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WSO Podcast | E178: Back Office in IB to Investment Analyst at Titan (Fast-growing FinTech Company)

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In this episode, Chris shares his winding path from the University of Miami all the way to his current role as an investment analyst at Titan, a fast-growing fintech firm. We cover a lot in this episode: Hear about his role in the back office at a bulge bracket investment bank, Why he was trying to get out before his role even started, How he transitioned to a boutique investment bank on the west coast, What he did when that blew up How he was duped into taking a CorpFin position that promised the world His amazing experience working at a family office His quarter-life crisis and finally His new investment analyst role at Titan Buckle up and enjoy!

 

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WSO Podcast (Episode 178) 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 talked 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.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:25] In this episode, Chris shares his winding path from the University of Miami all the way to his current role as an investment analyst at Titan, a fast growing fintech firm. We cover a lot in this episode, including his role in the back office at a bulge bracket investment bank, why he was trying to get out before his role even started, how he transitioned to a boutique investment bank on the West Coast. What he did when that blew up. How he was duped into taking a corp fin position that promised the world is amazing experience working at a family office is quarter life crisis and finally, his new investment analyst role at Titan. Buckle up and enjoy. All right, Chris, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.

Chris: [00:01:10] Patrick, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:13] To be awesome. If you could just start by giving the listeners a quick summary of your bio.

Chris: [00:01:18] Sure. So I went to undergrad at the University of Miami, though major in finance and Econ, graduated in 2013 and after having a role as a financial analyst, I was an investment banking analyst for a boutique oil and gas focused company. This was back in twenty thirteen twenty fourteen. And so once oil cratered, deal flow dried up and I moved over and did warn the corporate finance side help a dual track IPO sale process. And then for about three years after that, I worked for a family office to really cut my teeth on the valuation side in real business and company analysis. And after three years, I had my, you know, Quarterlife crisis and realized I wasn't doing what I loved and what I wanted to do, which was work in the public markets. And so a couple different jumps and crazy things that I did. Finally, got me here to work at Titan, where I'm an investment analyst now.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:16] Very cool path. So let's start with the lay back and undergrad real quick. We'll take you down memory lane. You Miami fund school, right? Yeah, amazing time. Tell me a little bit about just like the program. Were you thinking finance right away because I know you went to a bullet bracket and your financial analyst? Was that like? Tell me about the role you got coming out of there? Did you ever think like front office and then like or were you thinking like, Hey, it's going to be tough coming? You know, it's not a target school, right? So tell me a little bit about

that thought process, what you knew kind of in undergrad and what you do kind of approaching junior year and senior year and stuff.

Chris: [00:02:52] Yeah, definitely. So I actually went down to Miami to play baseball, and so I wanted to be a sports agent. So I started off, you know, my first year business law and maybe psychology, something like that. But it was my freshman year internship where I first got really introduced the stock market and just fell in love. You know, it really replaced baseball as my passion. And so that's what made me change my major to a double major in finance and econ. I knew, you know, basically started on my junior year. That is going to be very difficult because I wasn't at the target school. I love, luckily, or, you know, through a lot of hard work, had very good grades, you know, was at the base of the top of my class. And so, you know, the only real banking program that I accrued at Miami at the time was City's treasury and trade solutions. So, you know, working capital analytics and products. That's why I ended up doing my first year out of college. And so the recruiting process there was a very, very typical two year investment banking bulge bracket process where you know, you'd have your junior year internship. Most of those people will get, you know, the full time offers for, you know, upon graduation exactly what I did in my entire. I wouldn't admit at the time, but my entire goal was to get my foot in the door there and then transfer over to the investment bank.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:10] I wonder how much of a problem that is nowadays your kids are like, Yeah, I don't mind working middle office or back up there like their whole goal front office, and they're just like deleveraging entire networking.

Chris: [00:04:19] I'm not sure how many people are actually OK with just being in the back office. You know, it definitely wasn't my goal, right? And so, you know, the entire

time I was really kind of thinking about making that move over, and I got very fortunate to have found this, you know, the boutique investment bank that I mentioned while I was at Citi.

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:40] And let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about that first year because, yeah, treasury and trade solutions. Can you explain like what you're doing for, you know, I assume you're working with sales and trading the desks there to help do what, like, OK, working capital analytics. Just explain, like day to day what you were doing. Was it, like, really tough at first? Did you feel like within a few months it was easy or within? Within a few weeks it was easy. What was it like? Definitely the latter.

Chris: [00:05:08] It definitely was not like, That's it. That's it. Exactly. You know, I'm an undergrad, you know, taking, you know, financial modelling classes. And then here I am. You know, do I'm doing modelling and pricing models and whatnot, but nowhere near the level of analytical rigor that I was expecting. And so that was a big part of what really kicked me into high gear to want to find that next role, which was that I just was not being challenged, you know, wasn't learning fast enough, wasn't really in that high stress environment, high activity environment that I was looking for. And so you know, what I was doing was just putting one hundred percent of my effort into the job during the day and then my entire night-time, you know, I'd wake up at 5:00 a.m. workout out in the morning, go to work, got to work around 6:00, 6:30 and then 6:30 to nine. It was just

recruiting and prep Recruiting and prep the number of phone calls and cold emails. I mean, their numbering in the hundreds, probably into the thousands, you know, and it's I

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:08] Think I think because I love breaking down that like after hours. Think so you're working probably 40 to 50 hour weeks at the day. Not too bad. Yeah, you kind of get out, you get home and you have to have energy to like. So what are you leveraging at this point? I assume LinkedIn was big enough where you were probably all over LinkedIn or no, not quite.

Chris: [00:06:28] Linkedin wasn't. Yeah, Lincoln was born.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:31] Where were you? Where were you finding these contacts? Even just cold email? And like, what was your funnel? What did it look like? I know you said it was a thousand or something at the top, but then how did it from where like, where were you getting these contacts? Yeah, no.

