Leaving finance to do something else?

mack387:

i think after 500k i would begin to do what i really enjoy...which would be running my own business

Are you talking per year, or nest egg?

500K per year annuity is OK too. (10MM * 5%)

Wow, 4 years in M&A + mezz and your family would make you start out as a food runner / waiter?

Starting as the food runner and then experiencing all jobs from bottom to top will give the OP a very good idea of his business, which will later help him when he is running the company.

OP, I would suggest that you clearly communicate with everyone that you are planning on working your way from bottom to top, just in case you know?!

Yes, expand the family biz. Many kids your age would do the same if they had the opportunity. My goal is to never become a MD or stay in banking forever. I am saving up plenty of money to invest in the right businesses.

Looks like a great opportunity to pursue. I would also start at the bottom. That way you will get to know in and outs of the business. What type of restaurant is it? Fancy one or lower scale/bar?

It's apparent that your family wants you to succeed in running the business based on the rate of promotion. Like someone else said this is golden.

Do it. The only path left to true wealth is entrepreneurship. Plus people always need to eat.

In finance, you're more than likely working for someone else.

This family restaurant gig sounds awesome. I'd do it, too.

Do it man. You'll learn a lot. I worked as a waiter, then bartender, then manager of a restaurant while in college.

Sounds like a plan to me. Do it.

I'd take that in a hearbeat.

Just to play the devil's advocate though....a year as food runner/waiter is really not intellectually challenging AT ALL...just make sure you keep your finance fresh and that your goal there is to understand the business. Is your family's business at a city you want to live in long term? Hospitality management is very different from finance, but if you grew up in that, you should have a good innate sense of the environment. I would just find out more about the lifestyle you would be living before committing totally. Best of luck!!

Grow that empire

I'll have my steak medium rare

But in all seriousness successful entrepreneurship is a personal dream of mine. If you are financially sound and can afford the risk/income change then take this opportunity, as others have said it's golden. Meeting people from different walks of life, growing a business, and a comfortable lifestyle is practically impossible to find in high finance. You are doing the right thing and I believe deep down inside you know so. Finance is a means to an end for most of us

I would go for it, even if you have to spend some time as a waiter. I think it would probably benefit you in the long-run as you would learn how everything works from the ground up, which will allow you to make better decisions once you actually move up and get to the executive level.

Now.

Not my blog (and doesn't seem to be updated anymore), but I saw this a few months ago. Reasons 1-5 are pretty compelling: http://anonybanker.wordpress.com/

Yeah great blog. "A $6 billion deal, with say, a 4% fee spread around 5 banks, works out to $48 billion in fees per bank."

Part 3

What you want to do next would probably depends on what is important to you personally.

Considering today is only July 7, how can it be possible that you have been working in banking for a few months? You are talking about investment banking, right? Can you provide more details of your story?

Try to stick it out for at least a year, ideally two, because you can't easily put any job you've worked in for less on your resume (you can, it'll just look weird and you'll have to explain it away). You're probably also at the point where the newness of the job has worn out and you're feeling that this isn't what you thought it would be because almost every entry level job is pretty boring and you're doing what seems like stupid crap, which you probably are to a large degree. If you can get over this hump you can just cruise until you have two years under your belt and have better exit opps.

7 years after graduating will be tough to get an analyst job, possibly go back to school and get your mba?

Why you haven't tried for valuation, credit analysis, Corp banking, risk, private banking, treasury, etc by now is beyond me. You need to put the banking dream on hold and get some actual finance experience. Then you can attack banking.

There are tons of finance opportunities outside of IB. Look at FP&A roles at F500 cos. or credit analyst roles at commercial banks. These types of roles will likely have less discrimination based on age. Throwing in the towel on IB does not necessarily mean throwing in the towel on a career in finance. Commercial lending roles (two promotions past entry level credit analyst) at my MM bank have great work/life balance and do pretty well on a $/hour basis.

I mean, I admire the tenacity, I guess. At some point you need to know when to hold em and know when to fold em. There are thousands of opportunities in finance, so I find it difficult to believe you can't find anything in the financial field. What kinds of jobs have you been looking for and why do you keep accepting temp jobs?

I'm up for doing anything in finance other than being a broker. I can't co back to working in a boutique firm. The idea of calling people for 12hr/day for 8/hr is not really going to work. I have a wife and rent to pay and i don't think it would work for a person my age. This is a list of all the places I have worked temp, S&P, JP Morgan & Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs, but I can only come as a person doing clerical work. I can't make the transition from filing and scanning documents to doing something finance related. I have can't afford grad school and I'm afraid that without work experience I could end up with an expensive grad school degree but no work experience to make it pay off.

My advice, an MBA from a top school or try to become an officer in the military.

I'm going to guess that by "finance" you mean "investment banking" ? There are other fields of finance and business that your degree could've gone too, and I'm going to guess you didn't even try for those. If that's the case then you need to recognize your expectations have basically been holding you back for 7 years. Why would a clerical position get you closer to an investment banking role?

There was a recent "success story" post about a guy who networked his way in and he put up the stats of a few other guys that had a similar "success story", if you can even call it that. Basically, they sent out hundreds of cold emails, hundreds of phone calls, informational interviews, application drops, networking events and self-financed personal networking trips. Ultimately it was someone's wife or cousin who was an MD who gave them a shot. As in, pure luck. Sure, they "made" their luck by being so adamant but the reality is there were probably thousands that have tried the same and gotten nowhere.

