By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

It is Friday night in the Hyatt Regency lobby on Wacker Drive. You have been in the Grand Ballroom since 8 AM. You pitched your search to four investors, talked SBA terms with two lenders, swapped cards with a searcher who is looking at the same niche as you, and promised a Kellogg student you would introduce her to your accountant.

The answer to the follow up question is simple. The Booth Kellogg ETA Conference rewards the searchers who text the right investors and lenders within 48 hours, with a detail from the conversation, and then keep showing up for the next 30 days. The hard part is doing it after one day with more than a thousand people in the room.

I run matchmaking for two communities. The conversations are never the scarce part. The follow up is. Here is how I would run this one.

What the 2026 conference looks like

The 13th annual Booth Kellogg Entrepreneurship through Acquisition Conference is on Friday, October 30, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. It is hosted by the ETA Group at Chicago Booth, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and the Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative, according to the official conference site.

A few facts from the official FAQ shape how you should work it:

• More than 1,000 people register each year, including search fund entrepreneurs, investors, MBA students, faculty and service providers.
• It is one day and in person only. No virtual option. If you miss someone in the room, you miss them.
• The app is Go Attend by Swoogo. It goes live two weeks before the event. You can view and connect with attendees who opted in to share contact details, build a schedule, and follow the Community Board.
• Side events are not listed officially. Hosts are encouraged to post them in the app, so check it.

The 2026 agenda opens with a fireside chat with Will Thorndike, then runs breakout panels on pricing, financing under the new SBA 7(a) rules, finding a partner, hold or exit decisions, and the first 100 days operating. Long blocks of general networking run in the Grand Ballroom, and a networking reception closes the day at 4 PM. Sponsors sit at numbered tables, a mix of law firms, accounting firms, banks and search investors listed on the sponsor page.

That mix matters. This is not a room of sellers. It is a room of capital, lenders and advisors deciding which searchers to back.

Before the event: who to research and book

Open Go Attend the day it goes live and sort the room into three groups.

1. Capital. Search fund investors and family offices who back your model. Know whether you are traditional, self funded or partnered before you walk up.
2. Lenders and deal advisors. The SBA panel and the bank sponsor tables are where your financing gets real. Note which banks sit at which numbered table.
3. Peers. Searchers in your industry or region. They become deal swaps, co investors and honest references.

Searchers book meetings in public before the conference. A UCLA Anderson searcher posted on Searchfunder before last year’s 12th edition asking for one on one meetings with investors, offering to buy coffee or a meal, and laying out a clear buy box in logistics. That is the template. Name your niche, your EBITDA range and your status, and ask for 20 minutes.

Write down the one question you want to ask each person on your list. That question becomes your follow up later.

In the room: capture in 10 seconds

You will have more conversations in the networking blocks than you can hold in your head, and most will end when someone taps your shoulder. Capture each one before the next starts.

Ten seconds is enough for three things: the name, what they asked you for, and one detail only they said. “Investor, wants to see the deck, backs two HVAC searchers.” “Lender at the bank table, said 7(a) changes help partnered searches.” “Kellogg student, wants an accountant intro.”

Snap the badge if you did not get a card. Say a sentence into your phone between panels. Do not trust yourself to remember who said what about the SBA rules by Sunday. For a deeper system on this, see how to remember everyone you meet at a conference.

The 48 hours after: who first

Saturday and Sunday are the window. Monday morning, everyone you met is buried in their own inbox. Go in this order.

1. Investors who asked for something. The deck, the buy box, a deal you mentioned. They asked. Deliver before they forget asking.

Great talking after the Thorndike chat. Deck attached, plus the two HVAC targets I mentioned. Would value your view on the second one. 20 minutes next week?

2. Lenders who talked real terms. Financing conversations go stale fast once someone else sends the same lender a deal.

Thanks for walking me through the new 7(a) rules at your table. I am close to an LOI on a $2M EBITDA business. Can I send the summary Tuesday?

3. Intros you promised. The student, the peer searcher, the operator who wanted your attorney. A promised intro that never happens costs more than the intro is worth. I have made over 1,000 introductions, and the ones promised in a hallway are the ones I send first.

Great meeting at the reception. Introducing you to my accountant this week as promised. Any dates you are out?

4. Peer searchers. They will see the same deals you see. Make it easy to trade.

Good to meet a fellow industrial services searcher. Happy to swap broker lists. Coffee in two weeks?

Every message has a detail from the conversation. That is what separates you from every other searcher who pitched the same investor. For the general ordering logic, see who to follow up with first after a conference, and for more message examples, follow up texts after a conference.

The 30 days after

The first text gets you remembered. The next month decides whether you get backed or brought a deal.

• Week 1: Send everything you promised. Decks, intros, summaries.
• Week 2: Send one useful thing to each investor and lender. A target you passed on that fits their portfolio. A note on the pricing panel. Something that proves you listen.
• Week 3 and 4: Give a short update on your search. A new LOI, a new niche, a deal that died and why. Investors back searchers they watch make progress.

The searcher who texts an investor in week three with “LOI signed, here is the summary” gets a call. The one who went quiet after Saturday becomes a name the investor half remembers at the next conference. Searching is a long game, and as deal sourcing for searchers shows, your deal usually comes through a relationship you kept warm.

The system I built for this

I built FRONT OF MIND because I watched operators meet the right people, have real conversations, then disappear for months inside a deal. It turns the day into a list you can work in 10 minutes. In the room, say a name and a sentence out loud, snap a badge, or take a selfie together, and it is filed under the Booth Kellogg ETA Conference. The next morning, your 10 minutes for today shows who to text first, with one line saying why: you met at the event two days ago and never followed up, or an investor posted about a new platform deal.

Every draft is a text style message of 40 words or less. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Ask Liala “who did I meet at the ETA conference that lends on SBA deals” and get the right names with why. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who from Chicago comes up first.

See how it works