Building a Unicorn Business, One Percent at a Time

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. I'm Glenn Harper. Julie Smith. What's going on?

You know, we have water today because we're starting a little later.

Apparently, our guest is sleeping in today on the West Coast somewhere, so that's all good. Well, we got a good one today. I'd like to introduce Blake Oliver, host of The Accounting Podcast, which by its name alone indicates that this is the place to go listen to accounting topics to either get ahead in the world of accounting or help you fall asleep. Blake is the creator of Earmark where Earmark, where accountants earn free CPE. As we all know, CPAs have this code where they're held that they're held to, and we need, at least in Ohio, 40 hours of CPE per year. Earmark helps CPAs get their CPE anytime, anywhere. It's a place where CPAs can get their fix if they have not touched the CPA class in a few days. As like many CPA, his career and experience is is wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Somehow, Blake made it out of the ground of taxes and financial statement preparation and landed in technology and marketing, which is a fancy way of saying he got fed up with the debits and credits and tax law. Some would say he's a quitter, but we look at him as being a genius. Scaling earmark has helped him get it get him the elusive mailbox money that all entrepreneurs strive for. Having a platform such as the accounting podcast has enabled Blake to be the change that the accounting industry has struggled with over the last 20 years. He doesn't look like a bean counter, but he understands how they think. This enables him to thrive as the number one accounting podcast in the world. Thank you, Blake, for being on our show.

Thank you, Glenn and Julie. It is an honor to be here.

I just gotta make sure we we stay out of that accounting podcast talk.

What what I mean, that's where but all the listeners wanna hear that. That's that's a true statement. I'm pretty convinced. No. Just just kidding on that. Oh, well, Blake, really appreciate you being on the show today. And, you know, we'd like to get a feel of, you know, our guests, where they're from, what they do, and how all those things are. And, you know, from what I can tell, you're a vacuum out there.

You don't have a lot of stuff out there, but I did find a nugget that it, I think, you grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota. Is that true?

No. I don't know where you got that.

Oh, yeah, man. That name that's wrong. Okay.

There are a few other Blake Olivers in this world. Oh, no. I think there's, like, a dozen of us. Gotcha.

Where'd you go?

There's one that went to prison too. So Oh,

you're not that guy.

That that was, like, that was his next bullet. Yeah. It just threw

the ball.

Dang it.

Not yet. Not yet. Haven't done that one yet. It's on my bucket list. But, I grew up in mostly Southern California, Irvine, and then we moved to Sacramento when I was in high school. So I'm a Californian, you know, both SoCal and NorCal, but now I live in Scottsdale, Arizona where the cost of living is half, and I, feel like a very wealthy person. And, I think I always will. I mean, it's just it's just like that the standard of living is so high here.

Little different.

Yeah.

I don't know what you would see in Arizona that California doesn't have, you know, warm weather, high taxes in California, lots of people, pollution, regulations. I don't know what I don't know why you wouldn't wanna stay with that.

My vote matters. You know? That feels good. Budgetly. Yes. Everybody's everybody in the family and all the other states, they're all calling me, you know, very concerned. You know? How are you voting this year? So

Yeah. You actually will count. It's right it's right on the border over there of what they're what the numbers look like on the votes.

It's like a little competition.

This is America. We compete. That's how it that's who's got the bigger yard?

Exactly. Who has more signs, you know, besides on the roof? We we also do competitions with holiday lights as well. It gets really, competitive. We have a a massive competition. So I think it's just maybe that's just the theme is our my neighborhood is very, like, competitive.

Well, I think you're

You're gonna have to spell out, you know, your pick along the the roof line of your house. I think that would win it.

Yes. Well, I'm waiting for an accountant to run for president. You know? Like, that's that's what we need here with this, national, budget and deficit, what that we're heading. You know? It's like it's for me, when I look at tax policy proposals, right, of the 2 candidates, they both seem insane. Right? It's spend, spend, spend, and, you know, it's it's nobody cares. Nobody cares about the deficits anymore.

You know why that is? I swear, when I took the CPA test, the governmental accounting made no sense. And I think it's just, you know, it just doesn't make any sense so people don't it's not real money, so it doesn't It's

not real. Yeah.

Right. We have in the real world, we have real money coming into money going out. We have to pay our debts. The government just says fake believe stuff. So that's I don't even know if an accountant could fix it. We'll see what happens.

I mean, do the numbers really matter?

No. Not really.

That's what those modern monetary theory people say. Right? We can just print money forever, but we'll we'll find out. I guess, well, eventually, we'll find out.

I wanna get my printer on order.

Yes. A 3 d printer so I can buy the stacks of 100. Yes. Yes. So Southern California grew up there. Did you, what was your mom and dad? Did they, were they entrepreneurs? Did they have real jobs?

My father was an entrepreneur. He, studied, architecture and then became an urban planner for the Irvine Company. And so, the Irvine Company was one of the biggest master plan communities ever developed in an entire city on a ranch, that was master planned. Wow. Meaning that, you know, it wasn't just, like, sell parcels and build. It was let's let's design a city that is, like, playing the game SimCity. So I I used to play that game as a kid, and my dad would walk by, and he's like, that's not exactly, you know, accurate, how how we zone there. But he loved playing it with me.

And then he eventually, left, and he started his own practice. And so he was a consultant on real estate projects, which is, like, really hard because he would get points on the projects. Right? He would get a little tiny slice of the equity, in exchange, you know, to help motivate him to get those projects through. And a lot of his job was helping get the projects through, like, the city council and the planning commission, all these environmental stuff. He he knew how to, like, make that happen.

How to bribe everybody. That's good.

