UW-Madison students and young professionals listened to mini-presentations from successful entrepreneurs at the interactive Entrepreneurial Deli Monday as a part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
The free event, sponsored by Madison MAGNET and cosponsored by the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations, functioned as a speed-dating"" format. Every eight minutes, ""Jump Around"" signaled participants to hop to the next table of their choice.
Doug Bradley, assistant director of marketing and communications for the Office of Corporate Relations, said the skill of entrepreneurship can be applied to any major or career.
""We want to energize and elevate and broaden the conversation about entrepreneurship on the campus,"" Bradley said. ""[Anyone] can be an entrepreneur.""
Themes of the event catered toward young professionals either in the workforce or those entering it in the future.
Ryan Paugh of brazencareerist.com advocated for the use of blogging for networking among young professionals. He said brazencareerist.com, an online blogging community, engages, recruits and connects companies in the corporate world.
""The biggest thing in the corporate world right now is recruiting and retaining and trying to connect with Gen Y,"" Paugh said. ""And social media is usually the way to do it.""
Paugh sparked Mike Osberg's interest, a UW-Madison senior attendee. Osberg previously blogged while studying abroad and said he was eager to try it again.
""I want to go home right now and start,"" he said.
Rishi Shah, co-founder of flyingcart.com, stressed the importance of social media as a marketing tool to engage consumers.
He stressed the endless possibilities of the Internet for entrepreneurs in the global marketplace, citing YouTube videos, Facebook, MySpace and Intrade as examples.
UW-Madison seniors Corey Capasso and Nate Lustig utilized the Internet for their business venture, ExchangeHut.com. Although they recently sold the company, the student entrepreneurs dished their ""top ten lessons learned as college entrepreneurs"" to participants.
""Do one thing, and do it well,"" Lustig said. ""At times we thought too big and instead of staying really focused on what we did well - selling tickets - we added apartment listings, message boards and local business ratings, which took away a lot of valuable time and money.""
