Michael Young welcome to acquiring minds thanks for having me well awesome to be here Michael you started your career in accounting you sought a stable predictable path accounting gave you that but when you gained in stability you lost in control buying a business gave you that we're going to hear all about it but start us off please Michael with some background on you yeah so I grew up around small business business entrepreneurs that's what my dad did grandparents great-grandparents all owned and ran small businesses and so uh I saw the good and bad as a kid and around the time I was probably eight or nine the well my dad and grandfather were running a small packaging business and watch that basically go belly up and so I thought I wanted then something stable and so to me accounting for a big firm was was that was stable and so started off at a move at to New York working for Price water Coopers um and they've got a great uh machine kind of once you get in um they always kind of put another step in front of you and so was on that was on that escalator and not always intentionally and kind of got to the doorstep of partner and was like did I really mean to be be here this entire time and so um that's kind of along the way then started looking at uh got exposed to the ETA world and was like oh wow like I think this is actually what I'm looking for and so jumped off the escalator and uh did a did a 360 of sorts I guess um ended up buying a small accounting firm but um yeah here I am great uh thank you for that Michael I'm going to uh dig into a few of those details first of all take us all the way back to eight or nine years old seeing this business that your dad and grandfather owned ran go belly up I guess we already know what that does to the mind of a of a young boy because it it kind of dictated the path that you would take at least in early adulthood but but maybe take us back what what's that like is that traumatic or are you too young to really perceive how hard it is I mean just what's it like to be in the household at that age when that's happening obviously didn't know all the details at that time I just saw all of a sudden there was a lot of stress between my dad and grandfather and it all came back to the to the business I had an awesome childhood great childhood with do it 10 times do it every time again it was just that stress came home and so that that then kind of formed my where I thought I want what I thought I wanted and so what what happened was and now I've learned more of the story but a couple good business lessons was there was one large customer that um and what they made or assembled was electric charcoal starters what you'd use for your backyard charcoal grill plug into the wall eer charcoal girl going so they assembled those for Craftsman in Florence Kentucky Craftsman was a large percentage of the business Craftsman decides to go overseas uh starting in kind of the early 90s and that the business kind of fell apart from there um and my dad and grandfather had different ideas of kind of what to do to try and fix it and ultimately I think it permanently changed their relationship and that kind of I guess permanently changed my my trajectory as well that's really kind of a a story of well it's obviously not maybe Rust Belt Automotive offshoring but but it is a story of manufacturing being offshored and an American owner and his employees being stuck with wondering what the heck to do yep for sure yeah okay although I guess it was you know in the early 90s that was kind of the tail end of it was really happening badly yeah I mean it was the tail end of it so I mean it wasn't like it was this was like 50 60s 7s like where a lot of this was happening it was a bit later just cuz I mean it was a small price it wasn't a lot of margin to potentially do it and so it's probably down the list and they finally got to the bottom of the list of of things to move well you learned customer concentration then from an early age um I'm sure nobody was calling it that but we all now know how important those two words are and you also I also know from the preall which you skipped over a little bit is what your dad did next please yeah so then I said I saw the good and bad growing up so the good was my dad had a young family and with three kids and was like what do I do next and so he started uh his own mechanical contractor and so he had so mechanical Contra commercial HVAC um that is like very uh hot a hot button here in the ETA World um but he started that without any he was not a not in the trades originally um he didn't know the difference between a condenser or a compressor but he knew how to treat people he knew how to motivate and how to connect with people and so we started that and he grew that into like 50 or 60 people uh over the next 20 or 25 years and so he was um so saw him to be tremendously successful with that it's so cool and is that what he's doing today or has he retired so he was so he was a a minority owner in kind of the the uh that firm they sold actually to one of the huge consolidators in the HVAC World um like two years ago and so he's uh he's on the tail end I think he's going to be retiring uh next year at some point so didn't sell to a Searcher then no it was we we had kind of toyed around with it but I mean they it was like it would have been a big one to try and get done it would have and kind of we can talk through it more but it was something where I would have need to get outside Equity to try and make it work and it was just it wasn't uh it was too big just a little bit more on your dad being so good with people because that's now an observation I've heard you make twice yeah so I mean he uh he he would tell you that was his motivation for growing the business right cuz he had guys that was start with him at Tech and he's like well I want this guy to be able to become a project manager because that's going to mean more income for him more income for his family and so he was then going out trying to grow and trying to develop opportunities for that for his team and so his his Core group of like 7 folks have been with him now for almost the life of the that he had it um and almost all of them started off as techs like out of school or very early on in their careers and they've they're now in their 40s and late 40s and they've they've grown with him and so um he's the way he did it was like he knows everything about them like he knows their kids' names he knows what teams their kids play on he knows the scores of their games last weekend like he knows all of that stuff and so he just connects with them and like that's how he's um that's his superpower that's really I guess exhibit a of kind of servant leadership where where he's he's leading by just truly thinking about how he can serve his his followers for lack of a better word yeah no yeah I mean it was very no ego leadership of like hey what do you need let me help you like how do we figure this out so yeah um yeah and then he I mean also important lessons there of like he knows then like what his strength are so he was intentional about finding someone that he could work with who was very super technical and like did know the difference between a condenser and compressor and he then also then would go out and find someone who's like he's okay with sales he found with someone who could also then help on the sales and Business Development front so it was like good business lessons of like know what you are and what you're not and fill in the gaps where where you're not and just out of curiosity because it's a theme that comes up here so much how technical did he ultimately become how much did he learn did does he yet yet know what a condenser with the difference between condenser compressor yeah yeah so he so he he he has um but I still think he would like he would defer to his team like he could walk into a job and know what's going on but like I think that's part of also he thinks it's important to have the respect to the team and like he's not not getting getting away from it but also um yeah I'd say he he he he could handle his own job today uh just from as you would have to uh just osmosis of of everything you're seen being in the business for 25 years now fast forward into your career you're on the escalator up in your your your work as an accountant and at one of the big firms and then you say to yourself and and you kind of I guess are having success because you're just you find yourself continuing to to ascend and then you say to yourself wait is this what I wanted so so in fact so I I guess I'm trying to tease out how deliberate you were in your career versus how it was kind of Just Happening to you yeah I mean I think it was I would say I wasn't that deliberate for the first I don't know six or eight years I was I knew that I wanted to progress and progress fast but I didn't know that like hey I want to be doing this five or 10 years from now and so the next promotion was always like okay that seems like a good hurdle and then once I get there then I can kind of go find what I need to find and that was always kind of I mean it's it tells you something about organizational structure and kind of PE motivating and retaining people but uh yeah that was kind of always there and so um I think as you started trying to like my wife and I then kind of personal life is like okay like we want to start having a family like how like what does that mean for me in my career and like and so that's when I started thinking about like that's what's prompted the like okay am I doing what I want actually want to be doing and so don't get me wrong like I was in the due diligence phase so like I started off doing quality earnings and so it was always interesting work with tonart people saw lots of exciting deals um but there was always like I just wanted more uh I guess it was kind of a challeng I wanted more control and so I wanted to be able to like if I saw someone on my team going above Beyond I kind of wanted the direct ability to reward them or give them what I felt like they deserved um or I wanted the ability to actually make the business or operating decisions and so a lot of times we'd see companies and be like they should be doing this or should be doing that but then we would leave and never really kind of see what happened and so it was kind of like an also mentality of like put up or shut up like if you think you can