WSO Podcast | E87: Healthcare M&A at Piper to Co-founding a startup - VC Associate
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In this episode, @Nick shares his path from the University of Chicago to working at Piper Jaffray in Healthcare M&A out of the New York office. How he was able to transition from a summer analyst role in ECM to M&A with a risky move, why he left after two years to start not one, but two companies and why he followed his sister's advice to go straight into Venture Capital.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 87) 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, Nick shares his path from the University of Chicago to working at Piper jaffray in health care M&A out of the New York office. Learn how he was able to transition from a summer analyst role in ECM to M&A with a risky move. Why he left after two years to start not one, but two companies, and why he followed his sister's advice to go straight into venture capital. Enjoy. All right, Nick, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. Absolutely. My pleasure. So be awesome if you could just give the listeners a quick summary.
Nick: [00:01:03] Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in New York City. I went to a French high school, French immersion school in town, and then I went to University Chicago, where I studied. Jurisprudence, which is essentially, I guess, like the theory of law at its most basic, and that was interesting, but I kind of knew I wanted to get into business. Eventually, I went into investment banking. I was an analyst for two years at Piper jaffray on the health care team in New York City. And I think most of the people in my analyst class and the people I knew when to private equity, but that never, really never really fully piqued my interest. So while I was in banking, I actually started a rose importing company. And then after banking, a sort of health care company, bounced around with those two for a year. And then about, I would say, four months ago, I started recruiting heavily for four VC positions, and I landed with Alpha Venture Partners back in December of nineteen. And I've been there for two weeks now or two months now. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:08] So congrats on the new move. Yeah, that's right. So when it's still fresh? Yeah. So your path is kind of interesting. The reason I wanted to chat with you is because, well, number one, you kind of had a very nontraditional major and kind of didn't, right? If I had seen that, I wouldn't have been like, Oh, this guy's going banking? Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the recruiting there. And then also just your start up stuff was interesting, so I'd love to just dig into that. But let's let's start back in college. Yeah, so you're you, Chicago, right?
Nick: [00:02:38] Yeah, it was a Chicago.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:39] So but like, what's this year? A philosophy minor? Yeah, yeah. And then when did finance or business kind of interest to you? Or were you always interested in it?
Nick: [00:02:49] So it's a traditional liberal arts school, so everything is theoretical there. I think like I did go to school and a lot of my friends were Econ Majors, and a lot of those people are obviously wanting to finance. There was definitely sort of a little bit of the people who I was around were certainly gravitating towards finance. The person who ran the major law letters and society was sort of to be called. And it's like, I said, kind of like a pre-law almost. Yeah, I sat down with him kind of my junior year. Legal internships aren't that important kind of your freshman and sophomore year. So I kind of was just doing business stuff and just doing stuff to be in the city and hang out with my friends. And I sat down with him and I was just like, Listen, like, what do you think? Should I be going into law? And he was like, Listen, you know, law is a great. It's a great vocation, but if you're not passionate about it, the money is not really there, and he just got the sense that I was not as passionate about it and he was like, Listen, you should look for something that you're more interested in. And I talked to him about maybe doing a JD, MBA and positioning myself for that. And he said, I've taught a lot of JD, MBA students. And every single one has been more interested in the MBA classes of the JD classes. So if you're already positioning yourself that way, you might be more of a fit for four kind of business. And that's kind of when I started really going for internships in banking for my junior year and then I liked I wouldn't say I loved banking, but I liked kind of the exit opportunities. And the fact of the matter is if I'd chosen to go into law after banking, there was there was an avenue for me to do so. I didn't say for the LSAT, but that's the thing about banking is that it really doesn't close any doors. So that was also a draw.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:42] Yeah, it's interesting. I think so. That was a pretty pivotal conversation, sounds like.
Nick: [00:04:47] Yeah, it certainly was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:48] It's really what you really respected this person. How did you?