Chris: [00:06:42] Linkedin was definitely one of those sources, if you will. A lot of it was talking to friends that were in the business and in the industry and is trying to get connected to more and more people. You know, that was definitely a big part of it. I'm trying to think back. I'm sure that Wall Street Oasis was definitely, you know, in there, but it wasn't, you know, I didn't have Twitter, right? I didn't have, you know, Facebook was, you have your friend, Bruce, but you're not using it for recruiting, right? Right. And so a lot of it, I feel like, was just if I remember correctly was my bootstrapping and just trying to talk to people and more friends. And then for every conversation, it would usually lead to at least another one or two people I could talk to. And so it was very much a rolling. My sleeves doing it the hard way. I would say that I definitely work harder, not smarter when it came to my recruiting process there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:30] So like you knew you wanted to get an investment banking analyst, you're like, I'm just going to do what? Do what I need to do. Do you mind sharing like, you know, you said a couple of weeks in, you were like, Wow, that's it. Once you're in the kind of back office, you're like, OK, I have to just hit these numbers, do these models. And that's basically all I do over and over and over again and in the back office. And that's what we hear on the forums as well. It's like it gets pretty repetitive. Yeah, you can move up if you're willing to kind of put your head down and get paid decent, decent wage and all that stuff. But it's kind of capped, right? So. Exactly. For people who are motivated, it's, you know, I think a lot of them try to find their way out. So you're getting home, you're doing this, this stuff. How I guess what are you target? You're just targeting anybody in investment banking, you know, investment banking, what you want. Are you talking to people in DNA, anything like that?

Chris: [00:08:16] So my entire goal, right, was I wanted to be at a hedge fund eventually. And so I kind of just starting at the end point, work my way backwards. And so the most logical place to start would be investment banking. You never want to spend, you know, there's always that one track mind if I want to be in the public markets. And so the, you know, if you're not, I think having that connection out of school to get to the buy side, you know, I think that investment banking is the right place to start. And I was right along those lines where it's you're developing that core, very

Fundamental analytical process and skill set where you're just learning how to very basically model at a company, right? And everyone that's been, you know, in investment banking knows that it's not rocket science. You know what we do, right? And so no, it was very much like that, that very focus of get me into thinking, I don't care where it is. I want to make sure that I develop the right skill set like I'll move anywhere you want, evidenced by what eventually happened, right? I'll do anything it takes just to get into the business, get my foot in the door, and from there, I know I'll accelerate.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:20] Ok, so be honest, how many months into your job as Citi you started looking for start networking right away?

Chris: [00:09:27] It started before I started. Yeah, no, it was. It was. This was a constant, you know, even

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:34] So like your junior year. So when you when you did your junior year summer there and you got the offer, you accepted, but you were still trying to get more investment making interviews, front office interviews.

Chris: [00:09:44] Because, yeah, I wasn't as active my senior year, I had a lot of stuff going on, some certain responsibilities I had to take care of. But as soon as that kind of died down at the very end of senior year, yeah, now I was right back to networking and recruiting. And, you know, definitely, definitely wouldn't say that. But it was it was almost an impossible task, right? Because the first question is, will hold on. You haven't even started your job yet. Like, what am I going to do? What are you talking about? So there was there's kind of like a blackout period, if you will. But I'm just I'm the kind of person where if I know what I want to get to, I was going to head down and just go after it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:19] So what point did people start kind of hearing you out a little bit more? Did you feel like there was a turning point, like after six months or something like that?

Chris: [00:10:26] It's funny. You say it was definitely after about the six month mark because I remember it was the start of the start of the new year after the start of the New Year. My first year out is when I started getting a little bit more traction, a little bit more understanding of where it's at because at the same time, I could explain like, listen, this is my day to day. This is what I'm doing right now, and it's not what I want to do, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:49] And so tell me a little bit about so you said, you know, maybe a thousand or so contacts like. How many of those turned into like phone calls?

Chris: [00:10:57] Oh, very few. Oh, it was

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:00] A total or 20 or what?

Chris: [00:11:02] Yeah, no, I would say in the hundred, I'd say in the hundred and into the phone calls and the actual networking of, I would say, probably about, let's say I did a thousand. Right? You know, cold emails and all of that. I would say it was about like 20 percent, maybe total conversion to either a phone call or at least a response. Right, OK. And then so narrowing that funnel down, I would say I got to, let's say, 15 interviews or so, 15 or 20 interviews ranging

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:33] From like when was the first one that you hit, like first round interview?

Chris: [00:11:37] First one that I hit was probably in February or March. This was a while ago. Yeah, I would say

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:43] The seven months or so.

Chris: [00:11:45] Yeah, yeah. And I remember one explicitly I was in I was in Vegas for March Madness. My buddies and I took an interview with Houlihan Lokey while I was in Vegas. Yep. Further tech group. The interview didn't go well, but I think got.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:03] We all know why that's the case.

Chris: [00:12:04] Yeah, exactly. So that's I really started getting that traction there. And yeah, I had about 15 20 interviews, a couple different offers. But the one that I finally landed on was at the time, it was the right one for me because I was fascinated with the energy space. And so I was all else equal. The fact that I got that opportunity with the energy related I was was exactly what I wanted.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:31] Yeah, small bank. But West Coast is a big move. But to tell me a little bit about like that whole interview process like from the first round, did you get did you make to a few super days or like out of the 15 first round, like one Super Day they just won? Yeah, just

Chris: [00:12:45] One.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:46] Yeah. So you had you been striking out at some of the other ones, like the Homeland one and you're in Vegas? I get it. What about the the other?

