WSO Podcast | E80: Arizona State to Bulge Bracket IB -- Growth Equity
About
In this episode, @BankerTurnedDrinkMaker shares his path from Arizona State to breaking into a bulge bracket investment bank. How he navigated coming from a non-target school, how he prepped for his interviews, how he networked and lessons learned along the way. Don't miss this one, there is some great insight!
WSO Mentors
Want to work with @BankerTurnedDrinkMaker? Click here
WSO Podcast
Or Listen to the Podcast Here:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
Resources:
WSO Podcast (Episode 80) 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, BankerTurnedDrinkMaker shares his path from Arizona State to breaking into a bold bracket investment bank, how he navigated coming from a non-target school, how I prep for its interviews, how he networked and lessons learned along the way. Don't miss this one. There's some great insight. Enjoy. Former banker turned drink maker, thanks for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:00:56] Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited. I've been following your site and you for a long time. So excited to chat today.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:02] Awesome. So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a quick summary of your bio.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: Yeah, definitely. So I started a state school and you know, my biology right now still says Anonymous. But I do want to say just so the listeners kind of have an idea of what I'm talking about. I was at Arizona State all the way over on the West Coast, and I decided I wanted to go into investment banking and I wanted to go into New York. So networked my way out there. Hundreds of emails and calls. We can go more into detail on that, but eventually ended up with a full time offer. There did not intern in the city, so hop straight to a full time. Investment banking at a bulge bracket did about three years there and then jumped into a growth equity shop, really doing series checks. Having left there after my two year associate program, I'm now working on my own startup idea, which is kind of the joke behind this anonymous tagline here is I'm working on a drink company right now on the side, while I also consult some startups doing some outsourced CFO work. So that's what I've been up to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:02] Very cool. So let's start all the way back at Arizona Arizona State, right? That's correct. Yes. So you were there for four years where when you kind of figured out you wanted to be an investment banker, one was that like freshman year, sophomore year or late,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:02:19] A little bit later. So I came in knowing I was I wanted to be a finance major and being kind of a driven type, a personality wanted to do something in finance that was challenging. So yeah, freshman year you kind of hear about investment banking at a small state school with no parental connection to finance. It wasn't the first thing I thought of. So kind of go through the standard motions, freshman year and then sophomore year I studied abroad. So then I'm coming back or it was just a semester abroad. But you know, you kind of lose a little bit of a recruiting cycle there. So I come back junior year and I wanted investment banking fully and there was a club on campus that helped students like me and, you know, prepping for interviews and figuring out how this process works, you know, in addition to things like your website. And I interviewed for that club and I will, you know, looking back now, that interview was about as intense as some of the investment banking interviews I had.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:15] So actually, did, you know is going to be as intense when you interviewed for that club? Did it have a reputation before you?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:03:22] It did. But you know, after having been on the other side, I realized it was purposely more intense. I was a junior. I was supposed to be like, you said I was at a state school. I was supposed to go in freshman year and say, I want to be an investment banker, and that's all I want now. I'm a junior, and they're saying we have three months to get you ready for interviews. You better know everything. So I mean, I'm talking kids asking me technical questions, behavioural questions and then one kid in the middle of the room would lob, you know, like a multiplication question at me at the same time. And that was the other thing. It was all peers, those people with full time offers already. In turn, already there's about 12 of them, the professors in the back of the room not saying a word. He actually kind of wants to apologize to me after, like, Yeah, you just got roasted.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:03] And so it sounds like you got in, though. So even though you got roasted and you felt like maybe you didn't do as well, was it? Did you did you stumble at certain points during that?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:04:13] Yeah, definitely. It kind of was a matter of preparation, which in general, I think is key right before this chat with you, I actually have pulled back up my old investment banking kind of interview file. It's a 200 page document. Like everyone, I've spoken to the conversations. We had done little stuff like notes to myself reminding me how to calendar guys something. So everything I did, I was just so over prepared because you got one interview. You didn't know if that was your only shot you're ever going to get. At least for me, this wasn't, you know, I'm not going through the full recruiting cycle on campus, and we could talk more about that later. But where 10 ten banks are coming in and all, you know, I didn't get the top two choices, but I got all these other ones. So I prepared like every interview. Like it was my only chance I was going to get. So when an interview like this came up, I was intense. Sure, definitely some stumbles and some.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:01] But even like even this internal peer group club, you knew this was like kind of your one shot was to get into this club.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:05:08] I thought so. I wouldn't have given up at that point, but it was just huge to get into this club. The club, it was a club and a class that included a weekly component that was really just a class, a finance class
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:19] And banking industry scholars. That one? Yep.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:05:22] Yeah. So every, every university or not, everyone, but a lot of these universities have smaller programs. Now I've talked to kids at Penn State and things like that or similar schools that have a club like that. But yeah, this is huge. So getting in on my own would have just definitely been a further grind for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:40] Especially like, why aren't you in that club?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:05:43] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:45] So tell me, like how many people were in that club? What was the. What was the success rate of people kind of going through that meat grinder that you did? Was it like a very low acceptance rate into that or was it high demand or just you had to kind of be in the know?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:05:58] Yeah. So just general numbers, I would say. And again, another part about it that was helpful was just the camaraderie. If I was just setting for these interviews by myself, it's just that's tough. So there was, you know, call it 10 to 15. Maybe I think there was like 12 in my class. The class fluctuated plus or minus. I'll speak round numbers because I don't want to put my school too much on blast here. But I would say so. I graduated college 2014, a couple of years before me, as she was lucky if one or two kids a year got a true, you know, investment banking offer in New York. You know, sometimes we'd send someone to sales and trading, sometimes private wealth, sometimes into Utah or regional branch. But it wasn't even every year. And then the year before me, there was a couple more and then my class I came out with, I think, four or five of us in my class, and they've been doing well since the classes underneath us have all been more consistent since. Once you get the base is any small states will knows, you know, you have more people, you can call on more recognition. And I think, you know, this is a kind of I'm not an HR, but I think this is a broader statement. But I do think and no disrespect to the brand name schools, but I do think HR is willing to take a risk or VPNs, and people are willing to take a little bit more of a risk on some state school people now because, you know, there was a point where some groups you'd have six of the seven analysts from the same school, sometimes, right? And now they're willing to say, OK, well, if we have five from these elite well-known brands and they're all at the same two schools and went to, we can't take a chance on a state school kid or two who's going to just grind and try to try to prove himself.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:41] Yeah, it's interesting. It's definitely a trend. I think the net has gotten much wider in terms of the target schools that the banks are willing to recruit at. And so you do see a lot more diversity across the analyst class in terms of school. So from and I think I think also part of it is that the banks are very cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of people coming to banking just looking to exit right away. And maybe they get the sense that the state school kids will be so, so grateful and thankful and want to prove themselves that they'll stick around. I don't think that's necessarily that true, but maybe anecdotally, there's a slightly higher chance they stick around for a third year
