I quit my job at a MF five months ago to pursue entrepreneurship.
The cons
• I expect at least a 1–2 year gap before I make meaningful money. That’s unpalatable and flat-out impossible for some.
• I had to completely reevaluate my sense of self-worth, which for years was tied to a prestigious title and a large salary. Letting go of that identity has been the hardest part.
• There’s no hiding and no excuses. My future is in my hands, and my hands only. No boss. No one telling me what to do. Every outcome now comes down to my work ethic, discipline, and focus.
The pros
• I’m in the best shape of my life and finally feel like I control my own time. Freedom is intoxicating, but it only matters if I stay disciplined. Otherwise, that freedom turns into failure.
• I can be creative. I can be innovative. Every day I get to build, experiment, and think without a ceiling.
• After lying to myself for so long that I’d be happy behind a desk for 30 years, I’m finally out in the world. I feel the sun on my skin. I’m meeting people. I’m making meaningful connections.
• Wins feel different when they’re yours. Even the smallest success hits harder than closing a billion-dollar deal for someone else’s fund.
• No politics. No posturing.
• Energy. I don’t drag through days anymore.
• You start to realize how much money is out there for the taking. One of my friends runs an IG page with 6m followers, and clears 1.2m a year working 4-5 real hours a day. Another friend is a realtor, albeit a top realtor, and consistently clears $3m a year. I get these anomalies, but, al I'm saying is, there's a lot of ways to make a lot of money.
Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. And I can't say how it will pan out. But, it's been exciting and reinvigorating so far.
Sounds like you doing great man, I'm pulling for you. I have a hypothetical - if you had to guess, how would your new self feel if you left PE, but left for a corporate-esque gig? still in an office (call it hybrid), but gain control of your life back and are still able to hit a few of your highlights (great shape, new energy, creativity at work, etc)? Obviously the freedom to control so many more aspects of your life that being your own boss provides can't be replicated behind the desk, but I'm curious how you'd estimate just the fact of getting out of PE could've affected you.
The issue I have / had with taking a cushier corporate gig is that I didn't want to stop working at a high level, I just wanted to stop working at a high level for someone else. If that makes sense. I feel like a corporate gig comes with the same restraints as any other corporate job which I was trying to avoid. Those restraints are just that much greater with a job in PE.
That first sentence hits hard
similar to above poster, wonder how you assessed just taking it easy and developing yourself outside of work even further. Acknowledge you’re in the best shape of your life but how did you arrive at the conclusion that there wasn’t more you wanted to achieve in your personal life? Or that you weren’t just replacing money/prestige with a similar form of money/prestige albeit with a 2yr delay
Not to attack but still in the grind and wondering how life looks 1) staying on the path and just stacking paper and trying take it easy 2) chill job and let boredom guide me 3) go all out in a different pursuit
This just fired me tf up. If you don't mind me asking, what is it you're exactly doing now? and do you think your group/industry-focus in PE helped you learn the tools to be able to set off on your own doing whatever it is you're doing?
FundingSecured b this comment.
Similar dreams myself, a year or so in PE to then break away.
What are you doing now?
Is it heavily linked to coverage group?
What are some of the skills you learned in PE that have been helpful?
Perhaps, what do you wish you had focused on thinking about more in your PE role that would have helped you translate to being a founder?
In my opinion, PE teaches you nothing about owning or running a business. It teaches you however a very strong financial skillset and ability to analyze companies but that isn't that significant, at least at smaller companies who aren't interested or able to grow inorganically. The owner put it best when I started working with them, we don't have a bottom line problem, we have a top line problem. Margins are there we just need to grow.
Although I'm digging into KPIs and analyzing margins, what's more important is that I not only intimately understand the way this business makes money but also figure out for ways to the business to make MORE money. So, this is a massive learning curve for me, and for now, I'm basically throwing my financial skillset out the window. Instead, learning about online marketing and SEO, website development, working with a myriad of freelancers / web developers to get the products I need out there, increasing revenue with existing customers while also gaining new customers etc.
It's literally "full stack"
I'm not just a high level owner clipping cash flow, or at least at the moment.
In a similar mindset, how old are you and how much do you have saved?
Your friend running the instagram page - what kind of content does he post, and how does it make money? Is it a consumer brand?
No it’s a B2B SaaS product. Jesus you’re thick
Nice sarcasm, but you're an idiot if you don't see why I asked this question. Yes, some Instagram accounts make money from sponsorships, but there are other "Instagram accounts" that are actually businesses using their Instagram as a marketing front. $1.2mm a year for 6 million followers is pretty high, so I wanted to know which one this is.
I love your mindset, and have no doubt, you will go far.
Where are you living? Quitting and hustling on my own feels impossible in NYC col. Feel like I can get my rent check only down to 3.2k min for any reasonable standard of living
All I'm going to say is, you need to be prepared to kill the ego.
pathetic - further proof all gen z cares about is becoming an infuencer, onlyfans sloot, or something stupid like dropshipping or being some crpyto bro.
none of the paths you are describing sound interesting or sustainable - theres a reason there are basically no billionaires in gen z and the richest people in the generation are influencers
This person sounds like a real gem. Great attention to detail on the reading part, too. I'd recommend sticking with the picture books; apparently only ~40% here went in.
