01 Building in Public: What we're launching & why

Matt Tompkins -

Okay. The cat’s out of the bag. We (my partner Shannon and I) are launching heycpa.io (currently under 🚧).

But before we get into what heycpa.io is, I think it’s important to understand why we decided to do this. Because launching a business is inherently insane. I'm pretty sure 99% fail. But hey, here's to being the 1% (hopefully).

First, I’ve been thinking of launching a project that is productized and hence more scalable than Elevate Financial for the last few months. Maybe even a year. Heck, I've been thinking of this for a decade. The desire has always been there, it was just a matter of taking action. Which is arguably the largest hurdle.

With the decision to take action came the multitude of ideas. Here are few examples of the various ideas that crossed my mind during this time:

➡️ launching a men’s health community.

➡️ a website that assisted individuals with healthy eating (eat this, not that vibes)

➡️ various SaaS products.

Clearly scattered, but clearly demonstrated my urge to grow.

Although I know a thing or two about health and wellness, I’m definitely no expert. Likewise, do we really need another SaaS product? Hell. No. These were a few issues. It also posed even more challenging questions like "how the hell do I build a website?" Although I’m learning how to code, coding an entire website would be exhausting and not worth my time. I'll cover the tech stack we're using in the next post (hint: it's a no-code tool).

Okay. So, back to the drawing board.

How can I combine an area of expertise (accounting/finance) that’s scalable? I thought of the following:

  • Automatic formation of Financial Statements. Issues: Workiva (oops), high start-up cost, high ticket B2B. Plus, I don't really care about the formation of financials… I don't think your business needs to be a passion, but I do think you need to care. Just a little.
  • Back-end support for admin intensive businesses. I saw a problem. Small businesses are bogged down with low-value admin work. So, I thought why not create a service-based firm that deals with these issues? I could likely outsource all staffing overseas and my return would be the spread I charge vs labour cost. Issues: low value work gets low value dollars. I figured I could charge $45/hour for this service with an ~80% margin ($35/hour net profit). It boiled down to the fact I’d need roughly 20-25 clients to reach $25k in net profit. More headache to earn the same amount I am now. Verdict? Not worth it.

Then, instead of attempting to force the issue, I started to slow-down and listen to potential consumers (basically, I followed every piece of advice out there that I had been conveniently ignoring). I forgot that there was a major issue right under my nose. Finding interesting careers. Especially as a CPA. In 2020 when I was getting ready to leave PwC this process was horrendous, hence why I created Elevate Financial and avoided the process.

A couple things I struggled with:

  • Companies rarely showed salaries. I’m sorry, but your salary is important. I don't care about the foosball table if my salary is garbage.
  • "Don't know shit about fuck" - Ruth Langmore. She coined it on Ozark, but this is what I thought about every recruiter when it came to accounting. Great people. But recruiters didn't know anything accounting. None of them have accounting experience, and none of them have experienced big four. They can’t relate. It’s frustrating. And when I would ask them technical questions about the role, it would fall on deaf ears.
  • ... am I qualified? The job descriptions were so unhelpful. Templates that have been used for years. They didn’t use our language, so it was difficult to determine what I could apply for.
  • What’s the team like? Young and energetic? Looking to grow fast? Do they prefer speed or precision? Who knows because you need to go through four interviews before you speak to anyone that actually works on the team.

And this is where the ‘AH HA!’ moment struck. Albeit two years later...

A job board and recruitment service geared towards only newly minted CPAs (Senior Associates/Senior Accountants) looking to leave the Big4. There is nothing dedicated to this niche. Looking on Indeed or LinkedIn is like attempting to find a needle in a haystack.

So, we’re attempting to flip it on its head. We're going to help newly minted CPAs leave the Big4, find their dream career, with higher pay and more flexibility, fast. Simple. A couple more items we'll include:

  • Mandatory salaries.
  • Share key values. This way, the candidate can select based on more than just "competitive benefits package!".
  • Using our language. An example I foresee; “If you’ve audited an impairment model, then xxx is very similar.”
  • Resources and education. I want to change the narrative for accountants. Yes, some of us are boring. But so are some marketers. The accountants I know are creative, funny, super smart, and entrepreneurial. We need more of that.
  • And lastly, solving every problem from the moment someone thinks of leaving their firm. We want to lead the pack in offer creation.

The next post will tackle some of our biggest challenges and provide more problems current candidates face, and the potential solutions. A classic problem that is front and centre is the ‘chicken and the egg’ problem. We need traffic to support the site, but in order to get traffic we need quality jobs. So what comes first? Large issue, but I will dig into how we’re circumventing it through a specific content strategy.

Profit & Loss - April 1 - 6, 2022

Revenue……….. -$ (shit)

Expenses…….... ($276.99)

Profit (loss)...... ($276.99)

If you liked this post, please share it with everyone. Seriously. Also, if there’s something specific you want to know, then let me know. I might include it, might not.

PS we attempted to go the Fiverr route for logo design and that failed miserably. So, we would LOVE your feedback on some initial logo designs we (aka Shannon) created (1 - 6, left to right). It's her first stab at logo design, and they were 10x better than what we paid for... Shoot me an email and let me know what you like and don't like: matt@heycpa.io

What we're going for:

  • Punchy and playful
  • Anti-corporate
  • 'Launching' your career - hence, rocket ships.