WSO Podcast | E109: Non-target Straight to the Buyside - Partner at a Growth Equity Fund
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In this episode, MidwestMonkey2 shares his story coming out of a large non-target state school. Learn how he still managed to land incredible internships at front office investment banking roles in both his sophomore and junior year as well as why he turned down his full-time offer from one of them to jump straight to the buyside. I think this episode really highlights the power of saying no and waiting for the right opportunity.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 109) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, MidwestMonkey2 shares his story coming out of a large, non-target state school. Learn how he still managed to land incredible internships that front office investment banking roles in both his sophomore and junior year, as well as why he turned down his full time offer from one of them to jump straight to the buy side. I think this episode really highlights the power of saying no and waiting for the right opportunity. Enjoy. All right, Midwest monkey, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:01:02] Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:04] So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:01:07] Yeah, absolutely. So I went to a non-target state school for undergrad, majored in finance and math, had a couple of bulge bracket internships in college, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and then moved to a principal investing role in a middle market firm that for a couple of years and then went to a more traditional by side role. I went to a large private equity fund that had about $10 billion under management, doing primarily distressed and turn around investing after four years. There did kind of a 180, and now I'm on the early stage investing side, so doing more venture and growth equity. And then at my current spot for about four or five years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:51] Awesome. So let's start all the way back at your state school non-target, we'll call it. Tell me a little bit about how much you knew or just your upbringing a little bit and how much you knew, like was finance your calling. Did you know from like high school or did you kind of just gradually gravitate to that during undergrad? Yeah, absolutely.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:02:11] So I'd been trading stocks since I was about 10 years old, so definitely knew for a long time. I liked it. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO):: [00:02:20] Were your parents or your parents into into that?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:02:23] They were not. So my dad's an engineer, my mom's a doctor. So zero finance upbringing. But my dad like trading stocks on the side and then kind of got me into it when I was about 10. Obviously didn't really know what I was doing, but more like staring at stock tickers all day. And it's pretty interesting. I actually did undergrad for engineering, so had no, I had no inclination to go into finance, but then kind of my freshman year decided, Hey, you know what? It's possible to do some of the stuff as a full time career, even though I'm at a non target. You know, Wall Street Oasis was a good resource. So definitely read the blogs there, but felt like I could do it as a career. But I like the analytical aspect of it, of my engineering degree, so continued with math and kind of minor in Math, but change my major to Finance and then kind of worked in that worked my way to internships. And the sell side realized I kind of hated the sell side and it wasn't what I expected. I wanted to really be on the investing side.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:25] Before we go there, let's go all the way back to let's go back to that undergrad. You said you're really kind of more interested in the engineering side was engineering where they like 10 times harder the classes, you can be honest. Yeah, it was way harder. But I mean, I still had kind of a good GPA. You kept your GPA up, but you're like, I don't want to be studying like 15 hours a day to keep my GPA up. Yeah, pretty much. Or you actually did you actually enjoy like you enjoy the finance stuff.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:03:50] And yeah, so the decision to change had nothing to do with not liking engineering. I still liked it and still had a pretty big involvement on the engineering side. I just liked the finance side way more. So, you know, as far as studying goes, I think kind of like every other student out there, the studying probably took a. Took a backseat to some of the more fun stuff, you know, being at a state school with a really good football program. And so spent a lot of time watching them, watching games and having fun and tailgating and things like that. So it wasn't so much that the work was too hard actually came naturally to me. I just had a more of a passion for finance. And given this during the time of the Great Recession, if you will, there was a lot of good buying opportunities and that actually probably also acted as a catalyst for why I made that switch because I was staring at stocks all day nine to 9:30 to four, even during class and things like that. And I think that helped fuel the desire to be in the side of the world.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:55] So it sounds like you're really into stocks. Were these internships at the bulge brackets? Were they on the trading side?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:05:01] No, not not.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:02] They were just investment banking generalist, basically. Yeah. You tell me a little bit about how you were even able to land those internships given where you were. I mean, I know they do recruit from large state schools and it's becoming more common. But back then, I think it was a little more rare. Yeah, so about that? Absolutely. Yeah. So none of the bulge brackets or even none of the middle market's really recruited at my school. So it was kind of just having to claw my way to getting anyone who would talk to me. And then
MidwestMonkey2: [00:05:31] I think it was pretty clear that I had a passion for this stuff and was able to talk through it, obviously with investment banking data and very little to do with the stock market. But I think they're just able to tell that I was interested in this kind of stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:44] And so you mean, like, were you talking to alums, mostly what were you? What tools were you using? And like, how many people did you reach out to get enough calls? And in that first round, how did you land that first round even?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:05:55] Yeah. So my sophomore internship was at Merrill Lynch. I'm their banking side, and so the way I got there was, you know, talking to a financial advisor very far away from New York, but talking to a financial adviser who then connected me to someone else and then basically riding that chain up. I think I just got lucky there that he was able to introduce me to someone who knew someone in the legal department of New York who talk to me for ten minutes is like, I'm not the right person to talk to you at all. And she introduced me to someone who was actually on the banking side, but it was kind of a back office type thing. And then that person introduced me to someone in the front office and so had to work my way in that way, really backwards and convoluted way.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:43] How did you even like where you make? You're making that good of an impression that they just kept passing you along and the back office person was willing to introduce you to the front office person? Yeah, I think like I said, I think I really lucked out there and I just kind of knowing someone and really looking out there. But I think that approach was one of many. That certainly wasn't how I got my junior year internship. It was really reaching out to kind of anyone who would be willing to talk, whether it's random people or someone you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO):: [00:07:12] Saying, you're saying that sophomore internship was pretty early, like you only chase down a few things and you just happen to land it.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:07:18] I chased down, chased down a lot of things, but that was the one that really seemed to gain the most traction.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:24] Can you give us an idea of how many people like you even reached out to initially on the front end and what you use and how you did that? Like, we were reaching out to like a hundred people on like LinkedIn and then 10 got back to you and one of those turned out OK. Or like, what were the numbers?
