Embracing Change and Innovation in the Accounting Industry

The Young CPA Success Show: Episode 19

Don’t miss this dynamic conversation about the accounting industry and growing up with the internet. Jesse Rubenfeld, Founder of FinOptimal, and Tom Zehentner, Director of Growth and Product for FinOptimal, join Joey and Hannah as they reminisce about the early days of internet music, draw parallels to the evolution of accounting software, and share personal career experiences. Jesse talks about founding FinOptimal and its focus on automating accounting processes. The group discusses the importance of embracing change, leveraging technology, and the entrepreneurial mindset among younger accountants.

Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Young CPA Success Show. If you're a young accounting professional, this podcast is your ultimate guide to navigating your early career. Join us as we share valuable insights, expert advice, and practical tips to help you kickstart your path to success and excel in the accounting industry. Let's embark on this exciting accounting journey together.

Joey (00:00:22) - And I still remember the first song I downloaded from LimeWire was Alien Ant Farm, Smooth Criminal.

Tom (00:00:28) - Oh good call out Tony Hawk inspired?

Joey (00:00:31) - Yeah, no. Every great CD started from a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater mixtape. But 20 years later, that song still rocks and way better. I had a kick out of that because I hadn't thought about LimeWire and forever. I was like, kids today just don't understand the struggles. They just go to Spotify or whatever. They get whatever songs they want, whenever they want it downloaded directly on it.

Hannah (00:00:54) - They probably don't even know what burning a CD. Right.

Jesse (00:00:57) - Like, the irony is that like most of Spotify's product team and also a lot of their developers came from LimeWire, when LimeWire got sued to death, they went to Spotify.

Jesse (00:01:11) - And LimeWire could have become Spotify in a different world. But I wouldn't be here.

Joey (00:01:14) - You know, I like you know, I love I love what LimeWire started. I like that the artists are getting paid from Spotify, although admittedly probably not what they're, you know, worth, but they at least have figured out how to monetize that a little bit. But, you know, it's interesting because really Spotify is LimeWire without the, you know, weird computer viruses that occasionally would come with LimeWire from time to time. Not saying I know that from personal experience.

Jesse (00:01:43) - Of course, of course. Not saying I know anything about that. So, I was just a CFO., but yeah, LimeWire, that's a whole that's a whole topic of discussion, including a little-known fact that LimeWire did have a music store that was paying artists. We were trying, you know, we were trying to become, you know, try to become. But, you know, good story.

Tom (00:02:07) - This is like, this is what I try to defend. Community adjusted EBITDA and Adam Newman, this is the same the same thing when people are like, no.

Jesse (00:02:14) - No, I can tell this is going to be a tough crowd.

Joey (00:02:16) - What a what a reference. Wow I okay so a couple things to unpack there. Number one that's sorry.

Jesse (00:02:23) - Are we already live. Are we already.

Joey (00:02:25) - Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Tom (00:02:25) - So this is the episode. We're doing it.

Jesse (00:02:28) - Totally. Okay.

Joey (00:02:29) - What we do. What?

Jesse (00:02:29) - I will stop eating my pretzels here.

Joey (00:02:32) - Just eat your pretzel it's fine. It's all good., one thing we've noticed is, like, we tried to do, like, more formal introductions, and we're like, man, we were having better conversations. Like, before the show ever started. So, let's just dive into it and we'll just find a natural place to start. Yeah. So, it's all good.

Tom (00:02:47) - Yeah. No, that's a that's a good way to do it.

Joey (00:02:49) - There's a couple things I love about that because that era of like early internet I don't think like is that ever going to be replicated. It will at some point. But like it just felt like the wild West from like 1998 to 2005.

Tom (00:03:03) - Oh yeah. And then I mean, there was even another, you know, I think sometimes internet call it two point or like social media at one point, like the YouTube, evolution of dance video and like, Charlie bit my finger and like, all that Charlie. Oh, I don't remember that.

Jesse (00:03:19) - Charlie. Yeah. That extended I feel like, you know, guys and.

Joey (00:00:22) - And I still remember the first song I downloaded from LimeWire was Alien Ant Farm, Smooth Criminal.

Tom (00:00:28) - Oh good call out Tony Hawk inspired?

Hannah (00:00:54) - They probably don't even know what burning a CD. Right.