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:08:22] Or an associate year. Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked. It's good for everyone. I mean anything. It's good to see more people coming in for more more places like this. So it's exciting. And I'm excited for kids coming in now, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:35] Ok, so it sounds like your year was kind of a breakout year. Tell me a little bit. So you was that sophomore kind of a broad program, by the way? Where'd you go?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:08:45] Just curious. I went to Rome for a semester, so yeah, not the not the best pitch. Yeah, exactly. Not the best pitch for, you know, my whole story is about grinding and telling these kids to just buckle down. And I'm like, Well, I wanted to study abroad and I wanted to go for a full semester and I wanted to go to Rome and I wanted to go a little bit non-traditional. I went second semester because I don't want to mess up my football season. I wanted to be there for a football season first semester, so. So I did. I did base a lot of decisions about that. My sophomore year and then junior was time to crank and get the offer as early as possible.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:18] But was it in retrospect? Was it something where you knew about investment banking sophomore year and you just made that? You made that decision? And I'm going to join my sophomore year and not worry about it the next year? Or what was it? Was it more like you got back on campus and said, Wait a second, I do want this investment bank a little bit of the latter. It was still like it was up there, but I
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:09:35] Was like, I didn't. I was very naive. I was like, OK, I'm smart and I work hard. I'm in finance. Maybe I'll try to do private wealth or investment banking or consulting, but didn't really know. And I should have, you know, in retrospect, should have been grinding through case studies, but wasn't really sure at that point. So I interview when I was abroad. I remember I wrote down some notes before this interview. I didn't remember this until you brought up Rome. I was in a hostel in Budapest the first time I'd ever stayed at a hostel like twelve bucks a night, and they had free Wi-Fi because this was before I had, you know, five g on my phone and I had a log in and do an interview with like a small private wealth shop. And I had to like interview with this like hostel and was like checking in my email and like, what? What am I doing right now? Like this? The software is going to work out. So like I did, I got the internship while I was abroad, so I came back from Rome with zero dollars, basically. And the next day I started my first finance internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:31] While you're in school during school?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:10:34] No. So that was second semester. So that was the start of summer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:37] Got it. That was that was your sophomore summer. Exactly. Which is important to have that actually lined up because if you had finished sophomore summer with nothing on your resume, you're kind of going into. Into banking, recruiting even more of an uphill battle, so that was huge. Exactly. Ok, so you do that over the summer, you come back junior year, you're kind of more refocused and saying, Wait a second, I don't really want to do this private wealth management thing. I'm guessing and like, I'm going to I really want to go over this banking thing. So at that point is that when you apply to that club, that scholars club?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:11:06] Exactly. So I'm applying for the club, I'm reading everything.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:09] I'm surprised they didn't just reject you outright. Why would they take somebody so late?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:11:14] I kind of put in the work in terms of it's a small group of people want to do this. At that point when I was interviewing, I met half the people in the club. I knew the professor. The professor knew I'd done well on my other finance classes. I talked to the classes before the classes in there and other kids wanting to apply. So it was known and they it was known that I wanted to get in networking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:33] Basically, you made friends or you knew that you kind of
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:11:40] Exactly. And they'll look at juniors, but you need kind of an extenuating circumstance in a story to tell and kind of that drive and to prove yourself there. So it definitely helped, but they still kind of busted your butt a little bit on that interview. They were throwing everything at you. But then the professor apologized, felt bad. And then, do you think you performed well enough during it? They all. Obviously you did. But were you surprised that you got accepted after kind of that really tough interview?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:12:07] I don't think surprised, I said, almost just like relieved. It was kind of like you prepped so hard for something, and I think I did deserve to be. And I thought, You know, who knows, once you're in, maybe I did get a bulge bracket investment banking offer. Maybe I didn't, but I thought I could do well. And I thought this was kind of the the hinge point. So, yeah, I remember being in an airport and getting the email and being like, OK, now you've got to figure things out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:31] You got now you got a shot. You got a better shot. Ok, so you're exactly you're in this program, but it's still now junior fall, right? And you're what's the game plan here? Are you just blasting emails over LinkedIn? What do you what are the tools you're using? Are you hitting up every single alumni and sales and training banking? What's the path that this group uses? Are you making a trip out to New York? Tell me everything you guys did.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:12:55] Yeah, definitely. So you're especially as a junior, you're still you're kind of more on your own in terms of the networking. I don't know how the clubs change, but at least for me, it was kind of more like, we'll give you the tools, make sure you're not making yourself look dumb or our school look dumb out there. You know, have a couple of calls with the alumni first, but our network is not. Or at least when I was there, network was not so much where I was like, OK, talk to this alone at this bank, they'll make sure you're in a good spot. It was kind of like, talk to the alums first figure out how an informational interview is, so you don't sound dumb to someone who matters. So once I kind of did those, I was just reaching out to everyone. Any connection I could find back then, I wasn't some people where I wasn't as big on a LinkedIn. I would basically do my, you know, can't see me look quote unquote like creeping on LinkedIn. I'd be like, OK, this person is from the West Coast. This person went to a state school trying to find anything in our background that I could relate to. And then just guessing emails. I mean, hundreds of emails, hundreds of calls. I have like just memories of being like, you know, on spring break with my friends and pulling aside to go take a call. And I did go on spring break. But other than that, I mean, I was very much in the zone. That junior year was just kind of like in the car I'm listening to podcasts about. I'm thinking on my way to my finance class where I'm still sending emails. Stepping outside of class to take calls. And then, yeah, eventually, once I built up enough calls and meetings, I just came out to New York when I was, you know, kind of at that time where it was like, Hey, I've met enough people over the phone. I need to get in front of them or nothing's going to happen. And then even once I was here, I was still willing to meet anybody. I was talking with someone and at a coffee shop, he's like, Hey, my girlfriend's actually about to swing by. Do you want to say hi to her too? And I'm like, What she do? Sure, I don't care. And then by the end of this, he's like, Yeah, you should meet. She was like, You should meet his roommate, too. And she puts me in touch with his roommate, who was just anyone and everyone I could talk to at the end of the day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:44] Why do you think? What do you think set you apart that they even wanted to introduce you to more people? Do were you asking for that at the end? Like the typical Hey, do you have anybody else you think I should talk to?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:14:53] I do. I was, and I think you should. I think I was. Trying to say this, you know, it's hard for listeners without knowing me to for this to sound modest, but I think it was just something I was able to do well in a way where it wasn't so much. I've had so many calls
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:09] Where you don't have to worry about modesty since you don't even know who you are. So just be honest. Why do you? Why do you think you're able to? Kind of. Because I think those informational interviews, there's something there that was besides just putting in the work and getting those meetings in the first place. I think there's a lot of people that can do that and can kind of use some of the templates and get phone calls. But once you're on the phone, some people are great on the phone. Some people are really nervous and awkward on the phone. How do you how do you suggest that young students kind
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:15:40] Of feel