Yeah, this is, I'd say, kind of before LinkedIn was big. So is really going to company websites and some of the middle markets out here. So middle market sites or the websites typically had a list of the team.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:07:51] And so it's pretty easy to get the email address of associates, BP's analysts, whoever you did,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:59] So Draper or anything as an engineer Did not know. Ok, OK, go ahead. Yeah, just went that route.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:08:08] And then on the bulge racket side was going through alums. But as you can probably expect, a lot of them basically said, we don't really hire sophomores, but we can pass your information along if we happen to. And so it was really this way was the way I lucked out somehow just got through. And then I just got through and you interviewed, Well, did they ask you a lot of technical questions for that interview? I mean, it was a bold phrase. Emeril, you said bullshit bracket. Like, Yeah, so they did. And I was actually, you know, I know a lot of people are kind of afraid of the technical side, but I kind of welcomed it because I knew that was kind of the only differentiator I really had. You know, just dealing with kids today. So my interns are even first year analyst and stuff. It seems like a lot of the Big Ivy League schools, they don't have a ton of technical classes, I'm sure. I mean, they obviously have the basics,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:06] But a lot of them have no finance courses. It's just or. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, it's like. Economics is like the closest you can get. So, yeah, you're right, yeah, it's kind of banking on it, and it's kind of we'd try to lead the interview into that direction. Some people bit and went that route. Others didn't want to have that conversation,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:09:26] But I think overall was able to make a good enough impression where they invited me back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:33] That's interesting. So you weren't afraid of like super technical accounting questions. You felt like you had the the foundation. What gave you that confidence? Was it just like you were drilling so hard before even getting into that like sophomore or junior internship, like interview room? Like, were you, did you or you felt like you understood the corporate finance extremely well, like valuation DCFS, you know, tricky accounting questions of how things flowed through the three statements. You feel like you had a really good grasp of it that early on in your college career. I felt like I had a good grasp of it, but I think, more importantly, felt like I learned. I learned from my mistakes. So whenever there was a question where I wasn't super confident about, you know, a very obscure type finance question, you know, I kind of logic my way through it. But as soon as I was done, I'd go back to a ton of research on it. Respond back to the interviewer saying, I know we talked about this. If I was in the right ballpark, but not exactly there.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:10:28] Go back and email the person, then kind of a detailed type answer of it or and so just learning that way or even just having preliminary conversations through like lunch and learns and stuff like that, people would give examples of the most crazy technical questions they've heard or even some of the crazy brain teasers or whatever. Yeah. And so I kind of logged that down and made sure I knew it. And also, after a certain point, all the questions just become so repetitive. Walk me through cash flow statements. How they're all interconnected. You have depreciation goes on by 10 bucks. 100 bucks a thousand bucks a million bucks, whatever you know, they all start sounding the exact same and it just kind of muscle memory of just rattling off the right answer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:13] Did you do a lot of mock interviews with your friends back in college? I did not. That's one thing I wish I did, but I didn't. None of my friends really were going down the same path. There weren't as intense as you weren't in. The Prep weren't as intense, but also, you know, going to non-target state school. There weren't many of us that were interested in going to Wall Street or ending up in banking or anything like this. Ok. Sorry. So I interrupted. You say that you're talking about how the junior year internship was more. It wasn't as lucky. You really had to hustle. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. So that one probably sent out
MidwestMonkey2: [00:11:49] A thousand two thousand emails cold and probably had
maybe 100 conversations over the course of like two months. I'd said, Wow. I think it was. And again, it was really not like that required a ton of effort. It was basically having a base email and then catering it to each person slightly, whether it's their firm or their background. If there's something interesting about them or something, I found out googling whatever is what I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:17] Tell my mentees, you've got to hit into the thousands, not hundreds. So I tell them, like, if you're coming from a disadvantage background and you aren't getting the looks you're going to, your heart rate is going to be lower. You just have to go really aggressively on the numbers. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And you know, it's one hundred conversations. There's a lot of conversations to have. So you're doing like three a day almost. Well, it's like two months, a couple of months.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:43] Know, like two a day. Yeah, I want to do a day. So some days you'd have like for another day you have one and you have zero. Yeah, OK. Yeah. And it's definitely a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes you think the conversation went really well. God, they're definitely going to call me back and they don't. And then you reach out and I go, oh, sorry, we move forward someone else. Other times they say, you know what, right now is the right time, and they kind of reject you sometimes all the time. Tell me what the timing is. Not because you would had that sophomore. Was it right after your
MidwestMonkey2: [00:13:10] Sophomore internship
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:11] That you started doing this or you did during the summer? Like this outreach?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:13:15] Yeah. So this was way back when. So I know now that internships for the following year happen during the prior year internship, and it's crazy. During my time, it was really. So the target schools would interview for internships that November, December, January, February. And then the non targets would interview March, April, May to start that June. And it was really that they went through that interview process and they try to fill it out, especially with the targets, and then they'd reserve one or two spots for non targets in case that one didn't work out or accepted elsewhere, and they were scrambling. So it was really trying to claw to get one of those last couple of spots. And you got one, I got one. I got a few, actually. So my junior year, even though it was probably more of a dire situation, I actually had several offers and I was able to be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:09] Why do you think it was so dire? Why even the sophomore internship seems to be the harder one from what I've heard to get?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:14:14] So it was,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:15] It sounds like it just kind of worked out that you had. I mean, but once you had that bulge bracket interest, I'm surprised you didn't get more looks. I mean, maybe that's why you ended up with several offers in the end.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:14:26] I think it was. It just seemed a lot scarier at the time, just because it was all right. It was kind of getting to March April timeframe like, Oh my God, I'm starting an internship start in two months. Everyone else from target schools has something locked up. And then you read blogs and things like that and talk about where they're going and think, Oh my God, I have nothing lined up. And so just freaks you out a little bit more, especially because junior, your internship, that's kind of the make or break one, right? It's if you have internship at a corporate finance role in the middle of the country, it's way tougher to convert that into a banking or Wall Street full time offer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:04] Nowadays almost impossible because nowadays almost impossible, not impossible. I never say impossible because if you don't work hard enough, you can almost do anything but almost impossible. Just because the number of seats available outside of that intern pool is just so few and far between. And. You know, anyway, so the point being you, you are networking aggressively, but were you doing this like in the fall? Did you start in the fall or were you late because