Chris: [00:12:53] Oh, in general, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no. Just one. So Houlihan didn't make it. I made it too. I, I would think, was the round right before a super days for a couple of them. Yeah, but I would say the majority were thanks, but no thanks. You know, and it's that lateral transfer process is very difficult. Why do you think that is?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:14] It wasn't quite hot enough, things weren't I know now people are just dying for anybody.

Chris: [00:13:19] Right, right.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:20] Yeah, like that. Back then, it wasn't as crazy. Do you think that's maybe why or was there something else like with your prep? Do you feel like you were ready? You were fully

Chris: [00:13:27] Ready for that? No, I think it was a combination of two things. One is to your was your first point is both your points. You know, the second one is I don't feel like I did the requisite work to really be ready. You know, I went through the primers or I forget what they're called, you know, basically the whole technical questions that you could be asked. I went through all of those, but this is the reality. Unless you're doing this on a day to day basis and you're really in it, you're really just memorizing answers. You can't really walk your way through. How does how does certain accounting line items flow through the three statements? As an example, you don't know how to build know accretion dilution models. You just don't know that unless you're doing all the time.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:11] And so are you going to take early modeling course, man? And the interview course? I'm plugging it right now. No, that's exactly. It can get you closer, but you're right, it can get you closer. But you're right. It's one thing to be doing it. And then it's like, Oh, this is easy. Yeah, it's going to be asked technical question after technical question and in a high pressure stakes

Chris: [00:14:31] Like now put me in an interview and I'll like, I'll pass with flying colors, right? But back then, you know, it's so funny you don't realize how little, you know? Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:39] So people think they're doing really well or even on the behavioral, or they'll spend all their time prepping for the technical and they're like, I got it. I got to know exactly all the different methodologies. And they're like, Why do you want to be investment banking? And the person is like, Oh, I like that a high pressure situation. I learn a lot. I do like, Come on, man,

Chris: [00:14:57] All the very standard answers,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:58] All the standard answers, and it's just not genuine. It doesn't like they don't realize like having a good genuine answer to that is so much more important than like getting every single technical right and being, Yeah, you know what I mean?

Chris: [00:15:09] Yeah. And even for me now to, you know, I get to hire my last job when I was at the family office and another kind of recruiting roles. You know, I've had exposure there and seen it. You know, the one thing that I would look for really isn't technically, you know, anyone can learn it to my point. Once you're on the job, it comes down to hunger, I think. And if you can find someone that's truly hungry and will work harder than everyone else, that's what you have to look for and those standard answers that you get out of, you know, even the qualitative section of these primers. It's not going to do it for you. You know, you want to be able to stick out in someone's mind. And so these are all lessons that I wish I knew back then, but it's good to eventually learn them. Yeah, know for sure.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:48] It's tough. So actually, you got you got an offer. Was it a Big pay raise or similar? I mean, you're going from like back office to front office, but you're going from like mega huge company to like tiny company. Yeah, that was the base. Pretty similar, like 70 80. Something like that. Yeah. So it's the basis

Chris: [00:16:05] Of a little bit lower. but in terms of the comp, it was one hundred percent of base, right? Instead of versus, you know, the back

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:13] Almost doubling, almost doubling. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Chris: [00:16:16] And so, you know, the comp was nice, but and helpful and exciting. But really, it came down to finally being in the industry, you know, and after all those hours, it's a pretty rewarding thing.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:28] And so speaking of hours when you did join. First off, was it tough saying goodbye to your back office job? Not, not the actual saying goodbye to the job, but just like the people where they upset. When you said I'm leaving after a year, I know you're probably happy to leave, but just

Chris: [00:16:43] I got I got a few choice responses from especially, you know, the people on like the HR side that did all the recruiting and whatnot. Yeah, but I would also say that I dealt with that it caught many people by surprise. I'm sure the writing's on the wall there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:57] Yeah. So were you? So did you have any break between starting or did you move right out to the West Coast and boom immediately?

Chris: [00:17:04] Oh, I, I'm not someone I can take a break. I went right out and I just

started going, Yep,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:10] Ok. And so what were the hours like at this boutique bank? Oh, wow, a lot. That's what I can remember was like 80, like over 80. Oh yeah, no, I would say so. Yeah. So you were getting worked pretty hard. You know, one of the risks of joining a small boutique bank. It can be huge fluctuations in deal flow. Sometimes you're pitching all the time and at other times you're drowning in live deals. Oh yeah. Oh, is it the case for you guys? I mean, June 2014, you're in an oil and gas type boutique. What happened?

Chris: [00:17:40] Yeah. So when I first started, I mean, our backlog of deal flow was insane. I mean, I was I was cranking out just models and his decks all the time, I would say around. Rather, on the six month mark after that is when things started dying down on the deal flow side and we started pitching more. Mm hmm. And you just saw this this cadence of pitches really pick up around then. But the cadence of actual execution of pitching and getting the deal and the number of pitches in general really started dying down. And it was, I would say, a pretty direct correlation between that and the oil price. Yeah, because, you know, when I joined, oil was essentially at its peak and about nine months in, whenever it was, oil was down to about 30 bucks a barrel. I forget whatever it was. Yeah. And so everyone freaked out. All deal flow stopped. And that's what kind of led to me eventually moving over to the second, the third role that I talked about.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:43] Yeah. So tell me a little bit about like. Md Point, you are a partner in the office saying, hey, there's not a lot of deal flow here. You're going to find another job where you OK with that? Did they give you any they give you enough time to find something or what?

Chris: [00:18:56] Yeah, it was. It was more of like, you know, you were not kicking you out. But if you want to if you want to find something, then like, we understand, right? Yeah. So there was plenty of time and you know, when it eventually happened, what I'll say this too. Another mistake that I think I made is not waiting for the right thing. I think that maybe I was feeling the stress of the broader market, what was happening there? I didn't wait till the right role that I wanted to find, but the role that I did find was somewhat aligned. But I want to do so. I made the jump right away. But yeah, they were. They were perfectly fine. They were great guys, so I was very fortunate there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:31] That's awesome. Yeah. And so you're going to a corporate finance role, you know, given that you want to be hedge fund eventually are like in the investment space, why not go to another bank? Yeah.

