McKinsey Founder Mindset: Build & Fund A Startup

Your “Safe” Job Can Be A Startup MBA In Disguise

Most founders believe prestigious, stable jobs at places like McKinsey are the polar opposite of the startup grind. One path is about polish and frameworks; the other is about breaking things and moving fast. But what if the “safe” path is actually the perfect training ground for building a category-defining company?

Lluís Cañadell, founder of Treinta, turned his time as a consultant into a launchpad for a fintech company that raised $60 million and acquired 5 million small business customers. His story isn’t about abandoning his corporate skills; it’s about weaponizing them to identify a massive opportunity, communicate it clearly, and execute with precision.

If you’re working in a structured corporate or consulting role right now, you might be getting a better startup education than you think.

The Accidental Founder Training Program

Before Treinta, Cañadell was on the classic elite track: a top school in Barcelona, internships in investment banking, and finally a coveted role at McKinsey. He quickly found that the aggressive, money-focused culture of banking wasn’t for him, but consulting offered something different. It was a masterclass in two skills that are mission-critical for any founder.

1. How to Learn an Entire Industry in 72 Hours

As a McKinsey business analyst, Cañadell was thrown into 11 different projects in two years. One week he’d be advising oil and gas executives with decades of experience; the next, he’d be dissecting retail supply chains. The job required him to get smart enough on a topic in just a few days to offer credible advice.

This is founder training. As a non-technical founder, you have to learn enough about engineering to manage your roadmap. If you’re an engineer, you have to learn enough about marketing to find your first customers. You are constantly outside your comfort zone, and your job is to learn faster than the competition.

2. How to Communicate with Ruthless Clarity

Consulting teaches you “top-down,” structured communication—often using frameworks like the Pyramid Principle. You start with the answer or the main insight first, and then present the supporting data. You learn to respect executives’ time by being clear, concise, and direct.

This is exactly how you should pitch investors. They don’t have time for a long, winding story. You need to capture their attention in the first 30 seconds. A top-down pitch sounds like this:

(The "Answer First" Approach) "We are raising a $2M seed round to solve the #1 problem for Latin America's 50 million micro-merchants: financial management. Our freemium bookkeeping app has already acquired 500,000 users in 6 months with zero marketing spend, proving the demand. This capital will get us to 2 million users and allow us to roll out our first monetized feature, payment processing."

This approach immediately tells an investor what you do, for whom, how much you need, what your traction is, and what you’ll do with the money. All the details can follow, but you’ve already given them the core thesis.

The Common Mistake: The Consultant-Founder Trap

The biggest risk for founders with a consulting background is getting stuck in "analysis paralysis." You can become a master at creating frameworks and elegant slide decks but hesitate to actually ship a product or talk to users. The skills that make you a great advisor can sometimes prevent you from being a decisive builder.

Set shipping deadlines: Force yourself to launch a feature or product, even if it’s imperfect. Action creates data that no amount of analysis can replicate. · Talk to 10 users a week: Get out of the spreadsheet and into real conversations. Raw, qualitative feedback is the antidote to theoretical frameworks. · Embrace "good enough": A consultant aims for a 100% correct answer. A founder aims for a 70% correct decision made today over a 90% correct decision made next month.

How to See Opportunity in a Crisis

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Cañadell saw the world panic. He even worried that a powerhouse like McKinsey might be in trouble. But while others saw chaos, he saw the greatest opportunity for disruption in a century. A friend from his network had just raised a $3M seed round, proving that venture capital was still flowing to bold ideas.

He noticed a critical disconnect in Latin America: while smartphone penetration was high, the 50 million micro-merchants running local shops and businesses were still using pen and paper. The pandemic was forcing a digital shift overnight. This was his moment.

He quit his prestigious job, moved to Colombia as soon as travel restrictions lifted, and launched Treinta in 2020.

A Framework for Finding Crisis-Driven Opportunities

Identify a forced behavioral change: What are millions of people or businesses now forced to do differently? (e.g., remote work, online ordering, digital payments). · Find the analog process: Where is this new digital behavior replacing an old, inefficient, offline process? (e.g., pen-and-paper bookkeeping). · Look for high penetration of an enabling technology: What existing tech makes the switch possible? (e.g., high smartphone ownership). · Target the underserved: Who are the incumbents ignoring? Large corporations were already digital; the 50 million micro-merchants were not. This was the opening.

From Insight to 10% Market Share

Treinta wasn’t a complicated idea. It was a simple, freemium app for inventory management and bookkeeping. But because it solved a painful, urgent problem for a massive, ignored market, it went viral.

5 million customers: Treinta captured 10% of the entire target market in the region. · $60 million raised: The traction and enormous market size made for a compelling venture case.

The freemium model was key. By making the core tools free, Treinta removed all friction to adoption. The goal was to become the default financial operating system for every small business first, and then build monetization on top through financial services like payments and credit. This land-and-expand strategy is a powerful way to build a defensible moat.

How to Apply This This Week

You don’t need to quit your job tomorrow, but you can start thinking like a founder today.

Audit your current job for "founder skills." Are you learning to manage projects, analyze data, or communicate with senior leaders? Document these skills and think about how they’d apply to a startup. · Practice top-down communication. The next time you send a meaningful email or give an update, start with the conclusion. See how it changes the conversation. · Calculate your personal runway. How much money do you need per month to live? How many months could you survive without a paycheck if you saved aggressively? Knowing this number makes the leap feel less abstract and more like a calculated risk. · Analyze one macro trend. Pick one major shift happening in the world (e.g., AI adoption, climate change, remote work). Use the "Crisis Opportunity" framework above to brainstorm one or two startup ideas. Who is being forced to change, and what old process is breaking?

A "safe" career and a startup leap aren't mutually exclusive. For the right person, one is simply training for the other.