ETA Insider Podcast

In this episode of the ETA Insider Podcast, we sit down with Allegra Stennett, co-founder of New Majority Capital, a firm whose mission is to address the US wealth gap through entrepreneurship through acquisition. Allegra traces a career she calls a collection of happy accidents: a banking internship taken instead of the LSAT, five years at JP Morgan across New York, Houston, and London, an MIT MBA, and a fintech startup, before four co-founders came together around a simple observation: most people who could run a small business have never heard of ETA. She digs into the free BETA accelerator that has trained 400 entrepreneurs across nine cities, recent SBA 7(a) changes and the workarounds her team has found, the fund mandate sending 10% of cash flow to employees, and why leadership is the most underrated lesson of the MBA.

In this episode of the ETA Insider Podcast, Sudeep Das, MBA ’04, President and CEO of Asteroid Operating Company, joins the podcast to discuss coming to entrepreneurship through acquisition a decade after business school. Two engineering degrees and several years in IT services led him to Booth, then to ten years as an investment banker in New York. Mid-career, with a family and a decade of deal-making behind him, Sudeep found ETA sitting at the intersection of finance and entrepreneurship, and has since acquired three commercial mechanical services businesses. One of the three turned out to be the wrong fit. He digs into why searchers should stop chasing headline EBITDA, how licensing a sales playbook from an industry titan opened doors with founders, the pricing philosophy that cost him customers, and why time is the real enemy.

In this episode of the ETA Insider Podcast, our 10-year anniversary series concludes with Matt Taylor, EMBA '17, founder of WFGT Holdings and CEO of a commercial landscaping business in Sun Valley, Idaho. When Matt first joined the podcast in 2016, he was a Marine Corps officer-turned-Booth student raising a traditional search fund with his best friend. The search never closed — and the partnership didn't survive it. Matt returns to talk candidly about what went wrong, the string of operating roles that followed, and why a self-funded search a decade later succeeded where the first attempt failed. He digs into stress-testing a partnership before you sign, search fund fatigue at the lower end of the market, what sellers look for beyond a résumé, and the daily "covenant" he keeps with the workforce he now employs.

In this episode of the ETA Insider Podcast, we continue celebrating our 10-year podcast anniversary with Steve Groya, Managing Partner at Aldine Capital Partners, returning to the show a decade after his first conversation with us. As Aldine prepares to hold the final close on its fifth fund — a lower middle market vehicle investing both mezzanine and equity in $3–6 million EBITDA businesses — Steve reflects on what has held true over ten years and what has surprised him. From his non-traditional start in public accounting and investment banking to his own stint as an independent sponsor, Steve digs into why capital structure is everything, how over-equitizing at entry can save a deal when the unpredictable inevitably happens, and why staying disciplined in the lower middle market beats chasing the shiny object of bigger AUM. Released July 31, 2026.

In this episode of the ETA Insider Podcast, we kick off our 10-year podcast anniversary with Alex Schneider, Adjunct Lecturer in ETA at Kellogg at Northwestern, co-leader of the Kellogg Zell Fellows, and Co-Founder and Partner of Clover Capital Partners. From his accidental start, buying a college shipping and storage business, to building a multifaceted investment career spanning search funds, venture, and independent sponsorship, Alex offers a decade's worth of perspective on what has changed in ETA — and what never will. Alex digs into what it truly takes to find and close a deal in today's more competitive market, how to balance credibility and conviction, and why AI is reshaping everything from the classroom to the back office of small businesses.