Nick: [00:04:51] Yeah, yeah, for sure. So he is.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:55] How did you find? How do you how do you say to listeners, like, how do you find that person? Because that's like that changed your whole course of your life? Right? I guess that's true. I guess
Nick: [00:05:03] That's true. And I do think back to that conversation that you think maybe I should have been more. But no, he is essentially the guy who he was. He was running this program at u Chicago, which was like twenty 20 students. You have to apply for it. And I don't necessarily think I mean, obviously, he had stature and gravitas, but I think it could be any type of professor that you. You kind of respect and I think along the way, everyone's trying to kind of making it up as they go and talking to someone who. Doesn't necessarily have, you know, you could talk to your parents and your sister, but everyone has their own kind of path that they have in their own heads for you. So it's better to talk to someone who's a little bit more removed and says,you know what? Let's talk about this kind of objectively, and let's see. Let's see what shakes out of the conversation. And that's kind of how I approach it, I think.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:59] And so you kind of change paths. You're did you feel like you were late? And was this junior early junior year? Or was this sophomore late sophomore year?
Nick: [00:06:06] So junior, your junior internships? This must have been sophomore. This must have been this must have been either late, sophomore or beginning of junior year. But I know they've pushed the junior year, recruiting earlier way earlier. So yeah, so sorry about that. If there's any listeners, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:26] Yeah. So basically, if you had if this was this was you this year, you would have been too late.
Nick: [00:06:32] Yeah, yeah. No, I think maybe, maybe what had prompted that conversation was me being like, everyone's gearing up for this like recruiting cycle. Like, OK, like it's time, you know, it's time to make a decision.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:43] Yeah, make some decisions that are important for potentially.
Nick: [00:06:46] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:47] After I graduate. So at least you knew that at least you had friends that kind of could guide you or at least give you a heads up. So you started kind of what? Just dropping your resume? Did you have a low hit rate given your law kind of legal thing? I guess you had some business internships on your. Yeah, I had some.
Nick: [00:07:03] I would say I'm trying to think about how it went down. I mean, it's kind of kind of remarkable because it was so much further. The cycle was so much further back then that I think that I didn't have. I had like an AOL internship and like a digital marketing internship took my freshman year and sophomore year, which don't mean much. And then I guess the AOL internship was interesting on the business development side. And then I was able to get an internship over the Christmas holiday at a fund of funds, which is very random, kind of just like. Dropping a resume here, there, knowing someone who knew someone as a partner. Just doing, yeah, we can take you on for free internship. And then once I got that even this that name or that week, it kind of just like filled out my story for banking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:59] So that was before the drops, the resume drops.
Nick: [00:08:02] So that was I got Piper on the second go round of interviews. So it was certainly like it was like certainly after the first drops, the first drops, I didn't get many and then the second drops or guess the later people like I did get. I did go far with Credit Suisse and Piper and Lazard, so they're certainly. Unfortunately, this was like five years ago. So personally it together as I go. But there were certainly still firms interviewing, but I remember quite vividly being like, my resume doesn't have the link between AOL and banking, and I need to find it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): 00:08:42] And you said a friend of a friend kind of knew somebody and you were networking. Was this like dinner just talking to people and scrambling to
Nick: [00:08:49] Talk, talking to people and scrambling? I mean, it's unfortunate, but it does help that I grew up in New York City. So yeah. Yeah, you're around a lot of New Yorkers here.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:57] Is your family in finance at all or are they all under? Yes, they are. Yes, that helps, too.
Nick: [00:09:03] So that helps.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:05] So you got so you got that that week internship, which was kind of key because then it just was like that check mark, right?