do this like go see if you can actually do it um so that was all kind of going on um and so what originally L me to ETA so was um I was at University of Chicago they've got the ETA program there that kind of opened my eyes to it um and my wife had been at University of Chicago and she actually before I was like she's like I think you'd be pretty good at this ETA thing you should look at it and so that originally started me down the path I reached out to one of the accelerator um heads um and was like hey just trying to learn more and the next thing I knew I was in their process for looking at like their kind of people who then stay there search and then go go out and operate and that made me realize and so it was again kind of got put in the process without being super intentional about it um and I got rejected and so they would like what if you just went into work for one of our portfolio companies and so we can kind of talk more about it but that was a huge like I thought I'd be a shoin like way over confident and part of the feedback was like what you need I don't think you actually understand enough about ETA like sure you've been around deals but I feel like you don't actually understand it so took that as a challenge I then went out and talked to 100 plus Searchers operators investors um wasn't smart enough to create a podcast around it uh but uh did that and learned a ton I even then went and interned for a Searcher um and that was great I got like even while I was working full-time got to really see the insides of like what I felt like worked and didn't work during a search um and so it all kind of got me ready to go do my own thing just to elaborate on a few things there so you're University of Chicago where you're exposed to it Booth of course is the is the business school of un University of Chicago Booth is a big name in ETA it's one of the one of the business schools that where ETA is is kind of most uh evangelized and and a lot of people coming out of Booth do it or I should say a lot of people with mbas that you see in search have come from Booth uh how big is Booth by the way every class uh it's a good so I did actually did the executive program I didn't do the full-time program um want to say the fulltime is probably I think five or 600 a class the executive program was like a 100ish a class and then there's they have an evening parttime program and that probably has I would say almost like probably a thousand plus kids in or students in that and then I just want to also your decision to do this I mean you you you like it you see it you like it buying a business entrepreneurship through acquisition your wife encourages you she sees it in you but you also are turning your your back on potential partnership making partner at your firm you mentioned that earlier and of course that is kind of the top level most kind of pedigree most salary that somebody would be shooting for in the line of in in at a big accounting firm so just tell us a little bit more about what that path would have looked like so we can understand just how rich it was what you were walking away from yeah I mean it's it's um great financial compensation um I think it's six figures it can be seven figures um I think there's it can be seven figures so you could so Partners some if you got there over a million bucks a year salary um and I mean I think I don't I should also just to like I was felt like I was right there on the doorstep I was told right there on the doorstep but like I also I mean who knows with they've all had layoffs recently and like they just got rid of Partners so like who knows what what actually would have happened but um felt like I was right there was being told that's the next step but yeah I mean that is a very lucrative that is people are aiming for that it is a career pedestal and like you've you've made it from there is kind of for sure yeah um and that's again like that in itself I didn't find if I was being honest myself I didn't actually find it I wasn't doing that for me I was doing it for like the perception and like the everything else that went with it and so uh yeah I mean that that with all my conversations with folks the one thing one piece of advice that I got I feel like was the best was know exactly your reason why for why you're going into this and because there's going to be shitty days there's going to be days where why you're like why did I do this um but I figured out my why and like that wasn't really tied to PWC through all those conversations just that made the decision much much much easier but and just to be clear how old would you have been if you'd made partner roughly in this time frame that you thought you might um yeah it would have been 34 or 35 so mid 30s at partner level and then so you'd be looking at another 30 years of of partner and I assume there's even tiers within partnership and you probably would have uh inched up those but it would have been quite a feather in your cap with still a long way to go great that's helpful okay so you figure out your why which is wanting more control and one of the ways you characterize your control was like wanting to be able to reward somebody on your team who kind of went above and beyond or um make decisions uh so you guys would see inside these businesses doing the qoves that you were doing you'd see inside these businesses and be like oh they should do X or Y um but not actually have any implementation control there so when you talk about control is it really that stuff really kind of tactical day-to-day control or is it also kind of self-actualization control Big Picture control steering your own kind of ship or all the above there's probably some truth to all of that I think there's the professional side of like yes I wanted to be able to see if I could actually do what I thought I was capable of professionally I also wanted the ability to like control and be home and be dad and be husband and be who I want like who I wanted to be at home as well and so that gave me that control to do that as well whereas the partner rout yes you are kind of your own boss in a sense but there's still a whole another like pyramid even once you get the partner and your first I don't know 10 years you're still kind of grinding to kind of get figure it out and I was like I don't want the first and we we just had our daughter our first daughter around the same time of me leaving PWC and starting to search and I was like I don't want the first 10 years of my daughter's life to me be like cranking out 12 hour weeks like for PWC and so that was the other side of it um as well so we just want to control personally if like yes like last week left moved meetings calendars so I could go to breakfast with Santa in my daughter's thing it's like I wouldn't maybe had the ability to do that maybe not like elsewhere and so that that was the other side of the control that um that I was looking for okay you talk to an accelerator you get kind of sucked into their their funnel you're going along with it but in fact they don't accept you uh Michael Michael experiences rejection for one of the the earliest times in the first times in his career uh and they tell you it's because it doesn't seem like you've done your homework around ETA and so you take that as a challenge as you said and you start you really hit the books get on the phone talk to tons dozens and dozens of people um that search accelerator as essentially they all are probably there's an exception or two in there but generally when you talk about them as a category they have traditional search fund economics um and you so you didn't go forward with them and then you do your research and you decide you want to do a self-funded search uh any anyway or instead of traditional a traditional search fund so the economics of what you're now looking at and and the kind of um the independence the autonomy are very different talk to me a little a little bit about uh more about that decision because you'd been exposed to Trad traditional search fund you didn't get into the accelerator but you probably still could have circled back around a guy from Booth with connections and stuff and raised a traditional search fund had you really set your mind to it why didn't you yeah I mean it it comes back to uh very one like the control of like I want to be in various specific areas I wanted to be doing in businesses that I wanted to be involved with and like I feel like you lose some of that independent autonomy if you are raising a f because there's certain expectations um that folks are going to have and so that and then for the other side of it is like my wife and I are fortunate to be in a financial spot where we could put down a pretty sizable Equity check for a business in in the and you going SBA route and so um and I also always knew that like there was did have networks from PWC from Booth my wife and I both did of like even if we found A2 or3 million ebit business that's going to be above the the SBA world like we could find at that point kind of the the the investors to to make it work and so that was like and kind of again going back to like the why it's like why are we going to be looking I think there's traditional and accelerators have much more flexible in kind of what you're looking at and and where you're going now but again if it was all about like family and then also being able to do what I wanted to be doing like and we financially can make it work it's like it seems like self self-funded was was the right way to go okay so now we are at uh the doorstep of your search tell us about it yeah so I mean it was uh I feel like there was the first three or four months is like a honeymoon phase where you're it's easy to get up and get going and like you're uh talking to folks but that that after three or four months was really kind of where I had a wall and my my search was doing was doing kind of a lot of the same stuff other folks are doing talking to was doing talking to Brokers talking to intermediaries then reaching directly out to to companies and industries that I wanted um and yeah that's kind of what I did for 18 months and so I had different industry concentrations over the course of the 18 months that I was looking at and when I first started off I would have been like nope I'm focusing on a trades business like that's what or something similar to that um I thought I'd be out in the field having a team