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:35] You're thinking, Oh, it's not going to happen till the spring?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:15:37] Yeah. So I reached out to a ton of people in the fall time, but every response I'd say 90 percent of the responses were,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:44] We're not recruiting to the fall,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:15:45] To the spring. Yeah, yeah, we're not recruiting till the spring. We'll keep you in mind until then. And so basically every single one was something along those lines of follow up later or I'll forward your resume, but we're not doing anything and et cetera, et cetera. But pretty much every single one was the exact variant of that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:03] Do you feel like you are more qualified than the average person from the target school because you had to claw your way to get one of those few spots, like meaning the people that came from the non targets? Were they more impressive? Obviously, technically they probably were. But were they more impressive? Overall, it's analysts that you in your opinion and performers?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:16:22] You know what? I don't know. I feel like all my peers at my as a first year analyst grant, I was on the principal investment side. And so there's two other first year analysts. I'd said everyone was kind of on the same level and we're pretty impressive. We all went to training and were able to cut it. Obviously, if you didn't make it, but one of the other guys that I was first with is still one of my really good friends and that was a very smart guy and was able to cut it. So I wouldn't say that I was more prepared or more qualified. Again, these banks don't hire anybody, right? So the selection process is pretty smart, and the reason that they prefer target schools is they're taking less of a risk. You know, they're there's a higher there's a great chance or they're really smart, hardworking and capable.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:10] Higher hit rate
MidwestMonkey2: [00:17:12] Higher, higher. Right, exactly. So so I wouldn't feel like I was leagues above or leagues below. I'd say everyone's kind of the same and very capable.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:19] Do you have an opinion on just the number of slots that they've opened for non targets? You feel like it's enough or do you feel like they could do more?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:17:27] I think today the number of slots is way higher than when I was recruiting, we had another for my alma mater. We had a few people interview and even a couple of years ago, we even my current firm where I'm a partner, we only took interns from target schools. And then I was able to say, Hey, let's talk to these five or six candidates. Given my name is on the line here, I want you to make sure they're leagues above everybody else. So ask them the craziest technicals you can really, really vet them. And one of the one of the guys from my high school, he really nailed it. And he was the first one who's a top choice by everybody, and he was actually the first one where we gave a full time offer to. Typically, we don't offer a first year analyst positions, but he was the first one to make it. And so that's kind of a testament to not only the quality of the non target, I guess, but also just that the quality you can find,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:26] Yeah, you can find if you're willing to put in the work.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:18:29] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:30] So. So, OK, so you're reaching out, you're going through this process. You're panicking because April, May your everyone has their position. You finally get some into some processes for the non targets. And tell me kind of that. What was that like? Was it immediate super days, you know, phone interviews where they coming on campus? How did that work?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:18:50] Yeah. So no one came on campus for me because it was an on target.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:56] So, I mean, but a big enough state school, I figure there might be like 20 people there they want to interview. I don't know. Maybe not.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:19:02] No, unfortunately not. It wasn't even like I said, it wasn't even like, Hey, there's someone else for my school. We can commiserate and try to figure it out together. Just kind of meet my soul at the time. I mean, there's a program designed for it, but my year, no one really had their eyes set eyes set on getting to Wall Street. I'd say that's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:20] Surprising, given how big you're seeing, knowing how big your school is. But anyways, go ahead.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:19:25] Yeah, I mean, there are certainly people trying to do it, but for whatever reason, in my year, It didn't really feel that way. Ok, yeah. So like I said before, it's kind of a roller coaster of emotions. Some days you have a ton of conversations. They all went really well. There's going to dry spell for a few days before even hearing an email back. So this is kind of when the roller coaster started getting good is that April May timeframe, it seemed like all of the interviews and stuff started happening all at once. And so I was having a ton of interviews and they all kind of brought me into New York. And so for whatever reason, they did them all on Fridays for better or for worse, for the super days. And so sometimes I come to New York and have back to back super days. Other times I'd come and have just one Super Day. But it was interesting because I felt like I was coming back and forth to New York quite a bit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:16] But they paid for it, right?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:20:17] They did pay for it, yep, yeah, that's good.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:21] As a as a college kid, that's important. Yeah. So, OK, so they're paying you to fly out. You're doing these super days, your first Super Day for junior year internship. Did you strike out? Did you get an offer right away? What was the what was that like?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:20:35] Yeah, so this was at a bulge bracket, so it was kind of the 10 week program kind of there was a one or two alumni there said made sure to stay in regular contact with them. But in the summer and then they were pretty quick in giving that offer so heard back pretty much the day after my internship ended to come back. But at that point I realized that kind of hated the sell side. There's a lot of what to me felt like pointless work and not really doing anything on the investment side. I mean, I thought, Oh, it must have banking to help inform decisions on valuation and they help get deals done. And you had to do with a very senior level and you're not really working on putting together the analyses of is this a good investment? Does this make sense?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:25] You knew that after your sophomore year you were like, I'm not going into sell side.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:21:30] I kind of felt it, and then I thought maybe it was just this one particular bank that gave it another go, and also at the time, it was a lot rarer to have five side internships than it is now. I mean, there certainly were and I know, yeah, it's super hard.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:46] It's very hard to do. So you. So you were still going to get another. You're still the goal is still to get a sell side internship, a typical generalist investment banking internship at a bulge bracket, correct?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:21:57] Yep, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:58] So you're going to give it another go, but why not just stay at the other one? that it's, you know, I could
MidwestMonkey2: [00:22:04] Have, but again, I just didn't like it, so I thought I'd get a little bit
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:10] Too risky. It's kind of risky coming forward on targets pretty. You were confident it was risky and then you were probably thinking in April or May. Like, what did I do before all those interviews started coming in?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:22:21] It's exactly I was going to say it was. I regretted that decision for a period of two months. I thought I made the worst decision of my life and that I was screwed. I was I was really sweating it out for sure. It was OK. I was really confident.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:32] And but then the first Super Day you get into, you get an offer. How did you have time to do the other super days they gave you did to give you a couple of weeks to say no.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:22:41] So back then it was like they gave you a two and a half, three week or whatever the time frame to accept. It wasn't like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:49] It doesn't surprise me that you got other super days as soon as you had the offer from one and then are like, No, no, no, no, no, no, come in.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:22:55] Yes, it's pretty much like, yeah, exactly that domino effect and everything just happened at once because I also do think is a condensed time frame because having been on the other side
MidwestMonkey2: [00:23:05] Now, we know what it's like to fill up a spot. It's like, Hey, we need to get everyone in right now, which won't get the cross over with and just get someone there. So I think everyone is in that same mentality.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:15] Ok, cool. So you get the offers and are they all for their all for sell side
MidwestMonkey2: [00:23:21] Based appropriate sell side, some for equity research, some for banking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:27] So what was your thought process there in terms of which firm to choose and what group?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:23:31] Yes. There it was. It might sound a little foolish or whatever, but some of the names are really great. And so I wanted to go with the best sounding name for my resume, obviously. Yeah. Smart. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, right now, you're going to get a great experience no matter where you go, for no different reasons, different groups, obviously. But for that time, I wanted to get that name brand on my resume, especially coming from a non target. So you got you end
