What An Opportunity

Yesterday, a group of venture capitalists, angels (HPA, Irish, Chicago Arch) and I toured the University of Illinois and networked with the entrepreneurial efforts going on down there.  What they are doing is nothing short of amazing.  A lot of VC’s figured out how to plug into Illinois and I suspect there will be a lot more deal flow and check writing that goes on between Chicago and Champaign.

If you are reading this and you are being recruited for athletics at Illinois, consider the fact that if you don’t make it as an athlete you can do better and build a sustainable career as an entrepreneur.  The students there are building products and companies that will change the world.  Think outside the box when it comes to your recruitment.  Someday it all ends and you have to find something else to do.  You might not have the idea for a company, but you can join one started by your classmates.  Joiners often do as well as founders.

Other schools talk about it but Illinois has a track record.

The Illinois engineering program graduates more computer science people than MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, and Cal-Berkeley combined.  The best thing that ever happened to Silicon Valley was Illinois.  All those guys that worked on transistors learned their craft at Illinois. The Valley has the highest concentration of Illinois alums anywhere in the US except Chicago.

The Gies College of Business is top notch and they are doing great things at iVentures.  Research Park is nothing short of mind boggling with some of the things that are being worked on there.  The new engineering focused medical school is set up to train techies on medicine, and spin out companies.  They are structuring themselves to be a platform, which takes ideas from the general public and puts them to work hopefully giving more medical care to more people at a cheaper price-to anyone in the world.

They are building a new cutting edge interdisciplinary design center.  It will go right next to the Gies College of Business, bringing students from all disciplines on campus to create, build and design, solving problems and hopefully spinning out more companies.  There is a similar center at Stanford.

One of the tough things that people at Illinois and people in Chicago have struggled with is bridging the land gap between Chicago and Champaign.  That is changing.

Chicago has always sent students to Illinois.  But, they do their education in Champaign and come home for holidays.  The College of Engineering has a newish program where students live in Chicago, take classes from U of I Engineering faculty in Chicago, and do internships while in Chicago.  Your company has to set up a Chicago office or be located there to take advantage of it.

If you are a tech company in Chicago, you cannot afford to pass this opportunity up.  When I listened to the particulars of it, I immediately emailed some companies I am invested in and made the introductions they need to hire some people to help their business.  As a company you get access to some of the highest quality talent in the United States.  For a small price, you can hire an intern that can program things for you. It’s an economically efficient way to get some stuff done and won’t hurt your burn rate.  Some companies in Chicago hired interns last year and significantly improved their valuation by getting stuff done.

This is also a way to begin building a relationship with a potential new tech employee.  The fight for talent is brutal, and this program gives you a leg up if you are in Chicago.

Our basketball team is getting better-and our football team is slowly getting better.  We went to the game last night and they were in it for a bit.  There’s hope.