Nick: [00:09:11] Yeah, I think that that's the that's the takeaway. It's not like phoning your dad's friends to find out if you can get an extra kinship with them. It's literally like you need to craft to get into these banking and finance. You need to craft a story. You just get the interview to get the lyrics. Yeah, to get the interview with your experiences like and even if you do get the interview, it's tough to make the jump between like, oh, as in business development. Like, if I remember correctly, the story was like I was in business development at AOL and I heard people talking about. You know, alibaba going public and Yahoo at the time had a minority investment in Alibaba. So like crafted this whole story about how that conversation got really interested in finance, but people were like, not super buying it. And then when you talk about how like. But that experience at AOL made me really look for going into finance and I got another internship and then blah blah blah blah blah blah. It led me to want to go into banking, you know, it's like, it's like anything. I think even when you're looking for any type of job, even beyond banking, everyone's just looking for a linear story. And even though sometimes it can get like a little unfair to people, but everyone's looking for you to be someone who's like, calculated and to show that you know what you exactly every decision that you've made has led you to the point where you are interviewing for this job, right? And you've made mistakes around a lot. Yes. They know mistakes along the line, which is like, ridiculous, but that's what they want to hear
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:42] Because they can demand that because there's a that want it exactly. And they want to make sure that you don't come in and jump and leave know six months in after they've trained you. Exactly. So they want to make sure you know how painful the job is to.
Nick: [00:10:57] Yeah, they want to make sure you know how painful it is. They want to make sure that you're someone who really wants it because there are also a ton of kids who are like, Oh shit, all my friends are going into banking like, I need to get on this train to like, What am I going to do? Like, it's a procedure stop. You make a lot of money and people are like, Oh, I want to get on that train. And I think that that's what they're trying to avoid kind of people who are just,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:20] I feel like it's kind of unfair. I mean, that was kind of me, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, it's. And like, I was a good analyst and I stuck around for two. Yeah.
Nick: [00:11:30] So one hundred percent that was I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:33] Was a 19 year old supposed to now. That's what that's what's tough about mentoring these other kids through the monkey to millions program. I don't know if you've heard of it. I did this
Nick: [00:11:41] Other pod where I mentored these kids. I don't know.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:44] And like this one girl, she's like 18. She's just started at Fordham and she's like, She's like, Yeah, I want to do banking. I'm like, OK, like, that's great, because that's great. Do you have time and you're going to be set up? And she already has like an internship
Nick: [00:11:57] For one hundred percent. I remember like talking to my sister. My sister is four years older than me. Yeah. And I were talking to her being like, Everyone's always told me, You're so young, you don't need to know what you want to do. And then like going through these interviews, I was like, everyone who's getting these jobs are people who have known they wanted to do banking since day one. I knew Chicago and I was like,that was a lie. That's a lie.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:21] Yeah. Oh, you don't need to figure it out. Yeah, that was. Yeah, that was 20 years ago.
Nick: [00:12:25] Exactly like, it's true. You don't need to figure it out and you can still like you can find what you want. But it's a big, big benefit if you know really big, bad.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:36] It's bad advice, whether it's a career or from your parents. If they're telling you, don't worry about it, know you'll try lots of different things which you like. Like this isn't. This isn't talking to a guy today who had a master's in management in Europe. It's interesting because they go right after undergrad and they have this huge gap year in the middle to do all these internships, which is awesome because then you're then you're like twenty two, twenty three and then you're kind of you still have like one or two internships where you can figure it out.
Nick: [00:13:03] Right, right, right. No, I think I don't think it's necessarily bad advice, but it's more like, why not just sit down and talk someone through the options that they have rather than just be like, you can figure it out and make mistakes? Know like, this is what banking does and leads to. This is what being, you know, going into law is like, you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:23] When did you figure that out? Like, this is what banking leads to. Like the exit ops and stuff you came across Wall Street and you're like, Oh, this is my mecca, right?
Nick: [00:13:32] That's right. Exactly. No, I think I think I have the benefit of a support group in college where I was part of a fraternity.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:41] Where is you said your parents are in finance? Is it like Corp Fin Bank?
