Left work to attempt a startup, it didn't work and now I have an employment gap.. How should I proceed?

Hi all,

So this might be oddly specific but I figured someone here would have some good advice! So I left a research role last June. I faced clients and the work was alright, but the office environment sucked and there was absolutely no upward mobility. I threw caution to the wind and tried to start an online advertising company, the idea was seemingly good, but VC's were hesitant to give money since I was leveraging another social media websites platform, so it quickly became a money pit. At 24, I do not have the resources for a money pit. So with that, I'm trying to get back into finance, and have had tons of interviews but everyone (understandably) thinks I'm going to jet off again at my 'next idea' when it really isn't like that anymore. I want some structure, to take the CFA, and actually be apart of a good firm to learn something.

How do I get the last part across in interviews? The main companies giving me the time of day are Alternative Asset startups, but I would really prefer to go back into a big corporate umbrella.

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

First of all, kudos for making the dive. Not many people will go after something they feel strongly about and if there's an age to make those risks, it's where you are. Making a jump back to corporate should be do-able although I'd highly suggest you target firms that have at least something to do with online advertising, DTC, or something related to these topics.

A story I could imagine you formulating for companies like that is "I really love the topic of online advertising/DTC/whatever-related-to-your-startup-that-ties-with-the-job-description and my role at the time wasn't catered to that so I decided to take the initiative to get my feet wet in the space. Learned a ton, didn't work out, but glad I did it. I want this job because this is exactly what I was looking for even before starting the business. I didn't do it because I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I did it because I wanted to have a job like what I'm applying for but the avenue to that didn't exist at the time"

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