Quitting Wall Street

Stick to the track:



But in all seriousness, if you didn't make it through PE recruiting a month ago, then you should probably stick it out. Banking sucks, sure, but it also develops serious skills and makes you marketable throughout the business world (at least for the most part). Finish your two years (while quietly looking exit opportunities). If you want to be "entrepreneurial," look at growth equity or VC. If not, go to business school. Trying to buy and run a small business at 23 is tough. A MBA pedigree (assuming M7 or similar) at least gives you a leg up and potentially something to fall back on.

Unless knowing excel and basic math is now considered an entrepreneurial skill the hard truth is that you have no skills and won't have much more in 2 yrs if you stick to what you're doing. Maybe try to get a job where you learn something even if they pay less, ask Douglas to hire you I think he actually makes **** and stuff.

ps: that doesn't mean switching over to consulting and replacing excel with powerpoint.

Wall Street is blood in/blood out, son.


Bu seriously, on the one hand, it's a great idea to do stupid things when you are young. On the other hand, the chance of failure for what you are doing is ridiculously high so unless you don't need any money for the next few years, don't do it. Think of it as a 22 year old working the sauces station at a restaurant and then going on his own to open a restaurant with no money and no experience. I am sure you can find a success story or two, but the other 99.9% *********** pooch.

Lastly, and this is not directly to you but I absolutely adore street analysts who think that a proficiency in understanding financial statements makes them experts in how to run businesses. If I had a nickel for every guy who has had something negative to say about the abilities of CEO's that founded successful businesses.... really? how many business have you started/ran? It's kinda like me when I yell at Alex Rodriguez when he wiffs at a 98 mph fastball, "you effin clown!"

1. Find a small business problem/challenge that's not being addressed in the company you work for or one of your clients. If you're into computers, maybe some sort of process inefficiency. For example, there's currently no contact management apps for iphones that allows you to see the same information in your gmail.
2. Define the problem and your solution for it. Do a cost/benefit analysis to see if you can make money on it and then figure out why someone would buy it off you. Think through every little step that it's going to take to build it and what order they need to be done in.
3. Bounce the plan off a couple older business-saavy friends or mentors.
4. If you can program, build the solution. Hire someone if you can't.
5. Sell the solution to the identified customer.

See what happens. If it really works, which it probably won't, you've got a side-business. At the very least you've gone through the entrepreneurial process in a small way with little lost financially. You've also learned a lot.

Originally Posted by Aaron

Click to expand...

1. Find a small business problem/challenge that's not being addressed in the company you work for or one of your clients. If you're into computers, maybe some sort of process inefficiency. For example, there's currently no contact management apps for iphones that allows you to see the same information in your gmail.
2. Wait three hours until until your MD terminates your at will contract.

Originally Posted by Aaron

Click to expand...

... you've got a side-business.

Just what every young Wall-Streeter needs to burn up his spare time.

How stressful is Wall Street? What's the typical bullshit you deal with on a regular basis?

Originally Posted by Hombre Secreto

Click to expand...

How stressful is Wall Street? What's the typical bullshit you deal with on a regular basis?
I regularly put in 110 hour weeks last summer. It sucks.

This is pretty accurate (and funny):

http://gawker.com/#!016011/the-bitte...t-banker-email

Gracias

Originally Posted by panther2k

Click to expand...

Hi SFers,

I've been working in NY in investment banking since graduating undergrad last May. When buyside recruiting picked up ~ a month ago I realized I'm much more interested in doing my own thing than continuing to work for someone else.

Ideally, I would like to start my own buyout/investment firm although I realize the idea of raising a fund at 22 years old is laughable. That said, my rough plan is to scrounge up a bit of capital however I can (friends, family, credit cards, loans, savings, etc) to buy a small business, establish a reliable cash stream to support myself, and grow from there.

If anyone has had experience buying/running their own business, I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm really in need of guidance as the prospect of giving up a steady paycheck and walking away from a very lucrative career that I busted ****** to break into has been pretty stressful.

Thanks!


There's no question that you should do it, and there's no reason not to. And it's not laughable by any means, people younger than you have led countries. A lot of folks here will try to **** on your parade and talk you into working a desk job throughout your 20's. They say these things because of fear. Because when it comes down to it, they're scared to lay it on the line and worried about job security. You have more to lose 5 years from now than you do now. Don't misunderstand me, there are a lot of good people here and this forum is a great resource... for style advice.

I have a thread a couple down from here(The time has come, moving to Manhattan), and if you read it you'll find that we're in a similar situation, just going about it different ways. Hell, we even graduated at the same time. See, it's a Catch-22; I don't have a lot of startup capital for my business ideas, and angels/VC's want to see things in motion before investing. I've got lots of ideas, big ideas, but they don't mean **** until you act on them. I want to move to NYC because I'm young and there's a lot to do there, and I was considering an entry level analyst or consulting job to raise money so I can hire some web developers.