Nick: [00:13:45] My,dad was my dad was in banking and then moved into direct invest in private equity. And then my mom was in corporate finance for a pharmaceutical company. But her side of the family are all lawyers. And then my sister went into like product management for Instacart now, but she was school and stuff like that. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:13] Cool. So you're sounds like you have a pretty kind of educated and eclectic family who, like, pretty successful?
Nick: [00:14:21] Yeah, extremely ambitious.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:22] Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so that's good. So you kind of have that pushing you like, yeah, it expects you to do something with your life.
Nick: [00:14:30] Exactly. I don't know that Gene might have missed me, but I'm not. I certainly I certainly benefit from it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:36] Cool. So you kind of start the. The second go round, you're kind of getting a little bit further along, you have more legit story getting far along. You got what Super Day is that Credit Suisse? And then you end up obviously getting the internship
Nick: [00:14:50] Offer at that paper, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:52] Mm hmm. That was that for the same division in Dallas, for health care in New York or no, just general summer.
Nick: [00:15:00] So that summer internship offer was for generalists. They don't place you right? And essentially, what I ended up becoming was equity capital markets for the health care and consumer team in New York. And then I pretty soon when you get into banking, you realize that depending on what you want to do, you want to kind of move yourself towards where the most deal flow is and in particular, the M&A deal flow. And Piper is it is there? No, I think it's there are industry teams, there's no coverage teams. So M&A is all done in-house. So I really wanted to get in the health care team. And luckily, there are some great people at Piper who kind of help me along the way and they help me transition over the health care teams.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:53] And that was, can you tell me a little bit about that transition to like at the end of the internship where you were during the internship, where you kind of like just networking aggressively with all the mess? A little bit.
Nick: [00:16:03] Yeah, exactly. I think like I made it clear that I wasn't going to accept your return if it wasn't for. A coverage team that wasn't because ECM, I guess, ECM is a coverage team, and that's the only kind of a product team, a product team. And there's ECM and DCM and there's just industry teams. And I was like, I want to be an industry team.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:28] The industry team in health care, specifically health care, because they have M&A in there within that. Yeah, exactly. They have health care. They had
Nick: [00:16:35] Health care. They had SIG and they had tech, but they're losing their tech team to Boston, I believe. And I was pretty much like, I want to be in the health care team. That's where I did a lot of my networking. I left the summer being like,who knows? We'll see, like, maybe some of the interns won't accept their offers.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:53] So it was pretty aggressive. It was pretty aggressive of you. You were willing to kind of come back to school with no offer. Yeah, your junior summer. And because what gave you that confidence you felt like you could you could. Basically.
Nick: [00:17:06] I felt like I could. Yeah, I felt like I could find something. I felt like I could find something. And you know, it's really funny. As the intern that didn't accept the health care offer, whose job I ended up taking helped me get or introduced me to the VC firm that I'm working for right now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:26] Is he or she there? Is he or she there? He No, he's not.
Nick: [00:17:29] He works for a different VC firm just randomly, and he and I reached out to him because we stayed. We stayed connected and he realized that I take. He went straight into kind of working for small startups to work his way into venture. And I went to I mean, I took his spot on the health care team and then he I reached out to him when he was in venture and then he put me in touch with places that I work now. So that's kind of funny how that works. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:55] It's all about who, you know.
Nick: [00:17:56] And I just put that together on this podcast, which is really funny. I was just like, Oh, wow, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:01] So tell me, so you're going for a couple of years at Piper in the health care group doing M&A, where you'll follow a lot of pitching. What was the balance? How was it
Nick: [00:18:09] A lot of deal flow? Not, not much pitching. I think the way the way Piper New York did, a lot of their M&A was a lot of P2P, and it was. Kind of the two MDS who ran that. Little branch within the health care team were very efficient, and they had a very good relationship with a lot of private equity groups, so they didn't do much. Pitching deal flow was, was, was certainly there, get a lot of experience, a lot of experience working with private equity groups.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:45] So during this time, you co-founded a business, so during your 100 hour, weeks or 90 days, weeks just founded a business. But tell me a little bit about first. What were the hours like? Was it? Was it really tough or was it?