with like a field of operations and so uh give them kind of what my dad had been doing and never thought I'd be doing I thought I'd done my last accounting uh last billable hour uh once I left PC and uh spent a year was all like occasionally see accounting things pop up and like nope I'm not doing that I don't I don't want to do it but then as you are in the ETA world you're like man a lot of these companies could really use a little help on their accounting side um and like when I got was being truly honest with myself it was like did I not like accounting or did I not like the idea of like who I was helping and so we would often work with huge private Equity Funds and like it's great helping them make an extra billion but it was always way more rewarding helping the smaller businesses because that actually had a much more tangible benefit I felt like and so then I started looking at so then finally like looked at a serious actually I think it was from one of the podcast from somebody on here Patrick dictor was like he was like he had acquired accounting business I'm like uh okay fine I'll look I'll start looking more seriously at it and he he and cuz partly he makes a great argument for why they're so appealing I mean there's there's so much to like which we're going to hear about yeah and I mean I think on here on this podcast he literally was like yeah if I wasn't account I would buy one if I was an accountant I would just start one up and I was like okay interesting interesting idea um and so then started looking more and more accounting and it was like okay these are uh these check a lot of the boxes that you'd be looking for and it's like if I actually do want to be helping the local mom and pop business helping local business owners have much more of a tangental benefit it's not always helping these billion dollar funds it's like that seems pretty compelling like that's that's what I want to be doing and so towards the end of my 18 months I was almost exclusively just looking for accounting firms and so um was very picky actually went up against Patrick on on a couple deals um and uh yeah and so finally accounting firms basically during tax season not the market kind of dries up completely at this point I was pretty convinced that like I accounting is what makes ton sense for me um and so about January of last year I just basically abandoned my search and was only looking at accounting firms but and spent 90% of my time just trying to start an accounting practice from scratch and so wait hold on Michael so you're you start an accounting practice from scratch and you're searching for accounting firms at the same time so you don't abandon your search you you just narrow it super down to just got super Civic where I was like only looking at accounting practices only looking at accounting practices that have that look like this and so I basically was only talking to accounting Brokers only knew I was interested if it had X Y and Z and so like the search process was very easy then because it would like as things would come across it take me two seconds to be like yes or no um and all and that would that was probably 5 or 10% of my time the other 90 95% was all just building a clientas doing um outsourc accounting for for small businesses and with the intention of what to earn money in the mean time to get yourself in the game so that you can you can you can present that you're already you already already have a practice or what what was the end game with the idea was start something and then goow it and see where goes from there like open to Acquisitions along the way if they made sense um but just start something because iel like the opportunity was too big in kind of the small business accounting world to pass up and so just got going and I I was like if then acquisition makes sense along the way we can we can look at it and so um that's where so it started in January uh spent three or four months where basically it was me and then like I'd have a few like outsourc bookkeepers um that I have helping me um like Clos books um for clients and so it was I mean frankly it was as anemy owner I will tell you like finding the work wasn't the problem it was figuring out how to actually get the work done was was the problem um and so again stayed in touch with Patrick I've known him um now kind of for over year year and a half and so he was like I was like Hey I just started the accounting practice I'm all in like and he was like you should come to this Pasa conference and so uh this is back Michael let me stop you here because because I don't want to get too far away from a couple followup questions I have we'll return to Pasa in a minute um but you had said you looked at a few Industries like including uh Home Services or or field Blue Collar field type businesses and why would you then disqualify what were a couple of those and why did you disqualify them quickly just each one yeah I mean I think the I mean it started off like my dad's in mechanical Contracting and plumbing all in maintenance side and so like even before I started doing search I was like man those he I was like kind of learn more about hiss I'm like that's an awesome business and this is like six seven years ago where like they just show up do these small projects fix whatever it is come back every month and do I'm like that's an awesome business and so that's why like of course I feel like every Searcher started off on that um I spent some time poking around uh like I also had a healthcare background so when I left bwbc was mostly doing um help basically doing Physician Group rollups and uh so looked at that for some period of time there was only like certain Specialties that I was interested in um looked at like medical equipment maintenance service companies looked at like residen that seems like a good business nice recurring crucial it gr growing big Tailwinds with Healthcare yeah it was um there's some huge players in it um I mean I would still be open to it but I felt like it was going to be it was hard as I learned more about it it was it like it was going to be pretty hard to grow to like actually get your foot in the door to actually talk to the right person to actually get that service contract because a lot of times it's hooked like that's all kind of established on the front end so I was like it didn't seem like an a great organic growth play I didn't necessarily have want to bring in investors to make it kind of an inorganic growth play um and so was open to it but it wasn't didn't become a focus Point um and then another thing is like I you would see sometimes in like this industry and other ones I looked at at first I get all discouraged because I'm like oh I see private equity in this in this space like there's not going to be anything to buy then but that also was a pretty good Telltale that like okay you are looking at halfway decent businesses then because if there if if somebody's some private Equity is doing a rollup in that world like that tells you somebody else is agrees with your thesis exactly um so also looked at like um Association Management so like Community associations like they they have Outsource providers that like will manage the the board meetings and all that stuff and so looked at this is a kind of one I had come across in my ptbc days and it was like great monthly recurring you're showing up it's all kind of a um consistent service month-to month and you're just helping the bo like a volunteer board make decisions and so really like that poked around on that also private Equity world and private equity in that um and so those are kind of a few of the other industries that spent some time poking around and why did you go why did you do an industry focused search or like tackle Industries as opposed to just being completely agnostic I I wouldn't say I was industry focused um I think there was certain geographies my like my wife and I wanted to be in like and so the and so would searching those geographies and I think you have to be a little bit open to Industries there was like three or four that I would never touch but other than that if there was something that fit the right size like I would look at it um and then there was then at the same angle would also have kind of a cross-section view of like okay these are industries that I know that I really like and so I would go find ways to make sure I knew all the companies in that industry within the geographies that I wanted what geographies did you want um so I mean with tell folks was basically from Philadelphia to the Carolinas on the east is where we're looking and then my wife and I also have family um in Kentucky so kind of around there too so and just tell us a little bit more about starting up the practice so it was initially going to be I assume you just started with bookkeeping and that's kind of the that's kind of the toe hold and then you maybe upsell from there on a client by client basis it's also the the most kind of the the the lowest frankly lowest value easiest to deliver yeah uh service um so I I did that and then did the other way too of like hey I can and so during my search I did some Consulting on the side and so like would there would occasionally be folks who were like hey I'm looking at this deal can you give me whatever can you look at this and help me like do a semi qop for it and so like a semi and like so I would do like there's also existing companies like hey we want to know how much we're making here or there and so a fractional CFO type service and so I did that as well um of like a fractional CFO to hold and like would literally go on like up work and find stuff like that um and then also would then be like hey I've got a team who can also hand the bookkeeping if you're looking for us to kind of stay involved from here and so that model seemed to make a lot of sense to me of like hey you're getting a little bit of kind of CFO time but then we're also then handling all the books so you're kind of staying engaged we're staying engaged with you we know what's going on and kind of help provide direction as you go so that was kind of what originally what it looked like and I think the other thing I'll say is like personally like around this time when I was doing it like I was it was hard like I was struggling because I had just failed at search like I had just quit quit search basically and was doing this um I think I was excited