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:40] More comfortable, just reps just practice? Or is there a certain way to go about and hold yourself?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:15:46] It's great question and definitely reps, but it also is just and this is hard, but you have to think of it a conversation. Yes, if I called someone at a great bank and they're like, Brian, I want to give you an interview right now, can you come in tomorrow? Great. That's the absolute best. The conversation could go. But too many kids, I feel like because I answer every email. So I get kids from like FSU who are like, you're also into state school, you chat. And I'm like, Sure, you know, some of my banking friends said I was crazy. Like, you've got to say no to some of these kids, but everyone said yes to me. So or not everyone, but like enough people did. So I would just say I've had enough of those calls where it feels like whoever's calling me has the regimented five questions they want to ask and that they read online and they don't really change them. They don't really adapt to the conversation or the tone or the conversation we're having. And then at the end of like, please let me know if there's anyone else I could speak with. Right? You know, I'm probably not at that point,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:41] It feels like it feels like a formula.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:16:43] Exactly. And no one wants that. I just would say. And the biggest thing we talk with, you know what we were at the desk. We'd talk about this. You could just someone, someone next to me working next to me could tell how well the conversation went. Based off how I responded if we were talking about the weekend and I was talking about, you know, living in New York and when they should come out for networking trip at the end of the call, like, probably like, hey, you know, Sean's right behind me, why don't you talk to Sean? But if if they're asking these boring questions like, you know, kind of regimented, I feel like I'm just analyst. 37 be on their list. It's tough. So I just say, adapt the conversation, be relaxed, be conversational. And, you know, ask them, Hey, so I'm from the West Coast. If I'm talking to someone from the West Coast, be like, what was the transition like? I mean, you're having your first winter in New York, you're working one hundred hours a week. You didn't know anyone. Did you figure out what neighbourhood you wanted to live in? Like, how should I think about that when I'm scheduling a trip out there? What neighbourhood should I stay and they'll be most efficient? You know, things like that that makes it your person
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:46] Makes a little bit more less rote, less just more like actual. You've given some thought into the specific person you're talking to, rather than rather than like, OK, I'm going to go through my five questions of. Tell me about the culture of X Y Z Bank and tell me about this. And people are like, Oh gosh, not another
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:18:04] One of these. Exactly. I already just kind of ranted about this, but this is my one mini rant, and you might disagree and other people might disagree. But one of my least favorite questions, it's like a first year, second year analyst is when someone who's just a couple of years younger than me goes, what's your favorite deal? And it's like, Dude, I've been on the desk for six weeks. I haven't slept in four days. My favorite deal is the one that's over. Like, I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. I think it's a great question for an MD. I think because if you get it right on, like who's a nice guy and has done some cool stuff, they're going to tell you some interesting stories about sprinting to catch the private jet and barely getting the documents in time. Six months in or a year in, I don't know. I mean, me personally, I don't want to talk on my off, you know, quote unquote off time while I'm trying to help you about the specifics of a transaction. Maybe, maybe I'm just pessimistic about that, and I'm sure other people feel different ways.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:57] Know if you're young, you want to talk about things that entertain that you enjoy. So like you said, neighborhoods, maybe you like. Certain restaurants or eating out at certain places or your food, or maybe you like sports or trying to figure that out, I think is helpful. Yeah. Or sorry, go ahead. I think that's that's a better way to connect. Potentially, you can still talk about the bank and the industry, but the more you can make it like an actual connection in terms of like potential friends, I think it's a much stronger connection.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:19:28] Yeah, I agree. Or even just making me think in terms of like what surprised you when you hit the desk like, Oh, that's a great question. Now it's now more interesting than talking about M&A transaction fair.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:42] Ok, so you're let's go back to your story now. So you're basically. Doing something right? Sounds like you're making good connections, people are kind of introducing you to their girlfriends and their girlfriends and roommates, and they're. And you basically had did you set this trip up so you had done enough legwork prior where you how many how many meetings had you set up prior to the trip and how many days kind of were you? Had you planned to be out there?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:20:09] Oh, good question. Bring me back, I'd
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:11] Say probably logistically, I think it's a brilliant idea to do so. I'm curious, like, how did you stack your calendar and make it work?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:20:19] Yeah, and that's a good question. I've told alumni or students emailing this before. You know, they think they'll come out on weekend because then maybe they get to enjoy New York. Some they think the bankers will have more time. I've had I've taken now dozens and dozens of coffee chats with kids on the other end of the table. I maybe met one on the weekend. It was because it was like a friend of a friend from ASU and I was already at the office. So I'd say, don't plan your trip around the weekend or expect to meet people. I think I took full four full workdays out here and I probably had, I'd say, like maybe two dozen people where it was like we had an explicit or implicit agreement where it was like, Yeah, let me know when you're in town kind of thing like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:03] We'd already had that conversation 20 plus people. Yeah.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:21:06] And then you can't meet all of them and some people get busy. And then once I was here, even people who hadn't agreed to meet me or hadn't responded to me yet, I was like, Hey, I'm literally I would park outside somewhere in like 30 rock area or some atrium inside and be like, Hey, I'm outside your bank. If you need to grab a coffee, I'm like, right here. If you have, like, ten minutes. I remember talking to someone who they were like, I'll give you my smoke break. He was like, He's like, I got to smoke a cigarette in like 20 minutes. It was like 10 o'clock at night. I was getting no other meeting. I was like, Yeah, sure, this guy just came down, smoked a cigarette. He's like, All right, you know, clearly just burned out hard. And it was just like, What do you want to know, kid?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:45] Man, that's tough because it's like you're sitting there, especially if you don't smoke.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:21:50] It's like, basically,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:51] You're like, Yeah,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:21:54] It's got a dead look in his eyes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:55] He's like, dying.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:21:57] And what do you want to know?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:59] Don't get me wrong. You're like, you can just go to sleep. Sorry.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:22:03] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:04] So tell me to out of those four days, you had kind of 20 plus people who said they would meet with you around how many of those 20 would you say? I know you don't know the exact numbers, but like the 10, actually meet up with you or 12 or 15 and like another three or four kind of last second.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:22:21] Yeah, I would say I'd say at least half, maybe even more. Call it. I think I was I was averaging four or five meetings a day. Yeah, and just hustling all day, like going to the city in the morning. And then just like I said, if I sometimes I go three to four hours without a meeting, I would just be sitting there and someone would cancel. And you know, I email three people like, it's embarrassing. I still have emails where it's like, I'd email like three people like, I'm outside your bank and then like to email back and you're like, Oh, wait, never mind. I'm not like, it was bad. So, yeah, you want to be as structure as you can. But again, now, having been on the other side of the desk, you know, you kind of understand like you could have a meeting with some kid and just never show up because you're tapped on your shoulder and you leave your BlackBerry for two hours. So it's just it's definitely chaos, but I'd say you want to have at least a double digit number of meetings able to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:13] One of the reasons one of the reasons I ask you all these detailed questions about logistics is a little bit selfish because I have mentees through the Monkey and Millions podcast that I run. I mentor for kids that are in college trying to break in, and I have one guy who's going to New York planning a trip in April, and he already has a summer internship, so that's the beauty of it. He's not like trying to get in nice. He's really just actually wanting to talk to people in New York, and I'm trying to like coach him in terms of like the number of people he needs to have structured and the number of days. So this is actually really helpful.