Starting a business whilst being a strat consultant
Got an offer to join a strat consulting firm as a junior - I intentionally chose consulting due to WLB (vs IB), good pay and helps me with exposure/soft skills.
Anyways, my friend and I have come up with a business idea that we are quite passionate about and we want to start building after exams. I will be working in strat consulting whilst building, will this be possible on a contractural basis? Will the consultancy firm take ownership? I have no idea how this stuff works so any advice would be much appreciated.
You need to be transparent about this and ask HR at your firm.
My sense is most firms will not allow you to do this.
Naw I wouldn't tell your current firm anything unless theres a conflict of interest.
Most startups fail, def give it a shot while you're young. Plus you'll have cofounders which will help out a bunch.
Plus a lot of consultants in management have side businesses of some sort. Your situation is no different.
The whole reason you have to tell your firm is so THEY can determine whether they think there's a conflict of interest.
If you don't tell your firm and your startup fails, probably no one will be the wiser. If you don't tell your firm and your startup turns into a billion dollar business, then your firm sues you for part ownership, then what? Not disclosing has no upside, it's all downside.
This is just a hypothetical that I haven't seen happen. If anything the partners will invest and/or will get you investors if you build the right relationships.
I've seen a good amount of successful ex-consultant founded companies follow this blueprint.
This person's just unique bc theyre much younger. Sweet spot imo is age 28-35 if you want to truly leverage your consulting experience to start a company.
You're missing my point entirely. I am a partner. If a staff member came to me and said they cleared it with the firm and were offering me an opportunity to invest in their startup, I'd happily take a look. If the firm sees a staff member leave because the startup they started without clearance during their time as an employee got a bunch of funding, that employee gets sued.
There's no upside in not disclosing, and there is meaningful downside.
Not the way I've seen the game played but maybe your hypothetical will come to fruition one day.
Not sure why you're arguing here. The logic here is incredibly simple, and it leads to the incredibly obvious conclusion that you should in fact tell your firm.
Either your startup will succeed, or it will fail. Either you tell your firm, or you don't. That's a simple two by two.
If your startup fails, it probably doesn't much matter whether you told your firm or not. They don't need to know and they probably don't find out on any kind of timescale that matters.
If your startup ends up worth a lot of money, and you told your firm and followed whatever the right procedure was, they'll put your face on marketing material and talk about how the firm is a great place for people to launch entrepreneurial careers and ask you to come back and speak at alumni day.
If your startup ends up worth a lot of money, and you did it on the down low and didn't get the proper approvals, well now there's lots of possible outcomes. Maybe it's fine, but maybe the firm decides that it was a conflict of interest or that they are entitled to part of the value because you used firm IP or that they're entitled to damages for some reason. They can sue you, and they will probably win, because you signed a contract and then didn't follow the terms.
That is an unforced error. There's only downside there. There's no upside in not telling the firm / getting approval for a side gig. This should be blindingly obvious to you.
Don't tell your HR. Anyone who tells you to do so either overestimates how thorough background checks are or underestimate how people don't really give a damn about what you are up to.
Check your contract. It should have clauses regarding IPR, dual employment, etc. If such clauses are absent, go ahead with it regardless as long as you are not doing anything that appears unethical or detrimental to your full time job.
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