Deeply unsatisfied with my career, need to try entrepreneurship

I just finished 3 years in banking. It’s fine but my life goals will never truly be achieved in the confines of someone else’s company. I am fortunate to have a fallback plan thanks to my parents success but it seems entrepreneurship is truly the only path that inspires me in a deep way. My parents are encouraging and I have taken a stab at this in college but never gave it my all.


The math I run is working like this won’t increase  my net QOL, and the true money making days are a decade+ away, which I don’t need to slave away for anyways given I was born to a well off family. To take us to the next level I need to try a venture of my own.


I have more specific plans I won’t share now but this is just the essence of my thinking. I know I won’t be the next billionaire but making a medium sized business seems doable to me especially after extensive networking and just researching for curiosity sake across the sectors I am interested in.

11 Comments
 

AN1 just starting out and having this feeling already to do my own venture... at what point in time did you realize you were just gonna step away and do this? Anything specific that made you realize? 

 

Well you’re not that much younger than me but I gave it my all and also found mentors in various industries. The most generic but useful advice I received was look at that people in the 95th percentile of your field (not 99th). In banking that’s a decent but non rain maker MD, same goes in PE, and neither of those outcomes honestly justifies the 10-20 year grind to me. 

A 95th percentile entrepreneur outcome on the other hand is deeply interesting to me and I feel much more aligned to put in the work to achieve that outcome given my starting point. I have a deep feeling I need to go build and make value not work a desk job, fully understanding the unsexy nature of operating a business and the slog that can be as well. I’d love to close books for example if the books were mine

 

How does someone have confidence to take this approach? Where will you get your founding money? How do you know your idea is good enough?

I love the idea of being my own boss and working for myself, though I can’t imagine im talented enough in any field to have a meaningful advantage or reason for starting something new. Are you literally going to be a one man team or join an existing startup?

 

Yeah you can start a software business or dropship, but a lot of businesses need a few thousand. Wasnt talking about 200k or anything

 
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Well to be honest I have friends & family (mostly family) support for raising initial money and the industry I want to go into doesn’t take a lot of capital to get started (of course there is investment).


The confidence it takes to get started - I have a product I think is unique and I’m confident would pick up traction and have proven it out at a small scale, I have ability to research and understand how to go into business and scale, and I have mentors who will support me. It is risky and it might not work, that’s just part of the game but I think it is a risk worth taking. 


I’ve also met a lot of entrepreneurs that have succeeded and I realize that they took risk/action and fortune favored them, they also could’ve worked for a good corporate gig instead and have never made a fortune. There isn’t a better time or place in history to strive for this 

 

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