Jesse (00:00:57) - Like, the irony is that like most of Spotify's product team and also a lot of their developers came from LimeWire, when LimeWire got sued to death, they went to Spotify.

Jesse (00:01:11) - And LimeWire could have become Spotify in a different world. But I wouldn't be here.

Tom (00:02:07) - This is like, this is what I try to defend. Community adjusted EBITDA and Adam Newman, this is the same the same thing when people are like, no.

Jesse (00:02:14) - No, I can tell this is going to be a tough crowd.

Joey (00:02:16) - What a what a reference. Wow I okay so a couple things to unpack there. Number one that's sorry.

Jesse (00:02:23) - Are we already live. Are we already.

Joey (00:02:25) - Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Tom (00:02:25) - So this is the episode. We're doing it.

Jesse (00:02:28) - Totally. Okay.

Joey (00:02:29) - What we do. What?

Jesse (00:02:29) - I will stop eating my pretzels here.

Tom (00:02:47) - Yeah. No, that's a that's a good way to do it.

Jesse (00:03:19) - Charlie. Yeah. That extended I feel like, you know, guys and.

Tom (00:03:22) - Ten salad fingers.

Jesse (00:03:24) - Yeah. Salad.

Tom (00:03:24) - Finger candy, man. Candy mountain. Yeah. That stuff. Oh, God.

Hannah (00:03:28) - And then you said the Wild West, and, like, I was instantly transported back to the Oregon Trail, so.

Tom (00:03:32) - Oh, there you go.

Hannah (00:03:33) - All the.

Tom (00:03:34) - Elementary school. That's even.

Jesse (00:03:35) - Further back. Yeah, that's way further back.

Jesse (00:03:38) - Well, no. Wow.

Tom (00:03:39) - We're talking I guess you guys.

Jesse (00:03:41) - Are probably all too young to remember Carmen Sandiego.

Hannah (00:03:44) - No. Oh, no, oh, no,

Joey (00:03:33) - I had the CDs

Tom (00:03:47) - What is that?

Jesse (00:03:49) - I mean, oh, yeah, it's basically an early detective game, like whodunit. My memory is of the Apple two version of that game, if you can believe it. And I remember the sounds of when you finally apprehend it's wow. Yeah. Computer games. What about civilization? Anybody remember that?

Joey (00:04:08) - I mean.

Jesse (00:04:10) - Really? Yeah.

Joey (00:04:12) - I think I'm like Civ five or something like that on, like, there's an iPhone. I got the phone app for it. It's okay. And then I had another guy who will occasionally play on. He built gaming PC just to play Civ. Wow. Yeah, he loves it.

Jesse (00:04:27) - What about Ages of Empires? Have you heard of that one?

Joey (00:04:29) - Oh.

Jesse (00:04:30) - Please. Wow, I'm talking to the right people here.

Joey (00:04:33) - Yeah. No, this is this is our crowd. That's great.

Jesse (00:04:35) - And it's bye bye. You know that. That's the sound when you go to war. Remember that/

Joey (00:04:41) - I always. Who was I? Who would I play as? What was the one? I'm trying to remember how I would start that. But every time I was like, the key to this game is you've got to get the right build from the beginning. And I can't remember what empire I do, but I'd always pick the same one.

Jesse (00:04:55) - Yeah, sometimes a civilization, if I didn't get the if I wasn't dealt the cards, that I would just start a new game and wait till I had the right, you know, strengths or raw, you know, natural resources or whatever. Probably not how Sid Meier intended it, but yeah.

Tom (00:05:09) - It's Coward's way out. Sounds like.

Jesse (00:05:11) - Yeah. Fair enough.

Joey (00:05:14) - So do y'all ever think you. Did you all ever think you would be doing accounting over the internet? Because that's really what QuickBooks online is we're just doing accounting on the internet?

Tom (00:05:21) - Oh, I didn't really think about where I was going to be doing accounting. I kind of just like, oh shit, I have to do. Oh, wait, sorry, can we curse on this? My bad.

Hannah (00:05:27) - It is the young CPA show.

Jesse (00:05:29) - So, I mean, I was young so yes or so. No, I'm not sure. Okay, I.

Hannah (00:05:35) - Will tell you. I say everything.

Jesse (00:05:37) - Not like we're not talking ten year old CPAs. We're talking so the.

