Leaving Goldman Sachs to found a startup is a tried, tested, but often failed path. Most, however, go into something adjacent like fintech. Devi Sahny left the bank earlier than most, at age 23, and pursued something very different.
Speaking with eFinancialCareers, Sahny, now 31, said she "did every job [she] could" while at university, including working as a barista, but "really fell in love with teaching." She founded a peer-to-peer tutoring startup while studying which she says was "quite a successful little operation;" its success seemingly intrigued banks, as she went from no interviews in her sophomore year to six internship offers in her junior year, including from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and multiple boutiques.
Sahny ultimately decided to join banking, and Goldman, "because I saw so many successful people going into banking." She joined a "really good, supportive team at Goldman" in the industrials team that called itself the 'hidden secret' due to its focus on work-life balance, and described her Goldman mentor as a "phenomenal person." That being said, she was still in banking; she would often work 12-hour days from 9am-9pm.
Sahny said "it was interesting to understand what makes companies tick," at Goldman, "but I just wasn't interested in valuing industrial companies. What excited me was being in the trenches and making a difference." So, she left for Singapore to build another tutoring startup: Ascend Now.
Progress was slow at the start. Sahny had put "every drop" of her Goldman earnings into paying off her student loans and was "going door-to-door tutoring kids directly." She initially focused on tutoring children from affluent families (including children of Goldman employees), some of which had strict demands; one family paid her by the minute for seven-hour sessions, deducting pay for toilet breaks. She said her "lifestyle wasn't great, it was McDonald's every day." She would eat on the train (illegal in Singapore) to save time and tutor more.
Sahny's business boomed over the COVID period, allowing her to hire more tutors and expand outside of Singapore. She also built an adjacent business, The Edge, aimed at offering similar services to less affluent families. Both businesses focus on the soft skills she learned at Goldman Sachs, "like work ethic, networking, grit and resilience." She said she had to learn many of those skills from scratch at the bank. Sahny said the affluent families she initially taught were more focused on their children having these soft skills than academic prowess, and she "built Edge so that everyone could benefit from that approach."
Sahny said she "had so much more freedom in a way" at Goldman than her current role. Today, she manages ~70 people, and said "whether it's 5am or 10pm, it doesn't really matter, I still do what I have to do." Sahny encourages more banking alums to do something vocational, however: "I believe you can work at places like Goldman, you can learn skills, then build your social impact."
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