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:23:44] Hey, boy, you must have a good mentor.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:46] Yeah, yeah, he got the offer. Yeah, all these kids are all the kids are mentoring or super hard workers, so they're all going to do great. But so back to sit back to this. So you're kind of meeting with all these people. Is this what ended up turning into kind of the connection at the bulge bracket bank that ended up being kind of your foot in the door for a first round interview? Or kind of how do you what kind of came out of all of that work, all that legwork?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:24:13] Yeah. And I actually thought of this in a long time, but I actually interviewed for an internship with the bank. I eventually went to most a lot. I don't even think some of my friends know that because obviously I was very bummed about it. Yep, I interviewed their. Got to the final round, but when was that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:33] Was that after all this, your trip to New York? Did you get thrown into anything then or like right after,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:24:39] Right after that? I forget the timing, but I went with the right calendar in mind where it was, you know, Oh, let's pull you back. So then, yeah, I hadn't really thought of this in a while. But yeah, that's a keep on grinding thing. I clearly I didn't flame out where I made it to the final round, and I was kind of close enough. But you know, that could have burned those connections or they could have no interest. But I remember I just kept grinding, kept interviewing, kept networking in New York another time. And then it was kind of very started the senior year. Those people tapped me again, like, we actually don't have a lot of slots, but we have we're doing some full time direct hire interviews. So, you know, was good enough that second time. So it's just so persevering.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:24] So tell me about what did you do when you kind of struck out for that Ivy internship interview? Did you did you have backups? What were you thinking of in terms of was you like you said, you're kind of talking to everybody? And I assume it wasn't a spanking. You were kind of willing to go wherever and get take any sort of finance related internship. Is that accurate?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:25:46] Yeah, I hate to rank them, but I'd say after, you know, going from like kind of bulge bracket in New York and, you know, not really having a lot of other fish in ponds where I was confident I'd say I'd almost kind of work downstream like, Oh, you know, we were talking to some elite boutiques. We'll talk to some of the smaller boutiques. And it was kind of like and and I was still having these conversations throughout, but just kind of like, follow up more. So it's talking to regional boutiques as well all over the country and then ended up with, you know, no, no investment banking offer. I wanted basically, I had, I think, had an unpaid internship in L.A. I could have gone to, which is I had no connection to L.A. so I just lost a lot of money, basically. Yeah. You know, living out there for a summer and it was it was a sector I wasn't very interested in. I could have stayed at the small boutique investment bank. I was helping where I was getting like no technical skills. I was basically just sourcing. And then I had a good private wealth offer, and I often ended up taking was to go to one of the kind of best fund of funds. It was just a very good name, and I figured at that point, I need the biggest name on my resume. You know, I'm not going to gain enough skills at this local and the situation can be different for kids. If you're at a local bank where you're just crushing deals and you're getting tombstones and you're building models. The answer might be for you to stay there. But I knew that summer wouldn't look like that, so I wanted the biggest name I could where they could go, OK?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:16] I was just going to say, that's an interest. That's a very interesting point that you realized the actual experience you were going to be getting at these small. These smaller banks weren't going to be like, you weren't going to have a bunch of transaction experience on your résumé to speak of. So you just went for it. You just went for brand to try and give yourself rep for four full time recruiting.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:27:39] Exactly. It was a great offer. Interesting team. Interesting work. And I ended up getting more technicals there. And you know, I'm not really banking technicals, but more technical there than I would have at the local shop and was able to, you know, at story sold well and it was also a little bit of a hedge because it was a great shop. And, you know, they would have been willing to. It was a regional office, a good regional office, but they would have been willing to try to help me into their New York office after Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:04] Okay, great. So you didn't get so were you in terms of your Iby internship before we kind of move on to the senior year where you actually did you get a lot of interviews out of all that legwork and you said you got one? Did you get any others where you, like, made the final rounds or was all that work for like one interview? One for sure.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:28:25] Yeah, it's kind of depressing and a little bit scary, but there were, I think, had some other phone interviews, but not any any final rounds or getting called into New York offices like I wanted, you know, some some quasi interviews, some first round phone screens.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:42] Was that what was that like a wake up call to you?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:28:44] Were you shocked? Oh yeah. Oh, it was. It was definitely scary. I remember I would. I thought I was crushing it at this boutique. Really good shop. Really good team. Everyone was so nice. I talked to like five or six people and then kind of right before interviews, this guy just looks at me like, hey, like at the end of the day, the kids who get the interview are the ones who have someone pound the loudest on the table for you. And I'll be honest, I'm not that guy. And you know, you didn't go to my school kind of thing, and I'm not going to be that guy. It was kind of, you know, essentially different, not really much different words that basically said is like, Hey, you know, like you said, kind of like all this is for naught, you know, you're not going be getting an interview with us. And it's just like, Oh my gosh, you know, five or six phone calls, three or four coffee chats, really networking my way into the group to be like. You're not going to give me a shot. So it's definitely a wake up call, and it definitely definitely shows the all you need is one chance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:36] They didn't even give you a shot like, yeah, first round.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:29:40] Yeah, I was. I was a little bummed. This is a really tough year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:43] If you were my mentee, I would have told you to stop being so picky with the elite boutiques and the bulge brackets. And no,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:29:52] And maybe focused on the terminology, but I talked to everyone. Ok, OK, I'm surprised
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:57] You didn't get any middle market kind of New York bites. Maybe because you didn't. You weren't there. So it was tough with just the trip the two trips to get enough traction.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:30:06] That might be true. Some of the phone screens were more like I was talking to people literally Minnesota, Wisconsin. I was talking to everyone, but maybe I didn't. Maybe I didn't spend enough time on kind of some of the lower middle market shops in New York, which I did in San Fran, and was able to get some traction there. But I really was focused on New York.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:23] Yeah, because if you're if you're if you're kind of if you were able to really have some introspection, see where you are relative to your thing. So like you did all that work at that elite boutique. And yet still, you didn't even get a first round interview. I think if you had had that perspective going in, you might have been a lot more aggressive with the middle market in regional places just to try and get into it into a shop that had that would have given you. Summer analysts experience that had some sort of deal transaction experience because I think I think that would have made you a little bit more competitive going to senior. It all worked out, obviously. Yeah. And so maybe that maybe that that networking obviously paid off. I think long term because you were you were around the hook. Right? So exactly you've got the brand name on your resume. You stayed around the hoop and then come your senior year. Why don't you go ahead and take it off from there? So what? What happened? Kind of what was the break?