"Boutique" Shops

WSO,

Came here for advice on career progression. I am currently at a large corporation working in the Energy space in the greater NYC area, with prior experience in a family office PE shop. I interned with my prior role for 2 summers until I landed FT. What appealed to me at my last role, was the senior management. It was a group of savvy businessmen, and not PE professionals. This appealed to me as I was an entrepreneur all my life and the environment they created felt very natural. As an analyst, we have involvement in board meetings of portfolio companies, screening responsibilities of new deals, lots of business dinners, networking with affluent local individuals and business owners,etc. It was the real deal. Summer 2018, an event unfolded at the firm and the team fell apart. I had left voluntarily. In a hurry, I swooped up my current role because there were very appealing aspects, especially the name coming from a no name shop, and they were hiring off cycle.

I have been here for 8 months and I'm having a hard time adapting to the big corporate structure and inefficient processes in place. A lot of people from here transition into NYC/Houston based IB/PE in the energy space. I could start that process early, however I really miss the small company vibe. I have only one job to compare that against, but I noticed many discrete PE shops in my home area. They're all lower market but seems like the professionals come from large institutional experience.

I was planning on cold emailing many of these firms to express interest in learning about their firms and outlining my story like I did above. I would like to go on my own within 3-5 years so I THINK that small firms might align with that goal better. However, I do not want to pigeon hole myself from a larger institution if this does not workout. Has anyone worked at small local PE shops/small regional offices of larger institutions?

Would love to hear similar experiences and advice. Thanks.