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:00] Up at a yeah, you end up at a top age bracket bank and then you're going through the summer internship and it confirms that you don't like it, I assume. Yeah. Or tell me, tell me what it was like. Was it something where like halfway through the internship, you're like, Oh, it's not working out where there warning signs? Or was it something else like, were you?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:24:20] It was pretty similar to my sophomore internship in terms of the type of work and all that. Obviously, the culture was slightly different and people are different. But for the most part, the work was very similar. Yeah. And so at the end of my summer, when I got my offer, I decided to say, You know what? I'll keep this in my back pocket and I'll throw a couple of Hail Marys to see if I can land on the buy side because obviously at that time, it was spent two years in banking and then you can recruit for buy side opportunities. So kind of had that in my back pocket. That's my backup plan. Let me just throw a couple of Hail Mary's. See what happens? How much time
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:58] Did you have to throw the Hail Marys?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:25:01] Out a few months.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:02] Wow. So it's that long nowadays, do you know?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:25:06] I don't I know some schools and I kind of bluffed a little bit here. So some schools, they basically say you can't put an exploding offer or anything like that. And this I've learned from other people in my summer class. When I was talking to them, they mentioned something like that. So I kind of blocked and said, Hey, at my school, you know, you don't really recruit from there, but you're not really able to put a time off or I'm sorry. And they said, OK, no problem. We're used to that. And so I was able to have the entire fall quarter to recruit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:40] Do you recommend people do that or is that a high risk move? It's it depends.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:25:47] You know, it was maybe not the smartest thing to do on my end, but kind of worked out in the end.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:54] So tell me how you threw those, those Hail Marys. What firms were you throwing Hail Marys to or not? Maybe specific in terms of what type of firms? I know you said biocidal, but specifically, was it hedge funds or
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:05] Was it private equity growth equity VC? What were you? What were you looking for specifically or did you not care where you were? Just like, I want to get on principal investing type of role?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:26:16] Yeah. So for me, it was a mix of I wanted to be in New York City and I wanted to be on the buy side. I liked stocks a lot, but I kind of realized through this sell side process, I also thought it'd be cool to be on the private equity side, too. And also, to me, it didn't matter. I want to be on the buy side somewhere, and I had the resume and background to cater my story to either one of those. Not so much for the VC side at that time. Yeah. So really focused on private equity and hedge funds.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:50] They actually don't recruit out of undergrad for the most part. Now there's a few programs, but back then there was very few.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:26:56] Exactly, exactly. So I'd say,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:58] How did you go about, how did you go about that? How did you go about this, these Hail Marys? Was it more cold called cold emails?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:27:05] Yeah, there's a lot of cold emails, a lot of cold calls, things like that. I'd say a batted zero on the hedge fund side had a couple of calls, and that was that they were just more of like, Hey, let's talk. And yep, sorry, we don't recruit. So definitely battered zero, whose epic fail on the hedge fund side. Was it like private equity?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:25] Did you speak with like 20 people working in hedge funds? You say that?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:27:29] Yeah, probably 20 to 30 actual conversations from various routes. So even that summer, my family and I went on a cruise. And one of the one of our dinner tables was a wife of a hedge fund guy. She'd come with her kids. My guy was at home, so it's like, Oh, cool, I'm trying to do this. Do you mind if I talk to your husband and it's just a bunch of random conversations like that? Yeah. Tried to talk to whoever would talk to me about it. The hedge fund side and then on the private equity side had a lot more conversations. Again, a lot of them were. We only have one spot.
We don't really hire an undergrad, et cetera. And then one offer that the place they do, they were based in Boston and they actually do hire undergrads. And you probably can figure out who it was, but they're notorious for cold calling. So did not want to do that by any means. So even those advice I offer, I was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:28] Sourcing my first sourcing heavy. I think everyone knows it's I think, well, it's either to or someone I can't remember,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:28:33] Which is in Boston. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:36] Ok. Well, I mean, it's good to get an offer there. I mean, it's not easy to get. Are there still a great place to start if you want to get good at sales or if you're going to get good at cold calling? Exactly. And then the
MidwestMonkey2: [00:28:49] The other one that I got an offer at was Private Equity Fund based in Cleveland, which was interesting because the private equity was kind of what I wanted to do. But again, I wanted to be in New York. And then the third offer, which is the one I ultimately took, was at the middle market firm doing principal investing. So that was a pretty unique role. Offered a really good foundation, industry agnostic investing across the capital structure, from senior debt to common equity and any hybrid vehicle in between. So this was why
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:22] This was at a larger institution, larger bank just for people, correct? So when you say principal investing side, it's not like a standalone PE fund. Was this the actual? I mean, at this point, you couldn't have a proprietary trading arm or anything like that within the bank? Correct. Because of Dodd-Frank and all that stuff from the financial crisis. Correct? Yep, correct. How is this structured within that institution such that you guys could make investments where you raising funds for it?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:29:50] So a couple of things one, we're investing in firm's balance sheet. Two, because they were a non-U.S. bank. They're able to get around that a little bit. Got it. Since since then, that group has actually merged in with another group where they have raised external capital so that my group actually doesn't exist anymore.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:13] Got it. So but you you were basically there to do a whole bunch of different so like you would look at everything and what was the like? The mandate was generalist all across the capital structure to a very wide open. Were you investing in private companies where you guys by taking positions in the public markets or both?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:30:33] So we did everything from Series E type deals all the way to secular declining elbows as far as public companies go. We didn't take any equity positions, but we would do balance sheet work for them, so we would do a bridge loan or a investing preferred equity into their structure, whatever. So we would give them distress sometimes. Yeah, a little bit distressed, but we pretty much did everything under the Sun and we looked everything is very special situations oriented a little bit, I'd say.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:04] Do you feel like that was a better fit for you than the sell side? I mean, kind of hard to know because you never want sell side full time, but you did do two internships, so. So I think I might have lost you.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:31:18] Yes, it's definitely a much better fit for me, even though I was kind of the bottom of the totem pole analyst being able to do that kind of analysis to help determine whether we want
MidwestMonkey2: [00:31:30] To invest or not and help in forming those decisions was a lot more fun to me than putting the other pitch books and things like that. So definitely a great fit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:39] Also, less time in PowerPoint.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:31:41] Exactly, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:43] And so tell me the types of do you mind talking to me a little bit about the types of like a typical day and you're in in what you do with the types of transactions? You kind of touched on a little bit, but for the listeners to hear, like what type of analysis would you do day to day and what skills did you develop over those couple of years?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:32:00] Yeah. So the analysis ranged anywhere from let's look at the pipeline to figure out what their conversion rates look like. I'll do the CAK all the way to churn analysis. If we invested and had to take out a bunch of costs, where would we find the excess fat to trim or to if we did this deal? What are the next
MidwestMonkey2: [00:32:22] Three or four competitors that we could bolt on pretty quickly and make the deal grow? So it's kind of everything under the Sun,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:30] Very private equity esque. I mean,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:32:32] Yeah, sounds like a pretty