about the opportunity but I think that was one thing I wanted to say was like you see on Twitter or conferences or what have you like you see the success side like there's a lot of really smart people and that don't always get that like it has a lot of luck that happens with it and so that was one thing that I really struggled with because like I hate failing and like was failing very very publicly with family and friends and like I got to the point like where I hated going to family events because everyone would like it was always some kind of like uh everyone want to know what was going on because it was such a weird thing of that I was doing they're like wait so you're behind the business like how's it going and like I hated going to family events because everyone always wanted to ask and so that was that was something that like I just wanted to throw out there like I had never really thought about but it was tough going through it that's a such a great point I'm surprised I haven't heard it before I don't think I have that yeah when you tell yeah it's like it's like a lot of things probably in life when you try something and it's a bit of a project and there's a lot of uncertainty and it could be a multi-year effort and you your family hears about it every single family gathering means you're going to you're going to get the interrogation your family probably means well I mean that you know they're just asking what's going on but if you've been hitting kind of hurdle after failure after face plant uh it can be quite draining and demoralizing to have to constantly deliver bad news to your family yeah yeah I mean that was again kind of knowing self going into it like I didn't realize that I'd always kind of steered towards like very high probability things that I feel like I was going to succeed at and so this jumping into search was something that I knew like this is not high probability of success but I'm jumping in and so I'm if it doesn't go the way I wanted to go like am I going to be able to handle it and so that was yeah I definitely didn't pay as much attention to that on the front end as I probably should have but and and so wait are you also saying though that you started the practice for your ego just so you could you could show yourself in the world that there was some progress going on yeah to be totally honest that was that that would not be a nonzero percentage of it yeah well no no shame in that man you don't have to be you don't have to be honest about it uh we're all doing things for our ego all the time I know I am um okay and and just one other thing you you you said and reinforce and I'm going to reinforce again the you saw that the opportunity in small business accounting was just too big and you and how you said like everybody who's in this space will have said that and indeed Patrick dictor and Gretchen Roberts who was on a few weeks ago all have said that indeed like it's shooting fish in a barrel it's not it's not getting clients it's servicing them that's that's the challenge of this particular business but just um just elaborate on that wh why why is there such a supply demand mismatch and then secondly why is it so hard to Del to deliver good service yeah I mean it's it is a supply of accountants problem right like the demand demand for accounting services isn't really like that's okay it's growing GDP is probably um maybe a little bit more depending on size and that kind of thing but the supply of accounting services is definitely going like you can look at any kind of industry report and like there's less people going into accounting every single year um now if there's a recession like accounting does go up then but they're like the supply side of the people providing the service is going down and so a lot of these big firms are sucking up everybody that goes into uh accounting um and that leaves like the local accountants the mediumsized accountants like really find it's really hard for them to find people or much less quality kind of team and so that's why accounting is the services for small business just they're stretched Way Too Thin like they've got 10 they've got 10 different things they got to answer like every second and like they they they they can't be proactive because they have to too much uh demanded of their time and so that's that's kind of what drew me in now now you we can talk about okay is AI coming is technology coming is all that coming and like it is um and I think that's a whole separate conversation of like is that good bad or indifferent to the accounting profession but um that's all certainly coming as well fascinating and is the answer I this is I think the answer that Patrick gave me in his second interview it might have been Chris Williams as to why fewer people are drawn to accounting because stem jobs programming jobs are peeling them off basically peeling off people who otherwise would have gone into Accounting in a previous era sort of yeah one other thing that I know from the preall which you haven't mentioned here is that you actually submitted three three Lois over your 18mon search is there anything to say about those yeah I mean the I was probably literally two days from moving to uh somewhere around DC uh about seven months into my search we I had a sign a purchase agreement in my inbox that I was getting ready to sign and the deal fell apart and so spent like three or four months getting that to the Finish Line um and fell apart and so that was really hard like it was uh looking back on it like it's fortunate it didn't happen um there was a whole second set of books and all of that but um yeah I mean it's hard if you like find something spend a lot of time on it and then it dies like right at the last second and that was one of and then there were two other Lois how far did those get so the other one uh second one died in diligence um it kind of came clear to me that his the owner's relationship was too close with the clients and I was there would to be churn that happen as a result of that and like yep you can build that into a mechanism but it was just like I didn't want to have to fight that pain and deal with all that and so um and I would I would say it was it did help like having done diligence for 10 years before this like there was probably two or three dozen deals that like I was able feel like I was able to kill that I really liked but I was able to kill because I found something and I'm like yeah we can't do this because of that now everyone does that but I would say it was like okay if you're thinking about like hey what do you bring to the table as Searcher going into it that was one of the things that was one of the strengths that I had that was really fortunate now I didn't have sales background I didn't have uh like a ton of operating jobs but that was like that was one thing that I could lean on and so that like that was beneficial for me to kind of lean into that um during search and so I guess message being that like again just being honest with yourself and knowing kind of what your strengths are and just lead into that as you're going through the search process yeah that's a good call out do you happen to remember one or two uh instances where you caught something that maybe somebody who's less experienced with due diligence might not have caught it yeah I mean that was it was I think people have asked me this now and like hey if I'm looking at something kind of as I'm doing an Loi or like right afterwards like what should I be looking at and it's like the two things I tell them is like just look at the balance sheet does anything look weird than the balance sheet uh and just pay attention to the margins like look at margins over a handful of years and make sure that like if they're somewhat consistent and if they're not if it's popping up in your year that the deal is happening like it's probably not going to be sustainable and so we like all the time would have very sophisticated private Equity clients those two things they wouldn't have looked at or thought about and like deals would die uh at some point down the road because of that now not every time does that the deal dies because of that but those are two areas where like just go in with eyes wide open on them if that if that's what you're seeing okay and so let me indulge me to just kind of reate that probably everybody listening to this knows that if Revenue has soared year before sale that's that's a pretty obvious like wa what what's going on here that that timing seems too good is this really sustainable so that one we we we that one's more obvious but also margins you're saying look at margins in particular not just uh not just Revenue um if margins too have yeah a pretty straightforward thing but like a lot of times the county may not be caught up in the year you're looking at and so like they just haven't recorded costs or whatever reason or like something's weird how they recording cost that year and so it's going to look like the profit percentage has gone up and it may be sustainable it may be uh but right often I feel like it's not and so those are the two things that now there's a lot of nuances that probably happened along the way where I like killed it later but those are the two things that like often killed it early on and so we're just about back to get to get back to pasba here pick up the plot but the the uh when you are building up this client base for that with the zero your zero to one accounting practice and bookkeeping practice uh two questions first I guess I already know the answer to this question but I'll ask it anyway you were finding that you this the suit fit you could imagine yeah owning a firm like this this this was a fit you like you liked the work enough to continue on exactly exactly and it also I mean the first bit like I was doing like one of the first clients was a was a church and they had this like whole paper process where they did everything and so it was like great for me to get in the middle of that and see like okay no and here's exactly the technology we can use to solve this here's the software we can do do this it's great to know that you familiar with those Technologies and software but if you actually understand the process and like how it all works and like what they're actually trying to solve when you've seen it kind of firstand and like been the one like nope this is how we staple the checks together