Chris: [00:19:42] Detracted there, right? That was the pressure part of it. Yeah, I was. I was definitely worried about being to make that jump because once again, like this was something that I dealt with a few times is like, Listen, I'm just out of college. I don't want to get that reputation of jumping around. And while this was a little bit more circumstantial, yeah, it still looks bad on your looks. Exactly right. Yeah, because you were

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:06] So left after one year, you were hoping at least do a couple of years, probably at this

Chris: [00:20:10] Peak, and I want to do at least two.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:12] And then suddenly it's less than a year. You're at another place and you're stuck.

Chris: [00:20:15] Yeah, yep, exactly right. And so at the second place, you know

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:21] My story, I tell the listeners a little bit like, what was it, a corporate manager of corporate finance? But like, what does that mean? Like, what were you doing day to day? That seems very different from banking.

Chris: [00:20:29] It's almost my story is almost too crazy to be believable. So I joined this oil and gas investment bank in June. Twenty fourteen at peak oil and oil discos goes from there down to 30 bucks. Right? So then I leave. Leave a basket, leave will join a good situation, leave a bad one. I then join this other apparently great situation, so the situation I joined. And I'll leave the company name out of it. But the plan was it was owned by two private equity firms, two major private equity firms, and they were looking for an exit. And this is why I joined. I actually had a buddy pull me in who was actually a Jefferies went over there and I was him and I were going to be the two guys leading either a dual track IPO or a strategic sale off to another company, whether it be an actual GIC or another sponsor. And so that's why I joined. I was going to get some great actual IPO or just M&A experience. Yeah. And so that's why, you know, it wasn't a long public market side, but OK, like this, this will work, right? Well, it'll go great with what I've been learning in banking. It'll be kind of a good addition to my resume. You were treasurer. So I'd say, I think everyone, I think everybody was correct. I join and I can remember the dates exactly March 30th. Twenty fifteen I joined that day. They had released their February earnings. The company went from a $2 million EBITDA run rate company on a monthly basis to a $2 million loss in the previous month. Yep, that that Thursday the CFO got fired and it kickstarted a entire restructure. So instead of leading this growth story, I was leading a restructuring, which, you know, you look back on events and at the time I was pissed. I was miserable. But you look back on it, what I tell people is, you know, when things are good and you can relate it to the recent stock market and things are good, you can get very lazy, you can get away with bad habits and still do very well. But when things are hitting the fan, that's when you really have to be buttoned up and you learn you can know what you're talking about. And so that's what it really forced me to do.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:41] And so you just join there. Why not just try to lateral to another bank and just explain the situation be like, Look, I started at this place. We were supposed to go, do this. I still want to stay in banking. I thought I was going to get this type of experience like, isn't that a believable story? Or You felt like, Oh man, this is just going to?

Chris: [00:22:57] Yeah, I didn't even I didn't think it was even a possibility. I didn't even try. I didn't. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. And maybe that was a wrong decision, you know, because

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:05] Like, you know, the way I see about it, like you probably had like at least two or three month window there where you could join another bank and then, you know, maybe put an extra month on your LinkedIn on each side like, get away with

Chris: [00:23:17] It, you know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't even think about it because what was in my head, it was like three jobs one year. And like,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:28] I would have been like shit. I got to get out and find that third job just never happened. This just happened.

Chris: [00:23:33] Right, right, right. Just like quit

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:34] And leave, right? Quickly. Well, yeah, you don't want to quit without the other thing lined up. So. Exactly.

Chris: [00:23:39] So I was in a very impossible situation, if you will. Well, I'll say that, you know, it worked out for the better, right? So I got to work directly with the executive team, the CEO and the CEO every day along with the board. Yeah. So got to be around some of the smartest people I've worked with. Yeah. You know, every day for about a year and a half and learning how. And so what the restructuring did is it made me really understand how a company operates inside and out. I mean, I saw the actual guts, infrastructure, everything. And so while it wasn't why I joined what I want to do, long run, it was so immensely beneficial for me in my understanding of how companies operate. And so, yeah, I did that for about a year and a half, and the whole it was all centered around. One is creating a restructuring plan. And then to a lot of my time has been modelling it all out. And the modelling side, I mean, the level of detail that I went into. I we're talking about thousands and thousands of line operating models with, you know, with FTI level,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:41] Oh my gosh. I mean, I did everything. And like

Chris: [00:24:45] Chronic level SKUs, I was at FTE level like people buy, buy, roll, everything. And so the level of modeling experience I got the actual experience of understanding it's crazy

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:59] For a company for only two million EBITDA run rate. I guess monthly run rate, it's pretty good.

Chris: [00:25:03] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know.

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:06] I was like annual run rate. Why are you going that crazy?

Chris: [00:25:08] Like, you know? Yeah, I know these guys were. I think when I joined, it was like about a three hundred and fifty million dollar valuation. So not big. Not huge, but sizable.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:18] Yeah. Ok, so you're kind of you're there for a year and a half when you kind of starting to look for your next move and what do you thinking in terms of, OK, should I go back to banking? What should I do? And looks like you wanted to get back to the East Coast?

Chris: [00:25:31] Yeah, yeah. Definitely want to back the East Coast.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:34] Any reason for that? And like, when did you start looking like once the restructuring plan was done or what would happen?