Joey (00:05:40) - 12 year olds, you know. Right.

Jesse (00:05:42) - Right. Exactly. Early middle 13 at least. Okay. Yeah.

Joey (00:05:46) - Maybe that's how we. Maybe that's how we do it, right? Rocks. And I've gotta have, like, the PG 13 one where it's like, you get one f bomb, but you have to make a count.

Jesse (00:05:55) - Yeah, you have to. Yes, that's.

Tom (00:05:56) - I'll make it count. I like a good challenge.

Jesse (00:06:00) - I did not think we were I. I used QuickBooks desktop when I started my career.

Jesse (00:06:05) - And the keyboard shortcuts are way better. And the cloud accounting infrastructure was just still the ecosystem was still in its infancy. I remember pitching the idea for Bill.com to my boss at the time, who I thought was a very smart guy, and he said, yeah, that's I don't I'm not really too interested. And so, I thought, well, he's a smart guy and he's not too interested. I guess it's not a good idea. I think bill.com probably started around then and I kicked myself. But, you know, at the time, desktop was just so powerful you could do. You could be so productive as a power user. And I think what's happened is the power of the cloud and third-party integrations has eclipsed the productivity gains, because it's gone from having to use QuickBooks really, really efficiently as a human user to architecting a system that integrates all of these applications. And that's become the greater skill than being a QuickBooks operator.

Hannah (00:07:09) - Joey, now we're talking about this before y'all hopped on in terms of like, I think back earlier in my career and, to like started on QuickBooks desktop and thought that was a great tool and it was great, but it was also what I was trained to know, like it's what I walked into.

Hannah (00:07:26) - And I feel like if I had adapted more of a like, how can I do this better mindset? Earlier in my career, things would have looked a lot differently for me, especially being an advocate for change in the industry. So, I think like just speaking to like the younger generation too is like it's really easy to walk into somewhere and just do something because that's how it's always been done. And just like accept and settle for that being what it is. But I think there's so much room, especially in the world we live in today, to take that mindset of how can I make this better?

Jesse (00:07:59) - I'm so sorry. What is your name? The names are not showing up on my screen. I've heard Joey now, but I haven't heard your name.

Hannah (00:08:07) - Hannah. Yes I am, Hannah.

Jesse (00:08:07) - Hannah

Tom (00:08:10) - This guy sucks. Get him out of here.

Jesse (00:08:10) - I know, I'm so sorry, Hannah. What you said about now .

Tom (00:08:15) - I cursed but at least I know your names.

Jesse (00:08:16) - Thank you. I appreciate the show.

Jesse (00:08:18) - It's the young CPA show, right? Like what you just said about., sort of being a process taker., you know, I think it's so relevant for your listeners because when I think about my own evolution, starting at the bottom, doing AP data entry, doing booking monthly flows, right, I think it there's something about the, the early in your career mindset. And maybe this is just late adolescence, but I feel I remember feeling less inclined to accept the process that was imposed on me. I understood the outputs. I got to get these bills in, I got to book these accruals. I got to, you know, review the numbers. But when I knew, hey, this is not how I want to do it, you know, there's a defiance that goes with youth that makes you want to say no, I'm just not doing it that way. I'll get you what you want, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it this way because I want to save myself time.

Jesse (00:09:18) - And it's something you can only really, if I hadn't done that at that part of my career, I don't know if I would have later had the confidence to build fin optimal, which is predicated on no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a there's a better way. Let's do it the better way.

Tom (00:09:34) - But you have a unique situation where you like, started at a startup, you know, like when you start your career at a big four or mid-size firm or whatever. And this is there is a process there. You're getting assigned tasks like they take this gigantic project and carve out one tiny, tiny little bit and say, do these steps over and over and over again. And you don't get the leeway to really break outside of that, even as someone who is trying to do it, it was like, all right, well, do it both ways and then prove to us that the other way is better, and then we'll run it up the chain for five months.

Tom (00:10:07) - And maybe, maybe, maybe you can do something a little bit different. Right? So, you had a very unique perspective. I also think that you're, you know, you were before. Like the time where people were really breaking out, right? Like you. I feel like now there's a lot more young accountants who are embracing this mentality and people are talking about this morning we were on this show talking about it. But I feel like when you started your career, you were really, you know, a rebel. Probably the first and only time someone will call Jesse a rebel, but I'll call him a rebel.