like nope this is where the paperclip goes it like you it I don't know for me it made a lot of sense like that's kind of how I learn and that's how I go is like okay let me understand the very nitty-gritty and then okay now let's now let's run with it and so that was a good experience for me again maybe just because at PWC days like you're work you're never in that kind of level of granularity you're working with super skyh high numbers and that kind of stuff like you're never actually in the details of like Financial operations and like how should things be set up as much and so this kind of really got me to see like the very Basics and so um yeah it was it was good for me in that in that sense well here I mean if you're literally talking about envelope um staple and paperclip placement you're also seeing you're first of all you're also doing you're physically on site which you probably weren't when you're you know most accounting and bookkeeping is is more and more and more and more virtual um so that but also you're seeing where kind of financial management and like physical operations intersect it's like like how the paper pushed in a small business has knock on effects in terms of like how you know the accounting is run yeah I mean it's help because like literally just yesterday was on a call with a prospect and like their their approval process for invoices is like everyone the organization has to reply to an email and then like someone has to print download the invoice and like then print it and mail it and was like okay no like here's the software we're going to use that's going to solve this here's exactly how this all works the same functionality is going to be in this software and like just help talk them through and it's like yes I could have done that without that experience but it it just gave me the account like me personally I needed to like have actually seen it to talk through it and so yeah um yeah but yeah it's it's it's again it's also wild just seeing like there's some clients that come to us and it's like very sophisticated they have all these automations there's other clients who are like nope this is where the paperclip goes on these invoices great and the other question was going to be Michael what how much Mr or ARR did you grow this this nent practice too yeah so I mean it was like I got to 10,000 in like the first month um and yeah like Mr like like like recurring or Project work no like 10,000 of like monthly fees wow not bad um so that's when I was like okay there's something here you and Patrick dictor have connected and he says you should go to this pasba thing what is pasba and what happens when you get there so pasba is like a um basically an industry Association for accountants that's telling small business accountants to be business owners and not technicians and so I mean you hear it said about a lot of the ETA type industries of like uh technician founds their own company they can only get it to a certain size because they want to be the technician like it's the same thing is true for accountants like a lot of the small accountants like they want to be the ones putting the numbers in the tax return they want to be the ones like seeing the payroll and all that kind of stuff they don't focus on being a business owner and creating processes and having people kind of fill the different roles and so that's what P was all about was like helping accountant step out of that technician role and become an owner and so uh which I mean you hear all the time in like ETA world of like that's kind of mentality you need to have yep and so I was like okay if I'm starting something and I'm like I'm now the one putting the paper clips on these invoices I need to get out of this and uh go have that mindset and so uh yeah to go to the conference and Patrick me to see Patrick there some somebody in his like immediate peer group um was like hey I'm trying to get out of my practice I need to figure out my exit plan and like we're at the bar and I'm like I'll buy your practice and because I know I P of firms were like the kind of firms that I wanted like they're much more built around uh not just year in tax work they're built around like Hey we're in your books closing your books every month we are doing your bookkeeping some of them have layered in like fractional CFO but like hey we have like a we're in there we're in constant communication with you throughout the year and then oh by the way yeah we also do your tax and so like that was the model I really wanted to be building towards and so I knew someone so to to be clear Michael so so what we're saying here too is that the Pasa model is is basically a recurring Revenue model as opposed to a lot of accounting engagements where it's like there's a big there's a big spend uh with the client during tax time they pay you to do the taxes and then there's a trickle of spend over the year if anything and this is more like no let's have a recurring relationship um so it makes it a recurring Revenue business which is pretty interesting um and and just to emphasize your point here like yeah if you're going to go fishing to buy an accounting firm Pasa seems the place to do it I mean because they're basically they've got a superior model and everybody who's there is by definition a subscriber to this model they're probably at different levels of implementation of of the model um but they're going to be the the high quality that you want I guess you could make the counterargument that may maybe the opportunity is to not go to a pass you know find to find a non pasba practice and then pasba eyes it and then unlock a lot of value that way but anyway I mean there's you see people there that are doing both and like that's something like there's owners in Pasa that are they will buy heavy tax practices and then kind of pull them in and try and make them pacified um because in theory there's a lot of Revenue Synergy there but yeah um so go there Patrick introduces me to someone in his peer group and he's like I want to sell and I'm like I'll buy it and then uh 3 months later we closed and so there was no broker involved it was just the two of us and uh it happened to be in like the DC area which is where my wife and I wanted to be um and again like I feel like other thing like I learned was the business is half of it like you can do all the things you want to do to try and make sure it's a good business but like I found a phenomenal seller and that has made it so much easier like um so yeah got very lucky there and that's um kind of a wild card you don't can't always uh diligence as well I feel like when his name is David the seller David when David says I want to I need to get out of my practice I want to sell it and and you're like I'll buy it on the one on the one hand I was like I was like I bet he was like no really and you were like no really he's like no really exact but but but then I'm like I bet a lot of people at pasba are acquisitive I mean Patrick dictor's acquisitive and so I I imagine actually that you weren't the only one raising your hand to be like well I'll buy it yeah I mean it honestly it went back to like the classic ETA story of like he had been David been thinking about selling he didn't really want to sell like there had been Regional or like DC large DC firms that approached him of like hey we really want to bring in this monthly Accounting Service to our firm like can we bring you in you'll run this for us and so I think but he was like no I want to keep Bay business group intact I want it to be still be Bay business group I don't want to lose the culture I want to make sure that people are treated well and so when that then appealed to him and so versus if it's another owner even if it was another pass owner I think he was kind of like uh I don't know because then it's just going to be absorbed into whatever the other organization is and so the fact that it could still be B business group still be the same organization and then I think he trusted U my brother and I he my brother also came in um as a partner and so he trusted both of us that like hey no I think these guys aren't are going to continue to treat people well are going to be focus on the culture like that kind of pushed him over the edge so therefore he your practice such as it was he you had to explain to him wasn't like this big practice that was going to absorb his business it was going to be the other way around his business was going to absorb your 10K a month yeah exactly yeah okay uh that's that's great and we're going to hear about the business in just a just a second here but your brother I this you did not I don't think mention on the pre- calls so what's your brother's role here so my brother um same exact background as me um CPA when worked for Big Four firm did diligence for 10 years got to like where he was on the door partner and like right around the door time that I was decided to leave and go start my own firm and I was like you just jump into this with me um and we'll build we do everything together on lock step anyway exactly exactly I was like let's not break let's not break the pattern I was like and then he was struggling with the same things of like do I really want to be part of a big organization forever I want to make sure I can prioritize my family and do the things I want to do but also feel like it's still rewarding in what I want to be doing when I am at work yeah so we kind of aligned on all that and uh I knew kind of going in like you hear like it's great to do it alone partner searches can go a couple can go very bad or they can go very well and I think it's something where it's like someone I've known forever someone I trust someone who I know is like always going to have my back and so it was like this this seems like a pretty easy decision to to jump in with and so once um he was kind of circling like waiting to jump into the company that IID started and then he joined as soon as uh as soon as we closed on Bay business group wow and are you guys co-equal Partners we are not um I think the goal we we'll see where we get with that um I think it was we are at different spots kind of going in with our families and careers and so um but yeah and you found the deal Michael you did the search and you found the deal let's be real yeah that was I mean I don't think he really realized everything that went into it because we were we then had dinner