Chris: [00:25:39] Yep. So it was once a restructuring plan was done, which so between the time I started looking and actually got the job, it was quick. I mean, it may have been a month, maybe two. Ok, so I didn't spend a lot of time afterwards looking. The reason why I wanted to get back to the East Coast was twofold. One is my family's back there and then two, it's, you know, I always wanted to be in New York. And as great as L.A. was, it wasn't. It did not align my personality at all. And yeah, I wanted to be able to experience that really fast paced New York lifestyle. And so that kind of was the genesis of me looking back east.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:15] And tell me about your interviews. What types of firm were you firms? Are you interviewing with or what are they like in your background? What were they? What were the tough questions?

Chris: [00:26:26] Yes. And it was mostly P. So this is, I think, where I maybe didn't think about the long term goal again. And it was more thinking about what my experience aligns with, which was more on the east side. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was all it was all family offices and private equity firms that I was talking to a few different opportunities there, but I was pushed. And the reason why this happened so quickly is I was really pushed towards this family office. I ended up joining, had a had a friend that essentially knew the partner, and the way that I was described to me was if you truly want to be able to value and understand the business better than anybody. You go work with those guys. And so for me, I I've always thought about being my younger age. You know, learning was more important than the monetary upside is the ladder would come if you learn the ropes fast enough. And so I got connected to that company. And after going through got a couple rounds of interviews with them, they flew me out and really just dug into my experience at the firm that I was already at because it was health care related. It was very deep, deep, deep operating model work that I was doing. And so that's what pushed me over the top was my level of experience with really understanding companies and modelling them out, the level of granularity that I did.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:46] And so they love that. But what made you comfortable with them? Why not go to another family office or another? Like, I guess, p might have been a stretch at that point, right? But like, yeah, why not another family office, for example?

Chris: [00:27:57] Yeah, the reason for them was one. I really trusted that that friend that I knew who had actually I felt like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:03] Your other friends like that.

Chris: [00:28:06] Yeah, yeah, they did. You know, I need to find new friends. But he had interned there, and so he knew exactly how they operated. He was in banking. He was in private equity at the time. And so he was like, Listen, the way that these guys go about analyzing companies versus the way we do, it's night and day like they're better. Yeah. So that's what gave you the comfort. And, you know, the company itself had grown pretty dramatically over. I think when I joined, It was $20. It was about a three years they had grown really dramatically.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:42] And how many of us, how many investment professionals like we're there or

Chris: [00:28:46] The core team was seven. And then you had the partner and you had a whole support staff and everything

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:53] You have, you're allowed to say how much money you guys were managing or was like blank cheque, whatever you guys could

Chris: [00:28:59] Spend. Basically, it was like it wasn't a blank check, but it was probably as close as you can get to it or something. It was. It was. It was sizable.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:29:11] Your work was specifically looks like you were doing portfolio management, but you're also looking at new potential deals. Was it all equity Elbow's debt side? What was it? What types of deals?

Chris: [00:29:20] It was more in the LBO side. And so it was, I say, LBOs because they were highly levered deals, but they were highly levered because we were able to put mortgages on the deals instead of. Yeah. So we were we were buying both the operating and the property entities of these of these buildings. So yeah, we had a core portfolio of when I joined, I think it was around. Thirty or so assets. And by the time that I left, we were pressing in sixty. So still, oh, we were very busy. And so if you think about the two different functions as well, You know the portfolio

Chris: [00:30:03] Management side, more on the monthly updates. But given where and the whole strategy around the acquisitions, a big part of it was really turning around operations. And then when you layer on the complexity of health care, that just makes it that much more difficult. And then also the regulatory environment. So, so

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:23] Were you guys buying distressed stuff here?

Chris: [00:30:26] Not necessarily distressed. Some of the more

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:28] Some of the more so because you mentioned turnaround, so like some of it was distress, opportunistic buying. The underlying real estate allows you not to put the business out of business. Yeah.

Chris: [00:30:39] Yeah, exactly. Because the right that you're paying rent to yourself. Right, exactly. It's from one block to the other. When I say turning around to, it's somewhere distressed. Definitely. But the other part of it was, you know, you talk of a very typical consolidation strategy for an industry. So it was very fragmented, owned by a lot of mom and pops. I did not know how to efficiently run the business. And so when you layer on a few things, one is just expertise on how to run the actual individual facility or even we acquired three portfolios, even a group of portfolios itself. One, you can operate those better, but then too, you layer on all of the G&A synergies that you have there. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:20] Were these medical practices? What was the

Chris: [00:31:22] Or they were? It was all seniors house. So OK. So everything from skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living, but then also is very interesting because it was also horizontally integrated where we had development companies, we had transportation pharmacies, you name it. Oh, so it was it was across the board. Yep.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:43] It's supposed to be in right, a lot of them out there.

Yeah, so people. Yeah, yeah. And the population is just aging, right? So OK, so you then have what you called your quarter life crisis or your coming years in your a couple of years, you're doing what it sounds like. Great work getting promoted. Yeah, they're liking what you're doing. How is the pay at this family office? I know it's totally all over. The board was similar to your investment banking analyst stint or your corp fenston. I mean, I assume let's go back to banking. You were doing about 140, whatever it is, 100, one hundred fifty thousand. That was the jump to corporate finance manager. I assume those pay cut.

Chris: [00:32:26] Uh, it was roughly the same player base, like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:30] 120 base or something.

Chris: [00:32:31] Exactly, exactly. Higher base, the roughly the same.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:34] Yeah. And then jumping. So you're kind of like you took a big jump from the back office up to banking, then you got like more base. This is the place, but you're still about the same. And then you jump family office. Do you mind sharing range like just to be exact, but like what the progression was around? Was it similar at one 30 to one 50? And then,

Chris: [00:32:51] Yeah, it was. It was a step up from the corporate finance role, but not huge. Huge. Exactly, exactly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:59] No, there's no like Kerry because this is all family money, right? Correct. So, so are there. Are the bonuses pretty good there? Were they? I just like to ask because of the user the listeners like to listen to, like family office, like it's all over the place.