Jesse (00:10:37) - Can you believe that, Tom? Like that. We work together. Look at. Listen to how. Listen to how he talks to me. Like, is this a visual on your podcast? I mean, well, you've. Had you ever had somebody get fired on your show? Has that ever happened that someone was the first on the show with the job?

Tom (00:10:52) - I've been fired and rehired on podcasts more than the open AI guy.

Tom (00:10:57) - I'm not afraid. What are you going to do?

Joey (00:10:59) - We're going to talk. I was just talking to a client about that, like ten minutes ago. Not ten minutes. It was an hour or two ago, but it was like, man, what a weird situation that was. That's a podcast on it's own. The thing and Jesse, you kind of mentioned this earlier to I think this is important is you had a similar situation to me where when I was at a job, I was I was hired as a controller at 30 for an organization here in Albuquerque that was like very established and all these things. And like I immediately started going and be like, okay, we can do this better, we can do this better, we can do this better. And they were like, no, we don't want to do any of these things. I'm like, so why did you hire a 30-year-old? Like, why did you hire the young dude to come in here and do stuff? Like, if you wanted me to just do it? Like, I didn't want to come here to just do things the old way.

Joey (00:11:45) - I want to come here and do things the better way. So, I think, Tom, you caught a little bit of this when you're popping into the green room. We were talking about how at that same place we were, you know, trying to kind of finagle together some systems, and we had this big ERP system, like most organizations do. Right? They think I need the industry specific ERP system. I used to call it the Cadillac, that we'd drive 25 miles an hour down the street that had all the bells and whistles, and we just never drove it more than 25 miles an hour. And I remember trying to make some process improvements that, like you learn in the CPA exam, you learn in the CMA exam, you learn all the things in school about how to like, find the best tool for like that one thing and just maximize the heck out of it until it's like where it needs to be. And they just looked at me like I was stupid. And that's when I was like, okay, it's time for me to go.

Joey (00:12:32) - Like, this has been great, but my pursuits need to lie elsewhere. Yeah.

Tom (00:12:37) - The most surprising thing you said there is that when you were 30. I can't even believe you're 30. You guys look so young. So good for you. Both of you guys are great.

Jesse (00:12:44) - It's like last year. Yeah.

Tom (00:12:46) - I was going to say, what's going on here?

Hannah (00:12:47) - 30 is going on here.

Joey (00:12:49) - Well my knees are 36 if that, if that makes any difference there. You know that's.

Tom (00:12:53) - Fair. No, I mean yeah.

Jesse (00:12:55) - You know that roll that you're talking about. Sorry to interrupt., sorry. Not sorry. What? You're what you're talking about Joey reminds me that. What we like to think of what we do at Fin optimal. Is that part of your job that you talked about, which is the making things more efficient, often by tool selection, whether it's within the monolith of a giant ERP, right selecting add ons or whether it's something more modular, like what I think QuickBooks has managed to create.

Jesse (00:13:25) - But you're architecting a solution. You're architecting a system. And that that role of the architect is something that we treasure and elevate at Fin Optimal. That's something that I viewed as a key to my success as an individual contributor, and I think it's rewarding in the way that creative professions can be rewarding. There's a there's a highly technical element. But there's also, you know, there's an opportunity to build something unique and beautiful and time saving and productive. Andthat's what attracts us to it.

Joey (00:14:02) - So real quick. So just because we're, you know, we're 14 minutes into the podcast. And you know, I wouldn't take the first six minutes of this back for anything because that was the most fun I've had on the podcast ever., but I do want to talk a little bit about Fin Optimal because we've mentioned it. It's your background is beautiful. We see it. What I want to know is before we get too far into this and people are like, Joey, you've got these guys on from fin optimal.

Joey (00:14:27) - I don't even know what fin optimal is. Tell us about it so that we can figure out, you know, more about what you guys do, how you do it. And I think the part that's more important to us is like, why you do it?

Jesse (00:14:39) - Okay., great. Yes, that's definitely the key., I'll try to start from the end. And the why is that? That architectural role, that sort of, you might call it the intersection of accounting and engineering in this context is, you know, a skill that I think that I personally excel at, that our company is excelling at, and that, I think really adds value in terms of time saved and errors omitted. Right. In accounting. Right. It's a very process-oriented approach to accounting. We started, I started Fin Optimal when I had a day job as an accounting firm, I started taking private clients on the side, all QuickBooks online, and this was at a time when the API, QuickBooks is application programming interface, which is sort of the third party developer connection point, right? How you make your app talk to QuickBooks, you use the API.