with the Searcher the other night and the Searcher was like they're mid search right now and they're just like they've gone past the honeymoon phase and we're like this this this is not the best and Matthew's like I don't think I realized it was like this I'm like yeah I spared you all this uh my my long face at all the family gatherings didn't tell you like what my one responses to how search is going didn't F you in that uh yeah and is he also based here in the DC area for the audience Michael you're sitting about two miles from from my house so we're practically neighbors is he where is he he's he he moved to Northern Virginia as well he he literally is he's in false church right across the street from the office okay so let's hear more about David pisses that you bought Bay business group and it's the Chesapeake Bay not uh the San Francisco Bay um it's a question we get quite a bit um but yeah so it's we have 35 people about 20 of them in Northern Virginia the rest all remote and um I think David was his background was also big four accounting then left and started his own practice and so we kind of had very similar backgrounds but he also had a technology background so he was pretty The Firm has been very ahead of the curve kind of technology-wise versus others and so like he had people working remote I don't know 10 12 years ago and so um but yeah the firm today is 35 people um it's we've focused on we've kind of three segments defense contractors nonprofits and then local businesses um and about 80% of the business is monthly accounting where we're acting as your Outsource accounting department we're doing the bookkeeping we're doing your bill pay we're doing your invoicing and then we're kind of your controller fractional CFO overseeing it all and kind of telling you kind of your your your financial partner defense and nonprofit obviously he he strategically went after the the big local markets in the DC area those two big ones it's It's also two where it's like the accounting is a little more nuanced um like defense contractors have to have their books kept a certain way um and then nonprofits have to have their books kept a certain way based on the grants and kind of where their funding sources are coming from so it was like he was very strategic and like okay we can double down on these niches and and do well um and then so then when somebody else comes in and they're not one of those it's like yeah we can handle that no problem and do you think in general I I actually am not sure that my other guests who have bought practices are had such strong Niche Focus I know Patrick dictor did for a while so Patrick don't get mad if if you still do it I'm I'm misspeaking here um and same with Chris anyway is this a common practice within accounting practices that they choose a niche or two and or three and and if not is this a best practice is this what pasba for example preaches I think there's certain parts of Pasa that would tell you to do that um I think that is kind of a newer accounting owner mindset is like okay yeah let's focus on niches because like if you're trying to think about scalability and like pattern recognition for your team it's a lot easier if they're seeing the same thing they can become experts faster um you then can provide a better service to your clients um that kind of thing yeah mean makes perfect sense sure and the now let's just talk a little bit about fractional CFO as well as a service that you're offering uh Gretchen Roberts who who I already mentioned who was on a few weeks ago um sees that as an opportunity for her business to take it in that direction our virtual CFO I don't think she is yet offering it but uh but wants to so the point there is is kind of what you've already said which is that it's more of like a financial partner you're not just running the books but you're providing Consulting guidance Direction uh for the for your client business Ju Just tell us more flesh that out a little bit yeah I mean it can take a lot of different forms I think for some of our nonprofits it's like helping them think through like their annual budgets helping them think through uh like their funding sources and kind of what they should be doing there um for some of our government contractors it's helping them as they're looking at different types of work like what could this translate to you for your books now um I think it's candidly it's a smaller piece of what we're doing now like I characterize much more of it as like more controller type where it's like hey your books are done here's what it says here's the results I think it's only for certain clients we're kind of going above and beyond and doing like looking forward kind of thing which is what I would say most the fractional CFO is and I think it's helpful like right now we're having like for the our fractional CFO clients we're having conversations about hey what are your goals for 2024 what do you want to do how do we help you do that and because a lot of times the small business owner with their accountant it's like they're just going through the expenses and being like how do I get rid of this cost how do I get rid of this cost how I get rid of this cost and it's like yep you can make more money if you do that but your time is going to be better spent if we figure out how to help you grow the top line or help you improve the margins um and so that's kind of really where it's coming from I think well thing you there's other I'd say there's different tiers of fractional CF there's some who are great and like they really will help you get financing they'll help you like for a VC like help you with a cap table they'll help you uh negotiate kind of terms like that's kind of a bit I'd say above kind of what we're doing now but um I think we'll love to get there at some point I see fractional CFO virtual CFO kind of as an offering out there yeah maybe I'm just late to it but I mean I see people on the social networks offering it you'll see it on upwork I mean that's probably how you self-described when you were uh building your book of business on upwork is this something I'm curious that that is being pulled by SMB owners is is this is this concept being pulled out of you guys or is this something that the industry has created as a way to upsell I don't I don't mean to sound so cynical but kind of like to upsell and and offer clients like what's driving this which side of the table is driving this trend candidly for us it's been more reactive it's been like hey this like this client is trying to figure out where to invest the money in their business they want to understand like the profitability of their different divisions and like where they should them be allocating the money in so like that to me is more like the client pulled us in that's kind of fractional CFO type work that was all reactionary that wasn't really us pushing it um I think there is an opportunity for us to kind of highlight that more of for our clients where we're not doing that as much like hey have you thought about this have you thought about that like and push it more but for us it's kind of been all reactionary I think there's definitely firms that are pushing and like I think that their demand is there like a business small business owner is lonely and like if you can help that person think through their problems whether it's Financial otherwise like that you're going to be uh someone who's in their corner and a value ad well and and also you you just hear in my seat talking to so many Searchers and just in in SB land generally that that there's really um a lack of understanding around this stuff and it's harder than it seems so the classic example would be working capital that even people who think they understand working capital don't it's it's actually quite subtle very smart capable people get into their SMB in the in the first year and get bitten in the butt by working capital miscalculations like it ain't it ain't as straightforward as it seems um and you know the three the three documents the three big documents cash flow p&l and balance sheet what is it like like most people are familiar with one or two of those but not the third like the what is that one again how does that go see but case in point I can't even tell you yeah no I mean people usually are like if you ask for if you mention cash flow like people have heard the term before but I feel like rarely actually understand what it is or like it's like well it's just the cash you made they're like okay but I don't quite get it and so to your point about networking Capital had a client last week who was they're going back and forth with a potential buyer and like how they were thinking about networking capital I was like man you're you can do that but you're not going to have any cash the buyer not going to have any cash for the first six weeks because of this and they're like no I'm like okay fine I trust me I'm like and they walked him through it and they're like oh wow I didn't even think about this and it was like because they didn't like they understood networking Capital as like current assets Mone it's current liabilities but they actually understand how it translated to like cash coming in their door over a certain period of time so yeah um yeah I mean that's that's like we're happy to help and that's kind of part of that that service there okay like let's hear a little bit more about uh the business and then the deal itself and then we'll start uh wrapping up here so the business you said 35 people 20 Northern Virginia 10 10 remote uh five in India not sure you said that but I know from uh offline and then you the the remoteness the 10 or 15 who are remote is that how I guess the previous owner really um how did he decide that 15 would be remote and 20 would be in the office and how are you going to carry forward that pattern yeah so everyone else who's remote uh all started in Northern Virginia and so they're basically all military or like State Department spouses who were looking for a job and then they got their spouse got transferred and they were like and David the owner was like why don't you just keep working and just be remote and so that's how everyone else is remote basically um there's been a few people that have been hired directly remote um and I think that's something like we're open to um I think it's pretty it's night and day difference the kind of caliber of people