Entrepreneurship and wealth creation

"If you put a good service out on the Internet, people will come," said Bill Martin, founder and vice president of the Raging Bull financial information web site, and a former student in the McIntire School of Commerce.

Both the conference room and the overflow room at the Darden School were packed for back-to-back e-summit panels on "Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation."

But building the web site and getting people to come are only half the battle, according to the panelists at the first seminar. The other half is being able to make the site profitable, said Allison Abraham (Darden '88), chief operating officer of iVillage Inc., a web site for women.

Indeed, finding ways to make money consistently on the Internet was a recurring theme among the speakers on both panels. While running different businesses in different ways the panelists agreed on three other points:

• in the Internet age, decisions must be made fast or market opportunities will be lost;
• the business environment is one of continual change;
• and yet, even the most cutting-edge technology, to be profitable, must be managed by people who possess traditional business skills, such as those taught in MBA programs.

-- Charlotte Crystal