Capital Markets + Start-Ups
I said, what? Yes! Start-ups and capital markets can co-exist! In university, there was a point where it seemed as if there was a fork in the road, where I could either take a finance, accounting, or “other” route. Other, in this case, would be entrepreneurship. And once you chose that route, there was no turning back. Luckily, Jay Crone, a co-founder of Breaking Bay Street proved me otherwise.
Jay grew-up in Ottawa with an eagerness to progress as a competitive hockey player and to always strive for the next level even if he failed. He humbly noted that he didn’t make the next level all the time and that failure pushed to get him where he wanted to be. He attributes much of his achievement in his start-up to that continuous drive and push he had in sports growing up, which has also reflected in his work.
Prior to this start-up, Jay worked in capital markets. To get there, he noted, a U of O prof from his undergrad days told him to get yourself in a place where other people are doing the same thing, whether it is going to school or working, so you can access a circle of people who can help you. Given his location was Ottawa, a lot of the jobs were focused on working in the government and he knew he wanted to work in finance. He wasn’t sure how to make this happen, but he knew he had to move to Toronto.
And after a number of years going hard in capital markets, he decided to leave it and move to Vancouver. After taking some time to recover from the many years of hard work he was veering to work on something else. One thing I’ve noticed with entrepreneurship is how people enter into it is very unconventional. There is no defined path to move into the world of start-ups. But there is a defined, conscious moment when one decides when they will dive into the abyss of the unknown. For Jay, that dive happened in May 2015. He liked the idea of being an entrepreneur and agreed to chat 3 days a week for just an hour with his business partner to come up with potential business ideas. This grew over the following few weeks and the initial concept came to fruition. At this point they started reaching-out to universities to get business from different business faculties and they had a bit of success at the early stages.
The critical juncture at the very start was when his partner was determined to send out an email to a bunch of universities to find out what their needs were; they had no website and only personal email accounts. Some people wrote back asking whether their emails had been hacked and others said they’d be willing to chat. Jay said that really changed the game from talking to actually doing; this went from being 100% a concept to being a start-up. Now Breaking Bay Street includes the 2 business partners and 25 campus reps and they help undergrads, students and employees in related fields enter into capital markets all across Canada. He notes, when he helps people land their dream job, it is very rewarding.
He notes their success has come from just deciding to do something. He notes that if you are not sure if your idea is going to work or if it will be a success, just try it out and see what happens. When it comes to starting your own business it’s very personal and you feel like everything you do is a reflection of yourself. There is a really big fear of being judged and that people will think your idea is dumb. You never know, people may actually like it! You may build credibility, money, or build your brand too.
It’s also an amazing challenge! That is, you are 100% responsible for the business. He notes that when you are an employee of any sizable company you have a defined role and there are a ton of things that don’t happen to be your concern. For Jay and his business partner, they did everything themselves: the website, video, and webinars, for example. He notes that becoming an expert at everything is difficult and some things were valuable to learn, while other things they should’ve found someone else to help. He notes you are likely an expert in a particular topic and leverage that expertise as much as possible and don’t waste your time doing other things. They may have learned this earlier on if they had more mentors, and he mentioned you really should have people providing feedback and criticism.
And learn a bit more about Jay:
If he wrote a book: He would call it How to Get the Most out of Yourself. He said that a lot of people he helps is not changing the person, but it is bringing their best self to the forefront. They are just as motivated and just as interesting.
Coolest place travelled: Barcelona with its unbelievable array of things to do, whether a beach, or architecture, party, or interesting culture and a ton of fun.
Nerdy facts: Jay is an organizer! He noted that he really likes to organize things. Whether it is a trip with friends or family or any activity, he likes to get into the details and push people to participate. He’s the family champion for organizing things.
Embarrassing moment: Whenever he gets a negative comment he finds it disheartening and embarrassing and finds it hard to separate from that, but notes its more thinking of being embarrassed and not actually that.
To end, here is some great advice from Jay: Just do it. Make it happen. When it comes to entrepreneurship we tend to overestimate consequences of failure. You can take a reasonable stab at a venture with a bit of time and little capital and you can learn a lot even if you fail. Don’t worry about failure. Bite the bullet and just start your business. And if you are in third year and are interested in both capital markets and start-ups go through the interviews, start your company and if you aren’t a millionaire by 4th year, you have a back-up—hedge your bets.
I hope you enjoyed this post! If you want to find-out more info on Breaking Bay Street, check-out their website. I am always happy to have any feedback as well and you can reach me here. Stayed tuned for next week’s post!
