Wall Street Oasis

Patrick Curtis

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Wall Street Oasis is an American finance career advice company. The company was founded in 2006 by Patrick Curtis and is based in Bay Area CA.

Join the Wall Street Oasis finance community. The authority on investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, sales and trading, venture capital and finance jobs.

Company History

Patrick Curtis details the beginnings of their company in their Starter Story interview: (source)

Q: How did you get started on Wall Street Oasis?

After working 90+ hour weeks in investment banking at Rothschild for a few years out of college and then transitioning to private equity two years after that, I thought I had it made. I landed my dream job in private equity in my dream city (Boston) and had a much more healthy work/life balance.

The dream, however, quickly turned into a nightmare. In my first review less than 4 months on the job I was fired on the spot and asked to sign a waiver and take $10,000 to go away. I was confused and my confidence was shattered.

Even worse, I was blackballed from private equity in Boston. Every time I had an offer in hand it would get rescinded because the employer that fired me would only say that I worked there and wouldn’t give me a reference -- probably out of fear because I wouldn’t take the $10,000 or sign the waiver.

It was 4 months of scrambling to try and not derail my early career. Interviewing, getting to final rounds and then losing offers in the last stage because of my former employer.

My network is what saved me. Luckily, a former colleague at Rothschild vouched for me to his private equity fund back in New York. I knew to stay on “the path” and not derail my career, I needed to move back away from family and friends to stay on the buy-side.

I accepted the offer but I was never really the same. My confidence that everything would work out if you worked hard was gone.

Perfect is the enemy of progress. In order to succeed, you need to get started and stop trying to come up with the perfect business plan or perfect idea.

After reading a Forbes 30 under 30 article, I remember being struck by how many of the successful businesses were in a specific niche or sub-industry, not some grandiose idea or the next Google.

I knew I wanted to start something, so I immediately called my friend who knew how to code. Since my only expertise was investment banking, we decided on creating a fun community centered around young finance professionals.

We had no real plan on what the monetization strategy would be but knew that if we could build a strong following that we would be able to generate revenue to reach this audience.

Within a few months, the first iteration of Wall Street Oasis was born (was actually called iBankingOasis.com in the first few years!) and we started reaching out to student groups focused on finance and my small network to get feedback and try to get activity on the forum.

Source (source)

Technology

Wall Street Oasis is built on Drupal.

They use Keap for their crm. Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter for their social media.

Company History

Technology

References