Like who really did that? People talk about the business sense you gain in investment banking. From my own experience, a big part of it is marketing, or selling crap companies because you don't need to sell great companies.
1. What start-up did you do while in/after investment banking, and how did you accomplish that?
2. Were you a sole founder, or did you have partners?
3. What was your initial capital committed?
4. What industry are you in? A detailed vertical industry would be appreciated.
5. What's your situation right now?
Thanks.
Personally, I think that working in banking, FS or IBD will absolutely hone your skills in entrepreneurship. I have seen so many successful exits in the UK and the US, it seems less common in other nations like Sweden or Germany.
1) One former colleague left the business and launched a business bank for SMEs (digital only bank, with mobile first approach). Very successful
2) My old boss left and founded a security business around banking executives, his team of former army and navy members protect executives in the banking area for domestic and international missions. medium level of success, you can imagine that nobody has traveled in almost two years and generally the demand for this type of services isn't that high.
3) Third guy took his savings and invested them in franchises around his home town (he wasn't from NYC or London). Took off after the initial investment and he is semi-retired at 36 years of age.
I am trying to do 3) above, but without the franchising element. Scoping out businesses at the moment in the SW USA.
What type of businesses are you looking at? Are you reaching out directly or through biz buy sell or brokers?
Reaching out directly via email, telephone, face to face, forums, etc
Turns out quite a few are willing to sell their business if the price is right and/or the contract side of the agreement is acceptable. Many small business owners start out with a dream and after a few years they might realize that it either takes way too much work or their plans didn't pan out.
nice. what franchises did your friend do? I've been researching QSR's for a while now. I've also reached out to some up-and-coming food places to ask if they'd franchise their model, most pooh-pooh the idea, but confident I'll franchise something at some point, whether mainstream or niche.
He went the Subway and Dunkin' route, he had a lot of success with the locations they offered him and even after all the fees he no longer has to work and can focus on his family/children. He also has a c-store without a gas station, but that is new and I don't know anything about it.
Asking an existing business to franchise out is not that easy, there are many legal hurdles and processes involved in that space. Feasible, but not something most startup founders would look at unless they have some form of knowledge it would work out. There are many companies that tried to franchise and it didn't work.
Also, there is a good chunk of new business founders who believe they don't need a franchise and can do everything on their own, in some business areas this might actually be true (i.e. you don't absolutely need a franchise for a laundromat or for most convenience or liquor stores).
I work in commercial/corporate banking and own a startup in the gaming industry.
From a WLB perspective, it wasn’t hard because my day job is usually a 50h/week commitment and I’m considered a top-member of our group.
I have a partner, but he adds very little to no value from a business or technical perspective, but I wanted him along because I did not want to take on all the risk of startup costs on my own, and I thought it would be fun to share the journey/future success with a friend. He also keeps me committed and focused when I felt like I wanted to give up.
On Capital, we invested $40K each so far in the development of our platform and all the legal expenses to break into the industry (highly regulated). The capital came from our personal savings that we made from investing/trading (for him its from his rich daddy).
Its been about two years since we came up with the idea and we’re now pretty close to finally getting all the regulatory approvals we need to launch our platform. I’m excited about the prospects of finally generating cash flow, but would say even now Pre Revenue, because of all we’ve down and how much we’ve reduced the startup risk, the business could raise equity at a pre-money valuation of $2.5MM.
Are you in corporate or commercial banking? Currently in IB but know this leaves virtually 0 time to pursue outside ventures so thinking of switching over to corporate banking or something with more reasonable hours that still has solid pay.
How much do you make?
Commercial Up-Market but in the final round for global corporate banking rn. I make 80 base and 20% bonus - Canada.
Send you a PM!
Sounds like a solid business. Would you care to elaborate? Like what specific verticals are you pursuing? Did you hire gamer developers/coders to do the job, or you and your partner self-studied coding and did it on your own?
We’re at the intersection of head to head esports and gambling. Me nor my partner can code. I bring to the table finance/business knowledge and the networking skills to get us from step to step and partner brings the tunnel vision focus/de-risks the venture for me. We hired a developer who we felt understood our space and vision well enough to make it come alive. We’ve been working with said person for about a year now.
Carvana guy is badass, I don't even think he underwrote companies at his old job but I could be wrong. Feel like he was a mortgage bond trader or some shit.
Badass? He had a job at Daddy's company and Daddy spun out his company and still owns most of it. The dude did a great job and all, but he started on third base, hit a single and scored, then hit a triple at his next at bat.
Jesus. I had no clue about the dad thing. What a disappointment
Interesting question. Following
very interested to hear more
Someone from my school went to Wall Street (was in S&T not IB), left to make an app (sold it) and last I heard, he has a sick apartment that's worth millions in California. Not sure what he's worth but his app sold for $40-80 million.
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Anyone have any stories of buying a small business and running it vs starting from scratch?
I saw a thread on here of a guy that had started in IB, was currently in PE and ran an ecom business on the side. They said it took 10-15 hours a week and made them like 12k/month. Idk if he started the ecom business while in IB or PE though, he didnt give details when people asked for more insight
Were you at a healthcare IB boutique? Thanks for sharing. Very cool stuff. As someone who works in HCIT/HC Services (a very interesting mixture of both), it's very fulfilling! Hopefully, I can pursue a similar path like you did.
As my username might suggest, I was a tech banker for most of my finance career. I was also briefly in ops, FI trading and sponsors coverage before settling down in tech banking.
SBed. Fwiw, I work with quite a few biotech firms and some medical services & equipment firms. HCIT seems to be interesting though, but I've never worked with those companies so far.
Did you/your partner learn how to code, or what you did was pooling resources together and outsource the coding part? My understanding is to do HCIT, you need to build websites or apps, so you need full-stack and/or iOS/Android developers.
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