The flip side is a post from "OpsDude" (?). Who put up the stats of people interviewing for investment banking at his target school, basically all of them got it. This "non-target success story" has so far cost you 7 years. As I see it, leaves you with 2 options:

1) Attempt a target school MBA to re-brand yourself and have a shot at recruiting, which may or may not be financially prudent.

Or

2) Move on.

I wish you well in this decision. If it's any consolation, I too have dealt with setbacks.

Really you have a couple options:

1. Aim for purely ops type job.
2. MBA from a top school.
3. MS in Finance/Economics and aim for a more stable entry level position.
4. Military officer wasn't a bad suggestion.

Stick it out and then go be an analyst at MTV or something like that.

How about this, I'm stuck in back office and will gladly take your place. Is this possible? This is a serious offer

Why are your siblings FORMER bankers and how did they manage to convince you to go in if they themselves got out?

Plenty of guys leave and do completely different things. You're 24 years old man, you have your entire life ahead of you. I have a friend who joined the peace corps, another who went into PR. Worst case go back and get an MBA to reset.

my best friend was in a top group at GS/MS and left about 1 year because he hated it... he now works at a top talent agency in L.A. as the assistant to an agent (eventually he'll be made a junior agent... but it'll take another year or two and he's already been there a year). He loves the change and is doing great there. One day he'll also probably end up making a lot of money --- although right now he makes under 40k / year... so I'd say that option only worked out so well because he comes from a "good family" (very solid subsidies from mom and dad).

it is what you make of it --- and banking is not for everyone. Doing it because your brothers did is not a good call... clearly.

It might be an idea to see and employment consultant and identify what you really want to do before you make a switch. If you can pinpoint some goals for yourself first, it could make the change easier for you. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I was in your shoes, and left for a well known startup (think Groupon/Zynga/etc.)...no regrets at all. Seriously the best move of my life for professional and career purposes.

If you know banking isn't for you, hustle and figure out what it is you're looking for. Goo luck.

weeds499:

I was in your shoes, and left for a well known startup (think Groupon/Zynga/etc.)...no regrets at all. Seriously the best move of my life for professional and career purposes.

If you know banking isn't for you, hustle and figure out what it is you're looking for. Goo luck.

Actually, going towards the start-up route is something I am really interested in...I really like the idea that you kind of have to be a jack of all trades and I honestly think I would thrive in that kind of entrepreneurial environment, which is one of the reasons I am having so much trouble in banking (spend hours and weekends on work that never gets used, lots of mindless formatting, etc.) Could you compare your experience at the start-up vs. your time in banking? Really appreciate it.

BUMP BUMP BUMP EXPERIENCE AT STARTUP after leaving banking?????

I don't have any experience in banking but I've been involved with alot of start ups. If I can help you in anyway, send me a PM.

[quote=Actually, going towards the start-up route is something I am really interested in...I really like the idea that you kind of have to be a jack of all trades and I honestly think I would thrive in that kind of entrepreneurial environment, which is one of the reasons I am having so much trouble in banking (spend hours and weekends on work that never gets used, lots of mindless formatting, etc.) Could you compare your experience at the start-up vs. your time in banking? Really appreciate it.[/quote]

weeds49-------is there any way I can reach you? Your PM functionality is disabled! I have a question to ask you that I'm hoping/suspecting you'll be able to answer. thanks!

Exit strategy? Exit strategies are un-American.

The most common one would be business school. I almost have to do banking for two years to make enough to pay off student loans. Not sure if I would like to go back to business school that soon and incur even more debt. Preferably some genius idea will come to me so I can turn it into a start-up firm.

Preferably an IPO. If not that, a trade sale or secondary offering of shares.

That's the kind of comment you get from prospective monkeys who want to sound like they know what the F they're talking about.

I thought that the comment on an IPO or a trade sale was kind of amusing.

Lighten up.

To the OP, standard exit opps are PE/HF, Corp Dev, B-School and wandering the jungle for a few months.

The most common is to either go to b-school (like I did), or to transition into another finance-oriented job -- but a different function (sales/trading, research, or even back office like HR for those looking to start a family, etc.), or into asset mgmt, private equity, hedge funds, and sometimes VC, or in transaction/project-oriented industry jobs, most notably corporate development at large companies. And even then, most of these people aren't necessarily working their way up brick by brick to become partners or Masters of the Universe or anything. After a few years, many will then move onto some other completely unrelated job or career path.

There's also quite a number of ex-analysts who leave finance altogether to join a nonprofit, teach in Africa, open a restaurant, get married and become full-time parents, start a business, become a carpenter (that's a true story), go to med school, etc. Or some of the analysts from wealthy families go back to managing the family biz.

Most people's careers don't follow a linear progression at all. Which is a great thing, because who'd want to have a career that was so predictable and formulaic?

Alex Chu

Do you mean something like startup incubators or accelerator programs. For these programs you need to have a business plan/idea and pitch it to them competing with thousands of other entreprenaur for a spot in the program. Here are two well known startup programs of the kind I am referring to.

http://www.techstars.com/program/

http://ycombinator.com/

There are many of these programs out there do a search for startup incubator,program and you'll get many relevant results. Good luck.

Split and go where, back to wearin' knock offs?

Have you tried escapethecity.org? I browse it occasionally and have come across some pretty neat stuff

If you're looking for something with a shorter time commitment, I would check out the Lean Startup Machine. It's essentially a weekend competition and series of workshops on entrepreneurship, with a focus on validating your ideas and customer development. In 2012 they'll have around 40 events nationally, so there definitely will be one near you.

Travel for a bit and find out what you really want to do dude.