Jesse (00:15:39) - It was still not in its infancy, but it was not complete. You couldn't book deposits, for example. You couldn't book transfers, you couldn't read transfers or deposits. Right. Those are important entries in QuickBooks, and you kind of had to work around it with journal entries as an example. This was 2000.

Joey (00:15:57) - I'm going to guess 18 or 19, right?

Tom (00:15:59) - 15.

Jesse (00:16:00) - 15. A little earlier. By 18 or 19, it was very, very full. Featured by 18 or 19. You know, we probably had half $1 million of revenue. And we were you know, I had a few contractors helping me out., I think I hired our first full time employee who had been a contractor for several years in 2019, and then I went full time with it when we had $1 million of revenue in 2021, late 2021.

Joey (00:16:28) - And it's interesting because 2015 wasn't that long ago. Like I remember sitting in in meetings with clients in 2016 and they were talking about QuickBooks online, and I was like, it's not there yet.

Joey (00:16:39) - Desktop was still the play in 2016 because of the limitations you're talking about. We pushed a lot of people to zero. I had a firm completely re-engineer their entire accounting department to move to zero versus QuickBooks on our QuickBooks desktop in 2016.

Tom (00:16:53) - Eight years? Not that. I mean, Jessie might be done with this backstory in the next eight years, so we might be able to the podcast might be able to release in 2031. But go ahead, Jesse. This is this is the Lord.

Jesse (00:17:02) - Of the rings. All right, all right, all right. I'm fast forward. I'm going to try this again.

Tom (00:17:05) - And then the director's.

Jesse (00:17:06) - Cut going to say I'm not going to say less. I'm just going to talk faster.

Tom (00:17:10) - This is what I want you.

Jesse (00:17:11) - To make sure I get all the talking points out there, which I will., okay. So, we started we like our secret was software that automates these processes. I could talk so much more about why we decided to go with QuickBooks online instead of the other things, but that's a whole nother podcast.

Jesse (00:17:28) - So, our secret to success has been the technology that first I built entirely by myself. Right. Some of the products that you can see on our website, that made us do helped us do the work faster and cheaper with respect to our competitors. And that's how you win business, right? In the last two years, we've made a decision, okay, we're going to try to productize these things that we're using internally, build a website, a graphical user interface. You know, a gooey and sell it to accounting firm so that they can benefit from some of the productivity improvements that we've made internally. Right. So in the last two years, and we just launched the approver in June, and we have more products that we've been using internally for a long time that we're going to start making available to accounting firm so that they can benefit from that. How did I do, Tom? Did I get there?

Tom (00:18:21) - Yeah, it was like the podcast.

Jesse (00:18:22) - Already over.

Tom (00:18:23) - Theme of like where the horse is like drawn like really, really, really detailed.

Tom (00:18:26) - And then it's scribble at the end. Yeah. Kind of what we just had there. Okay, okay. I'm a fan of the scribble in this context.

Jesse (00:18:32) - Good, good. And I started with the why. So, I don't need to go back to that. Yeah.

Joey (00:18:36) - Well I think the why is important there too. Because I think that's you know, when, when I think about. And this is a little backstory that the audience has heard, but for Jessie and Tom, you're in, you know, just for your knowledge., I come from a family of accountants. Like, we just, I didn't know anything else to do with my life. At 20 years old, I was like, oh, I guess I'll be an accountant because Mom and Dad were both accountants. My brother's an accountant, my wife's an accountant. My cousins in accounting. Like we're all just accountants, right? And when I think back to my folks, like, they had me doing QuickBooks desktop at like 16 because they're like, this is you just need to know how to do this.

Joey (00:19:09) - You need to know how to how to use it. And I still have conversations with my mom, who just retired about a year ago, from her accounting career. And she's like, yeah, I can't figure out QuickBooks online. I don't love it. I don't like it, but I'll tell you like, that is. And it's probably because people have figured out what you figured out, which is that they've made that so user friendly that you can sort of pick and choose which stuff you want. Like that's one of the best parts of Hannah. And my job when we're not recording podcasts is like getting in with a client and saying like, okay, tell me your five biggest problems. Well, we're getting killed in AP. It's taking too much time to do payroll. This is a problem. This is a problem in Hannah's mind, just sitting there in the back and we're like, okay, we're going to get bill.com cued up your credit card stink. Great. Divvy bill also same company.

