Elliot Anderson MBA ’05
Co-founder, VoiceVault
Salt Lake City, Utah and
Menlo Park, California

A fundraiser in the non-profit world when he began the Berkeley-Columbia program, Elliot had an early-stage technology company, VoiceVault, in the works. Moreover, his wife, who practices law in Salt Lake City, gave birth to their first child two weeks before the program began. VoiceVault, a communications technology company that treats voicemail like e-mail and delivers its service directly to consumers, is currently being incubated at a Menlo Park venture capital firm.

Connecting the dots
Just as I entered the program, my partners approached me about running VoiceVault. The Berkeley-Columbia program offered a complementary way to build on my experience as a fundraiser and corporate strategy consultant. The program has been a great place to put structure onto a new business idea, from shaping the business plan to developing an execution strategy.

As a fundraiser for Utah Open Lands, I was constantly working on articulating our value proposition to corporate and foundation donors. As a consultant at the Monitor Group, I advised clients on their strategy for growth. The Berkeley-Columbia program has helped me translate these skills into the language of a startup seeking funding and brought together many of the strategic and operational aspects needed in evaluating opportunities and launching a small company.

Specific benefits of Berkeley-Columbia
Outside of building my skill set with additional courses in finance and entrepreneurship, one of the greatest assets has been the opportunity to test ideas with 65 students who have significant combined experience in a variety of areas from technology and finance to intellectual property and marketing. People on the outside of this program looking in may see a school work load that is separate from the work they do. For an entrepreneur, that line is completely blurred—what you do at school, you do on behalf of your work. I’ve been able to actually use the Berkeley-Columbia program to push something forward. Additionally, if you are looking to build or strengthen your bi-coastal network of professional contacts, the Berkeley-Columbia program is the only choice.