I've had two businesses of my own in the past, and I went to school for Entrepreneurship and Finance. I don't, however, have that technical expertise like you from working at a bank or prop/institutional trading. Enough evangelism from me already. I'd enjoy listening to your ideas or helping you with them if you want to PM me.

Thanks

Originally Posted by imageWIS

Click to expand...

Dude, just be happy you found a job. If you want to start your own company, all I can advise is: due diligence.

Seriously, 22 , BA in Finance, been looking for a job since graduation (May 2010) in all locations within US, still coming up short.

Originally Posted by Pahreen

Click to expand...

I regularly put in 110 hour weeks last summer. It sucks.

This is pretty accurate (and funny):

http://gawker.com/#!016011/the-bitte...t-banker-email

i liked that story because it contained no mention of work, which is accurate. investment bankers are unskilled and generally not that bright, although they are great at seeming prestigious. that is why they have to put in absurd hours, it's just hazing to get into the club. (lawyers also.) OP should plan on leaving but get more experience first - you'll never have it as good with people knocking on your door to hire you.

Originally Posted by scientific

Click to expand...

i liked that story because it contained no mention of work, which is accurate. investment bankers are unskilled and generally not that bright, although they are great at seeming prestigious. that is why they have to put in absurd hours, it's just hazing to get into the club. (lawyers also.) OP should plan on leaving but get more experience first - you'll never have it as good with people knocking on your door to hire you.

You mean like most entry level professions?

Running a business requires a different skill set from succeeding in a company. While you are small, you need to be on top of your game to keep costs down, manage vendors/customers/employees, develop controls to prevent theft (internal/external), market yourself in addition to a host of other things.

Working long hours is merely a prerequisite and not a guarantee of success.

I'm not part of the "just be happy you have a degree" crowd but I still think this is a bad idea for a few reasons.

Firstly, you have one year of experience in IB which consisted mostly of hammering away at Excel spreadsheets at your desk for 15 hours a day. That isn't really experience. It's time. In finance, putting in the time is critical if you want to work your way up. But I can't think of that many entry level jobs where you have LESS marketable skills after your first year than a IB analyst. It's just the nature of the profession, a profession where the responsibilities are minute at the beginning and enormous a bit farther on.

I think if you quit now and strike off on your own and fall flat which, based ion statistical evidence, you probably will, you'll have a heck of a tough time getting back on the IB train or finding meaningful work anywhere else in finance with only one year of experience under your belt.

Try to stick it out for a few years and then, if you still really can't handle it, jump ship.

Originally Posted by Catalyst

Click to expand...

There's no question that you should do it, and there's no reason not to. And it's not laughable by any means, people younger than you have led countries. A lot of folks here will try to **** on your parade and talk you into working a desk job throughout your 20's. They say these things because of fear. Because when it comes down to it, they're scared to lay it on the line and worried about job security. You have more to lose 5 years from now than you do now. Don't misunderstand me, there are a lot of good people here and this forum is a great resource... for style advice. I have a thread a couple down from here(The time has come, moving to Manhattan), and if you read it you'll find that we're in a similar situation, just going about it different ways. Hell, we even graduated at the same time. See, it's a Catch-22; I don't have a lot of startup capital for my business ideas, and angels/VC's want to see things in motion before investing. I've got lots of ideas, big ideas, but they don't mean **** until you act on them. I want to move to NYC because I'm young and there's a lot to do there, and I was considering an entry level analyst or consulting job to raise money so I can hire some web developers. I've had two businesses of my own in the past, and I went to school for Entrepreneurship and Finance. I don't, however, have that technical expertise like you from working at a bank or prop/institutional trading. Enough evangelism from me already. I'd enjoy listening to your ideas or helping you with them if you want to PM me. Thanks
LOL, cute. So you start a thread that says 'hai gaiz imma 22 year old and imma move to noo yorks and get a 60k fallback job in consulterin' cumpany coz those are everywhere there and imma pay 600 buckses a month in rent for mai pentshouses and then when imma rich dood in a few months imma start a company cos of i studied entrepreneurship you see and then microsoft will fall at mai feets coz this one time at band camp i started a bidness selling trumpets and then someone came along and bought my trumpets and then someone else came and bought my trumpet bidness for approximately the amount it costs to get to noo yorks onna bus and then i started another bidness but then i closed it'. Then a bunch of people who 1. already live there and 2. are in stages of employment ranging from 'nil' to 'MD' pull this apart on basically every level.... 1. your rent is unrealistic 2. your timeframe is unrealistic 3. the employment market won't fall at your feet 4. your salary expectations are unrealistic You have been unable to hold your own in that thread. Each assertion has been dissected and defeated by people better able to discuss it than yourself. You pop up in another thread saying 'everyone wants to piss in your Cornflakes around here, but they don't know **** cos they are all frustrated desk jockeys who pissed their lives away'.