Moving as Associate / Analyst to early stage startup
Just curious if anyone on this site has / has heard of someone working in IB as an analyst / associate and then lateraling to an early stage startup. I'm not talking about moving to Corp dev or working in finance at a company that's raised a Series F. I'm talking seed / Series A stage.I work in a coverage group at a BB in an industry I really enjoy. I actually don't mind my work too much and my group is pretty solid (both from a deal flow and culture stand point). What gets to me is the fact I sometimes feel like I have no material value other than churning out slides and comments at random hours of the night. The sheer unpredictability of your schedule doesn't help much either. I'd love to work for a company that I get to see grow from the ground up. I'm well aware that you have to work hard to get to the top and I'm ready to do that (don't mind the 90+ hour weeks associated with IB) but I'd like to work these hours while developing a product / building out the strategy / reaching out to investors and biz partners etc. instead of me growing into my role at a massive corporation, I'd like to grow WITH my role / company and deal with the hard lessons and such on that route. Any way,TLDR: anyone know what the path is like to move as an analyst / assoc into an early stage startup?
Bump
Feel free to DM if you want to talk. Just made this transition in August
Wasn't able to PM you (think cause you replied anon? Never done it on this site before). Would love to hear your perspective so would appreciate if you could PM me, username above. Thanks!
Pm sent
I have a friend that left banking as an Associate to a seed stage company. He absolutely loved it and thrived. You need to be both lucky and good at spotting a good startup, which is why there is a natural pivot to VC after! XD
I made the transition to a Series B company last year after 5+ years in IB / PE. Most common path will be strategic finance or corporate finance (depending on the startup you go to, the distinction matters a lot, or not at all). Happy to elaborate further on any specifics.
This is the path I also want to take after banking. Did you go through a recruiter or just look for startups online (linkedin, google, etc) and network?
Pretty much all online apps and networking. The beauty of startup roles is LinkedIn is actually a great place for apps. Did have a few opps through HHs, as you know they tend to focus on corp dev roles. If I remember correctly, Amity had the most strat fin roles.
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