Yeah. Actually, he actually had a a client, he worked for, who who was he found out about that, and he had to make an ethical decision. I remember that as a kid, and he had to he had to quit Yep. Because he felt that was not appropriate. And, that that actually stuck with me, to my my adulthood. Very ethical guy. And, what was I saying? He he he oh, so he started his own practice, and, yeah, he got points. But these projects, they take, like, 10, 20 years to build sometimes.

So one of the projects he worked on 20, 30 years ago when I was a kid in Chatsworth, California is now being built. And he might someday seize some money from it. Yeah.

Took that long. That's

Yeah.

Crazy. Because in Arizona, it take, like, 2 months to get it going.

In California, multiply that 20 years. Yeah.

Crazy. How'd your mom do?

My mom was a homemaker. Before that, she was a, dietitian, and she maintained her license all throughout, and she still does a little bit of that. But she worked in hospitals like, you know, feeding tubes and stuff like that. Right? Maintaining the right mix of nutrition and all that. But, yeah, it was great, you know, watching my dad build his business and complain about his business partners when I was a kid. You know? It really it really makes me like, now when I'm working on mine, it it makes me think, I've turned into my father.

Did you did you work for the man growing up? Did you work no. When I say did you work for your dad, did you work for somebody else? Did you do your own thing, hustle? Julia always liked painting rocks, newspapers, that kind

of thing. I feel like he sold lemonade and cookies.

Yes. So my

first job was building a website for the United Way of Orange County. I learned how to do HTML, and I I, you know, I think I was, like, coding in, like, notepad or something like that. Wow. And then we upload the files to, like, a web server. And, yeah, I built a a home page. It was up there for a long time. I think they paid me $600 for that. And so

Big. How old were you at that time?

I was 10.

Wow. That's good money. So I like computers. Yeah. That may be not a lot in California. But

I'm not sure if I paid taxes on that, to be honest. But,

So close to being on the exemption, you're probably okay.

Probably okay. Okay. Good. Good. I'm not a tax CPA, so I don't know.

No. You're less than us.

Yes. But I did that. I I was also a musician growing up. I play the cello, and that's what I studied. I actually studied that in school, and, I would get gigs, you know, weddings, string quartet kind of stuff. I I played in an opera, like, a local opera, one summer. So yeah. You know, I I had I I I was a I was a gig musician.

I had I had some jobs. So it it prepared me for the world of, entrepreneurship a bit, selling yourself. You know?

Brothers, sisters? What does that look like?

I have a younger brother who is a teacher in Manhattan in, New York City. And he teaches, English as a second language to, like, all the Haitians that are going to New York City. He's he's

Love that.

He's got his, he's got his work cut out for him. He's but he's does great work. Yeah.

So you how old were you when you guys moved to Sacramento?

We moved there when I was in high school. Okay. Yep.

Was that a challenge all of a sudden having meet a bunch bunch of new people and figure things out? And, you know, you're just about done in school. Is that did that impact you a lot or no?

Yeah. It did. I was an introvert. I still am. People don't believe it. You know? But it's easy to sit behind here on a screen and in front of a microphone and then, you know, do that for, like, a few hours, and then you you go be by yourself and recharge. So for me, it was like, I didn't have a ton of friends as a kid. I was really into reading and my music.

And so when I got to Sacramento, actually, I'd I auditioned for the youth orchestra there. There was one big youth orchestra for the whole city, and I got, the principal seat. I got I got you know, I was first chair. And, and then that sort of just, like, gave me this community of of musicians. So that was great. And I'd I'd then I played in the San Francisco Youth Symphony. So I drive down there. It was a couple hours to get there.

We did that on Saturdays. So that was my my life was basically like, I was very academic, you know, very into music. I did not spend a lot of time, like, enjoying myself. You know? Like, I didn't I didn't I didn't go to parties or anything like that. So I'm trying to make up for it now, you know, in my in my old age.

Did you ever take that cello and electrify it and make, you know, make it pretty crazy, or you stay Yeah. Traditional? Alright.

I had a Yamaha electric cello. And, I went to a Catholic high school, and I played in the, liturgical, you know, band. And I would I would rock out on my cello.

Playing it. Nice.

In in the in the, in the, like, same auditorium where they played all the, you know, basketball games.

Fantastic. So it seems like you had a pretty normal childhood, but, again, you had some adversity trying to figure out, you know, you had to make money, but you loved music, so you would you'd kinda pimp yourself out there and deal with that and get paid for that. But it wasn't anything where you had to go out and, you know, work at a fast food joint or anything like that. You you kinda knew your lane and stayed in there.

And that When I graduated, I graduated from college with a music degree, and I it was a great recession. And so the only job I could get was as a barista at Starbucks. So I did, like, 8 months working at Starbucks, and I will tell anyone, like, parents I say, parents, make sure your kid works a fast food or a service job because it changes your perspective on life. You are so grateful for every job you have after that. And and I'll tell that to, you know, young people too. Like, just go just go you know, you think this job is not, you know, up to your standard? Just why don't you go work at Starbucks? Have fun.

What's funny? Because I say the same thing. I say all kids should have to, like, serve or bartend or be a barista. But when I'm having a bad day, you're gonna laugh about this. I'm like, I just wanna go be the barista at Starbucks. Like, I wanna go, like, make some coffee and walk away and not deal with it till the next morning. And Glenn always says, I feel like you'd have that place running in a whole different manner by the time you're up.

The first true customer. Yeah.

There is something to be said about it. Like, you you get on like, if you were the one I didn't like working the cash register. I like making the drinks. Right? And you just get this line of drinks, and then it's sort of like a video game. Like, how how quickly can I get them done? Right? You know, maybe that's what, like, prepped me for public accounting was just having this unending line of work, right, ready to go on to my desk.

That's funny. That definitely suits you for the introvert. But it again, I feel like if you're an accountant, you'd really wanna touch the money a little bit. So this is this is awkward here. So we're gonna get through this. We'll figure this out. So you're ins you're then in Sacramento, and you're like, you know what? I wanna go to college, and I want to, you just you decide to pick north a powerhouse football school Northwestern.