Nick: [00:19:01] Yeah, the hours, the hours were. I mean, it's like, it's what they say, peaks and valleys, right? They always say so. Peaks and valleys in the valleys, you're sitting at your desk, you're not doing much. And the worst thing about the valleys is that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:15] You're still at the desk.
Nick: [00:19:17] One year old, the desk and on the off chance you do get out early, you don't really when you're not keeping up with your friends, so you don't really have like it's not like you have like tons of plans lined up in case you can get out early, which is something that took me some time to get adjusted to. But you just don't have that. And essentially had two extremely close friends of mine from high school who were also kind of just like, let's do something more fun than what we're currently doing. And you get kind of you get one. I took one week off from my two years in banking, and I spent that week to kind of look for Rosie wanting to bring to New York. So that's what we did. And it was just kind of it started as a way to fill the downtime at the desk. And then it turned into Let's give this a try can be fun.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:03] And so tell me a little bit about that. What prompted that? Hey, New York needs more, Rosie.
Nick: [00:20:09] It was more. Are you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:10] A Gary? Are you a Gary vee disciple?
Nick: [00:20:15] I didn't know. I think it was more. It was like, I want to do something fun with my friends. We we grew up in New York City. We know quite a few people in the restaurant industry. We like we like to go to restaurants. We like to drink. This is something that could be fun.My are all three of our parents are very into wine. Yeah, we started with a lot of different. We started with an idea for cognac because we're all French and cognac is like made in France, and we thought maybe we could do this. We also looked into sake because we like soca and Japanese culture. So why not? And it kind of culminated into like spending one night every weekend, just trying lots of different alcohols and like being like, we could import this, we could import this, which was kind of just like, very fun, great way to spend some time. And then we just came to the conclusion You know what? Rosé is really hot. I bet you we can find a good rosé at a good price that we can bring to New York and kind of undercut the competition. And so we did, and it's still going so nice.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:18] So how did that work in terms of like sending the like with all the time? It was one person kind of doing it full time.
Nick: [00:21:26] No. So it ended up six months before. Six months before I left, Piper was when we kind of started to put together like. When we needed to start doing sales and stuff like that, and pretty much at that time, we could. The two other guys could duck out of work. I think like banking is one of the only places where you can't kind of just like duck out for an hour to get a coffee. I'm sure there are some jobs where change the last nine to five, but they weren't. So they were able to just take some meetings and get us going for four, for six months.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:09] And so you kind of knew this is what you wanted to do. This was like kind of getting set up in your last six months there. Any thoughts in the recruiting
Nick: [00:22:17] For going straight for venture at
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:19] That point? Or was this this kind of that was the idea. Always, Hey, VCs, kind of where I want to go or
Nick: [00:22:23] I think that D.C. was it was certainly always an option. I kind of I kind of was. I was pretty burned out after two years of banking, and I kind of was just like I had got a nice bonus and I served as a business and I was like, We'll see what happens. But for now, I'm just going to like, I'm just going to like, kind of enjoy myself. Yeah, we remove myself from the rat race, so to speak, for a little bit and figure it out. And I think I always they're always in the back of your mind is like, you know? I think I think even pretty early in banking, I realize that B.C. was where I wanted to go. My roommate, my first year or my second year left to Park City to join ABC. And I always knew it was kind of where I'd like to be positioned in the future.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:16] So why? What, what attracted you to it? You know, you don't have to give me the interview answer. You give me the real answer. Yeah, no.