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:31:15] Yeah, I mean, I was still doing the grind like I had been for really the last year and, you know, you start getting nervous, but you can't really kind of doubt yourself. You know, there's definitely times when, like, do I need to start grinding and figuring out how consulting interviews go or something, right? Which is kind of late for that at that point, too. But it just kind of kept at it, then got the call again over prep for all these interviews, like I have been got came in, you know, got through the first round, got through the and I thought I was kind of doing really well. I remember this guy was kind of a kind of charismatic out there personality. He literally goes, I'm not going to name drop the Ivy League school, but he goes, I've been interviewing kids for so, so and so all day puts his feet up on his desk and goes, Talk to me, you're from Asia, why are you here? And I was like, OK, I'm going to crush this. This is going to be fine. We're going to talk. So that's kind of the interviews we're going. I was really excited. And then my final round interview was that the group had a stoic, stoic northern European gentleman, and I was just zero sense how the interview is going. And my last, yeah, it was like the head boss was like, no sense how this thing is going. And I just remember one of the last questions was like, All right, so if I give you an offer, what do you do? And I was like prepped for that. I just smile, look at him. I was like, Give me a sign right now. And he kind of chuckled. So then, yeah, then I get the call as I'm leaving for the airport.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:32:42] Um, you know, you know, we want to come out for full time. That's great. Yeah, so that was earlier a senior year, and that's my, you know, kind of advice for people and this is and it's funny for the listeners. Patrick actually emailed me about what was it five years ago, five years ago? Yeah, he spoke to our club and he actually found the email. And it's a whole amazing email. And I remember getting this advice. I don't know if I could have attributed it to you five years later. But yes, he gave me the advice to go in and enjoy your senior year. Life's about to be a lot different, and that was just so true. And that's my advice for I. Get the offer, get the internship, get everything as early as you can because college is a lot of fun and you're meeting a lot of people who can still help you career wise down the road, you know you still got to go to class every once in a while and do extracurricular. And but it's a fun time, you know, go to your football game to get that offer and study abroad if you can do everything you want, because once you get that desk full time, that is your responsibility. You know, my job, my job junior year was to get a job, and then I got that and was able to enjoy my senior year. And then once I got here and had that job, you know, that's it. My job is to do well. I didn't go to the gym. I didn't really work on extracurricular or myself. I worked on going to going to the desk and catching up that first year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:00] Yeah, it's tough. I would love to hear a little bit about just in terms of what those first few months were like. You know, being the state school kid surrounded by a lot of target school kids and was there like an extra motivation. Did you feel like you had something to prove? And then specifically, did you feel like you were behind at all or did you feel like you kind of belonged?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:34:23] Great questions, all of it. So a couple of different things, I would say. If anything, I felt more. I don't know if I felt behind, but maybe a little. And if anything, that was because of not having intern, not because of the state school thing. So actually, there was a placement class, an accounting class before we went to training. I didn't even really realize I placed into like, quote unquote the 18 of the accounting team because I was a finance major, I took accounting classes. Some of my peers that interned didn't take those accounting classes, you know, nothing against them or their school or their program. They just didn't have those accounting classes. They were taking econ. Maybe I have three accounting classes I took, so I didn't really feel behind. And in that sense, it was more the fact they spent 10 weeks there. They knew everybody, they knew how it worked. You know, I was, I wasn't. I didn't even know how to save up the proper format, how to be the right version up that they like to use in the group. They knew everything. So I felt more behind in that aspect. So that was that was definitely a grind and you're all working a million hours. So it's hard to be like, Oh, well, I work a hundred hours a week and they work forty, so I'm getting caught up faster.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:35:31] Know you're all grinding in there together, but I took it from camaraderie is definitely good. There is some something to be said about the state school kid around, you know, non Ivies. I was very apparent and I think that definitely did. It definitely did drive me. I handle it. I'd say a little bit differently than my other issue friends, my a good friend of mine who had already interned. So he kind of walked around his bullpen like, Yeah, what's up? I went to his shoe without having intern and not without really kind of having proved myself in known people. It was kind of more like, you know, first couple of months is more like kind of like hiding it or hiding behind it. And then after that first. Yeah, exactly. And then after that first year when I kind of proved myself and was, you know, had had mentors and, you know, was respected by my peers, it's kind of like, Yeah, what's up? I'm going back to ASU right now to visit Alumni Week. It's February. I'm going to go golfing, you know, enjoy your enjoy your East Coast weather. I had a I had a good time at school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:28] That's funny. That's funny. I love it. So in terms of. So it sounds like you knew you were there for almost three years. Were you considering at any point kind of staying longer going, getting direct? Associate Promoter? What was the what was the at what point where you like, Hey, maybe besides interesting to me?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:36:45] Yeah. So it's tough for kids now because they just get the interview so early. My advice is really just to kind of don't take an offer just to take an offer because you're miserable, take an offer because it's what you're excited about what you want to do. I don't know if you can know that after the first couple of months, so it's tough, but you also don't want to get left behind. So I mean, I knew know, I think people know pretty early on about a year end, I was like, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a career investment banker. I think I knew that beforehand. But this cements that. But I debated and went through everything, know I went to hedge fund interviews. I interviewed at startups. I did interview at one point, you know, about two year mark for anything and everything was like, I just need to get out of here. And then it was kind of like, Did that hurt you?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:27] That that kind of lack of, I'll say, lack of focus or with recruiters? Were you very specific with them or did you kind of change your story depending on what recruiter you were talking to?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:37:36] Great question. So I actually was consistent with recruiters. So when I first went in, all the recruiters I talked to, I said I wanted to go to a long, short hedge fund in New York. Ok, so it's very focused, so those are that's all I was interviewing for the first couple of months because that's all I like the stock market. I didn't I didn't know anything enough about the buy side to know where I wanted to fit. I didn't think I wanted to go to a buyout shop because I was on the other end of that and I was like, Well, I'm not loving this here. Am I going to love the other side of the table that much? So that's kind of like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:05] That's, you know, you said something interesting. You said, don't take an offer if you're just because you're miserable. But I take it if you're going to love it. But I think it's really hard for kids 20 to even a year into your banking gig of, like all you know, is banking. So what it's really like, I mean, it's very hard to know, I think, until you're in that seat. So it's anything you could kind of just open their eyes a little bit in terms of what it's like. I mean, obviously, it depends day to day, but what type of person would like, you know, private equity versus hedge fund? Do you have any perspective on that?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:38:40] Yeah, it's tough. The reason I was interviewing for hedge funds was because I did like that analytical work. I liked the kind of following the market. I was doing that even in banking, and I was getting some traction. I wasn't crushing these interviews by any means, but I was getting, you know, case studies and going to second round hedge funds. The interviews are definitely a grind because, you know, there's it's not as kind of formal as the P. Yeah. So I'm interviewing and I'm kind of, you know, wading through the water here and this is my story was always that. And then it was kind of like that. I wanted to go to the hedge fund. I'm kind of taking a step back a year and a half two years in, and I'm starting to get just crushed. And it's kind of like, OK, I need to leave after my second year. That's what people do. I need to leave out, you know, looking for interesting startup gigs on this or do I want to go to a buyout shop? And actually, I never interviewed for a true buyout shop only growth, equity and even some B.S., you know, kind of smaller ones
