Quitting Wall Street

[Catalyst]

Originally Posted by Matt

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'.

Oh please. You're clearly going out of your way to "piss on my cornflakes" while threadjacking this poor guy.

I good some good feedback in the other thread, but I stopped posting because it got wildly off topic.

I can't read the first paragraph of what you wrote, but everything else in your post above is misconstruing and misleading, and it's for no apparent reason? Why you would take the time to type the above is beyond me, and I feel stupid typing a response. But if it makes you happy, to each his own.

 

[deadly7]

Originally Posted by Catalyst

Oh please. You're clearly going out of your way to "piss on my cornflakes" while threadjacking this poor guy.

I good some good feedback in the other thread, but I stopped posting because it got wildly off topic.

I can't read the first paragraph of what you wrote, but everything else in your post above is misconstruing and misleading, and it's for no apparent reason? Why you would take the time to type the above is beyond me, and I feel stupid typing a response. But if it makes you happy, to each his own.

No, he gave a valid reason as to why you're a terrible person to listen to about anything. Terrible choice in college given your future desires, rejection of an actual job out of college, a faulty notion to go live in NYC because you think you deserve riches for being top dog or some stupid ****.

Thanks for playing, though.

---

@OP: I concur with everyone (except for the quoted) that says that you are nowhere near ready for this and there's a 99.99% chance you'll look back in 10 years going "What the **** was I smoking?"

 

[Dashaansafin]

^Agreed with Matt and Deadly7. You are in no position to offer advice and just like any other college dumbass who thinks he has a great business startup plan. If you do go do something other than posting about it on SF all day.

 

[ShaneB]

Originally Posted by Catalyst

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

People aren't '******** on his parade'; they're merely banishing his idealism for the cold hard truths of reality.

First of all, entrepreneurialism is different from corporatism; I work in insurance and finance (banking or insurance) is different from business, hell, there are guys who are so clued up on the technicalities of banking or insurance and yet can't even do a basic audit. That's the difference between the entrepreneur and the academic banker / insurer/ financer.

What you need is more experience, and possibly better experience. I'm 23 and I'm currently learning those jejune academic technicalities of insurance through exams and such, but have actually decided to put that on hold for a little while to gain some practical business experience. I'm involved in fleet insurance and have decided to stop wasting my time learning by rote the ins and outs of marine insurance (something I'm not actually engaged in) and instead spend some of my time at a haulage depot and intuitively learn all the fancies of that industry on the frontline. Of course I'll go back and learn all those academic necessities in due course, and I'm aware I've gone off on a tangent but the same principle easily applies to you.

As for raising capital for a fund at 22 years of age... come on man, wise up, no one is going to stump up the capital. I know of someone who's struggling to raise capital for asset finance who was once upon a time CEO of a very reputable bank; point is, it's a lot harder in the 'real world' once you abstract away the comforts of a cushty banking job. Spend more time in your industry, get the experience and get the contacts. There's plenty of time.

 

[panther2k]

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I'm definitely not under the false impression that I'll waltz in and knock things out of the park right away--I realize that my "experience" so far is very limited and not really applicable to any field outside of finance/IB/PE. That said, would spending 4/5 years in private equity really do anything for my understanding of how to run a business? From talking w/ buddies who are already there it's just banking 2.0.

Also, in 5 years I could be at a different place in life where it's much more difficult for me to walk away from that paycheck.

And to clarify, I'm not necessarily talking about walking away from my analyst position but going the entrepreneurship route once my contract is up rather than following "the track" that Pahreen posted. Of course, if I struck gold I would be happy to walk away a bit earlier.

 

[clee1982]

If you really just want to quit wall street and learn how to do business, then do so, but start it up yourself right away will be difficult, especially in finance. You have no track record.

If you want to struck gold, then you go find a buy side fund who is going to gamble, you own the put option on that end..., sad fact in some way I might add

Big shop isn't going to struck you gold, it will be drops by the time it gets to analyst.