Joey (00:19:59) - Now divvy or ramp or one of these other solutions that we work with. Yeah. Payrolls not great okay gusto. Get it in there. Get it started. All those types of things. And it does feel like I almost feel a little bit like a shopper going to a grocery store and saying like, okay, I want this, I want this, I want this, I want this, and then we're going to create this accounting recipe that's just going to work for you.

Jesse (00:20:21) - Recipe I like that.

Tom (00:20:22) - That's all you ask the why. And we literally just recorded a whole video series about why we built it for each of our apps. Jesse refuses to do things manually, like absolutely refuses to do it. And you know, I'm lucky because I'm here that he decided to do this with accounting. I think the way that his brain works, he would have engineered something, no matter what field that he went into., but I think the level of understanding of accounting and Jesse's ability to break it down into a technical way, we'll still appreciating the accounting nuances that the outputs must reflect is why we've been able to build those tools.

Tom (00:20:59) - And like when I was even interviewing Jesse about the why did we build this? Did you ever do it manually? Nope. Never did it manually. Like he did it manually in his first job, but phenomenal. We've never done it manually. We've never done accruals or allocations or report wrangling or transaction creation in bulk or mass edits to QuickBooks. Never done the manually because there's just a refusal to waste time when you can be investing that time in a better way. Right. And that that is literally what we've built this company around that mentality.

Hannah (00:21:30) - I think there's space for that too. Kind of going back to what you said about speaking to like the young accountant who might be like, pigeonholed into, like doing this one specific task this way because it just needs to be a churn of getting the data out, like there's still room and space for that. But it takes some intentional mindset work of of like, there's a better way. Like, I'm not just going to do this because somebody said that this is how I need to do it.

Hannah (00:21:52) - Like there's a better way. Like I can be a catalyst for that in this organization, but that can be a scary place to be in for a young, fresh face, especially in a big organization and stepping up to that. So like, do y'all have any advice for that person who, like, might feel intimidated by like, hey, like, I want to step in and I want to own this from like from an AI, from an AI analytics from, you know, whatever that may be. Do you have any advice for like how they could implement that in their in their role?

Tom (00:22:19) - For sure only. I'll go first just because I came from a big organization in the beginning. I think you come in bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm ready to make a difference. And then you realize, okay, what I was taught in school isn't directly applicable right now. There's way more nuance. There's way more complexity than I'm familiar with. And you kind of just get assigned tasks and it breaks you down.

Tom (00:22:41) - Like you kind of lose that excitement of like, I'm going to change the world., and you have to make sure like, that flame doesn't get extinguished. In a big organization. For me, it was all about going above and beyond, right? Like, I am going to invest. I'm going to give 100%. I have 150%. I'm going to spend extra time after work or outside of work, whatever the case is, to prove that, hey, I can do more than this and this will work. Trust me. Here you go. And the second I did that, it put me on the map of the partners and the MDS at my firm. We're like, this guy cares. And this is different. We need to get him involved in more stuff. But just asking for an opportunity isn't always enough. Like seize the opportunity or just make it for yourself and put something in front of them that's undeniably better. And then you're going to get those chances time and time again, and you're going to get the recognition for it.

Tom (00:23:36) - But you have to be willing to, you know, not just clock in, clock out and wait for the chance that somebody is going to give you a cool project. Make the cool project.

Jesse (00:23:45) - You know, I think that's great. I want to build on that a little. Certainly, there's I think, Tom, you talked about when you say not just clock in and clock out. Yeah. There's two I want to talk about that risk because there's an element of risk taking and there's an entrepreneurial impetus behind taking undertaking those improvements. And I see those in as two dimensions to two dimensional. The first is what I call capital time, right? Like if you see a process that's inefficient, you have to invest a lot of time to. Try different ways to tackle the problem and use different tools, right? And take different approaches. And you hope that like other capital assets, you enjoy the product over a long period of time. You save yourself much time later, but you invest much more time. Well, hopefully less time now, for much more time later.

