Did I Miss the Boat on Being Entrepreneurial By Majoring in Finance?
Hi all,
So basically, I'm a recent grad from a non-target and I majored in finance because I genuinely had (and still have) an interest in corporate strategy and trying to help businesses grow. I chose finance over marketing (I narrowed it down to those 2 because they seemed the most "strategic" so to speak) because it was a bit more quantitative and taught a more unique skill-set than marketing would.
Doing more research, I've narrowed my career path down to 3 paths: product/brand management, corporate development/strategy, or entrepreneurship/VC. I've gotten more interested in working for a startup off late, but I'm starting to wonder if I've kind of screwed myself out of this career path by not majoring in a STEM subject.
It seems like corporate finance jobs at startups are hard enough to find and the fact that I don't have tech skills that I can use to help the firm initially and lack a pedigreed background (because I'm not at a target school or in a startup hotbed) will make it really hard to break in. The other bad part is that, even though I have some ideas, I don't have any programming/tech skills to even try and put something of my own together.
Start-ups are appealing to me now because after working a corporate environment, I'm realizing that I really don't like the bureaucracy, politics, and general malaise that's rampant in whatever corporate job I've worked. I want to be tossed into a sink or swim environment where I'll be forced to have more responsibility and be challenged to either become a better problem-solver/critical thinker or get canned/go under.
Working for or starting my own company would allow me to do this, the thing I'm worried about is how I can ever get to this stage neither the tech skills nor the pedigree to do it. Has anyone ever been in this sort of situation and have any advice or does anyone have thoughts on this in general? I apologize for being so vague about myself and my background, but I don't want to give away too much in public. I'd be happy to address more specifics about me via PM though.
Thanks in advance!
Never too late to start your own thing. Don't worry about pedigree, worry about your idea. I'm not an entrepreneur but I know plenty of good ones (and want to be one too someday). One of the best ones I know never went to college, she just works her ass off and kicks butt.
Are you an entrepreneur now?
No. A friend of mine is currently a trader and is working on 3 start ups. Nothing is impossible
There's a few things you can do. One is you can take some coding classes. There are plenty of places you can learn to code either through a community college or on your own. It'll take discipline, but you'll probably be able to do some basic programing in a few months.
Another, probably more practical option, would be to co-found a company with a more technical person. Let them take care of the technical stuff and you go out there and hustle and BD your way to 1 million users. Who cares about pedigree when you've co-founded a company that has traction and is bringing in revenue. Just get out there and start forging relationships with technical people so you can begin bouncing ideas off each other and come up with a really great idea.
Thanks for the responses so far; it's good to know that I haven't completely shot myself in the foot yet. I was wondering how much pedigree would matter if I'm applying for finance positions at startups? Initially, I was thinking about working for a more established startup that is more mature/considering going public versus a very new one that can crash and burn still.
This is mostly because a mature one will have more people I can learn from (very important for me initially) and, because they should have some cash flow, will likely have a greater need for finance/business managers while early-stage companies mostly need technical product developers. Obviously, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley would be top feeders for companies like these due to their location and name brands, but do people from lesser schools still place into these roles?
It's never too late. Colonel Sanders started his business in his 60's! ( http://www.entrepreneur-inspiration.com/2011/01/07/colonel-sanders-and-… )
You just need to follow your passions and find a way to monetize them. If you don't know what your idea is just yet, then just find a job that exposes you to things that you're interested in and build up some start-up capital. Keep reading things about different industries and trades to brainstorm. Once you find you're idea, learn everything there is to know about the topic, work out a plan, then act on it! Do the best you can towards it on nights and weekends until you can run with your idea full time. Be prepared for failure, learn from any failures, and take that learning into another of these cycles. Repeat until you make it.
Well, this might depend on what you mean by doing corporate strategy/finance in a startup. It's not uncommon to see a business guy with a group of engineers - someone needs to write the business plans and help out with the fund raising. An older guy might be preferable due to experience/connections/implied authority but scrappy ambitious people are generally appreciated. At early stage (think seed round/maybe small series A) startups, hiring can be pretty informal and based more on fit and connections than pedigree. Sure, it can crash and burn but you'll at least be getting paid (and can figure out the minimum of how long you'll have your job based on the amount of funding left).
Depending on what city you're in, there might be entrepreneur meet ups and events. Go forth and network.
No offense but your reasons for wanting to join/launch a start-up are weak and naive. "I've narrowed down to XYZ... this one has too much bureaucracy bla bla bla". You don't "narrow down" to: Becoming an entrepreneur, you breath it, you bleed it, you're obsessed with it. You should be magnetically attracted to the sector you want to start a company in; you should bleed that industry; you should know all its entrepreneurs, its investors by first and last name like you would for your favorite sports team; you should know all the trends, the winning companies, the losers, why they became that way, what was the secret sauce behind successes, etc. You should stay up at night thinking about how you can create a market leader and how to have an impact.
Be hungry, be passionate and obsessed. Only then will you achieve what you want. Entrepreneurship is extremely tough. As an investor working with some of the best ones that are alive today, I can tell you it is a very, very hard business to be successful in.
Start by networking. Go talk to entrepreneurs, try to have one or more become your mentor(s) if you think it's still for you. That is the key first step.
And to answer your question, you could have majored in fine arts with a food science minor, you could still become a great entrepreneur if you have all of the above qualities.
I understand what you're saying. I know that my reasons sound weak right now, only because I recently got interested in it, but I do think that I have a strong desire to learn more about succeeding in this industry now that I know it's what I want to do. If what you're saying is that the people who make it in this industry know from day 1 that they are going to be entrepreneurs and never work for someone, then we might have a problem (since I thought that I'd want to work for someone else initially and was afraid of the risk, and because I didn't think I could ever do it since I'm awful at engineering disciplines). I think now that I've gotten a little bit of experience and understand what it means to work for someone else, that has pushed me to want to create something of my own or at least be a major contributor to an organization (which I believe working for a statup would allow me to do).
The bureaucracy I mentioned was just as an aside that led me to the realization that what I really enjoy is building things that I can call my own and setting the strategic direction of an organization. I don't have the engineering background to actually build whatever it is I'd be selling, I'd have more of a strategic/fund-raising role.If this isn't a good enough reason, then we might have a problem, but I do think that I need to eventually do something on my own or work for a smaller company I'm more passionate about in the long-run.
Since you don't have a technical background you have two options:
If you've got a strong ability to market and sell products, you've got some leverage when it comes to finding someone technical to partner with.
Finding an engineer is not easy.
So since you're probably still young, go for a MS/PHD. More education isn't necessarily bad for you. You have to understand that the technical guy starts a company with zero education in accounting/finance/marketing/sales. So you're aren't really at a disadvantage right now. I'm sure you understand the basics of accounting/finance/sales/marketing.
It is just that the normal way of doing things is to do an undergrad in engineering and an MBA. But doing it backwards doesn't really make that much of a difference. You'll actually get more of an education in engineering by completing a MS or Phd. Which is good.
Lastly, just start coming up with ideas for products and services and writing them down. Get into the habit of collecting ideas. But act upon them. Try out some ideas and see where it goes. Experience with different grassroots marketing techniques and see what works. That way, you'll get an idea of what works and what doesn't.
You should remember that it is going to be hard. You won't have money to advertise, hire employees, or build a prototype. But you've got to do something.
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