Chris: [00:33:11] So happy right now. It really is. It really is all over the place. So the way that we were compensated and it was a little bit different, it would range between like 20 percent to 30 percent of base.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:23] Ok, great. And so that was like when you started, you got promoted and then the base salaries where I assume jumping like 10 to 15 K. Yeah, OK.

Chris: [00:33:31] Yeah. And sometimes more, you know, I got promoted twice there and the first one was a good bump. The second one was a very good bump.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:39] Ok. Do you mind sharing what that was? Are you hitting two hundred at base or No. 180 base? No.

Chris: [00:33:44] Yeah, I was getting I was getting close. Yeah, I was getting close. And but you know, what I liked about this place was that it was very much a meritocracy, you know, and it kind of goes back to what I was talking about with the interviews is, you know, you don't know how much you don't know until you find out very directly. And when I joined from the, you know, corporate finance role, I thought I was this hotshot.

you know, I just I just let a restructuring, right? And then my buddy actually led me down the right path this time because the level of analytical rigor that I was taught but did not know how to do when I first started, it was very apparent to me and my boss, you know, the time. And so after that first year, I was getting up to speed, but not there yet. Once I had that second year, I was really accelerating. And so that's why the bump is bigger. Very cool. So why leave? Yeah, that was the

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:35] Seed, you know, was there a chance to get promotor, do you feel like it was kind of you're going to be doing the same thing? Or is like less deal flow or what?

Chris: [00:34:44] Why? Why jump? No, no, very deal flow is non stop. And what was amazing is that we never had to go out and source it was always inbound. Wow. Really impressive. No, I mean, the company itself was like, I said, amazing experience. Very, very fortunate to have had it because it was really the foundation of my real modelling skill set and ability to analyze companies. But yeah, no left because of that quarterlife crisis. Where was, you know, I'm twenty twenty five, twenty six at the time and just thinking about, you know, why? Why am I not doing what I love and what I want to do? And the answer isn't an appropriate answer, which is that it's hard, right? It's hard to break into the buy side. It's hard to break into a hedge fund. And I just don't I buy that. And so

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:31] The reason why I left was because I wanted to pursue exactly what my passion was

Chris: [00:35:35] Because, you know, whenever I would be working at the family office I was, it was good. I was happy. But there's a lot in private equity, which was, you know, very much what we were doing that is not investing. I was combing through credit agreements. I was, you know, putting together all the actual qualitative deal side of things, which is helpful to get to know, but not what I love, not it makes me happy. And so then I compare that to, you know, off hours when I'm doing my own, you know, public market analysis on companies, my own investment portfolio and how much happier I was then, you know, to me, it was a no brainer that I had to make the move and do it as fast as I could.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:15] Very cool. So what did that culminate in? So were you looking for jobs or, you know, for jobs in the hedge fund space, the buy side space, or as long only like, did you do like doing long shorts? What were you trading in the after hours? Tell me? Like what? What was this passion of yours?

Chris: [00:36:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So some of it was naivete, right? But I was I was much more focused, I think on the long, lonely side. This really wasn't because I had never done shorting in my own experience, you know, didn't get a lot of the really big sales and trading type of exposure from a bulge bracket. So it was a little bit naive to that side of the business. Even though, you know you follow the headlines here. But all of it was I was thinking more along only. And so when I had left the firm, the family office and I was just doing a lot of a lot of consulting based work which was focused on valuation, on doing work like that for long only focused investors. That's kind of where I felt like my niche was and where I really specialized in.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:20] So you left, you left the firm without having anything lined up, just starting to do consultancy on the side, part time work, just saying, Hey, I need to figure out what I want to do here. Yeah. And I had

Chris: [00:37:30] Consulting gigs lined up.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:32] But how did you have that conversation? You're like, Where are you going? You're like, I'm just going to do my own thing.

Chris: [00:37:37] It was a difficult one. Yeah, it was a very difficult one. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. You know, and so I had, you know, I had a consulting gig lined up to help a friend build up his own private equity fund. I had some other things lined up for valuation based work. And so when that was the answer. I got a very, very tough response from that. It wasn't they were not happy. Ok, and then what? Yeah, yeah. Then the question was then what? And so when then what was going to find a job in a public market shop? It was basically like a good luck out there. But you know, you got you got to bet on yourself a long time because no one else is going to do it for you.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:17] So tell me how you do this. You launched your own fund eventually or were? How would we describe your capital management? You know, founder, experience your two years. Yeah, it was infested water by yourself or whatever told me God, somebody was like, because, you know, you hear this even from undergraduate, like, I'm starting my own fund or I'm going to do this. Tell me what it was like. What you went through. Yeah. So I'll start by answering the direct question first. It was a research and evaluation based consulting firm. Essentially, it wasn't. I wasn't. It wasn't a hedge fund. You were managing money.

Chris: [00:38:53] No, no. And so the reason for that is this, you know, I was very fortunate to come up with steep learning curve from not knowing anything when I joined the family office, actually being very aware of the space. And so you come to understand very quickly the probabilities of succeeding for emerging managers. And the reality is if you're not starting with cost fifty one hundred million dollars, at least, especially in this day and age, the odds of you actually being a sustain a fund is very small. And that lifestyle is brutal. I mean, very, very real. So I knew that I was not ready to start a fund, especially with, you know, how are you going to go out and fundraise? What's that story going to look like and how much of the money from an alligator? It's not going to happen, right? And so my goal, my plan was to build up some sort of, you know, basis and experience and a portfolio of research and ideas that I've done and some of a track record, if you will, of those recommendations that would just easily translate over to a hedge fund space. And so that's that was kind of the idea behind what I was doing. I didn't see Koven coming, which was, you know, lack of foresight. But yeah, there was I wasn't managing a fund, just my family and friends money, which was which made it, which was great from the perspective of I didn't have that pressure of of realizing capital, but also gave me the opportunity to develop a, you know, that pml-n's because there's a big difference between the analyst and PM and having that type of experience. So they gave me that excuse was I was fortunate to get. And so I started that. Yeah, it was some time in like I think it was mid to late, twenty nineteen and I thought, you know, I can do this for a little bit. I wanted to travel a little bit and and get that bug out of out of the way. And then covid hit. And so instead of end around coat, it was when I had started really recruiting, you know, I had a couple calls and meetings with some very, I would say, big name hedge funds, some that got bigger names in the headlines because of things that happened this year and last year.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:41:03] Go ahead. Yeah.

