Imagine we put 100 hours a week into a startup
imagine we grinded everyday from 8am - 1am on our own startup and genuinely put the same effort in as we do in our banking jobs. given that we're all pretty smart people, guaranteed that if your idea is not that horrible, we could probably make it.
im even thinking this would work if you ran IG/Tiktok meme accounts, AI video generation, or just became a content creator. obviously an actual startup too.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, your idea aligns with a recurring theme: the potential of channeling the intense work ethic from banking into entrepreneurial ventures. Many threads highlight that the skills, discipline, and resilience developed in high-pressure finance roles can translate effectively into building a startup or other ventures like content creation or e-commerce.
Key takeaways from WSO discussions:
Effort and Smart Execution: If you genuinely dedicate 100 hours a week to a startup or venture, and your idea isn't fundamentally flawed, the odds of success increase significantly. The same hustle applied in banking can yield exponential results when you're building something for yourself.
Diverse Opportunities: Ventures like IG/TikTok meme accounts, AI video generation, or content creation are viable paths. These fields are scalable, have low barriers to entry, and can generate significant returns with creativity and consistency.
Risk vs. Reward: While entrepreneurship offers the allure of autonomy and potentially massive upside, it comes with risks. Unlike banking, where the paycheck is steady, startups require a tolerance for uncertainty and financial instability in the early stages.
Examples of Success: WSO threads often feature stories of individuals who transitioned from finance to entrepreneurship, achieving success by leveraging their analytical skills, network, and work ethic. For instance, one user shared how they built a successful e-commerce business, eventually working less than 4 hours a week while earning $30k months.
Mindset Shift: The entrepreneurial journey also fosters personal growth. It challenges you to think creatively, solve problems independently, and develop a broader skill set beyond finance.
If you're considering this path, ensure you validate your idea, understand your market, and leverage your network. The grind is real, but as many WSO users suggest, the payoff—both financially and personally—can be worth it.
Sources: How many ideas do you generate per week/month?, Do you ever stop and think if the hours are worth it?, Learning coding on your own for finance?, What job to take if you best want to ride the generative AI wave over the next couple of decades. Serious question., The Myth of the 100-Hour Week
Congrats on discovering what effort is
Can't tell if you're joking or not but I'll treat it as a serious observation.
The main thing that you're not taking into account is how those hours are spent in finance vs. a start up.
Finance hours are long but heavily structured, follow clear reporting lines, and are typically geared towards executing established processes and recognizing proven patterns. Your decision making is narrow and the system you operate in is largely predictable and measurable. The fatigue comes from repetition, data processing, and combing through details.
Start up hours are long but unstructured, often blurring the lines of responsibility (address whatever is most important), and deal with open ended problems where there's limited information with which to make a decision. The context switching and rapid iteration create a different type of rhythm that can be invigorating but also result in mental fatigue.
Both are intellectually stimulating, but just because both can cause burn out at the 100hr/week level doesn't mean they're equal.
this attitude is exactly why majority of businesses fail unprofitably.
Businesses make money because they solve problems. Your aim here still isnt “imagine the problems i could solve” but rather “how could i just spend time doing xyz”
The while point of making money is to accumulate the stored value of human time by saving humans time. You simply just want a better paying way to WASTE time
Think of a way to solve problems. Most “start ups” are created for the sake of “starting a start up bro i gotta do something on my own instead of for the man”
And if you get really good at solving a problem, you are so good at it that it often takes little to no time/grind to fulfill
100 hours a week doesn't guarantee success as an entrepreneur. try it and let us know how it goes. i can guarantee you there are more people who do worse in entrepreneurship after quitting a high finance job than there are successful.
0 correlation
del del del
100 hours in IB / PE is nothing like 100 hours in a high-growth startup. Wish it were that easy
A lot of sheep and risk averse people in the comments. Expected result when this website is flooded with Wall Street NPCs.
OP I think you make a great point. It’s definitely oversimplified but you should give the startup route a shot. You’d learn way more than being an excel monkey. And if it fails you can always go back to being an excel monkey.
The true path to wealth has always been building, maintaining, and then selling equity in a business. You’ll never get there working for someone no matter how high your W-2 income is. The truth hurts and im sure everyone on WSO will disagree with me. So be it
I don't think anyone would disagree with you that ownership, whether it's equity or assets, is a well established (but risky) path to wealth.
Sounds like you might want to considerquitting Barclays and build something though :)
I recently did! Time to see if my own advice translates
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