, I’m most excited about how well our skills compliment each other’s. I did a little programming long ago on undergrad internships and in my first job out of college. I don’t consider myself a developer but know just enough to be dangerously strategic in building out business strategies that depend on software. I’ve also spent years working in corporate sales, marketing and operations. I’m definitely an implementer.

My co-founder, on the other hand, did a CS minor at Stanford undergrad and has spent his entire post-school career living and working in the Silicon Valley, first in finance and then in venture capital. He eats, sleeps and breathes that culture. He’s seen a thousand pitches and tends to know most of the tech founders that are discussed in our business cases for school. Finance, tech and fundraising are his strengths. I really look forward to what we are going to build.