Darden grads find success in hard times

By Tasha Kates

Published: November 30, 2008

Amid a difficult economy, a hotel search engine started by two 2005 graduates of the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration has raised $3 million in investment capital.

VibeAgent’s latest round of believers includes executives in travel, software and private equity from Charlottesville and Richmond. Adam Healey, the Web site’s co-founder and chief executive officer, is taking that as a sign that business can survive lean times.

“In times like these, there is a real opportunity for startups who are agile and who can react quickly to changing market conditions and take advantage of bigger, slower, more established players who go into hibernation,” Healey said. “We think this environment will be beneficial for us.”

Experts at Darden believe the same thing. Although the school’s graduates have been negatively affected by the downturn in the economy, Darden is educating students and alums alike on how to make it through tough times.

The business school teaches students using the case method, said Robert Carraway, Darden’s associate dean for degree programs. One of the classes, Global Marketing Economics, has already veered off its normal caseload to talk about the current economic situation.

Carraway said the case method is particularly useful in teaching Darden students how to think on their feet.

“One of the hallmarks of a Darden graduate is that they are very good at dealing with ambiguous situations,” he said. “I think our students are better than most at being able to adapt to new and strange circumstances, and I certainly think what’s happening in the economy is a new and strange circumstance.”

Darden has been holding panel discussions to talk about issues in the nation’s economy as they arise. Connie Dato English, director of Darden Alumni Career Services, said alumni have tried to impress upon current students interested in financial services that they can use their skills outside of investment banking.

Some Darden grads have personal experience in changing their career outlook. English said her department has been offering more career counseling in recent months than before. About 40 percent of Darden graduates go into consulting or investment banking, areas that started seeing layoffs about a year ago.

English said her office offers over-the-phone career counseling for alumni. Since April, career counselors have doled out between 50 and 80 hours of counseling a month.

“A lot of them come to me and ask me to look at their resume,” she said. “My first question is, ‘What do you want to do?’ A resume is just a marketing document.”

Darden grads who once worked as investment bankers now are hoping to use their financial analysis skills in government positions and jobs in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions.

However, English said that many Darden graduates still have jobs and successful businesses.

“We are a general management school,” she said. “Our graduates leave here equipped to do many, many things. The fact that we have entrepreneurs doing things like VibeAgent is not an anomaly.”

After winning the 2006 UVa Business Plan Competition, Healey and co-founder Charles Seilheimer’s business spent time in the Batten Business Incubator before its official launch a year ago at the travel conference PhoCusWright.

Since then, VibeAgent.com has grown into a full-fledged hotel search engine that lets travelers customize their search to find a hotel room that meets their needs and budget. The site also has a social networking component and travelers’ reviews.

The newest feature on the site is the Hotelier Suite, an interface for hotel owners to manage data about their facility on VibeAgent.

Healey, who worked on a startup during the challenging post-9/11 economy, said the suite is the first of many site upgrades and projects that VibeAgent will accomplish with its new investment capital.

“2009 will be a very important year for our business,” he said.

Back at Darden, Carraway said that while the students are more anxious about their job prospects, they also are more energized to try something different.

“One of our panel members said that whatever you thought you were going to do, you might want to broaden and expand your horizons now,” Carraway said. “Students are beginning to think about these possibilities in the short term, and we have a thriving group of students who want to start a business now.”