All Hail the new kid on the block

[nullsumgame1]

Hi.

So I was surfing the web, searching info on spring weeks. I found the 3-part tutorial, very helpful btw, and after browsing the forum, decided to sign up. Now, here I am.
I've got my mind set on M&A for Spring Weeks (GS, CS), long term plan would be to move in Private Equity later.

What can I say about me?
I'm a french student about to start a course at a target in London. Was born and raised in Paris, then my parents moved to the center of France, I went along. I had a choice between London and Paris, I decided to go for London. And, there I am.

I think my work experience is pretty good, I did an internship at an Hedge-fund in London, also co-founded and managed a business for a year before selling it in my last year of study in France.

Stuff not related to finance:
I know a great deal about music, played percussions for over 10 years, did a lot of music theory (8 years or so), and I also know guitar and a bit of piano.
On a more personal side I enjoy swimming, playing basketball, and economics (what I'm about to study, in fact).

Seems like you now know more than most people know about me. I hope you can stand me even though I'm a poor bastard (mostly with girls, but still). Anyway, I look forward to be able to help on the forum, and, I'll admit it, be helped.

 

[Trigger1]

Hail to the Chief. You have a solid and diverse background indeed, like them a lot - I'd love some details about that biz you have sold if you don't mind.
Haven't you thought about staying in Paris? The grand ecolés are great and they do send quite a few kids into London (though not really to M&A) so I guess you wouldn't have had a problem breaking in from those schools either.

 

[nullsumgame1]

Thanks for your answer and the heads up on the cv as well.

Basically, I live in a neighbourhood with a lot of old people, mostly retired, I wanted to take advantage of that. Then I came up with an idea: smoothies. Most of the target-people I had in mind didn't want to buy smoothies in supermarkets - not bio, too expensive, not "freshly-made", many reasons.
That's how my friend and I launched it, we started producing the smoothies and delivered them in the morning at people's houses, for breakfast (with the option to choose from a diverse range of tastes, deliveries one to four days a week). We quickly expended to other neighbourhoods and from there we just tried to keep with the growing demand, hiring friends. I ended up managing the business, as I was not really interested in the smoothie-producing part.
Finally, I sold my part of the business to my friend (we were 50-50), because he's staying in town for another year.
After giving it a thought, I should have kept my part and hired somebody to do my job for me. Then I would have had an external revenue plus something to do with the business if it grows up.

I gave a thought about staying in Paris yes, but to access the Grandes Écoles you have to attend a two-year "classe préparatoire", which is really demanding and not interesting imho. The uk offered what I was searching for: good schools giving me an edge on the application, plus the possibility to do whatever I want in my spare time. With the classes préparatoires, you do not have such thing as free time, and it's therefore hard to have some personal activities / do internships / practice music or sport. That's how I made up my mind. Plus I have some family in London and I love this city.