Yes.

But you're in your bachelor of music degree in cello performance. Like, how does one then, at that point, go, you know what? I think I wanna go and get an accounting degree. Like, those do not even add up. It's a different sides of the brain.

I feel like it must have been the winters. The winters must have been.

The winters, froze my brain, impacted my ability to think correctly.

He went back to UCLA to get the accounting degree. Right.

That's what I'm saying, I feel like it was the winter. So

so I, graduated, and I moved to LA. And I wasn't I was from SoCal, so I, you know, I was familiar with LA. And my goal is

Could we go back how did you pick Northwestern?

Great music program with, where I could actually get, like, a real degree and not just like a a not a conservatory. My parents wanted me to have a bachelor's of arts or bachelor's of something. Right?

What was your dream though? Like, what was your dream job going into college getting that degree? Like, what was your vision?

Playing in the LA Philharmonic. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

That was the that was what I thought I wanted. And then when I graduated and I started doing auditions, I realized that, like, the actual work of getting the job like, getting the job is like, the job itself is not the hard part. The hard part is getting the job. That takes 10 years. And I realized I didn't wanna audition for, like, 10 years, which is kinda the average

of auditioning?

Really, to get good at it. Yeah. Yeah. Because you have to be perfect for, like, an hour. Yeah. I mean, no no flawless. Right? So to get that good, it's like being an Olympian or something like that. Right? So even though I studied cello for about 10 years, it was I realized it was gonna take me about another 10 years before I could get a job that I wanted.

And I just decided, like, look. I love this. It's great. I love music, but there's so many people out here who love it more than I do, and they don't have any other skills. So they're gonna have to do this. Right? I had an out, which is that, you know, I've always been good with numbers and math and all this other stuff, so I could go do something else. So I decided, you know, I'm gonna leave this to the the true professionals here. And, I'm really glad I did actually because, like and and, actually, in many ways, being a musician was a terrible fit for me.

I I found out, later, you know, just actually, like, earlier this year that I have ADHD. And that's a terrible condition for a musician to sit, you know, in an orchestra for hours.

Wearing a tuxedo.

Wearing a tuxedo. Yeah. It's not like what I'm doing now is way more, just fun for me. So I loved practicing music. I I loved the discipline of it. I loved what it taught me. You know, the the ability to hyperfocus, and and break problems down into little tiny pieces and solve each one and then put them all back together again so you can play this concerto. But, like, the actual doing of the job is very different in in, you know, in your mind versus reality.

Just like anything in life. Right? You what you think it is and what it really is.

Well, like entrepreneurship. Right? People think they wanna be entrepreneurs.

So we

And they actually do it, and you realize it's, like, so chaotic that most people can't handle it. Right? You have to have this sort of, like, mindset, which is, like, you just let all this shit sorry. Can I say that on the show? Yeah.

And you want us America.

Okay. Good. You let it all just flow past you. Right? Because there's an infinite amount of work to do when you're a founder or when you're an entrepreneur. There's it will never stop. So if you are the kind of person who needs to have a clean desk, you can't do that job.

No. You have to be be comfortable being uncomfortable. And most people, especially as they get older, they they gravitate to being comfortable. But as an entrepreneur, it's every day is an absolute nightmare. And you just gotta just gotta

You lean into it. Right?

Yeah. Like, I

would We we love nightmares.

We're sailing. So you said you're gonna move back to Southern California. The winter's on, Lake Michigan too cold, and you go back and you're gonna get an accounting degree.

But how did you decide accounting degree? So you're like, okay. I've gotta give up this music career.

Yeah. So I did my research, and it was either I I needed a degree I could do that would give me, like, a solid income. You know, I didn't wanna do another thing that I didn't wanna have to do a third thing. So I was researching, like, job salaries on, like, the Bureau of Labor Statistics website and, you know, job sites, and I found, okay, computer science and accounting. Those are the two ones that I can do affordably and have really good ROI, which is like a sign I should be an accountant. Right? The fact that I was doing that kind of research.

The tendencies are there. He's he's like, you're like

Economics and that too.

And of accounting and computer science, computer science required me to go back and get a bachelor's, basically. If I wanna get a job, people wanted a bachelor's. And it was hard to get into those programs because it was the recession and everybody was going back to school. But accounting, I realized, oh, you can satisfy all the requirements for the CPA without getting another degree. You can just take the classes. So I found all the classes I could, the cheapest I could, at Santa Monica College online. Credits were less than $200, you know, for a

4.

Semester credit. UCLA Extension, a little more than that, like 2 to 300. But all in, I did all the credits I needed for, like, less than $10,000. So talk about, like, great return on investment there. I don't even know I don't even know what I was making as a cellist, but, you know, I mean, I guess it was, like, $30,000 a year with parental support. Right?

Oh. So Yeah. It's it's funny as entrepreneurs. We we get them when we talk to them, it's the the fear of accounting and understanding how your numbers work and how your financial statement work and how taxes work. You're like, they don't need to be an expert. They just gotta know how to read them. Like, what's what's that language? They're just terrified of it, and they always end up hiring somebody to tell them what to do. Right?

But if

you're an entrepreneur and you know a little bit about accounting, you're gonna have an edge over most other everybody else because you just know how it works. It's a place to do.

Absolutely. Yeah. It was so great when I started my firm because I was doing my books daily. And I set up the firm in a way where, you know, as long as I do my job and I send out the invoices and you know, we we're doing fixed fees in advance. Right? So I could just build up this base of clients. And I knew how much money I had every month, and I just made sure that my expenses didn't exceed that. And if I was doing my books on a daily basis, I had a day to day p and l. Right? Every entrepreneur should be able to do that.