Chris: [00:41:06] But anyways, I set up process in about February, and I remember I remember I had a few things lined up in March. They were supposed to happen and March 13th rolls around. Koven was really starting to get bad and everything stopped. People just went off the grid. And so for the next nine months or so, I basically put everything on hold, and so I was very much a scrap. And as you can imagine, if everyone's not hiring, getting consulting gigs was that much harder. Yeah. And so my own workflow really died down, but I still had rent in New York to pay for a while. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Yeah, my savings account was not was not flush. After that, your rainy

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:41:55] Day fund was again,

Chris: [00:41:57] It was gone.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:41:59] So tell me a little bit about kind of how you progress and how you started as things started opening up, kind of where you started interviewing. It looks like you started. Maybe some startups in fintech. How did you end up a titan and just tell me a little bit about what you're doing now?

Chris: [00:42:14] Yeah. So I put on the networking blitz, I would say in June of twenty or so and really took my approach there. And it was a little bit later, actually, sorry, June 2020 is when I really started to get both on Twitter and Twitter is actually a big part of my story.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:42:34] It's interesting.

Chris: [00:42:34] Yeah. So I never I was never big into social media. Not a big Instagram guy, Facebook, et cetera.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:42:40] I want to pull you up right now while we're talking,

Chris: [00:42:42] But please do. Please do I have a very I have a very good friend who now has a almost 300000 followers on Twitter. But at the time, you know, tiny. And he recommended to me that I start just posting some of my ideas. You know, I was doing all this work for valuation consulting and research purposes and is on Twitter on into it and see and see what happens. Started doing that in like the June timeframe and all of a sudden just started developing a pretty sizable following. I would say that then evolved into me starting a newsletter where I was expressing those same ideas just longer form. Yeah. And you know that all really, I would say, snowballed into now. You know, I have, I think, thirty four or thirty five thousand followers on Twitter, whatever it may be. And so along this same route of me wanting to go to the public markets, I was like, Listen, I got to take the CFA if I'm going to be doing this too. And so I see if I got pushback, obviously from June 20 20, if I pushed back again till late December and push back again. I think I took it in February of this year, so pass level one and as soon as level one was done, that's when I really just went all out on on networking and whatnot. And so I probably one of the biggest benefits of Twitter was my network that was able to develop. You know, I've met and been able to talk to so many amazing investors, hedge fund managers and people that I just really, really respect. You know, I had alumni from my high school really help out. And so I probably spoke to not as many people as what I was trying to find banking. It was definitely a lesser number, but the quality of those interactions was significantly greater. And so I would say in February when I started. Talking to some funds. Nothing that was meaningful, just like, hey, like if we are ready to hire, will contact you, right? And so, you know, if you're trying the same thing over and over again, not making any sort of headway like you're crazy for just continuing that same process. And so I wasn't applying to jobs on LinkedIn or I was going to find jobs through any sort of mechanism like that because my thought process there was like, I don't have a traditional two and two background, right? I have this crazy, weird background. I was in banking at a boutique. I did some weird corporate finance role and then I was just some random family office like, who's going to hire me like from a traditional shop? And my thought process will like nobody. And so I was really just trying to network my way in. And then one day I was like, Listen, it's not going to hurt if I just throw out some applications here and there. So on Twitter, the very first day, I'm trying to do this on Twitter, I found a few hedge funds that were kind of hiring, and then Titan was a role that was just up there as an equity analyst. So check out the company, check out the role description. I was like, This is exactly what I want to do, you know, and not even close. And so I sent an application in that very day. I was writing a thank you or just a follow up email to the CIO. Like, Hey, check out the company I just applied. Very interested. Would love to have a conversation while I'm typing up this note on LinkedIn, I get an email from him thinking it was just, you know, this very generic. Thanks for. We'll be in touch if you know we think you're worthwhile. Yeah. Instead, it was, Hey, you just. I've been following on Twitter for quite some time now. Huge fan of your work. Would love to have a conversation. And so I'm like, holy crap, this whole Twitter thing actually paid off. Actually, that's really. So yeah, but you know that it definitely was nowhere near enough to get me the job. I went through a really. They put me through a very rigorous interview process. I had a very large case study to do. And went through quite a long process with these guys, but was fortunate enough to make my way through. And yeah, eventually got the job to Titan.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:46:36] It's awesome. So, yeah, tell me a little bit about your day to day there, how it's maybe similar or different from other kind of typical hedge fund job from what you know. And then. Yeah, I'd love to hear kind of. Well, first off, if you can maybe tell people a little bit about what Titan does and