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:39] Before you before you continue. You said you're getting crushed. It's like 90 hour weeks consistently.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:39:44] I'd say plus. Well, yeah, we definitely had some. I mean, I was on a pretty big transaction at one point, and it was just kind of like, you know, the hundred hour weeks was actually like a thing, you know, it's like I worked 120 hour weeks every week, you know, it wasn't like that. But yeah, it was. I remember I just told the story. The other a couple of weekends ago, we had some friends who didn't really kind of know what we were talking about. When we're like, we used to be really busy in banking. It's telling the story about how I thought I was going to eat my friends out, you know, get a deck at six p.m. on a Friday and be like, Oh, it's fine, I'll meet you guys after dinner. And then it's eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock. And it's like, it's fine. You know, I was 21, 22 years old. I was like, Yeah, I'll meet you guys at midnight. I don't care if bars are open until four in New York and it being two o'clock and then looking down, and it'd be 4:30 in the morning on a Friday night being 22 years old and be like, I just worked two hours close and I had to come back in tomorrow morning. Like, that's a that's a tough realization. So when you're doing that, yeah, you're responding more to recruiters emails outside of your interest. So. So that's kind of happening. But then I take a step back and start reading about what I really want to do, and it kind of came down to I think I would have really, really liked to work for a hedge fund for a couple of years.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:40:58] I don't think just personality temper, temper wise, I was going to be in it for 10 15 years to be a PM of some fund. So I kind of thought about what I wanted to do long term, and that's more what I'm doing now is trying to start my own company or work for a really early stage startup. Well, you know, the path to do that, it's not really a hedge fund, it's not really a buyout shop. So I started reading more about growth equity. So then I tell the ABC and I didn't really want to do VC, and I wasn't really willing to move to San Fran. So then I tell the recruiters, I want to grow with equity shop and I want it in New York. And then they're like, Great, what about this hedge fund in Philly? You know, sometimes. So it's it's tough sometimes. And I went back to networking mode. I wasn't really getting a lot of the opportunities I want. I was getting some interesting stuff. You know, maybe it'd be a little bit too large or maybe be in San Fran. Or maybe it was a sector I didn't like. So then I just really Google the best growth equity shops in New York. I mean, as you know, there's just not a ton. Most of those ones are more in San Fran, right? Or SF San Francisco. Listeners will shoot me for calling it San Fran
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:03] When that's fine. Why were you so focused on staying in New York, on the East Coast, so young in your
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:42:08] Career, so early? Yeah, I really just fell in love with New York. I always wanted to get out here. I was born in California and assume I might go back out there eventually. Yeah, San Francisco disenfranchises me a little bit. You know, I kind of went out with the intention of being like, Could you live here? And kind of being like, Not really. I miss New York. So it's pretty set on that. You know, if I was more miserable, you know, six months prior when it was like, I'll take anything and a pee shop in Miami made me an offer, it's at 23 24. It's hard to say no to, but kind of just staying focused and looking for the right opportunity. Googled best daiquiri shops. You know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:45] I wonder if I wonder if Debbie also popped up for that search? Possibly. It might have.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:42:51] It honestly might have. I might have gone through one of your guys list. Yeah. So I have a couple of calls and then this one guy, it was just, I'll never forget, he was just like, Hey, man, what's up? Do you want to if you want advice or do you want a job? And I was like, what? And he's like, I'm running our firms hiring process for an associate right now. I'll give you advice. But like, we're trying to hire someone like now. And he's like, I'm doing. I'm conducting the interviews like this week. So like, do you want chat? I was like, Yeah, so on that spot that became an interview, not like a phone interview. That was like an actual interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:21] And what was he? What did he ask you? It was a
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:43:26] Little bit, but not too much. You know, it was a technical or two to make sure I wasn't dumb kind of thing not grilling me. Just kind of behavioral. Why do you really want growth equity? Do you know what we do? Behavioral? Talk me through some deals. Make sure I'd actually had some experience. It was funny. You know how you're on the phone call, and I hope kind of conveying my points. Well, you know, you have you have a lot more experience with this. I can tell that your audience connects with you, but it's hard to tell how a phone call is going sometimes. And I could just vividly picture this guy at the end of this phone, call him like groaning and slapping his head like, Oh God, the kid did good. Now I got to squeeze him into this process like he already had his. He'd already had the schedule made up. He'd already like, submitted the resumes to the partners of the fund, and he was just like one of those kids kind of like bomb it. So like, I didn't have to worry about it. Was like, All right, man, it's Friday afternoon. It's like, OK, I got to talk to everyone. Let me get back to. He was like stressed about it. He's like, Oh,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:23] You're making my life harder.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:44:24] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He's like, Oh God. But you were ready.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:28] And how far along was this at your at your bullet bracket analysts to two and a half years in at this point?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:44:35] Oh yeah. So I should mention that that was right around the three years. So I was kind of an early promote to associate, which was kind of just what the banks were doing at that time. You know, I wouldn't. It was going well, though my my third year, there was my best year after two years. And you know, you're better at your job, you're more efficient, built up some cachet with people. And I personally, you know, we're talking about exit ops for people who want to stay. I personally liked Associate much more than being an analyst. It's not for everyone. There's a lot of issues with it. But personally, I don't like FactSet pools and graphs and charts and formatting. I like a little bit of reading, equity research and strategic thinking. And you know, and I like being a mentor. I like talking, I like talking to students and I liked, you know, I was kind of the guy who was supposed to run our internship class, that kind of thing. So I enjoyed I enjoyed it and things are going better, better hours. And then I got this offer right after the kind of the promote in the full third year is over. But before I sign on the dot to get the associate bonus kind of thing. So in between there and then took six weeks off and kind of backpacked around Southeast Asia and then decided, you know, and then came back in. The next day was my day at the new firm where I did my two year program.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:55] Wow, so you well, obviously, let's go back to. So the guy did the call with you. He was like, Oh man, I got to fit you into this process now this this fund. And so was it like interviews the following week?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:46:07] Yeah, exactly. And I was actually back to being busy. I think it was I was put on a bake off at the time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:13] So how did you get out? How did you when did they do it at night? Yeah, weekend,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:46:17] You know, it was. It was just late. It was late afternoon and the only issue I had was, you know, I had to step out and people kind of know, you know, everyone thinks they don't know, but everyone knows. Yeah. But he actually had me meet the whole firm and I didn't realize that. So they had I think they had their interviews all scheduled for Monday. And then like he had me come in Tuesday afternoon and I didn't realize it was literally walk from office to office and interview with every single person. So I think I think I said to be out for like 90 minutes. I came back two and a half hours later. And it's kind of like at that point, your VP's looking at you and your analyst is sitting on his hands wondering what to do. You know, I gave them work to do in the meantime, which definitely helps. But you're kind of like, what can you do at this point? You know, you're kind of going for it. And I still stay at it. You know, I ended up being in the office until two or three that night. So just, you know, moving the hours later?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:08] Yeah. Is there a risk of doing that? Do you feel like there are some places, some banks that would just cut you or you felt like your relationships were strong enough to withstand that,