That sounds really complicated. I you know, I don't know. That's that doesn't sound like something that would be helpful for people. All you listeners, please listen. Maybe not daily, but at least, you know, weekly, monthly for for all that's holy. Yes.

Weekly is good. Yeah. I I Jody Grundon over at, like, Summit, CPA, which is now Anders, he does weekly. They do weekly for their clients, like, as on certain plans. And I just think it makes so much sense. Right? Like, you can you can adjust so much quicker than if it's monthly. Like, monthly is is really hard to to make any, you know, changes.

Yeah. If you're not if you're a volatile business, definitely wanna do it quicker. If you're pretty stable, monthly is probably good. But, man, if you got things happening, why not? So you're in California. You're hanging up your shingle. You're doing some accounting work, doing some tax work maybe, I guess.

Wait. So straight, you get your you get all your credits, and you just open up your own firm. First thing you do.

I was freelancing, doing QuickBooks bookkeeping and consulting, technology implementations while I was in school. That was really important to me as I wanna be able to pay my way through school. I didn't want to take more money from my parents because they just paid for 4 years at the most expensive school in the country. You know? And I was kind of embarrassed that I was, you know, changing, careers. And so, yeah, I just started doing QuickBooks, you know, bookkeeping. And if you're a decent bookkeeper and, you know, you, like, are empathetic and you call people back, it's pretty easy to get work in my experience. There are there's some pretty, you know, not very great bookkeepers out there. So I picked up a bunch of clients, and then, I got so many I I couldn't take on anymore.

So I started I hired a bookkeeper, to help me. And that was the beginning of my cloud based bookkeeping company, and it just kept growing. We got to, like, a dozen people, maybe closer to, like, 6 or 7 full time, because everybody was part time. A lot of people were part time, not everybody. And they worked from home, and we did fixed fees upfront. And, know, I hadn't I had never worked in public accounting. I had no idea how to even run one of these accounting practices, but I just looked at what these firms are doing over in Australia and New Zealand, where they're a bit further ahead of us with technology. And I just sort of took that model and put it in LA.

And I I I got in with 0 when they were new in the US. I was the 2nd bookkeeper to get certified in that app, and I rode the way with them. They just sent me leads. You know? When you're the only guy on the West Coast who knows that app and they're adding thousands of customers, right, you're gonna get business. So we did bill pay, we did, general accounting, bookkeeping, and we did payroll. Those were our 3 core services for our clients. A little bit of sales tax here and there, some ecommerce kind of stuff, but it was pretty simple. Right? And and we would charge, you know, anywhere from a few $100 a month up to a few $1,000 a month.

And, like, by the end, 5 years later, I've the CPA firm came along and they wanted to buy us because we had the process figured out. We had the tech figured out. We could do bookkeeping at scale, you know, and they didn't. And so, like, within 5 years, I sold my first business. It was it was incredible. And and then and then and then I finally got my CPA right after that.

Ain't it funny you didn't need the CPA to do what you what you were doing? Like, you just had to take care of people and solve that one problem? You didn't have to even have it.

And did you take your PPA just because you needed to check it off the list? Or did like, why would you go you know what I mean? Like, I feel like sometimes it's just that dangling thing. Like, I gotta do that to get that.

So I had done all the work to do it, and I had taken the exams, and then I had to get the work experience requirement. So when I sold my firm, I went to work for a large public accounting firm because I wanted to see what it was like actually in a big firm. And I lasted there for, like, the year that I needed to give

back to you. Pretty pretty good odds, though. I wouldn't think a year would you'd make it.

People aren't gonna tell you what to do if you're an entrepreneur. It's impossible.

It was hard. The hardest part was, like, I couldn't get IT to, like, do what I needed. Right? Because IT was, like, up in San Ramon, and I was in LA. And, I wasn't a partner. I was a manager. And, like, everything was a a request, like, some sort of form you had to fill out, and you had to wait months for anything to happen. I just it was not agile enough.

TPS report.

TPS reports. Yeah. So to give you an example, in the large firm, I asked them to turn on Microsoft Teams when it was in beta for my team. We had it. It was in our subscription, totally paid for. It took them 8 months to flip the switch. And by that time by that time, I decided I couldn't stay there any longer. Trying to

make your job easier, they're making it harder.

It was good, though. It was like I it was it was interesting. Like, you know, you realize you go into these large public accounting firms, and there's smart people there that definitely are incredible domain knowledge. But when it comes to actually running a business, these are not businesses. These are not businesses. They are just selling time, and I don't consider that to be a business.

Wasn't that like most accountants? Like, we don't know we're not business owners. We just do the task, you get paid for it. We that we don't know how to run a business, which is part of what you're probably doing. This is what we try to do is just how do you teach accountants how to run a business, not just do taxes and bookkeeping.

Exactly. Yeah. You want something you can sell someday? It's gotta not be dependent on you.

That's it.

So

Wow. That's like the mic drop moment. Right?

Boom. So and when did you how long ago did you move to, to Arizona?

Wait. I wanna know. You made it a year at public accounting.

Yep.

And you're like, this is not for me. You get to take your CPA. You obviously get it. Then what? Your well, I I

So so okay. So public accounting, oh, so I got recruited away by a software startup called FlowCast, which makes financial close management software for corporate controllers. And they wanted me to be their 1st product marketer. I didn't know what that was. But, basically, what that is is you're the subject matter expert, the CPA on the marketing team. And I was doing webinars. I was creating content, and that's how I got into this whole podcasting thing is they would send me out when the CEO didn't wanna go to to present at a conference and talk to people. And, I really like that.

I I like training. Introvert to a little bit of an extrovert in those scenarios. Right?

Sort of. Yeah. But it's like, when I go to conferences, I'm on, you know, and I'm socializing. And then I go home, and I come back here to Arizona. And I just I, you know, I don't know. I I just am in my office here. You know, I go for long walks. We live up, right next to the Scottsdale Sonoran Preserve.

