D
Deleted35442
Guest
Have I got your interest? Thanks to whoever approved my registration. Quick background. Ran a business in Secondlife when I was a kid drawn to the allure of the few who struck it big there and how people were loose with their cash eager to buy into a virtual lifestyle (essentially, building a plastic fastlane full of virtual mansions, exotic cars, sex beds, land, instant six pack abs, etc). We were selling make believe success, and it sold well enough at the time. As my business grew, I slacked in school. I was netting $30K a year at 17. This number started to decline as time went on, my peers went onto college, I got a second job. What I failed to grasp is that my success was dependent on the success of Secondlife's user base, and it was free falling.
Parental pressure started building up. I went to community college. I took things serious. Somehow against all odds, I transferred to an Ivy. I thought I wanted to work on Wall Street. I got a killer internship traditionally reserved for MBA students that myself and a few other undergrads got as guinea pig experiments. The organization had no intention of hiring us full time which we learned later. We were encouraged to get experience elsewhere and re-apply later. Wall Street wasn't having it though. Recruiting cycles for front office roles have a certain rites of passage, you get a Summer Internship, then you are or aren't accepted full time. I grew disillusioned. Stopped caring, stopped even showing up to classes in school, yet kept interviewing, got what you might consider a cool enough sales gig (had to pay them student loans).
I bombed my last semester at college yet took the job anyways, they never knew and never found out. I let myself get fired and am 90% sure it's unrelated to school. Here I was before, working on the buyside, taking finance classes, hoping to cash out a few years in via private equity/hedge funds yet I was selling a product I barely knew (non-financial) that I had to learn from the ground up during this other companies paid training program. I hated it. I'd show up late, I disrespected my boss (a real F*ckface anyhow), and started walking out of his office mid-meetings amid tensions. I desperately started interviewing again via phone and in-person. I wanted to get back on Wall Street even if I had to build my way up via mid/back office. That didn't happen, I was fired before it did, and I moved back home for almost a year strategizing before I moved to New York City. I had less than $10k in savings (school), I used it to build a cargo van into a makeshift home (see subreddit vandwellers for a whole community of people that do this). I have electricity via solar panels, propane gas I can have delivered. I can cook, have heat, and have a large enough bed to get laid (happens frequently, and reactions have mostly been that of intrigue surprisingly).
Fast forward, here I am, New York City, since this July. I pay less than $100 bucks a month to rent a parking spot behind this guys house in Queens. I keep all my expenses low and am still living off savings. Networking is not a problem, I have my university club and a host of clubs that have reciprocal privileges. I work aside the rich, I binge drink free coffee and tea beside the rich, I'm even able to talk shop and offer insights about the markets, tech, startups with the rich, but alas, I am not rich. I have two fastlane businesses I'm undertaking. One of them is technology-based with another enthused startup wanting to piggy back off our platform when we start to build/scale. Me and my co-Founder are waiting to hear back from two incubators before I put all my time into this. The other one requires much less time commitment to open for business (mostly web dev) and involves selling certain in-demand consulting services that pay big (if I do this right, I could have $1mm in a year), the focus for that is global with most of my focus on China/India.
MJ. Read your whole book, loved it. My favorite line from it is: "If I’m cold-calling out of the damn phonebook, it won’t be for my boss, but for me." Instantly thought back to my sales job and how that was almost exactly what was on my mind at the time. Thanks for reading if you got this far. Questions, comments, etc? Happy to chat. You'll see more of me around here. Cheers.
Parental pressure started building up. I went to community college. I took things serious. Somehow against all odds, I transferred to an Ivy. I thought I wanted to work on Wall Street. I got a killer internship traditionally reserved for MBA students that myself and a few other undergrads got as guinea pig experiments. The organization had no intention of hiring us full time which we learned later. We were encouraged to get experience elsewhere and re-apply later. Wall Street wasn't having it though. Recruiting cycles for front office roles have a certain rites of passage, you get a Summer Internship, then you are or aren't accepted full time. I grew disillusioned. Stopped caring, stopped even showing up to classes in school, yet kept interviewing, got what you might consider a cool enough sales gig (had to pay them student loans).
I bombed my last semester at college yet took the job anyways, they never knew and never found out. I let myself get fired and am 90% sure it's unrelated to school. Here I was before, working on the buyside, taking finance classes, hoping to cash out a few years in via private equity/hedge funds yet I was selling a product I barely knew (non-financial) that I had to learn from the ground up during this other companies paid training program. I hated it. I'd show up late, I disrespected my boss (a real F*ckface anyhow), and started walking out of his office mid-meetings amid tensions. I desperately started interviewing again via phone and in-person. I wanted to get back on Wall Street even if I had to build my way up via mid/back office. That didn't happen, I was fired before it did, and I moved back home for almost a year strategizing before I moved to New York City. I had less than $10k in savings (school), I used it to build a cargo van into a makeshift home (see subreddit vandwellers for a whole community of people that do this). I have electricity via solar panels, propane gas I can have delivered. I can cook, have heat, and have a large enough bed to get laid (happens frequently, and reactions have mostly been that of intrigue surprisingly).
Fast forward, here I am, New York City, since this July. I pay less than $100 bucks a month to rent a parking spot behind this guys house in Queens. I keep all my expenses low and am still living off savings. Networking is not a problem, I have my university club and a host of clubs that have reciprocal privileges. I work aside the rich, I binge drink free coffee and tea beside the rich, I'm even able to talk shop and offer insights about the markets, tech, startups with the rich, but alas, I am not rich. I have two fastlane businesses I'm undertaking. One of them is technology-based with another enthused startup wanting to piggy back off our platform when we start to build/scale. Me and my co-Founder are waiting to hear back from two incubators before I put all my time into this. The other one requires much less time commitment to open for business (mostly web dev) and involves selling certain in-demand consulting services that pay big (if I do this right, I could have $1mm in a year), the focus for that is global with most of my focus on China/India.
MJ. Read your whole book, loved it. My favorite line from it is: "If I’m cold-calling out of the damn phonebook, it won’t be for my boss, but for me." Instantly thought back to my sales job and how that was almost exactly what was on my mind at the time. Thanks for reading if you got this far. Questions, comments, etc? Happy to chat. You'll see more of me around here. Cheers.
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