Jesse (00:24:41) - But you have to be prepared to make that investment, and it's probably going to take more of your job at first, like you're going to have to do more work. And the second thing is, and this is where, you know, there's no substitute for experience. When I tackle a project, it's automation driven. I often know whether or not it will work or can be done fundamentally, and I can decide whether to undertake it and not undertake it. But I only know that because I've undertaken a significant portion of just eventually unsuccessful projects, right? Like, no, this is here. I only know in retrospect this is why that won't work. But entrepreneurs are hopelessly optimistic. If you think you have a twinge of that hopeless optimism, then invest the capital time. Take that risk and it will. Ultimately, you will build something better than what was there before.

Joey (00:25:32) - Well, I love that you're kind of leaning into the entrepreneurial aspect of work because I think about and I try not to get, you know, too tied into like generalities about, you know, generations and stuff because I mean, Lord knows the millennials because everybody.

Jesse (00:25:47) - Knows y'all's generation's terrible and, oh.

Joey (00:25:49) - Horrible. We're the worst. We've killed everything and eat avocados. You know, the thing that I hate?

Jesse (00:25:56) - I hate avocados.

Joey (00:25:58) - Avocados early. Get out of here., the when I think about most of the Gen Z folks that I, that I work with, like, as a whole, that generation is the most entrepreneurial generation of people I think we've ever seen, because for the bulk of their life, all you've needed to be running a business is your phone. If you can get a video and you can do something that people are going to watch, you can create your own business. You can create your own future. And I think that's something that historically, accounting firms have struggled to get their people involved with to, you know, to your point about. Yeah, I mean, I remember my internship when I started right out of college in 2012, like I was working on client stuff, but I had friends who, like all they knew how to do, was calculate D-pad, which was an obscure tax thing that you did for six years.

Joey (00:26:47) - And then in 2018, it went away and it hasn't come back since. So like if that was like what you were basing your experience on, that is now worthless six years after the fact. But they it's incumbent upon folks like you, folks like us, folks like Summit and Anders, where we're trying to be, like on the forefront of that, to enable that type of entrepreneurial spirit to, like, not just get like shoved to the side, like, okay, great. Thanks, kid. Go work on the project. But more like, hey, the kid's got something that he thinks is going to work better. Let's see if it let's see if it does work and let's, you know, actively mentor this individual to your point, you know, Jesse, kind of bring in some of that real world experience of, hey, it might not work as you're currently doing it because I did this and it didn't work. But maybe if you tweak this one thing, it does work for you.

Joey (00:27:36) - Like CPA firms are really struggling to do that, except for a select few who are doing it really well.

Jesse (00:27:43) - Joey, what you're saying about the phone. I mean, that's an idea I haven't heard before. I don't know if I would have called, you know, Gen Z, the most entrepreneurial generation.

Tom (00:27:55) - What would you have called them?

Jesse (00:27:56) - I mean, I'll skip that point for a second, but the idea that one thing that occurs to me when thinking about the phone is that you can get feedback much more like in business school. They teach you if you're going to start a business, you know, like don't write a 100 page business plan, get a customer and a product, an MVP, minimally viable product, and get it out to the customer. Get feedback, get another customer right and the phone shortens the life cycle of that feedback loop considerably if you know how to use it., if you make use of social media, if you, you know, have connections, right? Like that communication loop is so much tighter.

Jesse (00:28:34) - And I think that, you know, legacy accounting firms have struggled to ride that wave, in part because, you know, the phone is new. I like to think that I am part of the generation during which the phone I mean, you've probably heard this before. Everything that comes out is amazing to the kid who, like that did not have personal computing until, you know, eighth or ninth grade. Right? Yeah. And so, like, I like to joke, I.

Joey (00:29:02) - Was, I was part of the generation that still had to have a.edu to get a Facebook like there, there's, you know, the, the kids.

Jesse (00:29:10) - You had a Facebook man right.

Joey (00:29:12) - Yeah. I no longer have a Facebook. Thanks grandma. But you know when I think about like all of the stuff like social media, like I think back to when I was in college in 2008, like nobody had an iPhone. And thank God, because, you know, who knows what would have been recorded of my time in the fraternity house? None of that stuff happened on video.