we see like applicants if it's if we're just if we restricted to only Northern Virginia versus if we're open to somebody remote um and so I think just from a talent perspective like we have to be open to remote because it's there's only so many quality accountants and bookkeepers just within a 20 mile radius of false Church um and so that's that's that's why we've done it I think we'd like for people to be here like we've got different ways to try and keep engaged um none of them perfect but that's all uh yeah that's that's it's more of a product of kind of the types of employees we've had of why the current remote versus in person yeah well Michael I I hope you you got a plan here because um you're sitting now as owner of a of a business which is just classically you know feel like the employees if they want it to be remote they can make a strong case for it I mean this is this is something where um I just feel like accounting and and bookkeeping and CFOs work is is something that can be done remotely and so the employees are going to want that even right now like our it's we're not strictly in the office the people who are coming to the office are because they they want kind of a chance to step away from home and it's not too inconvenient like so we've been again like I think our M David's mentality our mentality is when like hey your stuff gets done I don't really care when or where it happens just get the stuff done okay 35 people I don't did you say the revenue yes it was a little over 4 million revenue is that a large practice in the scheme of accounting practices 4.3 million in in Billings and 35 people I mean I would say it was on the it was large for a one owner practice um a lot of the ones that are bigger all going to have multiple partners um and kind of be like the other thing we which you didn't really talk about a ton but like the PA a model most accounting for model is like a pyramid the partner's at the top the partner is the one who drives kind of the sales and Business Development whereas the passive firms are like that sales and Business Development role isn't the partner there's a separate function that's just sales bu development where the partner then is more of a owner CEO type and so um most accounting firms are structured classically like how big four are how everybody else is where the partner sits at the top and they're doing the sales Business Development so for firms that I've seen where uh like that model like the PM model like it is it was in the bigger top core TI I would say and I assume with the Paso model that what you're like basically growth of any business you are trading margin for size because if if the Pasa model means hiring a dedicated salesperson and a dedicated marketing person and you know basically standing up these functions which are often just on the shoulders of the partner that's more cost so that eats into the margin but the flip side of course is that you get to grow a bigger business and and a true business rather than a practice that's just led by the partner uh first of all so far so good yeah and I think that that's also why a lot of practices like going on like early on it was easier for me to filter out because it's like yep they have 60 or 70% SD but it's like they're missing a huge cost of the actual owner like technician who's doing all the work and so that's why like then if you put that cost in like the multiple looks drastically different almost every time and so it's harder to make any of the numbers work that way um and so that's why like I really had it felt like it had to be a bigger size for it to like make the numbers work yeah that was something that gret had mentioned uh that that a lot of these businesses that come for sale these practices that come for sale at first blush have phenomenal margins but it's because the partner's doing all the work basically yeah yeah the part is working 3500 hours a year and like yeah it's going to take you two people or three people to replace that and the bus these businesses are sold as a as a multiple of Revenue not SD for what for whatever reason yes yes uh I don't know why but that's that's why I mean it makes more sense if it's like high growth like you're not really investing in margin like you're not really focused on profitability but for these I yeah that okay I understand Revenue multiples then but here it's not like it's not like we're growing at 200% a year and but yeah either way that that they trade on Revenue yeah well what what what is the multiple of Revenue that you you paid if you would um I would say it was above Market um the market is usually like every the classic example of like accounting firms have traded for a long time um is is one one times is usually what you hear if they're brokered at all they're usually going to be above that the ones that trade off market usually are going to be less than that I would say um and then you can hear them going for like above two um in certain cases I'd say most of the time they're in that one to one2 range is like I'd say the middle of the ones that are brokered any more terms you can share with us SBA what what did that look like um so yeah it was SBA um used one of the common folks around the one of the lenders that are very all over the ET World um and uh feel free to name them if you'd like yeah I mean use use live o um and we it went like there was some bums but we got there we like literally like David and I met for the first time and then we closed the deal 90 days later um and so it was uh every all all the providers in the in the world all kind of helped us or that were in the world of the deal all helped us kind of get that to the Finish Line in a pretty pretty tight timeline and anything more to say about the deal um sounds like it was pretty clean yeah it was pretty clean like we we it wasn't that was kind of part of my like I knew it was a great business I knew I really wanted it and I was like I'm not going to complicate this with like super complicated deal structure um like the priority was like let's just if this is a great thing like let's get it to the Finish Line like that was kind of the priority I had um and so yeah I mean right or wrong but that was that was how I went about it well going back to your misery while you were searching unsuccessfully for 18 months and kind of you underestimated how hard that would be and and how much you know that of course luck plays a role all of a sudden you find this great PR see seemingly great practice sizable practice in the geography where you really wanted to live like yeah you wouldn't want to let that slip through your fingers for all the lack of good luck that you'd experienced before like this was a stroke of great yeah I mean like it was not even it's off the chart's luck that this all happened so uh I will completely agree and and you guys were you guys weren't yet in Northern Virginia or the DC area you wanted to move here you were where so that we had actually moved during my search we moved from Chicago to Minneapolis my wife kind of got a dream job that had potential to be remote um and so it was like well we don't want to be in Chicago long term why would you be commuting every week to Minneapolis like why don't we just move there and then live there till we find something the area we want to be in and so we then once the deal closed we moved uh with uh moved to Alexandria the transition anything to say about that when did you close Michael August August 15th August 15 okay so four months ago carry on please and so uh yeah so I mean it was I think everybody's kind of feeling each other out but I think it's like we haven't had we've everybody stuck around um like we've it's been I I think if as you're thinking about hey s look like what is bad what is good look like I think it's been as close to good as we as we could have hoped um so very fortunate and anything that you have learned in your four in your four months that you that you realize oh I should have diligence that and you could help educate the audience to learn from your mistake I think the it was we we were we were concerned about the David like how involved is he with the clients like you can you don't really there's not a great way to kind of get your head around that and like what his relationships are um and so we're concerned like okay if he's no longer the owner like what happens with those and we had we trusted like we had great relationship seemed very trusting but it's also like it's kind of a blind leap of faith on that um so that that that's worked out great I think the one thing we didn't quite have a ton of we should have we knew but we didn't think it was going to be as big of a deal was there was we had there was one manager that was very very strong that left uh about a year year and a half ago and so we had seen like okay she left most of her clients all stuck around and so we didn't really think okay that's okay I think that's continued to be a pain point for us over the last four months is just people didn't make the decision to leave right away it's just kind of now as you look back of like I really miss miss her and so that's still been kind of a point so like we've leaned into those clients more tried to help them trying to make sure they're getting what they need um but that's been a pain point that we thought because we looked at like oh she left and no one left then the next month like we're good it was it people's decision to leave or consider leaving was kicked on the can for a year a year and a half that was one thing that we I'd say we' underestimated during diligence yeah well that that's a good just to kind of abstract that for all Searchers and all businesses like yeah if something has happened in the business prior to your ownership that seems like it would be damaging to the business but wasn't depending on how long ago it was you you you should you should factor in that maybe the domino effect is slow moving and they're still still could be effect on on your watch um it just hasn't kind of hit yet so don't assume you're in the clear or really really interrogate that at least yeah yeah so I mean it's that was yeah I think that's that's a pretty good synopsis of it the industry overall so we already we talked we've talked about it a lot we talked about pasba and the different kind of the pasba model versus traditional model the supply shortage of accountants um you touched