Like, it you the trails go out from my neighborhood into that. It's the largest urban park in the country. There's, like, a 20 22 mile loop that you can do in it. It's huge. And, I go hike up in there when it's not too hot.

Have you done the Echo Trail?

Echo Trail?

No. Camelback Mountain?

Oh, yeah. Camelback. You know, it's funny. I get lazy up here in North Scottsdale. I don't go down there.

I I would have bet a million. That's the hardest hike in Arizona, allegedly.

Well, it's very rocky is what I hear. It's, like, not the most pleasant hike.

No. We we've both made it to the top. So you can Congrats.

With no water. And it's a 110, and I paid a guy $50 for a 8 ounce bottle of water. It's for the kids though. But, That's

cheaper than getting airlifted off of Camelback, I'll tell you that, which

is just

there a there's a mountain biker who just had to get rescued by the fire department around here.

No. I'd tell you, do that do that hike. It's pretty challenging. I mean, you obviously can do it, but it's kinda cool going up and seeing it all.

I'm doing the Grand Canyon in a couple weeks. I'm gonna

All the way through?

No. Yeah. From the North Rim to the South Rim in one day. So it's 25 miles.

You're gonna start at, what, like, 3 AM or something?

Yeah. I think we have to get up at, like, 3 or 3:30 to catch the shuttle to the trailhead, and then we'll leave the trailhead at, like, 4. And then it's basically if we do 2 miles an hour, which is very reasonable, then we'll get there by 4 PM.

So and when are you gonna do this hike? I'm curious about that.

October 15. It's, like, the last day they you can do it, like, with with services, you know, where the rangers are there.

Gotcha. And the water's flowing and the time nice. Well, that'll be a a hoot.

Yeah.

So here we are with I thought Julie had something.

Should I give her the look? Because she didn't have anything. So wanted to know why I moved to Arizona. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Other than

Nevada. It was, something a little thumb something called coronavirus. My son was 5. We were living in LA. We had just sold our house because we were trying to buy a new house. And so we were in an apartment, and then COVID hits. So it's like the 3 of us stuck in this apartment in LA, and all of our neighbors are around for the first time. So it's like a racket.

And, like, 3 days in, I I called my mom, and I was like, I don't know what we're gonna do. And she's like, why don't you just come here to Phoenix and stay with us? They were living here. And we said, okay. And we packed up the car in, like, 2 days, and we left. And we didn't go back, basically. Yeah. And, the only thing to do, you know, on the weekends here for for a little while was just, like, go drive around. And so we just drove around all these neighborhoods and started, like, looking at houses.

And we said, wow. We can afford to live here. You know? We can live in a nice neighborhood here as opposed to, like, buying a fixer upper in LA. Right? And, so, yeah, we we bought a house in COVID. We use Redfin. I love Redfin. It's so great. Highly recommend it because you can just, like, schedule all of your tours on the app.

And then, and then, like, you can do, like, 8 in a day, and they just send out different people to each of the houses. It's not like you have a realtor that, like, goes with you to all of them. It's super convenient. And we, yeah, we just found 1, and we made an offer before all the other Californians got here. And,

yeah. They're on beta. Yeah.

We were the we were the, Vanguard.

Got it. So here you are. You're you're already you're self employed at this point. Right? You're not working for anybody, or are you?

Well, so I I have 2, well, let's say I have 3 businesses. I have my personal s corp. I do a little consulting work. I have, Earmark Media, which is our podcast media production company, and that produces the accounting podcast, Oh My Fraud, federal tax updates, a bunch of the podcasts, accounting podcasts out there. And then, but my my real focus is on, Earmark Inc, our Delaware C Corp, which is the app, Earmark app. Earmark dot app. And that is the continuing education for podcasts platform.

And you had this in California, and that's what you continued on when you moved to Arizona, or is that something you started in Arizona? Any of these?

That I started that here not long after we got here. Yeah. Started building that.

So you were doing this technology. You're being the market basically, the face of this other company when you're in California. Mhmm. So did that end in COVID? Because, obviously, all conferences, all kinds of things like that kinda got shut down, or how did your decision to come to end employment with them?

So right before COVID, it worked out really well. Just I got lucky. I got a job running marketing for a much smaller start up. I was, like, employee 8 at a company called Jiraffe, spelled with a j and a v. Mhmm. And, we made financial planning and analysis software.

Mhmm.

And so, I was running all of marketing. So that was able to continue through COVID because digital marketing, you know, you can do that. And so, I I eventually decided though to leave to do my own thing. So during during all that. So

So what was the impetus though to do that? So

To leave?

Yeah. Because I mean, I think we're all familiar with the company you're speaking of being in the industry. But, you know, what made you go from, like, being a key part of a start up company to say, like, you know what? I gotta go hang up my shingle over here.

I think it just became, like, a time thing. I I wanted to focus on building the app and the podcast, and we got the podcast, the accounting podcast, to a point where the sponsorships were providing a full time income for me and my cohost so we could afford to just quit our jobs. So my my cohost, David Leary, he worked at Intuit for 20 years or something, so he quit his job. I quit my job, and we just went full time with building the media company and the app.

So it's funny. At some point, you must've had an moment that said, alright. I'm running this business, figuring it out. I'm gonna sell it, and it's all based on accounting and such. And then, you know what? I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. I'm gonna do other things and grow other businesses and do this thing, and it has nothing to do with accounting other than the industry space, but you're not doing any debits and credits No.

Right.

Taxes. None of those things. I have

a feeling he does his books daily still.

I do my own books, not daily like I should. But

You you you can't take the the boy out of the country too far. That's a rule. But, again, you change your mindset from I'm going to help others run their business and build their businesses, and but I'm gonna be an entrepreneur, and I'm gonna build my own business. What was that when did that hit you? Was it 2 by him, 4 in the face? How did that how did that happen?