Too many ups and downs in entrepreneurship. Killed it 2023 and 2024.
2025 looks like a dud and getting worse.
PG'd a bunch of loans to get here.
31 now. Regret not staying in finance. Its way harder running a (profitable) business than it is doing a w2. Everyday feels like survival. The extra stress for the incremental money isn't worth it.
Beyond a couple hundred thousand per year, you don't need more.
I love how younger people will somehow dismiss this. The thrill of going off on your own is something else, until you get that bad year, or bad quarter, until you're cash flow negative, and have lenders on you. That's the lesson these kids will learn, because there is no businesses that doesn't have a near death experience in its first 3 years, if not first year.
There's a reason why generational wealth is so sought out, and dictators throughout the world have destroyed nations to keep their families, cliques, and clans in power and wealthy.
Yeah, everyone in my age group is making 500k minimum in a corp job. Way more if still in PE/HF/IBD and continued prospect for growth.
I'm earning in the low 7 figs, but lets see how long this continues.
Thankfully I did not need to take out any loans and the businesses I am working on are relatively low capex / have no existing debt and own their machinery outright.
Not gonna totally dismiss your lived experience, but sounds like all in all it's absolutely been worth it and you're blowing the current stagnation (not even catastrophe) out of proportion? I'm sure it does take a ton of stress and near death experiences, but $500K vs $1M (+ the potential to grow exponentially if you're in almost any field) isn't "incremental". But this does depend on your stress tolerance. If your stress tolerance is low and/or you feel only a few hundred K is plenty, your take makes sense. But for the rest of us, what you just described sounds like a pretty good deal, especially when you think about not working to put money into other people's pockets...
Genuine question. Why do so many IB/PE quitters try to pursue operating businesses?
It's still hard work and stress, but yes with greater autonomy and accountability. I get that this part tickles the mind for the entrepreneur type. Most IB/PE corporate environments kills the soul.
But why not entrepreneur in something you're already credentialed to do and have way less upfront risk? Like starting a small independent sponsor / fund, boutique M&A, heading up a small family office, or other forms of financial advisory? You're still being results-driven and removing a lot of the ceiling issues. Why the obsession with buying some HVAC company or tech start-ups? These literally have no skills translation for what you've likely spent the last 5-10 years doing.
I'm aware of at least a few people that do small independent sponsor / fund, boutique M&A type of work. Get pieces of equity in deals they advise, offer to help out as a fractional CFO etc. I guess people on this website just doesn't attract ex-IB/PE folks that work in that space. Also the variability in terms of comp / success can vary drastically here.
I've seen more than a few ex-finance / accounting folks I grew up with end up in retail / ecommerce type of businesses. Interesting to see.
I think it’s mostly because they think they are masters of the universe and if they deign to move to Main Street with their financial wizardry, formatting skills, and pinstripe suits they will be running circles around the illiterate Joe six packs running HVAC businesses.
They do some excel roll-up monkey math and their pupils turn to dollar signs.
Buy a $1m EBITDA opco for 4x, get an SBA loan for 95% of the purchase price. Cut costs to make EBITDA 1.5m, plus another $500k EBITDA from top-line growth via best practices picked up while being the staffer at William Blair. Lever that $1m up to buy another opco, lather rinse repeat, fast fwd 2 years and you’re buying a variable annuity insurance business to use their balance sheet to fund the next stage of roll-ups.
Next thing you know you’re throwing your head back and cackling with laughter while sitting at a horse shoe shaped table at the back of a yacht with Marc Rowan, Warren Buffet, and Mr Smithers.
I have a six pack now.
Good point however I've established I don't like financial services. Otherwise, that would make perfect sense.
Ultimately you need to ask the question what type of PE one does. The bigger the fund, the least likely you are to have real-world utilizable skills. The longer you go, PE just becomes a C-level / board training school.
It's like you pulled these thoughts straight out of my head. I'm also 4 months into starting a company and can echo the freedom, ownership (the bad and the good), better health, and complete reevaluation of self-worth.
The biggest challenge has been how I approach my own time. In PE, I felt like I could advocate for my own personal time (family, relationships, etc.) because 1) there was always someone asking for more work, and 2) my work wasn't as directly correlated to anyone's outcome. With the company, at least in the inception stage, my effort is the only driver of progress, and no one will care if I stop. So I've felt like devoting time to anything but the company is only hurting myself. As a result, I'm still working PE hours, but by my own hand.
A few founder buddies said this is normal, but tbh this doesn't feel any more sustainable long-term than working a demanding career. FWIW this is a venture business so YMMV.
Interesting, not sure where you did high finance but at my MF, and maybe this was group specific, advocating for your personal time surely meant a lowered perception within the group. I do agree with your statement about being the only driver of progress. Also congrats on making the move and I wish you much success.
Advocate is probably not the right word - more that I actually wanted to schedule date nights, family time, etc. in between work commitments in PE, vs. with the company, feeling like personal time is a distraction or setback
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