Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Program

Course Details

Taught by industry experts, the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) course gives students frameworks and real-world solutions to use if they decide to pursue an acquisition and lead a company.

The class will walk through the life cycle of a typical path toward finding and running a business including information on fund formation, raising capital, searching for a company, buying a business, leading that business and then ultimately selling it.

Approximately half of the course will cover critical points leading up to buying a business, while the other half will address key issues executives face while running a company (identifying metrics, communicating with a team, interviewing, handling HR issues, etc.). Although the main focus will be on buying and running a business, the class is designed to be applicable to many other career paths, including private equity, venture capital, and entrepreneurship. The class will use cases, assignments, and/or readings in each lecture, along with speakers who will share real-world techniques they use.

This class is offered as a part of the Booth curriculum and is a credit-bearing class for Full-Time and Evening/Weekend Booth MBA students.

ETA Group (Full-time Students)

The ETA Group strives to accomplish two principal goals:

• Educate students and alumni about the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition process
• Create a community of interested and active industry participants

These goals are accomplished through both educational and experiential programming. The educational events are topical discussions with industry experts detailing each step of the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition process. The experiential portion will provide students with the opportunity to source and evaluate live investment targets.

ETA Club (Part-time Students)

This group seeks to provide education, resources, and networking opportunities to Chicago Booth students and alumni interested in pursuing entrepreneurship through acquisition via various models by connecting our members to the growing investor and entrepreneur community.