Nick: [00:23:24] There wasn't the same, actually. Interestingly, but I think at Piper, you deal with a lot of like health, like healthy cash flow companies that are looking to lever up and to sell, and they're looking to cut costs. And some people were excited by that. Or they were at least excited by how much money these private equity groups are making. And I kind of gravitated more towards, you know? Technology or things that we're actually making a difference. You're not even like a difference, like a global scale, but just like things that were disruptive, right or thought provoking. Whereas middle market health care is not is not thought-provoking, it's very much like fitting within the existing health care model and thriving in it, which is great. And a lot of people are really excited by the opportunity that there is in replicating something that's already done, but doing it, tweaking it a bit and doing it better. Yeah, but I just kind of liked DC and kind of early stage companies in the way they were really disrupting. And the thing about middle market health care is really what they make their difference on is kind of being more focused regionally and taking market share from big players. So that's like the dialysis space and we can go on and on about that. But that was just never it never really piqued my interest and I thought, You know what? Why not do something that's a little more intellectually stimulating,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:58] At least me? And then in terms of the day to day, obviously you're doing a lot of deals coming from liberal arts college. What was it like? Really hard, the financial modeling aspect, like the first six months when you started there? Yeah, I think that the. The learning curve was. I'm going backwards a little bit, I just want to yeah,
Nick: [00:25:16] I kept trying to jump around. I think I was surprised when, especially in training, you're sitting next to someone who went to professional school and did elbows for half of the year already. And you're just like, Whoa. And like that, I'm sure that would have been it would have been very useful for me just from the beginning. But at the end of the day, it's not that, you know, as long as you can kind of conceptualize it, that's I think, the most important part. Understanding what's happening conceptually rather than just like being mechanical about it, I think for personal growth being, you know, being able to conceptualize it is important, but for being an investment banking monkey has changed the desk. Probably being mechanical about it is better.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:04] But that was
Nick: [00:26:05] Definitely the that was like that was very apparent to me for sure in the first six months like, Oh, these kids have been doing this for. Yeah, same time. Same with that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:14] It was. It was a struggle. I didn't have an internship in banking. Yeah. So like, I was thrown into the fire and that was a rude awakening. But I survived. Right? So, OK, so this wine business, six months going, you kind of get your get your second bonus and you resign the next day or what you tell them. Hey, that's it. I'm out.
Nick: [00:26:34] Or because they had asked me if I was interested in staying on for a third year, and I pretty much told them I told them I wasn't going to. Piper was pretty good about that. They want people to kind of stay on for the two years, and they're happy. They're happy to support you. If you don't, there are even some analysts who Kind of stayed on for. I guess this was a very specific case, but they just stayed on for a few months after their contract was up and found a job and they're like, Well, listen, we're happy to still have the help around you while you recruit. You know, there's not going to be a bonus attached this year, so don't stay on forever. But we're happy to pay your base until you get something. Or they had set like a kind of a line in the sand room, like you can say for three months. So. Yeah, they were nice about it. Yeah, it was different.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:28] Maybe it's changed a little bit when I was back way back in my days. This is like, oh, two to four. I had to do everything like secrecy, all my private equity. And it was,
Nick: [00:27:37] I think most banks, most banks are like that. But we're Joffrey's Minnesota Nice. Minnesota based bank. So yeah, and they start. There are certainly elements that are like that. No, I know a lot of a lot of my friends had to do everything. So. And then once they got their offers, they were kicked out. But no, even a lot of the analysts go to Piper clients almost like peer groups that we work with or they work with a lot. So it's almost it's an open secret. Oh, he got this job, you know, like RMD is talking to the partner at that p for next week. They're going to bring that. He's going to know, you know, so like, it's better for them to know them, for them to find out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:20] So, OK, back to the wine business a little bit. So yeah. Were you guys able to scale it successfully? What is it? Is it kind of a run rate status quo now, and you're just having somebody operate it and manage it?