 

[Pahreen]

Originally Posted by panther2k

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I'm definitely not under the false impression that I'll waltz in and knock things out of the park right away--I realize that my "experience" so far is very limited and not really applicable to any field outside of finance/IB/PE. That said, would spending 4/5 years in private equity really do anything for my understanding of how to run a business? From talking w/ buddies who are already there it's just banking 2.0.
Growth equity or venture capital would be best in this regard. You will be interacting daily with entrepreneurs and operators. I suppose you can also include consulting. Try to stay away from financial engineering, I suppose. Going to a MF or a MM PE firm that isn't involved in operations will be banking 2.0. Edit: the main point being wait until business school. Once you're there, you'll have more exposure and pedigree.

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Originally Posted by panther2k

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I'm definitely not under the false impression that I'll waltz in and knock things out of the park right away--I realize that my "experience" so far is very limited and not really applicable to any field outside of finance/IB/PE. That said, would spending 4/5 years in private equity really do anything for my understanding of how to run a business? From talking w/ buddies who are already there it's just banking 2.0.

Also, in 5 years I could be at a different place in life where it's much more difficult for me to walk away from that paycheck.

And to clarify, I'm not necessarily talking about walking away from my analyst position but going the entrepreneurship route once my contract is up rather than following "the track" that Pahreen posted. Of course, if I struck gold I would be happy to walk away a bit earlier.

You've taken this pretty well, despite the rather blunt comments of a number of posters and for that I commend you.

The irony of entrepreneurship is that it's best to start when you're young and have few obligations but that you're unlikely to have any real expertise in anything at that time. I don't think it's a terrible idea to strike out on your own but in your case the industry is really unforgiving of people that hop off the train so easy. Remember how tough it was to break into IB? Well imagine jumping off, trying to start a business that doesn't end up working and THEN trying to jump back on.

It aint easy.

 

[scientific]

yea if you have 2 years at goldman or wherever you can definitely try the start up thing for a bit and then bail back to b school if SHTFs

 

[ThatGuy]

Kiddo, no matter how smart you are, this is not happening.

Keep your head down for another 7 - 10 years... then start looking into partnering up with more senior guys who actually want to take you into their start-ups.

 

[Pahreen]

Originally Posted by ThatGuy

Keep your head down for another 7 - 10 years... then start looking into partnering up with more senior guys who actually want to take you into their start-ups.
Sorry, this is poor advice. Most analysts leave after two years (why investment banks hire so many undergrads every year). Staying 7-10 years at the same bank is pretty much unheard of. Even career bankers switch banks. Once you get to that level (Director and Managing Director), it's about your deal sourcing ability. Therefore, you're essentially a relationship manager, and are even further removed from any type of operational skills that you can learn from any other post-analyst job. I suppose you are categorizing PE/HF as "Wall Street" as well, but even then, none of the "senior guys" would not leave their MD or Partner positions for a startup (they are already making $5-10mm per year).

 

[Dashaansafin]

Originally Posted by ThatGuy

Kiddo, no matter how smart you are, this is not happening. Keep your head down for another 7 - 10 years... then start looking into partnering up with more senior guys who actually want to take you into their start-ups.
Lol. I love idiots commenting on things they know nothing about. Now I know what the other side of the fence feels like when I ask how much I should size down my APCs

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by edmorel

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!"
What Ed said. For every amazing, life-changing story out there (Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Ralph Lauren, etc...) there's the rest of us, just trying to survive. The X-factor is more than just luck. My dad has started 4 businesses in his life. They were all moderately successful (ok one did quite well), and one of the main reasons that he did so well is that he went to work for others in the same field / industry and learned from the ground up how the business worked before he went off to start his own.

 

[sd407]

if u feel u got it in u go for it. i started a startup, actually 2 failed b4 this one, and yet, its risky...if u need a constant paycheck i dont suggest it, but if u have debts, loans, family to feed, etc and cant get $5m invested, keep ur job.

 

[meph]

Originally Posted by panther2k

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.
Some advice for the future: if your plan involves using credit card debt as a funding source for whatever you're doing, don't do it, because it's a terrible idea.