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:47:16] That I felt like my relationships are strong enough and you have to be smart about it. You know, I cranked before and did the work that I could do while leaving work that things are going to progress. And I I forget who is working with me at the time, but they were great where I felt like, OK, if I'm gone two hours, maybe three hours of work isn't done, but it's not going to be 60 minutes of work. You know, there's going to be some progress here, right? So I felt a little bit more comfortable. But yeah, it is definitely a risk at some places.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:48] Fair. I remember at Rothchild I had to do all that working 90 plus hour weeks, somehow going out. I remember I had a hedge fund interview in Connecticut. I had to take a train out at like six a.m. before. No, and I had like I had complete. I had completely. Like, not even I slept like four hours or something or three hours. You have to go out on a train, come back and do a full day. It was just brutal.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:48:16] How did you do?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:17] I didn't do very well, I think. Yeah, I was. I think with the hedge fund stuff, I took hedge fund interviews as well. I just my pitches weren't polished enough, you know, in terms of the long and the short pitches, like, I don't even think I had anything good. So like, I quickly flamed out on most of the hedge fund interviews because I didn't even know what to how to prep. And I was I was much more prepared for the private equity interviews because talking about my deal, talking about complex
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:48:42] Capital structures, I worked
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:43] On restructuring, so it was easier. Oh, nice. So I could kind of pull on
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:48:47] Those
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:47] Those experiences to make a case. Yes, it is, of course, so you end up kind of getting the offer and then did you quit like soon after or because I mean, you, you basically.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:49:02] Pretty aggressively, yeah, pretty aggressively soon, it was kind of like I had a big project, the Bake Off, and so I got the offer on like a Tuesday and the Bake Off was Thursday, and I was like, Hey, look like I'll do my two weeks. But like, I already have my firm start date at the other firm and you don't need me for you're not going to staff me for a week. I literally listed out what was going on and all my, you know, because at that point, you kind of not just deals with kind of companies, and I was kind of listed out like, no one's doing anything right now. This Bake Off is what I'm doing. That's why you put me on this bake off because I am much going on before it. I will finish this thing strong and I'll stay for two weeks if you want me to. But can can we just make Friday my last day? I'll go out on a positive note and I can go on my trip a week earlier and I'll be happy. And they're like, So you're not staying till summer to help us with the interns. This is like March. I was like, I was like, No, I'm sorry, guys. Oh, man, I will say that though.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:49:55] You think so. At the time, I was nervous. You know, I'd done the three four years I thought I built up these good relationships, including some important relationships with people I'm still in touch with. Yeah, but you know, there's going to be analysts and associates much better than me that leave and, you know, ones who weren't quite maybe as good as me. But regardless of how good you are or how good you think you are. Investment banking wheel keeps on turning, whether you're there or not. I thought there's going to be a little bit of a delay or a little bit of people being. I came back for welcome drink or going away drinks for a good colleague two months later, which I never did again. It was just a really good friend left two months after me, I was like, I'm going to go to this, you know, I had enough people. Technically, I'm going to go to this. Some of the VP's didn't even acknowledge me in terms of not that they were mad at me, but didn't even acknowledge that they had seen me in too much. It was just like, Oh, hey, Ryan, they are just like, no need to even notice, you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:45] You don't even like it skipped a beat.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:50:47] Yeah. Like they're just they're out there cranking to try to get home to their wives or husbands as soon as they can. And they're just like, Oh yeah, I haven't seen Ryder around the office in a while. It's like, know he quit two months ago.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:59] So tell me a little bit about what the jump to growth is. So you're working those crazy long hours, you jump. You're now kind of in a two year growth equity program. Tell me what growth equity is like less modeling, more modeling, more just like just, you know, tearing through Sims every day. What's what was it like day to day?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:51:18] Yeah. So I was really fortunate in some aspects and had a little bit of a different experience than some in other aspects. I would say not too many Sims. We had a really good biz dev guy. So we basically I had to look at bankers sent deals, but it was kind of like, you're looking at it, poking holes in it because we didn't want to do it any way. We don't want a competitive process at the firm. We didn't affirm I was at. We wanted because you're paying a higher multiple, you know, the I'm stealing this quote, I think, from our biz dev guy. But it was by definition, if you win a competitive process, it's normally because you pay the most. So. Right? So we didn't want that. So there's a lot of him. And it also helped because I didn't have to do much. Biz Dev. I did, you know, some in the aspect that I wanted to or liked it, but it was really him churning and burning through deals in our partners, bringing deals. So not a lot of Sims, but I'd say reviewing a lot of decks and a lot of bad company models where they're sending stuff to us. I have to figure out how to digest it. But it was a great experience. I was fortunate my first year there. We closed three we all call platform deals series, so you can kind of do the math on that or the students can and three of those and then one or two follow on. So, you know, I had this first year where I learned a lot and I was busy and I got deals for the resume. But I also was like, I'm going to the gym now. I can go to dates on a weekend like my bosses are fine with me leaving early on a Friday. This is amazing. So I really enjoyed the transition. The flip side and what I left behind is I did take a pay cut. I was at a kind of a small growth equity shop as opposed to going friends, going to a buyout shop. We were still working late hours, but you know, they took a pay increase, know I took a pay decrease, but a huge lifestyle increase.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:54] So let's talk about the pay from your analyst days all the way up through the growth equity shop. Can you give me a range in terms of I mean, I think everyone knows the salary at both brackets. What is it? Eighty five or eighty four?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:53:08] Seventy five? So when we signed the Dot, it was 70 and then it was like, I think while we were at training. Yeah, I think even at trade, they're like, Oh, sorry, we're doing eighty five now. You're like, OK, yeah, great. So I've been pretty specific in this. So I'm going to be kind of vague on the numbers here. But I would say, if anything, my first year came in slightly less than what I would expect and what you would expect is kind of the average, you know, maybe I probably thought my first show is probably in the middle and I probably didn't end up in that middle range. And then by the time I my third year, the bonus right before I left that had grown to kind of kind of the top four, not just my group in that year, but kind of four third years at the bank. So, you know, some big growth there to where is a substantial size. And you're looking at a very substantial sum you're leaving behind because I would have got an associate bonus and then the associate pay, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:08] Just how much is the bonus like the stub?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:54:12] It was like a signing bonus, so it wasn't huge, like twenty
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:15] Thousand twenty five thousand.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:54:16] I think that was about right. And then you get some time off, you get a huge, huge salary increase and then the potential, you know, I saw with my third year, I saw my bonus could be and could be going forward.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:28] So that went all six figures at some point. So like even well over a hundred thousand up to two hundred K for four?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:54:38] Yeah, absolutely. And I was already saying that, you know, my hours are getting a little bit better. I like the lifestyle a little bit better. Yeah, but it was kind of the longer you stay, the longer you're kind of sucked into that bonus. And, you know, people can ask about that or think about that too. But you know, there's pluses and minuses, but I was ready to leave. So how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:56] Big? How big was the pay cut? Jumping to growth equity shop. I know it's smaller. It's a lower middle market shop. So my guess is salary was was lower that they try to match in salary and just had less of a bonus.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:55:07] I would say closer to that, I was I was. So my advice to people will read this online and people told me this before I started. But once you moved to New York, you're young. It doesn't really matter what your salary is, it kind of just gets blown. You kind of end up blowing your salary, but just save your bonus. Just whatever your your bonus is, park the entire thing into your Robinhood E-Trade account and to, you know, put and then put the rest in your high yield savings. Because your salary, you don't think your lifestyle is increasing, but all of a sudden you're like, Well, I hope that check that used to be too big is now gone. So at that point, I'd switched and now I had this bigger salary. So it was like, OK, you start saving the salary because the bonus that comes is not going to refill all the coffers. So it was a much lower amount. But it also takes some of the stress out because, you know, banking, you go in like, am I going to get zeroed out? Am I going to get five figures or am I going to get six figures? You know, that's pretty stressful. Yeah, it was much, yeah, much lower beta in growth equity.