I thought he

had enough sponsorship and income that it it

was just Well, let's see what he says.

Well, it's I'm trying to think, like, what was you know, thinking back, there's so many reasons why you do something. Right? I think it was that I was very lucky. I felt very fortunate to have an exit early with my very first business. And it was for me at the time, it was like it was a lot of money. Right? I was able to buy my first house, and, you know, like, it set me and my wife up for, you know, financial security, but it wasn't like a life changing thing. Mhmm. And I kept thinking to myself after I sold it, you know, as I was working at these 2 tech companies, I'm like, you know, I think I could I think I could raise money. I think I could do this.

Like, I'm looking at my, you know, my bosses and the founders at these companies. I'm like, they're smart guys, but I'm I could I'm this I'm smart too. Right? So, like and then I started to understand software as a service metrics and the valuations of software companies, and I'd never been exposed to that in accounting. We don't learn that in accounting. We should because SaaS metrics are the most important metrics in the world right now. And it's crazy to me that we don't teach them to accountants because it's basically accounting. So I learned software as a service metrics, you know, ARR, MRR, CAC, LTV to CAC ratios, you know, the compound annual growth rate kind of stuff, all that. And I realized if I start my own software type business, subscription software, that could be valued at 10 to 20 times revenue as opposed to, like, 1 to 2 times, if I'm lucky, for my accounting firm.

And, basically, I said, well, I can do this. I'm gonna do this. Here's an idea. The CP for podcast thing, nobody's done it well yet. There people have tried, but I can do it better. And I wanna build a business that I'm gonna have a life changing exit from. Right? That is gonna create tens of 1,000,000 of dollars of, you know, value for me and my shareholders, if not 100 or you know, this is potentially a $1,000,000,000 company based on my calculations. You know, the the US continuing education market is gonna be, like, $90,000,000,000 in a few years.

So if you grab, like, a tenth of a percent of that, that's a unicorn type business.

Not so bad, is it?

Right? So, basically, yeah, I I kinda got the bug. Right? You you sell one business. I'm sure you have heard this from guests before. You've experienced yours yourself. You you have a little success, and then you think, what if I could do it again? And that's why you have all these serial entrepreneurs. Right? You kinda get addicted to it.

That's why all we all have ADHD because it's just what's next. Hit the button.

We gotta get the next Yeah. And it worked. I thought after I sold it, I'd be okay. I'm just gonna be an employee now. Relax. You know?

Never.

And you know what's because the first business, I'm not gonna lie, was extremely stressful. I didn't know what I was doing, and I I felt like I was faking it the whole way. And, so at a certain point when, like, I got the offer to sell, I just took it. Because I was like, okay. Good. You know, I'm gonna sell it. I'm gonna get out before everyone realizes I don't know what I'm doing, and I screw it up. And then in the years after, as I reflected on it and I saw these other startup founders basically faking it too, I realized everybody is is just making it up as they go.

Everyone is making it up as they go, and so I shouldn't feel like that. And and it's okay. And so that gave me comfort to go do it again. And now that I'm doing it the second time, you know, it's, like, so much easier because I just embrace the chaos. If I don't know how to do something, I just admit it, and I go ask, and I don't have to have all the answers. And it feels really good, actually. You know? So I'm I'm I'm loving it. And I think I think this is how people get to this point where they're, like, starting businesses all the time.

Well, again, I think once you understand how the process works and you can surround yourself with people that are smarter than you to help in that process, most people just don't have the guts to go out and try it. Right? And if you you you simply cannot fail ever. If you surround yourself with good people, you have a good thing, and you have the drive, you're gonna be fine with it.

But I think for him, the second go around was, you know, he felt you know, what do they call that imposter syndrome or whatever. Yeah. Like, the Gone. He was running it from a sense of fear, a fear of failure almost. And I'm guessing the second time around, like, you just know it's gonna work out. It may not be exactly what you envisioned today, but you know that it's going to work out and you believe in yourself, your team, your shareholders, whatever the case is, more than you believe in your failure. And I think that mindset's a little different.

Yes. I I believe in this idea, this product. You know? I I because I meet the people who love it, and they talk to me, and they love it. And I know as long as I just keep that going, if I don't screw that up, if the customers love it, if the users love it, and they keep writing good reviews about it, we will figure out how to make money. And, and that's what keeps me going. It's just like, you know, we have over 500 reviews on the app store, and we've got a 4.8 star rating, which is, like, really high on the Apple App Store. And it's a lot of ratings for a niche app like what we do.

I think you just said something that's really key here. And I think you aren't doing this for the money. You just you you just said I am doing this because I'm going to provide a good product to the end user. And if I can continue to do that, then I know I'm doing well. Nowhere in there did you mention

Well, he said he knows he'll get paid.

Correct. But I'm saying, like, the first thing isn't I have to I'm doing this to make money. I think that's a really big thing with entrepreneurs. Oftentimes, the successful ones is they're doing it for something bigger than themselves.

But where he's at probably, like, is that he had the got to the point where he doesn't have to, like, oh my god. I can't feed the family this week. Like, what am I gonna do?

That's right. I have my base. My my yeah.

You're good. But at the same time, having that base creates so much free space in the entrepreneur's mind. They don't have to worry about that anymore, and they can focus totally on the new thing. And that's way more empowering than having those things of doubt, and I gotta pay the bills and all that's in fact. You can get through that point as an entrepreneur, that's when that's late. Now you can but, again, you let that creative side of your brain open up in there because it's Yep. Oppressed with all the things you have to worry about starting that first one.

