Discover DePaul’s Entrepreneurship Program
The world of tech start-ups is far different from the fantasy tale outlined by movies like “The Social Network.” What’s the underrated necessity to actually make such a venture profitable? Easily (and predictably) enough, the answer is business knowledge.
“The popular myth is that you create a business on the back of an envelope,” says Harold Welsch, Coleman Chair in Entrepreneurship at DePaul University. “In reality it’s much different. We know you need all the functional disciplines, you need to apply every element that you learn in school to starting a business.”
According to Welsch, DePaul’s entrepreneurship programs provides something that many next-generation CEOs desperately need—risk aversion strategies.
“The way we designed the entrepreneurship program is to identify what the pitfalls are so that our students can avoid them,” says Welsch. “There’s a lot of risk involved in launching your own business and we train our students to be risk managers.”
Christian Wells was looking for the perfect graduate program when he found DePaul’s MBA in Entrepreneurship. Now a Driehaus student, he recently launched his new startup PlanMatcher.com, a health care exchange that helps the uninsured choose health plans online.
“DePaul was a perfect fit for me,” says Wells. “A lot of people don’t realize this, but whenever a group gets together, whether it be The Executives’ Club of Chicago or any other leaders’ organization, there is always someone at the table from DePaul. That instantly provides the opportunity to be able to have an interaction and business connection to go forward with a business relationship.”
Overall, Wells believes it was the stability and guidance of DePaul’s entrepreneurship program that really allowed me to start his own company.
