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.

Wharton ETA Summit follow up comes down to one move: within 48 hours, text the investors and searchers you actually talked to, with the exact thing you discussed and one small next step. The Wharton and MIT summits are student run rooms where investors meet searchers early, so the follow up is how they remember you when you launch.

You know the scene. Friday afternoon in Huntsman Hall, the last panel just ended. You talked to an investor who backs first time searchers, a second year MBA who is launching this summer, and an operator who bought a business three years ago and offered to look at your thesis. You have their names. You do not have what each of them asked you to send.

I did not attend either summit. Here is how I would run it, based on what the official sites say about the rooms.

What are the Wharton and MIT ETA summits?

Both are annual, in person ETA conferences run by student clubs, a few weeks apart in the spring.

	Wharton ETA Summit	MIT ETA Summit
Host	Wharton ETA club	MIT ETA club
2026 dates	April 2 to 3, 2026	February 27 to 28, 2026
Where	Huntsman Hall and the Curtis Atrium, Philadelphia	MIT Sloan, Cambridge
Format	Welcome cocktail Thursday, full day of panels Friday	Networking and happy hour Friday evening, conference Saturday
Who it lists	MBA students, search fund entrepreneurs, investors, faculty	Business owners, investors, advisors, alumni, students, searchers
2027 date	Check the official site	Check the official site

The Wharton 2026 registration site lists a 5 to 7pm welcome cocktail on Thursday, then breakfast, a Perlman Fellowship Showcase, morning and afternoon panels, a catered lunch with networking, and a fireside chat with Coley Andrews and Jim Vesterman. It was marked sold out. The MIT 2026 summit page calls it the 10th annual MIT ETA Conference, with the theme “Breaking the MoLd: Reinventing The Traditional Search Fund,” and the club home page says it is held each spring at MIT Sloan.

Neither site names a meeting app or a matchmaking system. Your meetings are the ones you book yourself, plus the cocktail hour and the lunch.

Why does it matter that MIT comes before Wharton?

Because in 2026 the two were about five weeks apart, and the same investors and searchers can show up at both. If you go to both, your MIT follow up is your Wharton plan. The investor you texted in March is the person you book coffee with in Philadelphia in April. That second meeting is where a name turns into a relationship.

Before the summit: who to research and book

Book three to five conversations before you arrive. Panels are a schedule. The cocktail hour is the real agenda.

1. Investors who back traditional or self funded searchers. Read the panel list when it is posted and mark the investors.
2. Searchers one to two years ahead of you. They know which investors reply and which brokers send real deals.
3. CEOs who bought through a search. They are your best preview of year one.
4. Your own classmates and alumni who are going. A text is enough: “[Name], heading to the Wharton ETA Summit? Grab coffee before the first panel?”

In the room: capture in 10 seconds

The Wharton day has breaks every hour, which gives you a natural capture window. After every real conversation, before the next one:

• Who. “[Name], investor, backs first time searchers.”
• The one thing. “Asked how I would source in the Mid Atlantic.”
• The promise. “I send a one page thesis. He sends two CEOs to talk to.”

Say it into your phone or snap the badge. For a longer system, read how to remember everyone you meet at a conference.

Wharton ETA Summit follow up: who do you text first?

Follow up first with whoever can fund or shape your search, then whoever you owe something. Here is the order I would use.

Order	Who	What to send	When
1	Investor who asked for your thesis or deck	The thing they asked for, plus one question	Within 24 hours
2	Anyone you promised something	The intro, article or file you promised	Within 48 hours
3	Searchers and CEOs ahead of you	Thanks plus one specific question	Within 48 hours
4	Classmates and everyone else	One line on what you talked about, no ask	Within a week

Example texts, each under 40 words:

[Name], good meeting you at the Wharton ETA Summit. You asked how I would source in the Mid Atlantic. Sending my one page thesis now. Worth 15 minutes in May?

[Name], as promised, meet [Name]. She closed on a services business last year and is happy to talk about year one. [Name], [Name] launches his search this summer.

[Name], your point on the afternoon panel about year one stuck with me. Which broker relationships would you build first if you were launching today?

For more on ordering, see who to follow up with first after a conference, and for message examples, the follow up text after a conference.

What should you do in the 30 days after?

Close every loop, then set a reason to come back. Student summits pay off months later, when you launch or start raising, so the 30 days after is about staying recent, not asking.

• Every promise is done. Or you told the person why not.
• One update to each investor. A short note when something real happens: you picked an industry, you signed a broker, you closed your raise.
• Plan the next room. If MIT was first, book your Wharton coffees now. After Wharton, the Booth Kellogg ETA Conference follow up covers the fall stop on the circuit.

For the full approach across every event, see the conference follow up system.

The system that does this for you

I built FRONT OF MIND because I watched operators meet the right people, then disappear for months inside a deal. At the summit, you say a name and a sentence out loud, snap a badge, or take a selfie together, and it is filed under the event. Each morning it opens on your 10 minutes for today, with a one line reason next to each person: you met at the Wharton ETA Summit 3 days ago and never followed up, a follow up is due, or they posted.

Every draft is a text style message, 40 words max, and nothing sends without your tap. It learns from your edits. Ask Liala “who do I know that invests in search funds” and get the right people with why. Contacts are encrypted, and no one on our team looks at them. It runs in your phone browser and saves to your home screen.

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

See how it works