Yeah. That's that's right. I'd kinda forgotten about that, Glenn. You know, when I started my first business, I had a baby. And, like, my we were living in LA, and we had just stretched to buy you know, we'd stretched to buy to rent even, you know, to buy anything, and it was so stressful, like, the financial pressure. And then when we moved here and, you know, I'd had a successful exit, so we had equity. You know, we didn't have we we we got a really good mortgage on the house we bought. And, like, my wife and I have 2 incomes.

So, like, we could probably live on one of them. And that just gives me the freedom to go out and try things, and that's kinda actually how our relationship works. She always has the steady job with the health insurance. Mhmm. I go get to go out there and try to hit hit home runs. Right? She hits the base hits. I hit the home runs, and then, you know, that like, that's the perfect situation, right, for an entrepreneur, is I have I don't I don't feel worried all the time.

It's a huge it's a huge thing as an entrepreneur. And and, again, it's hard to help as an entrepreneur to recognize that that's out there. You just gotta you gotta step up every once in a while and look around and see where you're missing out on something. And what is it the thing

that the key thing you're missing, plug that in, and you'll get there. So just

don't give up, but and you'll get there. So just don't

give up. But at that

worst moment in that peak and valley, you'd you gotta

be able to

step back and go, man, what do I gotta do to change to move the next step? And if you can be unencumbered, oh, it's a whole different game. Because then it's just all drive. Yeah.

And to Julie, to your point about the, the money being second, I feel it's, like, exactly the same way in building a podcast, which, you know, I I help people create podcasts. And and I say, like, you cannot have getting lots of downloads as your primary objective

Mhmm.

Because you will never be satisfied with that. It has to be something else. And then if if if you do that well and consistently, then the downloads will follow and and the sponsorship money will follow, that sort of thing. Right? But it it's like you if you try to get famous, if that's your objective, is to be famous, you're not going it's not going to happen. Right? You have to have something to say. You have to, like, a reason for what you wanna do. I feel like it's the same way in business, right, with having a successful exit, there. It's like it can't you can't you can't be starting a business because you wanna get rich.

Like, it's too hard. You'd be better off just, like, going and, I don't know, working a really highly paid professional job.

Or from the lottery.

Well, it's the odds are great.

Actually, if you you wanna risk free way to become really wealthy, it's just go grind away at, PWC for 15 years. Right?

You'll be loaded at the end of that.

And, actually, there's there's nothing wrong with that. Like, one of the moms in my neighborhood, she did that. She worked at one of the big four and just, like, saved as much as she could for, like, 10 years and built up a nest egg to retire here in Arizona. So, like, that's that's I don't have a problem with that if that's, like, your objective because that's pretty smart.

Just one of the you know, one of Julie's gonna ask this question. But as an entrepreneur, we we just don't think like that, really. We we think about how can we build something because we know all this knowledge. How do we keep going with that? And I'll let that segue into your question.

Well, I have a couple questions, though, and I think I have 3. So for our listeners, we talk a lot about peaks and valleys. And we talk about how the valleys are really where you learn that grit and that grind to be able to get to the next peak.

Mhmm.

If

there's something for our listeners, you know, some piece of advice that you can give them as they're going maybe through through that valley, What could piece of advice that you learned through your journey could you offer them?

Most of what you do is not going to work out. If you accept that from the beginning, it's a lot easier to accept your failures. Like, 80% of the things I try fail. And that's especially true in marketing, and I spent a few years in marketing. And that's very disappointing at first. Right? You you you do a webinar, it flops. You know, you you do a marketing campaign, it doesn't deliver leads. But then after you try a bunch of things, something works.

And you just have to, like, really pay attention so that you see when something's working, measure figure out ways to measure what you're doing, and then just go all in on that.

But I think for an entrepreneur, though, it's not failure because you didn't quit. You just Right. Did. You just were had enough awareness. I'm not gonna go further into that. I'm gonna pivot because that's what's gonna work.

Exactly. It's not the the important thing is to keep going.

It's like

when I was playing the cello, the important thing was, like, it doesn't matter if you sound like crap. What matters is that you go into the practice room every day, and you focus on getting better. And you gotta stop looking at the output for a while because it's gonna take you years before you get that output that you're satisfied with. You know? At least for me as kind of a perfectionist, that was the hardest thing. That was one of the best things my teacher taught me was, like, just to let go of, you know, how it sounds. Just focus on improving. It's it's you're constantly failing. So it's like, there's that phrase, fail upward.

I feel like in business, like, the people who succeed in corporate America, they fail upward because everybody's constantly failing. But they somehow they somehow you know, their successes get them up there. Right? So, yeah, that's it it's you just have to be okay with, the chaos, the the the constant not knowing, and and sort of just find your focus in all of that to to just make progress every day. I I I'm remembering a great interview that, Barack Obama did with Anthony Bourdain, and where where Anthony asked him Bourdain asked him, like, you know, how do you describe American politics, something like that. And and Obama said that he thinks that, you know, football is the best analogy for it because it's a game of yards, and it's a running game. You go forward, you go back. You go forward, you go back. And, hopefully, you go more forward than you go back.

And I think business is just like

that. 100%. Right? So

Okay. So my second to last question is, what is your superpower?

My superpower is, my disease, which is ADHD, which I was diagnosed with as a kid, but my parents didn't tell me. And I just found out about it this year. And, it's funny because it's like, in retrospect, it all makes so much sense. But, you know, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is both a superpower, and something that you have to, like, deal with as a, you know, condition medical condition. So there's advantages and disadvantages, but the superpower is hyperfocus, the focus part, which is that, like, when I get excited about something or interested in something and wanna solve a problem, yes, I can I can lock in, and I can work on that for hours, days, weeks, and just get it done, and other people would give up? The the the kryptonite for that, of course, is the, the attention deficit part, which is that if I'm not excited about something or I don't wanna do something, I procrastinate. And that creates stress and anxiety, and all that. So, but, you know, like, the reason it was my superpower was, like, I'm not good at keeping track of deadlines. I'm not good at, like, remembering to do things that I've told people I'm gonna do, which sounds like a terrible, set of traits for an accountant.