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:33] Typical rollup strategy. So, OK, so you're in this role for a couple of years. Why move? Why not just stick it out and ride off into the sunset and get keep getting promoted?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:32:44] Yeah. So a couple of reasons. One, I think it was I didn't really want to be at a at a bank anymore. It was a little too red tape and bureaucratic and a lot of politics, things like that. I like my team find are great, but it just also was whatever direction the bank was going. That's kind of how we had to operate to and to. I realized I really like the operational side of things, so I didn't necessarily want to get there. Here's 20 million bucks or 50 million bucks or 200 million bucks, whatever it is. And all right, let's just get the quarterly update and hope for the best. I like being more hands on than that. And so when I looked at my next firm, I wanted a more traditional private equity role that had a lot of that operational focus attached to it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:34] So, OK, so you start kind of reaching out to recruiters in your second year? Or did you how did you kind of go to the go through the typical on cycle? Or how did they even view you because you didn't you weren't at the typical place where they were for private equity?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:33:51] Yeah. So it was kind of reaching out to the recruiters in New York and even California, ones that specialized in by side. That was a bit frustrating because they kind of just described me as a banker and not really in the private equity side. And so getting that first set of interviews was a bit tougher because my background was coming from a non target school and going from a middle market Institution type place. So it was not viewed too favorably on that standpoint. So getting interviews was a bit tougher, but kind of the same thing. Once I was able to get those interviews, it was a bit smoother after that. But again, you know, tons of sharp, sharp people at banks and all that, so it was fairly competitive.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:43] Tell me about that process, how you got in, how you started kind of landing more and hit rates, strikeouts, what was it like or modeling test? Were you comfortable in those?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:34:53] Yeah. The modeling test was almost second nature to me because that was a big bulk of what I was doing, building through my model's elbows. Things like that. So that stuff was all comfortable with. And even going beyond that, I kind of preferred it because if there was a case study or something, I already knew what the things to look for were, and it's not difficult to figure out like the main key things. You know, the business has top line and expenses, right? So it's figuring out what to dive into each of those aspects and whether the sales are going up sustainable on the expense side. All right, traditional private equity, what we go in and lunch costs and things like that. So it was almost second nature to me doing that kind of stuff. So I felt like even though a lot of the firms, when I did have a modeling test or case study, they allotted 30 minutes an hour or two hours, whatever the case is and whatever types of questions they wanted to ask, I would always finish earlier and have time to go through and think of other questions to play more offense rather than defense. In those case, study type things.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:56] Meaning when you say play offense rather than defense, meaning you would come up with additional questions like you'd want intelligence and stuff like that.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:36:02] Yeah, yeah, I want to do just this. And more often than not, these case studies or prior deals that they've passed on or something like that. And so it would go in and sit with that Lens knowing that they passed on some. Because when you go through a private equity firm, you see they're exited an active portfolio investments, obviously, and so if they did the deal or not, if they did the deal, you could paint it more favorably and ask the questions that would really elicit better answers. And if they didn't do the deal, you could say, hey, you know, this analysis checks out. But the question I really want to ask are actually.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:40] Yeah, they're like, exactly, that's what we thought. And then if you're asking all the questions on a deal, they did do that painted in a favorable light.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:36:51] Exactly, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:52] And they tend to like you more.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:36:54] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:56] He's a genius. He sees it way we see it. Yeah.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:37:00] Definitely. Playing offense more than defense was helpful. When you get to that stage
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:05] And to prepare, so did you. This is the take home. You can obviously do that because you can research. But like on the ones where you were forced to go in to the office and do a do a case right there or test right there, was this just a function of you having research the night before and knowing kind of the main deals they done?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:37:21] Yeah, pretty much. And that really works for the lower middle market, middle market firms. But for the big ones like the Tpg and Apollo of the world, it's tough to know what they're doing because not one, they have a ton of different funds. And so to know every single investment they've made is not happening. And I tried, I tried and failed horribly since kind of gave up after that. But for the middle market firms, for sure, most of them, not all of them, though some of them don't. But most of them do have what companies are invested in or have exited from.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:53] Yep, fair. Ok, so you get into some processes. Tell me how it all went out and how it went down to the offer and all that good stuff.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:38:03] Yes, so went through some of them range from a Super Day like typical type thing to having to go back multiple times, especially if it was a smaller firm. Not everyone was available. People are traveling, so it end up being a couple of trips. And the ones that were really painful were the ones that were in Connecticut because there are a ton of funds
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:24] Out there done that. I've done that trip where you're like getting up at 5:00 or 4:00 in the morning and like taking a train out early doing interview, then having to go back to work.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:38:33] Yeah, it was brutal. Or the ones where they want to do it in the middle of the day know you only have so many available doctor's appointments. So that was also brutal. And, you know, spending an hour on the Metro-North, going up there and going back and making sure like, yeah, they don't suspect anything, even though at this point is pretty blatantly obvious when people are interviewing being more. As you get more senior, you can definitely tell when the junior guys are out and about for interviews versus legitimate doctor appointments. Yeah. And the way they act is also just it's kind of funny, but how do you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:09] How do you how do you make things look more legitimate? Don't go to five doctor's appointments and period of three weeks.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:39:16] It's also funny because like sometimes for guys there, their shirts aren't super ironed or whatever. I mean, most, most people are, but sometimes they tend to be a little dressed, a bit more crisp than normal, and or they're hiding their jacket and the coat closet. No one ever wears suits to work while their suit jackets in the closet or suit pants and stuff like that. So it's pretty obvious when people got an interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:46] So tip the junior employees. Yeah. Tip two junior employees trying to hide that they're interviewing do not hang up your suit coat in the company closet thinking you're going to hide it, you get up. You got to hide it under like a subway bench or something.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:39:58] That's okay. Well, I mean, most places for banking, you're wearing a suit and tie to work every day or most days anyway. So it's easier. But other places, it's pretty obvious.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:11] Yeah, that's fair. Ok, so you're going to ring you tell me how kind of went down to you went out and you're going places in New York, places like Greenwich, you ended up. Doing a couple rounds at this one place, and they just gave you an offer and you accept it right away. What was it like?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:40:27] Yeah, so the first couple of offers I actually didn't take, you know, the people were fine. The work was OK, wasn't exactly what I wanted.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:36] Why the funds?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:40:39] Yeah, certain types of fund. So the one I got an offer from that I didn't like, even though the name brand place was on the debt side.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:47] Tell me about your mind saying where it was or like with like TPG Apollo kind of place.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:40:53] Yeah, CPG.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:54] Ok. So like, it's on the credit. You're it's on the credit side. And so a lot of people would never turn down an offer from TPG on the they say it's TVG. I said, what are you doing? But you're saying, well, it's not. It's not on the equity rate. It's not on the. It's not really private equity. So it's more like private credit.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:41:10] Yeah. So turning that down actually required a ton of different conversations with my peers and even other people I networked with in the past. But the pay is great, right? Hey, it was good, although it is not what you'd expect. It's not the same on the same level as the TPG equity side, especially like 20 percent rise