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:05] Got it. So you're there for a couple of years. What is it known kind of going into this, that it's a two year program and out? Or is it what was your thought process in terms of next steps? And when did you start thinking about that? It sounds like you've got some great experience in your first year ever considered business school or were you kind of itching to do your own thing?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:56:23] Oh, yeah, yeah. Good question, so I have friends in business school now and tons of friends who did it. It just wasn't right for me. I never really considered it. It was more kind of like I was. I would talk to people to further rule it out. You know, I'd love to take two years and go travel and meet a bunch of people and improve my network at this point. It's very unlikely. And unless I do this startup that I'm working on and then do another startup, and all of them fail and I'm like, OK, I need to reset somehow. Yeah, but at that point, you know, you're going to a pretty substantial debt for it. So I never really considered business school. I knew I wanted to go to startup, but I wanted to go so early stage where it was the firm I was at. It was like, you know, we're writing these checks for these companies that are already valued in the tens of millions of dollars. The equity piece I was getting or could get at a company like that's not substantial enough. So I knew I wanted to kind of be seed or precede, which is very early. So I left with the intention of starting this business idea I had while networking and consulting startups on the side just being very cognizant of, you know, a lot of startups fail. This is a startup in the beverage space. I don't have beverage experience besides working on consumer deals. So, you know, kind of hedging that bet a little bit there. And when you're looking for a seed or precede company, it's not like I just call up the recruiters, you know, I'm doing research and networking and waiting for the right opportunity as well. So it's not, you know, for the first time, I think I wrote a little LinkedIn post at the time. You know, for the first time in my life, it was like, I'm waking up and not really knowing what the next step is tomorrow. But, you know, it's exciting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:51] So are you you're looking for a company to kind of have that seed investment and you're not looking to kind of start it from zero. You want something that's kind of started and an operator in place. So that's my hedge right now. Right now, I'm full steam ahead, 100 percent working on my own company that I'm trying to start. But yeah, if that were to kind of fall apart, I'd want to be the second a co-founder, the third higher, the fourth guy who's the finance person that helps them get that seed round and that Series A as opposed to coming in and getting, you know, 10 bit of equity. I want a substantial piece in the next one, which is why I'm working on my own thing. That's fair. How's it going? It's going well. It's exciting. I mean, it was I was in research mode for so long. And, you know, now it's like I'm incorporating, I'm picking which logo I want. I'm I had a fiasco the other day because the bottle I sent to my guy may not work. And you know, it's problem solving and challenges and you're not used to from your prior life. Like, you know, trying to figure out the logistics of all this, working on designing a Shopify page. So it's exciting. It's fun to move things forward. That is cool. I want to I want to see what it is. Once you're once we're off this call, you can shoot me a link, but it sounds good. So tell me a little bit about like, what's next for you? Just keep grinding with this. See, see what happens kind of support yourself as a kind of freelance on the side while you're building this up and then kind of just take what comes and see, see how it all kind of where the pieces fall in a couple of years.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [00:59:24] Exactly. So the plan now is to I have a couple of landmarks with this, this idea I'm talking about in terms of like basically bottles of sold, you know, there's leaps and bounds you have to make with minimum bottle orders. So I need to show some progress, realize I have some traction and realize I have an audience or kill this idea as soon as possible, you know, right? Fail fast if I'm going to fail. So if I'm hitting milestones and making progress and growing and keep at this for a while and see what happens if I'm not, I need to be smart enough to kill it quick. Then I'll probably go lay on a beach for somewhere, for a week and then I will. Because like, because like we talked about, I say those bonuses. And it's important and it is scary not to have a W-2 anymore, but there's a little bit of freelance income coming in every once in a while. It's kind of I'm not chasing it right now because I am working on this idea full time. But as it comes in, if I could take on a model, you know, we have that background now where it's easy to knock out, right? So then if that all you know, like I said, if I'm on the beach and trying to figure out next steps, I would just have to find a company that I'm excited about. I'd take the two three months, whatever it takes to find someone where I'm employee number four at this cool sports gambling startup and they need that finance guy and is in New York. And, you know, maybe that perfect opportunity that checks 10 of the 10 boxes in and out there. But I need to check enough of those boxes that I'm excited to kind of hop out of bed every day and have a piece of equity in it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:00:52] I totally agree. I think that makes a lot of sense. So tell me a little bit about or if you could, before we call it, I think if you could look back and give advice to your younger self, maybe while you're in Arizona, what would you what would you say? Would you have changed anything with your advice you'd give?
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [01:01:10] That that's tough.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:14] I mean, you've kind of done what you wanted to do and succeeded, so. Yeah, I've had a lot of help along the way, so I'll say that and I appreciate that, but I would say the biggest thing is just to keep grinding, you know, if not getting that interview at that elite boutique. And it didn't matter because I did. It didn't matter. But I wasn't upset because I did everything I could so don't ever leave anything on the table. I went into every interview with the mindset that if I don't get this, if I don't move on, it's not because I didn't do enough. You know, something, maybe something out of my control, but you know, I wanted to walk in like it was almost like they made a mistake if they didn't give me an offer. And to do that, you just have to be overly prepared. And not that I was, you know, I'm not saying I'm always the best, best candidate who walked into every room, but I think you need to have that mindset while also being humble to get an offer. You know, you can't walk in and tell them you're the best hand in every room, but you need to be confident and poised with your preparation.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [01:02:11] That's I guess my biggest thing was just, I don't think I got that internship junior year because I wasn't confident I was. I walked in and I was probably trembling. I was probably so nervous. So then I, you know, took the time and prepped. I literally made a list of questions of every question. I didn't want to be asked and wrote out a response to it. So and I prep those so much that I almost wanted to be asked them. So if you're if that's your mindset and you're prepping like that, then for everyone listening, you're going to be OK. Things are going to work out. It's scary. And the unknown sucks, especially for type a driven people like are on your on your site and listening to this podcast. But if you grind and prepare like that, things are going to work out well. So that's why I tell my younger self is to don't be. Don't be so nervous. Things work out if you keep this up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:56] Yeah, I agree with that. I think Prep can kind of build that confidence, and I think a lot of people kind of do a couple of mock interviews and practice to their friends, and they go in and then they get blown out and they're nervous and they're not really ready for prime time until they've done like 10 interviews. And sometimes then it's the problem is, you know, they've missed their shot. But if they keep grinding, keep networking, they can get, they can get another shot if they stay around the hoop.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [01:03:19] Exactly. I like that. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:03:21] So awesome. I think we'll end it there. Thanks so much for taking the time.
BankerTurnedDrinkMaker: [01:03:25] Thanks for taking the time. I know I ran a little long there, but just exploding. These state school thoughts have had building for a while, so I appreciate it, appreciate the opportunity and appreciate your site for helping people like us get on.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:03:36] There's a lot of fun. Thanks so much. 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.
or Want to Sign up with your social account?