Nick: [00:28:32] So the wine business is still going. It's all three of us are doing it part time. We're Trump tariffs and all that. Like, we're not looking to aggressively expand it. It was always kind of pretty early on and we realized that it was going to take a really long time to, like, grow a brand and to get like it was never going to be. We were never going to have enough money to throw at it to be able to really attack the market. So it transitioned into let's keep let's grow this like little by little, let's keep this going. This is always going to be something that's fun, that's cool to have. And so you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:10] Reinvesting profits and back into the
Nick: [00:29:12] Yeah. And in that and in that time, I pretty much realized just to like transition to what I did after I got approached from someone who I went to high school with. And we we kind of worked on commercializing an idea that he had had through a non-profit of his, which was a diabetes. It's like a software for diabetes patient management, which is what I spent the bulk of of that next year doing and working on it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:43] And so is that that's still going as well. It's called care, what
Nick: [00:29:46] It's called care for. That is there was a pilot agreement reached in Massachusetts to run it, and it was the development cycle was probably about two to three years to collect the data. So at that time, I pretty much kind of there was discussions of going after grant applications and stuff like that because it was an idea that was birthed out of a nonprofit. So once those discussions started to kind of materialize, I took a step away and and I think the the pilot offer is still there. I still speak to the other co-founders. One of which is a good friend of mine, but it's kind of tabled, I think, for now before everyone's kind of re rethinking about it, I would say, and pivoted and whatnot.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:38] Yeah. So tell me a little bit about so while you were kind of figuring out on this startup because a lot of people think, Oh, if I go do a startup, it doesn't work out, I'm done. Mm hmm. As you're kind of realizing, Hey, this is going to be a ridiculously long cycle and the wine business is going to take off and be like, this huge thing. Tell me how you kind of went about thinking of your kind of
Nick: [00:30:57] Your venture recruiting. So it's interesting. And this might be helpful to that. It's so late podcast. No one's going to stick around. It's like, No, no, essentially my sister, my sister. So my sister was. She's she's a Stanford MBA in Instacart, like, very ambitious, like great, great, great influence in my life. And she I was applying for other startups through different models and I was like, I want to get into venture Camille. Hot like, and this is going to help me get there, and she was just like, What are you talking about? She was like, Go apply the venture right now. And like, I had gotten final round with this consulting firm that did a lot of work with venture capital.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:37] And so you're trying to go about it. And I was like, Yeah, exactly.
Nick: [00:31:40] I was like, Oh, if I go into this consulting firm, then I can get a job. I was like,you're not a consultant, like, don't go into consulting. What are you doing? What are you thinking? Go strange venture like people hire. It might take a long time, and it might take longer than this job that you have in hand or like that you're in a final round. But people hire. Kids like you with your background, so don't be afraid, and I think that I find that a lot of my friends kind of do. They do kind of put these jobs on a pedestal, and they're like, I'm not ready to be an investor. I'm not ready to be XYZ. I need this more layer of experience or whatever, and it kind of is the wrong mentality. You you should just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:24] Yeah, especially as a junior person at a VC fund. It's not like you're going to be making the investment decisions. Yeah, you're going to be sourcing, you're going to be doing a lot of the press.
Nick: [00:32:32] Yeah, learning on the job, you're doing a lot of investment committee stuff. Memo like the decision never falls into your hands like you never, you know, you're never pressing on the wire transfer to go through. But no, she kind of gave me a big, rude awakening, and she was like, Believe in yourself and don't look for a bridge to just go straight to it. And she's right. Luckily for me,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:57] It's funny because the guy that you took the job from us was the one who made the intro.