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:29] Up 20 percent lower, 30 percent lower. So instead of put up three hundred thousand, you're making like two, fifty or two hundred.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:41:36] Yeah, pretty much. Probably the right great range. That'd be my guess.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:40] I didn't realize that in that range. I didn't realize at the junior level. They also didn't pay as much on that on that side. But that's interesting, OK?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:41:46] That makes sense. They may have changed it. They may have changed it. But the type of stuff that this specific credit group was doing was more
on the low risk type stuff is a lot of real estate. And also, I didn't really. That was the other reason I didn't really love the real estate side in order to have much experience on the real estate side. Mm hmm. And so you're right, saying no to TPG is very tough. But so you said now. Yes and no. Took a lot of efforts to get to that point of saying no. And so I was also to bring in a bunch of other places that did excite me. And I think that also helped because my pipeline on the buy side was at that point, not super strong but somewhat stronger, had a ton of different interview processes going where I felt comfortable enough, saying no.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:36] Ok, so then when how many so you had another offer and you said no to that too, was it just because they were like it was in the wrong city or something? Yeah, it
MidwestMonkey2: [00:42:45] Wasn't in the greater New York City area, so that was that also. And it's pretty tough to say no to an offer. It's very tough, especially on the buy side, getting to kind of an area you want. So that also took a couple of conversations with people to get me over the hump of saying, yeah, not fit all the boxes. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:04] So you eventually did get did you get an offer? Was it easier once you had some offers to get the recruiters start passing you along? Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like all of a sudden, you had all these interviews. You had a few offers, right?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:43:17] Yeah, exactly. I think it was like similar to interviewing for full time. It's unbelievable how you have a ton of conversations. The first rollercoaster ride. The first couple of weeks of this, I was like, Oh, it's great. All these recruiters are talking to me. This is awesome. They must really want me. And then she go through the process and you find out that they talk to everybody. And so you don't actually not that special. And then it's a bit of a dry spell and then you start. And that's also a rollercoaster team. It seems like all the initial phone calls happen all at once, for whatever reason. And then they dry up and then they happen again and dry up super days and dry up. It's really kind of sporadic how it works.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:54] So you ended up at a great place. You're there for a couple of years. Why transition out? Then again, to more of a growth equity VC fund and tell me a little bit about your. We've been going for a little while, so I want to keep you too much longer. Tell me a little bit about kind of how you've progressed there and why you've decided to stick around there, which is not on the P side. Yeah.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:44:14] So at this fund, that was at about 10 billion under management, really operationally focused, doing a lot of distress and turnaround type stuff. So I really enjoyed the hands-on experience and felt like I really gained a skill set. And so I definitely liked it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:31] I was doing a lot of deals. There was a lot of like a dry powder that 10 billion or yeah,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:44:36] They just raised a fund a few months before I joined. So they were looking at new deals and also I inherited a lot of portfolio companies. So was working on a mix of new deals and portfolio companies and doing a lot of cost cutting and repositioning companies, things like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:54] So why not go to business school, right? That's a good question, because, you know, that's very traditional. You know, you go a couple of years in banking private equity, you didn't quite you didn't do banking, you investing into private equity. But now you're in that traditional private equity role, which oftentimes the NBA's waiting right after, why not go there? What was the thought process? Yeah.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:45:17] So I definitely considered it, and I viewed it as a it's a chance to add some real pedigree to my resume as far as education goes. But then it was also like, Do I want to spend two years away from working and making money and progressing? And so I kind of made a deal with myself saying, at any point in my career, if I can't progress anymore, then I'm going to go to school and I'm going to really apply and take the GMAT and do that. So the minute someone's like, Hey, we're only looking at MBA students or post MBAs, that's kind of what I said. All right. I've kind of hit a roadblock, hit a wall, then I'll
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:56] I'll do it fair. So you started all of a sudden you said, OK, so I'm doing this operationally focused, distressed investing. Interesting work, probably. Did you feel like there wasn't a place, was it a two year and out type of thing? And so you're Arab or is it something where like, I really want to get earlier stage to another earlier stage place? Or was there something else like interoffice politics or something going on?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:46:20] Yeah, there's a little bit of a few things. So one, It was there wasn't too much upward mobility. So some of the other associates had been there for four or five years, and they're still at the associate level.So obviously, I'm not going to jump those guys and it's not like they were performing poorly. You know, the really smart guys working super hard, very great at what they did. So I kind of knew that if they weren't getting promoted, then there's a low chance I'm getting promoted, which
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:49] Was to have fun like a lot of principals already there and stuff.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:46:53] Yeah, pretty much. It was pretty top heavy. There's an equal number of senior people and junior people, so it was kind of a break in. Got it, OK? So that was one reason. Second reason was kind of gets depressing after a while being on that side of things, doing a lot of turnaround and private equity usually means firing a lot of heads. And so obviously a great private equity model, they've been very successful in this fund in particular did really well, but just give a little depressing after a while and the types of companies you're constantly waking up thinking, Oh my God, its revenues are declining. How do we cut costs ahead of that? Or what do we do? And it's never kind of the smooth sailing ship that to my other peers at that growth funds where we're doing and so was like, My God, I wake up every day trying to play defense on some of the stuff, and they're like, No, no, we invest in companies. They have a good management team. They just propel it forward, and we're more focused on how to
keep the company growing instead of cutting costs. So at some point, that kind of got to me. And so I said, You know what? I want to be on the earlier stage side of things. To me, it's more interesting. This is what I want to do, and this is kind of in the twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen timeframe. And so it's a really exciting time. So I targeted my search. I understand.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:09] I understand kind of being a little bit more like that could be depressing because you're like running analyses and you're like, Yeah, you need to cut another hundred people or whatever it is. I totally get that. I worked on restructuring and it was, you know, although we were giving suggestions, we weren't on the on the principle investing side. We were looking at analysys capital structures to figure out, OK, how much cash before they run out. Negotiate with your creditors. It's kind of depressing. Right, exactly. So but in terms of. You know why early stage, why not just go to another private equity fund or why did you what kind of shaped your idea that you want to be earlier stage?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:48:46] Yes, so I think when I was recruiting from there, it was kind of a wider blanket, I wanted to be on the growth side for sure. So I looked at growth, private equity funds and I wanted to be on the technology side as well. So basically, when I said I did a 180, it was a 180, not just in terms of industry type, but also the size. So in many aspects is kind of the exact opposite. So I did look at growth funds, both East Coast and West Coast and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:16] West Coast, because you just wanted to open up more opportunities to yourself or you really wanted to go to West Coast,
