March 28, 2024

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Discover The Difference

Chaifetz College Alum Shares His Journey From Accounting & Finance to Entrepreneurship : SLU

Chaifetz University of Organization graduate and Greetabl founder Joe Fischer (’04) discusses
his route from SLU to founding his personal business.

Greetabl, founded by Joe Fischer (CSB ’04), is a modern-day reward-supplying firm that encourages
distinctive and customized gifting. Picture courtesy of Greetabl.

For Joe Fischer, Chaifetz School graduate (‘04) and founder of Greetabl, a startup
committed to thoughtful, individualized gift-providing, the route to entrepreneurship was not
a linear one particular. Fischer, who transferred to SLU just after shelling out his sophomore year overseas
at SLU Madrid, majored in finance and accounting, handed the CPA and CFA tests and
afterwards labored as an auditor and fairness research analyst prior to founding his firm. 

As an undergraduate, in genuinely enterprising trend, Fischer tried to negotiate
the addition of a third key, entrepreneurship, to his already busy program load.
He initial grew to become interested in the system right after using an introductory administration
program taught by Dr. Jerome Katz, SLU’s Robert H. Brockhaus Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship,
and attempted to influence Katz to enable him swap out the major’s necessary advertising and marketing ingredient
for accounting courses, rather.

Katz did not allow for the swap, Fischer said, so he caught with finance and accounting
regardless of staying “keenly interested” in the industry at the time. And even however he was
not able to consider yet another of Katz’s courses while at SLU, Katz remained a mentor, providing
interview information and sooner or later connecting Fischer with the Billiken Angels Community,
an angel investment decision group based at Saint Louis College that has supported business owners
at all phases of business enterprise progress in the past.

Greetabl co-founders

Zoë Scharf and Joe Fischer, co-founders of Greetabl. Photo courtesy of Greetabl.

After his graduation from SLU in 2004, Fischer 1st uncovered get the job done as an auditor for
Ernst & Young. Although he notes that the occupation was a excellent encounter, auditing was not
his enthusiasm and he didn’t remain set for extensive. In 2006, he moved to New York to get the job done
for Bear Sterns in the equity investigation office. 

While at Bear Sterns, Fischer worked for Joe Buckley, the best cafe analyst on
Wall Road and a “fantastic human currently being–very good Catholic from the Bronx.” He stayed
at Bear till its demise in the economical disaster of 2008, and was instantly supplied
a posture at Goldman Sachs. 

“I was incredibly fortuitous to be in that condition,” Fischer stated. “The good lesson of
my profession–if you’re going to be at a bank that goes beneath, be at the initial 1 to
go down in the cycle.”

Fortune apart, Fischer excelled at Goldman Sachs–in the two a long time he was there, he
was made VP. But he was also “a minimal little bit bored.” 

“I constantly needed to travel the globe, always preferred to begin my possess enterprise, and I
was carrying out neither of those people issues. I finally experienced plenty of money in the lender to say to
myself, possibly do it or end talking about it.”

Fischer stop his job at Goldman, sold every little thing that could not match in his rented SUV
and established off on a whirlwind year of travel. He visited all around 25 nations around the world, backpacking
and picking out his locations as he went alongside. Of all the sites he observed, Mt. Kilimanjaro
was his favored, though he states he identified a thing to admire everywhere he went. 

Fischer’s travels would transform out to be a large inspiration for his corporation. “With all
that touring, I started to value just how significant relationships are,” he suggests.
It would still be a handful of many years before he started Greetabl, but Fischer suggests “the seeds
were being sown” all through his adventures about the world. 

But what really acquired Greetabl off the ground was Fischer’s determination to give a
respectable wedding day existing. 

“The summer time prior to I launched Greetabl, I had a couple of extremely great friends acquiring
married. When I went to these weddings, I would often publish a verify and a note,”
Fischer suggests, contacting the mixture his “bachelor reward.”

“For me, the note was the critical portion–I experimented with to place some exertion into it. I experienced
this thought that it is a lot more enjoyable to get a present than an envelope, but the take note
was definitely crucial to me. Then I begun imagining, could the reward be the information?
Could the message be the present?”

Fischer tinkered with the idea, and made “some rather unsightly versions” of Greetabl’s
boxed messages that he commenced bringing to friends’ weddings. “And I just bought this
reaction that was so various from anything at all else I’d attempted to pitch ahead of,” he mentioned.
A calendar year later, Greetabl introduced.

Soon after the start, Fischer and his staff labored to learn far more about their sector and
ongoing to refine their item. In 2015, the business re-introduced. Considering that then, Fischer
claims, growth has been “strong and dependable.”

For younger business owners hunting to commence companies of their individual, Fischer has some
tips: “Expect it to choose extended and value more than you assume,” he laughs. “And
consider every thing that you read and hear with a big grain of salt–not everything
that you are informed about starting a company will be relevant to you.”

And for his fellow St. Louisans, Fischer has a different piece of guidance: “Support
the companies you want to aid with your bucks. For just about every local company that
goes underneath, we get rid of a minimal bit of our id and our ‘local-ness.’”

Greetabl would make it easy to send entertaining, very affordable, and unforgettable presents so that you can
come to feel closer to the persons who make a difference in your life. Greetabl believes that life’s greatest
times never happen on the internet, and celebrating interactions shouldn’t both. The fast-growing
St. Louis primarily based enterprise uses its patented greeting card that doubles as a reward box
to deliver stunning, customized presents and greetings from www.greetabl.com.