What is the best starting job for an aspiring entreprenuer?

I am currently an undergrad and my long-term goal is to one day start my own company. I have neither the experience nor the capital to start one any time soon, so I am looking for a job that can give me the best start. I think a job that gives applicable experience, ample capital, and potentially enough free time to start something on the side is the best-case scenario. 

 

I think consulting is generally the best place to start. I am biased as this is where I began my career, but feel it gives you the best exposure to solving a broad variety of problems. I think a few years in consulting then pivoting to a strategy role at a startup would be a good career path. The biggest thing with starting your own company is you have to face such a broad range of problems, that a finance role wont necessarily help you a ton. You could do one year in IB and then transition to consulting so you would have strong financial modeling skills as well as strong problem solving skills, but I would think the year in IB would be entirely necessary. 

 

I'll second this, but for a different reason. I went the backwards way of DT6 and I moved into consulting after doing SEC reporting. So a bit different than IB, but you still gotta know all the skills. It'll teach you a ton either direction of DT6's start or mine.

The poster formerly known as theAudiophile. Just turned up to 11, like the stereo.
 

lol consulting is a terrible way to start for true entreprenuership. You dont actually learn a 'real' skill you can sell. Much harder to start your own firm, especially if in strategy consulting.

You are far better off doing a skill customers will pay you for (CPA, HVAC technnician) or something heavily network based (real estate) than consulting/banking to be an entreprenuer 

 

Very true, being able to provide goods or services that customers/client value is the most important aspect of starting a successful company.

It helps to know about stuff like market sizing, operating margins, capital structures etc. (all skills you develop in Consulting/IB) but it’s the value you create for customers that leads to success.

E.g. if you want to build a successful fashion brand, it’s far more important to become an amazing designer and spend years designing clothes than to be a consultant. You can always hire them if you need help down the line lol.

 
Most Helpful

Work for a fast growing company doing ~$15m - $100m in revenue and growing at least ~1.5x - 2x YoY.

Make sure the founder is cash efficient and not one of these monkeys that raised $$$ in '20/'21 but is a dogshit entrepreneur.

Your goal is a "chief of staff" type of role.

Maximize learning, not pay. $80k and growing your skill set 4x in a year is better than $300k and 1.2x.

Most of my c-levels right now at ex-entrepreneurs that blew up or guys that want to be entrepreneurs. Our understanding is that they give me a killer 2 years of their life and I will be their first $ in for their next entrepreneurial attempt.

If it's consumer, I am happy to send you some names I respect immensely who are run by 200 IQ founders. 

BTW - you should also ignore advice from non-entrepreneurs here. Their advice is worthless.

 

This is the most subtle yet meaningful advice. Read this 3x over and repeatedly try answering the question "Why?".

Just had my trade dispute rejected by Schwab for a loss of 35k. This single issue alone should be a gigantic red flag to anyone who trades on their platform. If they have a system error, and you do not video record your trading (they actually said this), they will not honour their fuck up. Switching everything away from them. Fuck this company.
 

Honestly you sound like an "wantrepreneur". If you want to start your own business, you should focused on actually building a real skill (engineering, programming..etc). Afterwards get employed in a position where you can grow and aggrandize on your craft. Then after being industry for a long enough tenure where you see an inefficiency and/or gap in the market. Additionally, you will have enough technical ability to address the hypothetical problem, create a business around the solution and capitalize on the value created from said solution through monetization strategies; that's a bottom-up approach. Another approach is top-down where you do market research to try to find the gaps in the market preemptively, which a bottom-up approach. 
 

 

Any role with exposure to the financial operations of a company. Once you see how the inner gears work in a successful company, you should be able to manage your own financial operations. 

But, you have to have a good idea and have to come with the right timing in the market. So a good idea at the right time and then you just have to execute. This is all a lot harder than it seems. Growing a business from scratch comes with many challenges. Most will fail.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Funniest

After watching ~ 500 motivational entrepreneurial videos on YouTube throughout my life I would say that the 3 best places to start are:

1. McDonald's / Subway cashier

2. Janitor

3. Wal-Mart

That's where the desire to be rich, the ambition, and the flame appears. 498 of the videos say that they were handing sandwiches / cleaning the stairs / arranging Pringles when they saw a guy exit from his Mercedes with a 5k suit and they said: I want to be like him and I'll make it happen; and they became rich.

that's it

 

Sales is quite underrated imo. To learn how customers tick, what they actually want (or you make them believe so), to deliver a message to them to buy this NOW as it will change their life (by happiness or actual use or simply for owning it) and much more gets you quite ahead. You can always later on hire an excel monkey.

 

Molestiae aut quia soluta est. Vel molestiae sunt a ex.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
5
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
6
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
7
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
8
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
9
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”