In 2007, I joined Goldman Sachs as an investment Banker. I went through 39 interviews to get what I thought was my dream job.
But just 3 years later, I left.
And it was one of the most stressful periods of my life.
But I also realized something that is the reason I was able to build 2 billion-dollar businesses and exit from 5.
So here are 3 things I learned at Goldman that pushed me out the door and into entrepreneurship:
Wall Street's hidden cost is fees that compound
A 1% advisory fee on $1 million invested over 20 years can cost you more than your entire starting investment.
The best fee still isn’t enough
Goldman made a $1 million fee advising a client’s $100 million exit. The client told me I’d have to close that same deal 100 times just to match what he made in one…
Skin in the game teaches you more about business than anything else
I reverse mortgaged my own house and took zero salary for two years to buy and run a business I’d never operated before.
That same business grew from $300 million to $3.4 billion in five years, before being sold to Douglas Elliman.
I tell the full story of why I actually left Goldman, and the business I built because of it, in this video:
Watch it on 2x speed.
But while I walked away from Goldman… there was a founder who showed exactly why staying in the game is one of the most important things you can do in business.
That founder went on to build an empire worth $140 billion called Pokémon.
But Pokémon nearly collapsed without a rescue deal to save them.
And it was because of three specific things that had to happen for the rescue deal to work:
Proof
The founder had already shipped three successful games before Pokémon, so when he needed help, people already knew he could deliver.
Relationships
The rescue deal came from someone he already knew personally, years before he ever needed it.
Commitment
He stopped paying himself and kept working for six years.
I broke down the full story beyond the deal that saved Pokémon, the Pokémon Proof Stack and how you can use it to get rich in the finale of my series Billion Dollar Deals…
Your main man,
Sharran