on how you know AI offshoring you know these are things that come up again and again we don't really have to belabor it because I talked to my other guests about it and um there's probably not much more to say but is there but feel free to or anything else about this industry that you would tell Searchers who are who are drawn to it yeah I so I think a bit different than maybe other accountants or other people that have bought accounting firms like we're actually CPAs that came in and so I think that can be good and bad right like we don't have the outside perspective that others do but I think looking for me of like okay downside risk planning like I can step in and play a manager role if like absolutely like hits the fan and so that kind of gave me Comfort of being able to do like what we've done and so just as like a thing to think about like that was kind of my back stop um other thing is like yes I think technology AI that is all coming I think at the core of the service like what we really try to encourage is like you're helping the business owner and like Answer Financial questions and so like helping them think through problems and so like AI will always be a tool to help that but like really that service of like talking to the owner and being a trusted partner is like what we're trying to get like that's what we feel like we're supposed to be doing and I think that's never going to be completely supplanted I think and frankly like today our clients are more technology sophisticated a lot of the busy work is cut out but when they have problems like you really have to understand accounting and really have to understand how like the technology talks to each other to like solve their problem because and like that skill I think is always going to be needed cuz like we have like a lot of our clients have multiple different systems that all talk to each other in different ways and I think knowing ultimately what you should be looking at and how it should be presented is like that's kind of the that that piece of knowledge is never going to completely be obsolete um so now it could look very different maybe the industry shrinks but like I don't think it completely goes hopefully it doesn't go to zero yeah yeah well one thing that Gretchen and I touched Sean was like sometimes this could be broadened out to all of AI versus Humans but I think for even if even if in 10 years 20 years the AI has achieved the level of quality of of input and advice that that a human can I suspect that there's going to be a lot of people who still just want to communicate with a human I mean just purely they just they just want to have another you know organic brain on the other out of the discussion that they're interacting with that might just be be being oldfashioned and people will be talking to avatars and it'll be fine I'm certainly on this on the same page as you on that or at least I hope that's that's how it plays out yeah yeah yeah I mean you got a 10year SBA loan Michael so let's hope for the next 10 years yeah I didn't dig over um and and just a little bit um just on the on the point you just made about your own industry background at PWC you've been working on giant transaction for big PE funds that's very different than the accounting needs of small businesses and when I had actually asked you this on the preall you said you know my my my experience wasn't actually directly applicable but in the meantime you started your own practice and what I'm hearing you say is that like it might not be directly applicable but like there was it was certainly much more applicable than somebody who is not a CPA at all for example so you do you do see yourself that back stop like you could get in if you absolutely had to even though you'd be a little outside your comfort zone you'd be way less outside your comfort zone than say a Gretchen Roberts or Patrick dictor yeah and I mean Patrick could maybe jump in now I've had I won't speak to him or him or Gretch him but yeah I think it was had been living in like a very tangential finance and numbers accounting world and so a lot of it is still ultimately the same like you still want to be measuring looking at different things thinking through the business certain ways like that is all still applicable I think now what software are you using like did I really use QuickBooks a ton did I really use like bild.com or ramp or like be involved in like the granularity of like processing a payroll like no but like you understand the logic of how it should all work and like what should be happening and so that all like um it was there it just wasn't really maybe a muscle that I'd ever had to flex before or think about um great Michael well I want to just close by circling back to the top and a couple of early uh decisions you made or thoughts that you had first of all decision to to you didn't want outside Equity uh how is that playing out I know you're only four months in but still any anything to reflect back on that or you basically just still feel in line with how you did back then yeah I mean I think it's still in line I think um yeah I think it was kind of like hey I there's a lot of people who gave great advice a lot of people who who have been incredibly helpful continue to be incredibly helpful always open to hearing other's thoughts but I kind of really just wanted to like have the last say on some stuff now maybe that changes at some point I don't know but um that's that's kind yeah I think it's still held true great and the put up or shut up uh feeling that you had when you were at PWC and and looking into all these client businesses and and you guys all saying to yourselves man they need to be doing this and that and the other uh okay now now you're captain of the ship do you feel like early so you're probably not making tons of decisions but do you feel like you what any early signs no I mean I think there's there's uh ideas are the easy part and like strategy is usually the easy part it's like the execution and like implementation that's the hard part I think you hear that you see that uh from the outside but actually being in the middle of it is it's certainly holds true and what why what's what's hard about execution just getting everybody on rowing in the same direction sort of thing yeah I mean like David had set up a great firm we have a great firm there's just things just around the edges just like hey we just want to twist twist this or twist that and it's like just even doing the twisting has still been hard I think so like a classic one is like half of our clients are on QuickBooks desktop half of them on QuickBooks Online desktop is going away we need to get our clients on desktop on QuickBooks Online we've had accountants whove only used QuickBook desktop for the last 15 years so just the change like from the outside it's like yep of course like we need to move all our clients but then on the inside of like helping our accountants understand how to get the clients over help them feel confident with a very similar but slightly different technology like that's hard and so I think we way underestimated that that hard piece great example and lastly the your overall why the the desire for control essentially how's that feeling how's that looking yeah I mean it's it's all true right like I wanted to be the dad and wanted to be the husband that I wanted to be and then secondly like if I'm not doing that like I want to be doing what I want to be doing outside of work and feeling like I'm challenged feeling like I'm fulfilled and so that's kind of held true throughout um throughout now I don't know as me in 10 years I don't know we'll we'll still see if that's the name answer but it's been so far so good and your kind of Desire that I that I mentioned at the top your early desire for stability having watched your father and grandfather's business collapse essentially do you still have any kind of nagging anxieties around stability or the lack thereof no my my wife would tell you that like I thrive when there's like all kinds of Randomness like going on so I think that was a uh it was a fear uh decision not necessarily like an actual honest decision so at least that's that that's that's that's what I'm saying right now all right great anything else Michael that we didn't hit on that you wanted to make sure to share with the audience your podcast was an incredible resource um for me as I was going through it like one learning but then two just like hearing people of like what they did it it almost got to the point like there's certain times during search where I like couldn't listen to it because I'm like it just made me like again the dejected feeling of like I didn't I didn't achieve what I was supposed to be achieving but I think was just trying my only main message was like Hey if the luck has a unbelievable factor of like good and bad outcomes here and so yeah I feel like I've been luck has swung my way and so uh for the people that it hasn't swung their away it's like it was luck it was not anything else is basically the message great message thank you thank you for saying that Michael yeah it's uh running doing the Pod you know you you want to be in inspirational to people and show them what's possible that really is kind of the riseon Detra of acquiring minds um but uh fully recognize that success story after success story can be demoralizing to people who aren't achieving the same success for for bad luck and other reasons uh not to mention it's it's just it's not a true picture of what goes on it's not all all roses and unicorns as we know and so we we also look for the unhappy stories to air as well but those are those are harder to find but we are always looking for them audience so if you want to share a story where things didn't uh go as well hit me up um but good call out Michael thank you for that and if people want to get in touch what how do you prefer they do so the old email is probably the best uh best way so that'll be in the notes Michael Young congratulations on finally hitting your hitting some good luck and and getting a what seems like a great business and thanks for coming on absolutely thanks for having me well really appreciate all you've done thank you I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we are now publishing twice a week so tons of new interviews and stories to come stories that will help you along your own path to acquiring a business