Zell Early Stage Fund

We seek BBA sophomores with an interest in investing and entrepreneurship. You are eligible to join as long as you are able to commit to two years with the Fund, and are not studying abroad during a school term. We do NOT expect you to have prior experience in venture capital, but experiences in entrepreneurship and investing will help you convey your interest in the Fund.

As a member of the Zell Early Stage Fund, you will learn about early-stage investing through practice. You will learn how to analyze early-stage companies, markets, business models, financial models and exits. You will learn about deal terms, about how professional investors make decisions under uncertainty, and how investors and entrepreneurs deal with high levels of risk. You will decide whether to invest real money in actual early-stage funding rounds alongside other professional investors. You will have support from a board of advisers that includes entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and other early-stage investors.

You will learn skills and get hands-on practice that will serve you well wherever marketing, financial or business model analyses are important tasks, and anywhere uncertainty and risk are important. Students who go into consulting, investment banking, equity analysis, or a startup, early-stage, or entrepreneurial company will draw on their Fund skills and experience immediately. You will have something to offer employers or partners that is distinctive - few undergraduates anywhere will have anything like it.

We know you are smart and accomplished. If you weren't, you wouldn't be our BBAs. We have the difficult task of selecting a small number of you from a large group of high achievers, so we are looking for something distinctive and relevant. (It would be distinctive if you can play the clarinet while riding a unicycle blind-folded, but it's not all that relevant to the Fund.)

You do not need venture capital, investing, finance, or startup experience. We will teach you about early-stage investing. We do expect most Fund members to have participated in significant activities that demonstrate their interest in early-stage companies or early-stage investing. You must have completed all the sophomore-required BBA courses prior to applying for the Fund.

The Fund will meet as a class on Wednesdays, from 5:30pm - 7:30 pm. The Fund is a for-credit course. Attendance at every class meeting is mandatory.

You also will work in deal teams. When a deal team is working on a potential investment, the team will meet often and at odd hours to get the due diligence done. That is how transactional practice and investing works in the real world and that is how it will work at the Fund. Deal team meetings are mandatory.

Joining the Fund is a big commitment. It is not merely another activity to dress up your resume. With the Fund being a class and major time commitment, we ask if applying to make this your priority. It can be extremely difficult to manage other extracurriculars and our organization at the same time.  We take our ZLI Funds so seriously that a member who fails to put in sufficient effort can be removed from their Fund at any time at the discretion of their Fund's Faculty Managing Director.

We are looking for BBAs who:

• Have produced high academic achievement so far at UM
• Have a lot of energy and stamina (with something in their record that demonstrates their energy and stamina)
• Will have a high level of commitment to the Fund
• Work well on teams
• Are mature in their judgment and conduct (You will deal with real-world investors and entrepreneurs)
• Have demonstrated strong analytic and communications skills (Analytic skills can be quantitative or qualitative)
• Are the best of the leaders and best. If that's you, we welcome your application.

If you are a BBA sophomore who is not studying abroad next year, please email ZESFcontact@umich.edu if you are interested in joining. We will update this page with a more detailed timeline in a few weeks