Nick: [00:33:02] Well, honestly, I'm getting a drink with him next week because like, well, I did come up with that kind of bridge today on the podcast, but I did say this guy did really help me get this job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:15] He's basically he's responsible for all of your career moves. He's my guardian angel guardian angel in my career. Hey, what are you
Nick: [00:33:21] Going to do? Yeah, exactly. But no, it's good. It's good. No. And the VC interview process was long and there were I got very far with, say, four firms. I sent a lot of emails out. Obviously, I got very far with four firms. Were you focusing
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:42] On the specific vertical or anything like that, like tech or
Nick: [00:33:45] New York? Pretty much just New York and New
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:49] York venture like fintech or anything
Nick: [00:33:50] Like that? No, nothing. I mean, health care was obviously a plus if there was a focus on health care, because that's kind of where I spend it. Yeah, I spent a year really diving into kind of the early stage world of health care, so I knew quite well. Yeah, so that was obviously a plus. But I was just, you know, industry agnostic, looking at New York. There are some good resources out there for VC, job posting and stuff like that. But I did. I got pretty good, you know, for coming not from a bulge bracket bank to having one failed business or two, I guess one business on pause and one business not scaling up like I did get pretty good traction. Like I'd say, very good traction. And I was I was pleasantly surprised. Tell me a little
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:37] Bit about that, that networking in those interviews. So like, you're in New York, it's huge advantage, right?
Nick: [00:34:42] Huge advantage,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:43] Yes. They're like, you can go meet people anytime, anywhere.
Nick: [00:34:47] You know, I would say there were a couple of funds that there are a lot of funds that have offices all over the place. And they have they have partners all over the place and we have like partner here or partner there. So it's beneficial to be in New York. But I would have imagined that it would have been beneficial for me to be completely agnostic to geography because you do spend a lot of time on the phone with these people and regardless in the VC shop, everyone's out the door always. It's not like. It's not like you're sitting next to someone twenty four seven all the time. You're spending a lot of time on the phone regardless. So, so and I was flown to San Francisco and the the problem is
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:28] Any sort of like technical interview like stuff or like sizing and consulting ish type interview questions. Or was it maybe it felt like, tell me about this industry, what do you know?
Nick: [00:35:37] Or, yeah, mostly the latter. But I would say, if you're sitting in front of a consultant, if you're sitting in front of a guy who used to be a consultant, VCG I guarantee you he's going to ask you a question. So if you find yourself, you look at the bios and you're like, OK, this guy was a consultant. He will ask you one question. Other the other technicals essentially talk to me about a business that you're interested in. Talk to me about interesting industry trends that you would like to watch. There's no cases. Sometimes they tell you to like, kind of prepare to speak in depth about a company and why you think we should invest in it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:13] And think, and that's really anything that surprised you. Just pretty
Nick: [00:36:17] Standard. I think it's all pretty standard. I mean, like, it's funny because I you learn kind of through the interview process and with one of the funds that I went very far with, they asked me like, OK, so if you have very little information on this company, how do you get information like what's the information looking for on an on the website? And you know, that's something that I just had to come up with on the spot, which probably was not a great answer. You know, I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was probably me fumbling through it. And then and then you go home and you like, I think something that's really good is go home, write down the questions that they ask you, especially the ones that you don't think you answered correctly, just or in the best way possible, just so that you will have a better answer next time it's asked, and especially when you bring up these funds, these guys are all or these guys and girls are all. They're all reading off of the same kind of suggested questions. So you're probably going to get the same answer question twice from the same fund. So it's it's important to kind of learn from your interviews. I would say for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:23] And if you can ideally do some mocks with some B.S. prose beforehand?
Nick: [00:37:26] Yeah, I do some mock. Exactly. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:28] Or at least the friends who are in the industry. Mm hmm. For sure. Anything else before we call? It's been it's been interesting. Yeah, it's been good. Anything else? You tell your younger self, even though you're still super young,
Nick: [00:37:40] Like in college,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:42] I always ask that I tell your younger self like, keep going. They're doing great.
Nick: [00:37:48] I yeah, I think I probably manage your money a little bit better. Save your bonus. Yeah, looks like a lot of money, but it's we're living in New York. It's it goes much faster than you think. Yeah, there you go.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:04] All right. Well, we'll leave it at that, I think. Yeah, there you go for the younger crowd. Take care of your money.
Nick: [00:38:12] Make sure you stay. Exactly. I know it sucks to save money, but it's important.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:18] All right. Well, I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate, 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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