Today, we’re trying something new…

Something I'm planning to do A LOT more in future newsletters.

What is it?

Telling the stories of purposeful youth working on their passion projects and businesses serving their community. (AKA, OCE alumni.)

We’ll focus on their:

Incredibly diverse backgrounds
Strategies used to start (with $0)
Critical wins and learning

First up: Lucas Gil, who joined OCE back in 2021. Lucas is currently a student at the University of Waterloo paving an unique path by combining his passion and strength through — financial advisory.

Oh, and if that wasn’t cool enough — he dedicate much of his time speaking to student groups on financial literacy and wealth creation.

But FIRST

If you are new, welcome to OCE’s weekly newsletter curated for the ambitious youth…here are some articles you missed from previous weeks:

📈

5 lessons learned—so for your next internship, you don’t

Are you a victim of FOMO?

Weird Interview Questions from Credit Karma, Google, Uber and Wayfair

No one is more passionate about spreading financial literacy than OCE alumni Lucas.

Seriously.

Check out his website and IG, you’ll see what I mean.

As passion projects goes, Lucas will tell you, it is all about leveraging your strength.

Fun right?

All of us have a skill. Graphic design, sales, marketing, accounting, photography whatever. What if you could take that skill and get revenue for it? Not a job, but as a founder.

Lets start from the beginning. What made you decide to pursue finance?

My parents both have backgrounds in technology and were insistent on me following a similar career path, however, I just couldn’t find it in me to get excited about being a software engineer or any other engineer for that matter.

Instead, to walk a middle line, I ended up applying to the University of Waterloo’s Financial Analytics and Risk Management program.

Waterloo is highly known for their engineering and mathematics programs and I felt that it was a program that would engage me in something I enjoyed, finance, as well as satisfying my parents aspirations for my career.

How did you start your business?

It goes back to my program at the University of Waterloo. Co-op credits are needed as part of my degree.

While I was searching for a position, I stumbled into a member at the gym I worked at in 2021. I explained my situation to her, and she was happy to help me out.

She ended up introducing me to her Wealth Manager who agreed to hire me as a co-op student.

Two years later, I am a licensed associate with the firm building my own book of business.

How does this model work?

Lucas started his business through a structure called partnership (with an established company).

Instead of working directly for the company as an employee, Lucas leverages the company’s resources to start his own venture. What does that mean?

That means he get access to the company’s investment tools/expertise and in exchange revenue share with the partner company on sales he generates.

Lucas became a founder in his own right, with an autonomous account, without putting in a dime.

Let’s break down the how from Lucas:

His role in the partnership involves advising and business development – prospecting and signing new clients.
In particular, he works with individuals, corporations and trusts on estate planning, investment strategies and tax optimization.
Each client they close is $$$ in revenue. He gets % of that.
His contribution, outside of his sales and finance brain, is the fact that he has developed an onboarding funnel through his existing network.
This is the first business he started.

How do you see this endeavor fits in with your future goal?

My goal is to eventually work for NGOs and for-purpose businesses in managing their investment portfolio.

It is hard to break into any field without relevant experience, so this project serves as a starting point to lay down the fundamentals – from portfolio optimization to understanding various investment vehicles and tax regulations.

It’s easy to claim you are the “president” of X or Y club, but if you are just blindly following directions, not actually building concrete skills and understanding the "WHY" behind decisions then sooner or later you will be exposed - hiring managers are not easy to fool.

So, how can YOU replicate this?

There are typically 3 ways you can get into a partnership without putting in any capital.

1. Grow revenue/sales

If you can grow the revenue of a business, you can get into a partnership and become a founder. The potential partner is incentivized because you are bringing in money that wouldn’t be there otherwise and the revenue they pay you out you have earned.

2. Cut costs

If you can go into a business and help them negotiate down their prices, suppliers, optimize their team, and automate parts of the business you can typically structure a revenue share scheme to correspond to those decreases in costs you are saving the company.

3. Cover their weaknesses

Businesses owners always can use help. People will often trade you revenue for you to work on something critical but not within their skill set

Now it’s your turn…

Think about how you can partner up with a business owner
Think about how to turn your skill into revenue share
Think about how to start with $0

Do you want to hear more stories from OCE alumni? And what topics do you want me to cover. Let me know, I read every response to this email address.

Be a bud, share this newsletter with friends.

Also, add me as a contact to ensure you receive these newsletters in your inbox :)

Check out this amazing conference:

OCE alumni, Amal Zeidan and her organization Steps2Flourish is hosting an annual conference – Embracing New Beginnings in Mental Health on March 15th.

Get your ticket here

PS. Wanna join a community of ambitious youth making change in their communities?

We run a summer cohort for ambitious youth (high school and undergrads) to work directly with world-class founders while learning from Silicon Valley leaders.

OCE Summer Cohort

You can also explore purposeful opportunities through our Impact Internship Opportunities Database.

Get Curious.

Lena

https://www.openclassroomexperience.com/