MidwestMonkey2: [00:49:22] Opened up more opportunities just to build up my pipeline. I think even the second time around, a lot of the recruiters basically said, you're your background is the opposite of what people are looking for. They're looking for people coming out of the pure tech background you're doing. The exact opposite paper packaging ss literally the exact opposite of technology. So it's a bit of a disadvantage to I wanted to cast a wider net.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:44] You were in a paper and packaging like distress. There is a company we advise at Rothschild called Corporation Durango in Mexico, our largest packaged paper packaging plant down in Mexico before. They raised eight hundred million in bonds and didn't make their first interest payment.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:50:03] That's great. It sounds about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:05] Right. Yeah, so things went south there, but I think, Yeah, anyways, long story short,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:11] Yeah, it was a. So you were in that you were doing kind of those types of deals. And so the recruiters, are you doing? What do you mean? Growth equity? What do you mean tech?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:50:20] Exactly. So went that route and then how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:24] Do you shape the story? How did you even convince them? Or did you not? And you just had to get in touch with them directly and throw the recruiters out the door? What did you do?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:50:34] So some of the recruiters are some of the opportunities they said. We're fine with someone from any background which wants more people. Others, they were looking for a specific background or specific prior equity, so it ranged a little bit. The other part, too, is I really wanted to maintain that operational experience. I like the idea of being hands on with my portfolio companies. I like the idea of really digging into the weeds and informing decisions and being actively involved. I didn't really like the model where we're doing 100 deals a year and hoping that one or two become a Facebook or Uber and make the fund what we call, you know, I want to be a spray and pray shop. I wanted to be more targeted and be hands on. So I think it was pretty picky from the get go. And then I loosened up my criteria as the offers interviews weren't really trickling in and then having to find an opportunity on LinkedIn, actually. So they reached out or responded. To be honest, I kind of forgot about that one altogether, and I forgot that I had made an interview for a week or two out. So the V.P. at the time called me and I picked up was like, Hello.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:49] You didn't even know you had an interview.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:51:50] Yeah, totally spaced on it because I'd been working pretty late, and so I'd kind of scramble on my feet. And so I think they were my current pharmacies. They were looking for someone to come on that had experience. It could hit the ground running. And I think they had interviewed a lot of people coming out of banking and also just one or two years out of private equity. And so they were looking for someone who wanted to be on the earlier stage of things. And so the people coming out private equity, they didn't really like that aspect of it. People coming out of banking didn't really have the skill Set. So for them, I had kind of started the needle and conversely thread of the needle for me too, because they were exactly what I wanted, which was an operationally focused fund that invests on the earlier stage and growth equity side of things. So it was a kind of a perfect fit. It was also good because and also I was interviewing at a couple other places simultaneously, and I had another offer that I was heavily considering with the family office that does interesting type deals. But these guys where I'm at currently, they really just fit perfectly and culture was great like everyone on the team. So it's kind of a no brainer for me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:02] Great. So you kind of did a few interviews. Was it all technical? I assume there's no LBO modeling going on at this, this type of fund or was there?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:53:12] There actually was the initial interviews were all based and tell about yourself all the while. And then there was a case study was a take home and then went in and presented four hour and a half with the team there at the time. And it was, I think looking back at it, they have the conversations over the years. They were like, Yeah, you're the only one in an interview pool that we brought in that is able to answer these questions. So for us, we were hoping that you would you would take the offer. And it's funny because my side, I was like, Oh man, I really hope they give me the offer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:50] Why do you think that's the case? I mean, that's just shocking to me that you're was it a super tough case?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:53:56] I don't think so. They had sent me and we still use that case today, funny enough, it was just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:03] I got to get it from you, I got to get it from you and get it into the private equity course for
MidwestMonkey2: [00:54:08] Now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:09] We'll change it. We'll change it. I promised. Not just kidding. We'll talk after. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. So this is a
MidwestMonkey2: [00:54:15] Standard Sam that we got from a from a compan
that were looking to raise and so went through that. And then they gave me supplemental materials ahead of time. And then during the actual interview, they would just give me random documents and stuff as I asked for it. And more questions would have to do analysis on the spot a little bit. So just a mix of that kind of stuff. And it was all stuff that we used to, obviously, and I wanted to be on this early stage of things interesting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:42] So they gave you a little bit of a taste the primer for take home. But then during the interview to see how you thought on your feet and how quickly you could digest information from from other documents, they would actually hand you stuff. Correct. So can you give me an example? So they'd be like they'd give you like high level numbers to take home and basic industry overview Then you get in and they start giving you like a revenue split or something like that, like A.. Exactly.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:55:04] So the revenue split was in the same. Actually, remember it pretty well because we just had this with the analyst. So yeah, they. Gave the revenue for that goal, but during the interview, they were like, all right, here's you talk about pipeline, so here's a probability wave pipeline. What what do you see here and what are your questions and what do you like about it? And so it's like, All right, well, all these numbers seem kind of weird. What is what exactly do these numbers mean here? And do you believe it, et cetera, et cetera? And then it's like, OK, good question. Here's what we found out when we were diligent it. What do you think this is back and forth on that? And then it would transition to a conversation on air. So give me an aging report. So I look at the aging report and point out some anomalies and say it's kind of weird. It's something to do with the types of customers they have and they've had credit or the good credit, whatever. And then the expense side. It would be kind of a headcount chart figuring out where there's holes, where there's gaps or where we need where they're too fat. So it's very dynamic from that standpoint.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:06] And do you think the work that you had done prior at your previous funds had prepared you for that? Or was this something where you had prepped kind of how to how to do these types of cases that you just felt comfortable in general?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:56:20] Yeah. This kind of stuff for them, memory
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:23] For them to say, like you're the only one who got it right in the whole process. I mean, there's so many people going after these jobs. Yes, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:30] Maybe they made the mistake, there's the only post on LinkedIn and not used to promote their job.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:56:37] Yeah, we still only use LinkedIn to keep costs down, actually. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. The it's actually funny enough because I actually wasn't even in that first pool of interviews that they did. They ran through a first set of interviews and had a first set of super days. None of them fit the bill, and so they have to go back to the well and my resume happened to be in that second batch. I think that's also why it took a couple of weeks from when I applied originally to when when I had my first interviews, so I was actually in that second batch. After the first set of rejects the second set, it was a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:16] Like, Please take the offer, you're the only one. It's like, we don't want to start again and go to batch number three.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:57:22] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:23] So that's interesting that if you did that, if the case is well structured, it really helped them. It really helped them kind of narrow down somebody who's technically competent and who really understood how to look at an investment. I think it's great. Yeah. So you guys are still using that today. Tell me a little bit about just how you progressed when you've been promoted several times. Can you tell me a little bit about how that works in any kind of tips for young private equity professionals out there? That or growth equity professionals or VCs that have started a new fund and they want to make a good impression how to get, you know, get promoted and obviously part of it, which firms they join and which ones aren't too top heavy stuff like that and how the fund is performing where they are in the fund cycle. All those things are super critical, but outside of all of that kind of external stuff, can you tell me a little bit about how you position yourself to do so well? Get promoted so fast, because now you're four years in or five years in and you're already? Yeah, yep, exactly.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:58:21] So I think part of it definitely is luck for sure, depending on which type of fund you go to. How much politics there is to play. Whatever given our team is on the leaner side relative to other funds, so to speak, where you have 20 30 people, hours is much smaller than that kind of in the 10 ish range.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:45] Are you guys managing over a billion?
