Jason Nguyen WG25
Learn more about our finalists and their business plans in The Mack Institute of Innovation Management article.
The following is Jason Nguyen WG25’s firsthand experience in making a career pivot into entrepreneurship during his time in the Wharton MBA Program.
Prior to Wharton, I worked as a venture capital investor in San Francisco and New York. I am a lifelong learner, so beyond the creativity and entrepreneurial aspects of the role, I loved having the chance to learn from startup founders working at the forefront of their fields. As an investor, I had the opportunity to invest in category-defining startups such as Stripe, Guardant Health, and Roblox which continue to reshape digital payments and fintech, precision medicine and oncology, and online gaming communities, respectively, to this day.
Working as a technology investor also meant constantly finding ways to improve how the world worked. I wanted to leave no stone unturned – if someone told me, “This is how we’ve always done it,” I knew there might be an opportunity to do it better.
My search led me to challenge my own assumptions about what it means to be an entrepreneur. Working in the venture ecosystem, I was hyper-focused on zero-to-one entrepreneurship, where talented founders built new products and hoped to achieve product-market fit. When I learned that a new class of entrepreneurs were acquiring small businesses, building large, impactful organizations, and upending what it means to be an entrepreneur, I was hooked.
By day, I continued to invest in cutting edge technology companies; and by night I was tearing through entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) related resources, like the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business and the Stanford Search Fund Primer. My work as a venture capital investor was interesting and challenging in so many ways, but deep down I began to dream of leading my own company one day. I chose to pursue an MBA at Wharton to bridge the gap between the analytical skills I used as an investor and the managerial and strategy-setting skills I needed to serve as a CEO.
As an aspiring acquisition entrepreneur with no operating experience, I took full advantage of the resources available at Wharton. These ranged from courses like Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition taught by Professor Bob Chalfin and Search Fund Entrepreneurship taught by Professors Jim Vesterman and Charbel Zreik; to events hosted by the Venture Lab at Tangen Hall such as ETA-themed fireside chats, workshops, and roundtables featuring successful acquisition entrepreneurs like Richard Perlman (W’68) and Vijay Manthripragada (WG’06). These resources taught me to be scrappy and open-minded, and to doggedly pursue opportunities as they emerged.
As an MBA at Wharton, I’ve also had the opportunity to pursue professional experiences to validate my interest in ETA. Before school, I interned with a search fund and helped work on the acquisition of a $2 million EBITDA business in California which helped demystify the search and acquisition process. I also had the honor of interning with two traditional search fund investors, Anacapa Partners and ETA Equity (founded by Matthew Zucker WG’06 and Mark Sinatra WG’06), which helped focus my lens on what makes a great business to acquire.
Most importantly, engaging in the entrepreneurial and search fund communities helped me build the confidence to work on my own acquisition during my first year at Wharton. In early 2024, I acquired AZTAC, a healthcare regulatory compliance business representing intermediate care facilities that serve individuals with intellectual disabilities. AZTAC provides mission-critical administrative support to intermediate care facilities across Pennsylvania. Since acquisition, we’ve prioritized organic growth, launching new lines of business, and other value creation activities such as changing our revenue model and pricing strategies, and evaluating potential tuck-in acquisitions. I have been extraordinarily lucky with my first acquisition and look forward to building AZTAC into a leader in human services industry.
The ETA community at Wharton played an enormous role in helping me pivot my career, so I’m committed to paying it forward. At Wharton, I currently serve as a co-president of the Wharton Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Club, which hosts dozens of community events each year to help Wharton MBAs learn about ETA, build relationships with potential investors, and ultimately lay the foundation for a career as an acquisition entrepreneur. The ETA Club also hosts a large summit in the spring which is the launching point for search fund entrepreneurs from Wharton and many of our peer institutions. This year, we’ve partnered with industry organizations like the Women’s Search Network, Black Search Network, and Asian Search Network to host events to raise awareness of ETA as a career path for MBAs whose backgrounds empower them to approach ETA in new ways.
For those interested in entrepreneurship in all forms, Wharton offers countless opportunities to accelerate your goals. From the classroom to Tangen Hall and all the student clubs in between, there is a thriving entrepreneurial community at Wharton ready to help you grow into the entrepreneur you want to be.
— Jason Nguyen WG25
Posted: February 20, 2025
