Is there any point to joining a startup after IB?
Associate, coming up on 4 years. Recently received an offer from a Series A startup for a Chief of Staff role. My end goal is to start a company of my own. Is there any point in gaining startup experience first?
Here is my thought process:
Pros
- Inside view of how early stage startup works
- Learning opportunity from working closely with CEO
- Exposure to other founders and VCs
- Would give me more free time vs. IB to begin building my own thing
Cons
- Trash compensation ($130k) – meaningful lifestyle downgrade
- Related, low compensation reduces my risk appetite
- Much easier to spend $50K building something now vs. broke at a startup
- I am not factoring in equity due to dilution and vesting schedule
- Is it necessary?
- You learn by doing
- IB has already given me strong foundation
- Plenty of startups have emerged from ex-bankers — without b-school, without startup experience
- Startup will likely still be a grind
- I could be working just as hard, have little free time, and also be broke
It boils down to this: is this useful experience worth doing for a year or two, or is this just a delaying tactic and an unnecessary training wheel? If it's the latter, I want to avoid.
Life moves fast. My banking class is now in business school, PE, and all over the place. Friends are getting engaged. It feels like just yesterday we were all 22.
Thoughts?
Was in a roughly similar spot, though left "the path" earlier than where you are now to start a company
The absolute deciding factor here is the quality of team + company. I'm sure you have thought about this but didn't see you talk much about the company and people in the post
Generally a high potential startup with a smart team will not be much easier than banking. Hours probably will be 80% of what you had, but if you earn any level of actual responsibility the stress will be 2x what you had in banking (I was at a notoriously sweaty place for banking years and didn't mind that part of it, so not saying it lightly). Would not consider going to a good startup if you want to step down intensity. More responsibility does not usually lead to less stress
Looking around, I'm jealous of the guys who are doing/did CoS roles. Comp ceiling is not high but these guys don't stay in the role more than 2 years and have an unfair advantage when they get out due to level of exposure. To how the game is played and to the people. This is all from observation and none of my startup experience involved having bosses to report to so many grains of salt or whatever
Underrated upside to CoS and startups generally is the opportunity to be an "entrepreneur through acquisition". If it is true that the hardest part of "search funds" is finding an asset, then you generate a good beachhead by working in mgmt team of a startup. This is more probably more true for say a services business that works in a fragmented industry, than if your clients are exclusively large multinational corporations
Why is CoS better? They have broad exposure but don’t build a skillset like sales, CS, Finance etc
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