MidwestMonkey2: [00:58:47] We're not know we're we're probably in the week, I can't disclose it, but that's OK, that's fine. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:56] But that makes sense. That makes sense, you know, typically at like a fund that's around a billion, it's about 20 people typically. I mean, very rough numbers. Yeah. Ok, that makes sense.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:59:06] So we're slightly under that, but we're within striking distance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:10] Ok, that's great. So, so yeah, so tell me any advice specifically. Obviously, there's luck involved, but anything you did, you felt like you did. That would be helpful for the listeners in terms of positioning.
MidwestMonkey2: [00:59:24] Yeah. So joining, I think given I did have prior private equity experience and they were looking at others that two years banking and then a year or two of private equity versus me doing private equity throughout, I was just able to take a lot more ownership of the work Given I was coming from an operationally focused fund where there's a huge attention to detail on the numbers and making recommendations pretty nimbly. Just able to do that and not just say, Hey, here's the work and not being able to make a recommendation after that. I think that was the one thing that differentiated me and also some of the other guys that have been promoted too quickly, especially now that I'm at the partner level. When we're looking at the junior guys, the ones who are there to make my life easier looked on favorably. And so our fund doesn't really have a ton of politics. It's really a meritocracy of who can handle it. And we want to be able to offload as much work as possible to the junior guys. Given as we rise up, we have more important things to deal with and a lot more critical type things. And so with some of the more minor issues, if you're able to show that you're able to handle it, we're going to give you a lot more work to deal with.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:00:41] And I assume that includes, you know, just running a whole diligence process for potential new investment. You're dealing with all the consultants that that side of things. But is it also worth the portfolio companies or do you feel like were you adding a lot of value in the portfolio company side since you want, you had some of that operationally focused stuff or that that kind of got you a lot of recognition? Yeah, for sure.
MidwestMonkey2: [01:01:06] So that that definitely helps because I went in at first it was me with a mid-level guy going in to a portfolio company and then all of a sudden I was like, Hey, man, I got this. I'll take care of it and I'll go do all the work, and I'll present you with what I think we should be doing. And at first was like, OK, take a stab at it. And kind of after a few times of doing that and coming out with a good recommendation with sound analysis behind it and making it a good decision. Ultimately, after doing enough of those, it was all of a sudden, Hey, can you go run this by yourself? And then within a year, just going and doing things on my own, being shipped off to the portfolio company for a couple of days and then it was good. And not only that, when portfolio companies report back to the senior guy saying,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:54] Hey, help, oh my gosh, thank goodness he
MidwestMonkey2: [01:01:56] Came. And exactly and how funny. Because yeah, one of my portfolio company CEOs is like, Hey, can I just borrow him for the next three months while we figure through this issue? And that obviously stuff like that looks favorably. So I think that's kind of how I started developing a good rapport and obviously that kind of word spread to really senior folks. And so because of that, it was being promoted quickly there, like, you're able to handle a lot of this. Let's dump more stuff on your plate and see how you fare.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:28] Do you have any learning curve with the diligence process of doing those transactions? Since you're probably doing less than the distressed side, you're probably doing less volume. Did you feel like you need more reps there or no? So it was actually funny.
MidwestMonkey2: [01:02:39] It was probably a little too heavy on the diligence side. If anything, dealing with billion dollar acquisitions is very different than, hey, here's a $5 million like dude.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:50] They're like, calm down. Like you like really on it?
MidwestMonkey2: [01:02:54] Yeah, exactly. Or even just like you're like, they're growing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:58] They're not distressed, remember?
MidwestMonkey2: [01:02:59] Yeah. Well, not only that, but like, Hey, we don't even know what this is like. For example, if we're looking through our type stuff, it's like, OK, our agent reports. And they're like, What is that? I'm like, I thought that that's pretty basic, but OK. Or even doing a deep churn analysis that I go, we don't know. We just know that we lost this amount of revenue. You'd be surprised at how little information some of these companies have. Oh, no,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:03:27] I know I'm one of them, so I definitely get it. It makes sense to me. Very cool. Anything else before we call it? Thanks for doing such a long call, long, long session. Anything you'd share that we haven't covered to the younger audience in terms of as they map their career out. And, you know, since you made. You made up several significant what stands out as you made several significant pivots within the buy side. You also weren't quick to just jump at a good offer. You really turned down a lot of what many would consider incredible opportunities and took on a lot of risk, I'd say, at a pretty young age. So, yeah, anything. That you'd pull from from those lessons, it worked out for you, obviously, because you ended up in a good spot, but would you have done would you take taken a little bit less risky path?
MidwestMonkey2: [01:04:19] Or what? You know what, there's definitely times when I've regretted the decision or had second guessed my decision a lot. But I think in the end it worked out, and part of it is luck, to be honest, right? Ending up at the right place. Most people, when you're recruiting on the buy side, you have no idea what the promotion schedule looks like. Then you might have some visibility from going from associate to senior associate.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:04:44] And it's not like you can push that hard in the interview process, like pushing them to tell you, like, am I going to get promoted? They'll be like, Oh gosh, this guy is
MidwestMonkey2: [01:04:53] The best you can do is LinkedIn and seeing what the velocity is. So it's tough to know from that standpoint. And also, once you get to the mid level, it's tough to know what's next, and that's when you really just have no idea. And so for me, kind of my point on B School was if there was a point where I couldn't get promoted to that VP level or principal level, then I would have gone to B school. But given I didn't really have that struggle and it still kept going up and up, I thought B school isn't right. I mean, now my dad jokes with me actually like, Hey, you can't get promoted anymore, so you're going to be school something I don't know.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:05:33] So, yeah, tell me you kind of reach the mountaintop, so to speak very early in your career. Do you feel like this is assuming things go well? Returns are good. The funds are able to continue either growing in size or staying sort of similar size where your asset base increases. Do you feel like this is kind of a long term place for you? Her seat?
MidwestMonkey2: [01:05:55] Yeah, yeah, definitely. So recently became one of the co-heads at my firm, actually, so I don't really have a reason to leave and obviously the carry handcuffs are in place, so this is definitely a longer term play to the extent I want to stay in New York and don't completely pivot and decide to do a startup or something like that. But I think for the time being, this is probably where I want to call home.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:22] Don't get the grass is greener syndrome.
MidwestMonkey2: [01:06:26] Not, not yet. Not yet. Not when you do for sure. But yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:29] Don't do it. You're in a great seat as long as you're as long as you guys are making good investments. I think doing good work with your portfolio companies, I think you're in a great spot. You're in a great spot. Not not. It sounds like it's very well deserved, though, based on just chatting with you now. So congrats on all that success.
MidwestMonkey2: [01:06:46] Well, thank you. Thank you very much, and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:47] Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Patrick, and thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis dot com. And till next time.
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