Chris: [00:46:50] The whole, yeah. Well, I'll start with Titan does. The very quick description is that Titan is a hedge fund, but for retail? You know, that's probably the best way to describe it. And the mission is really to compound our generation's wealth. So many people don't know what to do with their money. And so instead of, you know, putting it into GameStop or, you know, yo, going through Robinhood, it's, you know, you give it to professionals and have a great experience where you're investing money, you don't have to worry about it too much. But we also we're constantly communicating with you and trying to help you understand the investing side of things and the power of compounding. And so that's a very quick, high level what Titan is founded in twenty eighteen. We now have three different strategies, two of which we've launched in the past year, essentially. One is a large cap domestic book. You can think about your very high quality compounder’s service now, Facebook, et cetera. Apple, Microsoft that we have a small mid cap book, which is we call opportunities, which is just like you say, it's we are looking compounders as well, but we will be very opportunistic looking for what we think is highly asymmetric risk reward opportunities. And then we have an international offshore fund, which is somewhat of a combination of the two, but I would say just more of the large cap domestic but offshore. We also just recently launched a bitcoin strategy, which has been doing incredibly well. And so that's you know what Titan is now. You know, we have an application, everything. It's mostly a mobile based product. But you know, my day to day is, you know, we have a team of four equity analysts and then we have our crypto analyst and we have our CIO who's also the co-CEO of the company. And so by the way, we've broken up the coverage universe is mostly by industry group, if you will, or type. So, you know, I cover a lot of the software names, semiconductors, but also anything more broadly TMT. It can be another name, consumer, et cetera. But we have an analyst that really specializes in those, too. We're generalists so hard we can cover any store name, any industry.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:49:02] Are you allowed to share how many assets under management you guys have or anything like that?

Chris: [00:49:09] Not sure if I can. I'm not sure if I can share that. It's mine.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:49:11] That's fine. And are you? Can you tell me approximately how big the team is? How what's the what's the prospects you guys have? I think you have funding, right? Yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about that. I mean, I think that's public information. But yeah,

Chris: [00:49:24] We just we just raised our series be led by Andreessen Horowitz. That was back in. It was right after I joined. So around July time frame. Mm hmm. So well-funded with and the way that entire team is structured. So the investment management team is the CIO. And then we have the four of us analysts and, you know, the bitcoin analyst as well. So it's five, I guess, total. Yeah. Then we have IRR. We've just hired a someone to really run like data analytics really around like our factory exposures and things like that attribution analysis, if you will. We have investor relations. We have really a broad group there on the core investment management team, but we also have a content team who does a lot of Editorial, you know, sending out comms to clients all the time, you know, posting on social media, et cetera. We have a massive engineering team who's really doing all like the back end work of the product and whatnot. So very a wide range and client experience, et cetera. So very wide ranging company that's grown from, I think it was eight people last year to now forty five or so. So growing very quickly. And so, yeah, the core investment management team, though, is very small and tight knit. But I think it's appropriate because our equity strategies we run are relatively concentrated portfolios fifteen to twenty five names each. And so I would say that my core coverage is about 15 names of names that we own. And so the way that is worked up until now and you know, we're heading into my second earnings with the company is that it's been a lot of time spent ramping on our names and really making sure that we understand the 80 20, right, this potato principle. What is the what's the core argument was bull and bear thesis, what's our risk here, et cetera, et cetera. And then, you know, my other time to spend generating ideas and doing pitching. And, you know, a lot of the time to I'm talking to friends that have gotten at hedge funds, talking to see what they what they're seeing, what opportunities they're looking at, things like that, you know? And so I would say it's nothing that's any different from any other hedge fund analyst. That's at a long, lonely. You know, we can do a lot of hedging and whatnot, but it's only a pod where we're very active and nimble, where we're trying to be more long term oriented. But we will still, you know, we'll trim names or here and there. If we think the risk is just not in our favor heading into earnings, you know, we'll add names if we think

that there's value

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:52] That was true on Facebook, I've been doing my little victory lap around trimming Facebook before they could, I could see all the e-commerce. I'm in the commerce communities. I could see them all freaking out from the apple, saying like, I can't track anything you, you know, I

Chris: [00:52:06] Can't track anything, right? Yeah, I

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:52:08] Know. What am I spending my money on? And same with us like we spent on Facebook and AdWords and like ad budgets for shifting to Google. So, yeah, I took

Chris: [00:52:17] It's really interesting. You know, everyone was giving Facebook a hard time over the past couple of quarters for talk to me about the IDF headwinds, but everything everyone else was like, it'll be fine. And then now everyone's like, It's all fine, not fine.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:52:31] And I think there is a reason they were taking out full page ads, trying to fight it or whatever.

Chris: [00:52:34] Yeah. And you know, I can't really comment on the space too much, but they're definitely going to be some beneficiaries of this that are not specifically performance based, you know, marketing advertisers. So interesting. It's very interesting. Yep.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:52:51] And maybe offline, we can talk because I manage to help manage a portfolio as well for some of our subscribers, too. So that's interesting. Yeah. Not actually managing a portfolio, but like almost like they can track it. Got it. Yeah. But anyways, this is really, really interesting. I'd love for you any other, like just looking back at your career, any other final words of wisdom before? Before calling it,

Chris: [00:53:16] Yeah, I would say the biggest thing, first and foremost, it's so easy, it's much easier said than done, but the biggest lesson that I learned is if you know what you want to do. Just go after it and don't take no for an answer until you get there. You know, in the application to me, and of course, hindsight's 20 20, but you know, instead of taking that city job, you know, knowing what I want to do, just waiting and holding out until I got what I wanted. That's probably the biggest thing. Know what you want. Create a plan to get their work backwards if you have to, but just never take no for an answer and just go after it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:53:48] I mean, I think it's tough because like in your case like this, you've mentioned senior year, you were pretty busy. It's not like you have necessarily the option to do that. So it's kind of like, yes, sometimes even if it's delayed or late, you can still make you make your way there.

Chris: [00:54:02] Yeah, no, I definitely think so. And I think that listen to you have to have priorities in life. And so yes, I was busy, but would have been a higher priority getting into like a belt bulge bracket bank, probably, you know. And so, yeah,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:54:15] Like all the pain it causes you.

Chris: [00:54:17] Yeah, no, exactly. But what I would say is that everything happens for a reason. Everyone has their own path. Embrace that and make every opportunity a learning opportunity because that compounds over time and on that. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:54:33] 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. And till next time.

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