Does. And it's it's I like to say I'm not a great accountant. And so what it forced me to do is design a business that had systems in place to prevent me from forgetting and to prevent me from, you know, like, missing deadlines. And I didn't realize it at the time, but that is what enabled my firm to have really high quality because I had a system of quality control in place designed for myself because I was not a reliable employee. And so anyone I brought in who was more reliable just thrived because we had, you know, the workflow software in place. Right? We had task management. We had automatic reminders. We had everything to make sure that we got the work done on time and to spec, and our clients loved it.

Because they're used to working with firms where it's just all, like, people based, and there's no process, and there's no technology, and you're just relying on the expertise of individuals. Well, at scale, that doesn't work. You you have to have a way to, like, measure quality and ensure deliverables on time and you know? Otherwise, you're gonna miss stuff. So that's my superpower. I didn't, like, I didn't even know I had it, That that's what I credit my success to.

It's like, it's like when you play golf, you you get you play with the game that you got that day. And sometimes you got a good one, sometimes you have a bad one. You just keep playing.

Just That's right. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. Go for it.

Sorry. I have one last question.

Okay.

And it is, what is your end game?

That's a great question because I'm raising a seed round for earmark right now. And so I had to put together a pitch deck and do the typical startup founder thing where, you know, you paint the vision. And you gotta paint the biggest vision you can. Right? Because you want people to believe in this company. And, you know, I I'm very focused on just getting to the next level. Like, that's what I've learned is, like, don't focus too far on the future because things are gonna change. So I just focus on what's the next year or 2. But making this pitch deck has made me think, what's the possibility for Earmark? And now I'm starting to, like, buy my own buy I'm starting to, like, buy it into it myself, which is like this $90,000,000,000 market, and Earmark could revolutionize continuing professional education because you can do it on your phone, in your pocket, any time, anywhere.

It's so convenient. You know, I think it could be a unicorn. Like, if we really wanted to take it there, it could be like a incredibly disruptive education start up for all continuing education across professions. Right? So that's like the that's the Avengers Endgame type of, you know, outcome.

Well, I think you answered it correctly, though. Because there is no endgame.

Never gonna stop.

You're just gonna keep going. Like, you I liked when you were like, I'm just focusing on the next, you know, 1 or 2 things and Lies. Because

Lies.

It's just a stair step effect. Right? It's 1 or 2, then the next 1 or 2, then the next 1 or 2. And who knows? Maybe, you know, earmark does what you wanted to do, but I have a feeling you're go you're going to do something else.

Yeah. I I think so. I mean, it's You're

not gonna just sit in Arizona and

You know too much.

Yeah.

You know too much. Why stop?

It's like when you're a musician. Right? If to learn a concerto, to learn to play, like, this hour long piece of music by memory that's extremely difficult, Like, the Dvorak cello concerto, which I I learned how to play that before I left school. I was very happy, the whole thing. Performed it. And, you know, it took me, like, a year of one measure at a time. Right? One measure at a time. Okay. Now we've got now we've got a dozen.

Now we've got, you know, a 100. Now you know, and you build it up over time, and then you get there. But if you, like, start from the point of view of, you know, I gotta perform this thing, you're you're gonna be completely overwhelmed. So I try not to look too far ahead. So yeah.

Do you still I'm sorry. I do have one more question. I'm gonna you're gonna yeah. It's gonna come Just

one more question.

Do you still play cello? Mhmm.

That'd be your safe space.

I was just it's great. It's like, I was just practicing yesterday. I'm I'm I, I performed the first three Bach solo cellist suites when I was in college. You know, 1, 2, and 3. And I never did 4, 5, and 6. And to be, you know, what I would consider, like, a complete cellist, at a professional level, you should be able to play all 6 perform all 6. So my goal is, to learn and perform the other 3. And so I'm working on 4 right now, the the e flat major, suite, which is just incredibly beautiful, very difficult to play, because of the key.

And, yeah, it's like I wanna make time for myself. I wanna make sure that I don't neglect that. You know? And that's, like, really hard too as an entrepreneur is not letting your business take over your life.

Well, that's the funny thing. But all you all you listeners here that, like, if this guy can figure how to play cello in his free time, maybe it's between, you know, 3 and 4 AM. I don't know. But, like, there's no excuse not to do the things you need to be doing. You can't let it all consume you on everything in your job, and you gotta be able to find that free time to do the things that make you feel alive as well. Yeah. So on that note, re this has been

the cut me off with

my question. You're you're done. Your time's up. No. It's time. We we earmarked the time. And and so, you know No

pun intended. Done.

You know? And if you wanna give, you know, a plug to The Accounting Podcast, which is the name which seems like a nebulous name, but hey. Whatever. If you wanna give a plug to that and, and your software, that'd be great.

Yeah. Listen to The Accounting Podcast. It's the number one podcast for accountants in the world by downloads. You can just search for the accounting podcast on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And also check out the Earmark app if you need CPE credits. If you're a CPA, a CMA, an enrolled agent, even if you're a chartered accountant abroad, you can use our credits for your license renewal. Go to earmark.app in your browser, and you can sign up for free. It's a free app.

How do we do it? Well, if you wanna take more than 1 a week, you upgrade for a $150 a year. Pretty good deal. So, go to earmark.app.getfreecpe. And, if you wanna follow me personally, I'm Blake Oliver on LinkedIn. I like to post a lot on LinkedIn these days. It's a lot of fun. So connect with me there.

Awesome. Well, Blake, really appreciate you being on the show today. I think our listeners will get a lot of value out of that. I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith.

Thank you. Thank you. That was fun. You. Hopefully, that was good for you.