Joey (00:29:31) - And this is all great and well and good. But, you know, it's the feedback thing is so interesting because I think about, and I do a lot of work with kids here in Albuquerque. I work with kids in the high schools and stuff like that here where I went to school, and there are kids down there who will be doing stuff on Instagram and they'll know, like in the first five hours of putting up a post, whether like this is either going to be a good post and I'm going to leave it up or it's not, and I'm just going to pivot. I'm just going to take it down because it's not getting the feedback I wanted. I didn't get the number of likes I thought I should. I didn't get the feedback here. I didn't get the feedback there. And in some ways, that's harmful. But to your point about business, you know, I think about someone like Mr. Beast who will sit there and say, I know that I'm going to invest literally $15 million in a YouTube video, and I have enough feedback to know that that thing's going to make me 40.

Joey (00:30:20) - Yeah, he just knows.

Tom (00:30:21) - I think the Gen Z being entrepreneurial is there's a balance right of like. Like if you think about an accounting firm, I often feel like the partners and the leaders have like an oversimplified view of automation and like technology and advancement, like we want to improve these three KPIs. How many automations does it take? It's like that's not how it or.

Jesse (00:30:43) - Takes four.

Tom (00:30:44) - I had to I've had this conversation. So, this is real. Like I promised five bots this year. Like why five? That doesn't.

Jesse (00:30:51) - That's my KPI. My bonus if five, I promise.

Tom (00:30:55) - I was like, I can make five or only ones going to really be valuable, but sure. But like there's a collaborative aspect amongst all levels that needs to happen., and I even go through this sometimes when we're talking about software with other firms, like a partners like AB, we don't really do that much of that. I'm like, have you when's the last time you ask the senior or staff accountant how much time they spend on it? Like, I know you don't have the time sheets in front of you.

Tom (00:31:20) - You don't understand that pain. And there's a balance of like, hey, we want to be more efficient. We want automation, right? Let's brainstorm ideas like think about things that are repetitive, right, that have structure, structured data, that have business rules. Right. If this, then that and that are very, very monotonous. Right. And now let's just throw out ideas, get everybody involved and then go, okay, these are the three we want to tackle because I'm the senior leader. And I can understand like the ROI of this and how many resources I'm allocating. But I never would have thought of these ideas if I didn't involve the younger generation. Right. But it's the younger generation also needs to understand the younger accounts, you know, understand what the process is now so that they can actually have an opinion on why it needs to change. It's just the communication chain amongst all levels I think is so, so, so important. Because like Jesse said, if you go down a path of just trying to like throw technology at stuff, you're going to pick the wrong project.

Tom (00:32:20) - You're going to pick the wrong thing. You're going to over invest time and automation for something that's not really conducive to it. So, you know, I think this.

Jesse (00:32:28) - This answer truly is getting a little long.

Tom (00:32:30) - This answer is getting long. Yeah. Dude, you wrote the book on long answers. Jesse's fired.

Jesse (00:32:36) - The one thing that I'm really glad that you covered is the is the generations. Right. Like I'm and the collaboration like this is where I want to try to bring it home to the artistic architectural element here. Like if I think about our senior team at an optimal right, I view my collaboration with Tom and our growth story, and this is something that Anders and Summit seem to be getting right. Right? We're trying arch. Right? We're all trying like there's a lot of different we're all throwing stuff at the wall. It's about experimentation. But I like to think of these John and Paul stories. You guys who you guys know I'm talking about when I say John and Paul, right? Yes.

Jesse (00:33:15) - Okay. No. Okay. Jesse's not one.

Tom (00:33:18) - Jesse's more of a Ringo, but.

Joey (00:33:19) - I was going to say this sounds like a Beatles reference. Yeah.

Jesse (00:33:21) - It is. Oh, okay. Right. Like Tom and me have a John and Yoko there. There is.

Tom (00:33:27) - I'm for sure. I'm Paul, I'm Paul.

Jesse (00:33:31) - I can live with that. I can live with that. I'm definitely a little I mean, I did used to be bespectacled, but, you know, our head of engineering. I like to think that our tech stack that he and I have a John and Paul type thing, you know, Eric, or you know that, like, we've built these products together that I just couldn't have built like that, that collaboration between the newer and the older generations, but also between people with different skill sets. Right? Innovation happens. It happens incrementally at the intersection of two disciplines. And that's what we're trying to bring together here.

Joey (00:34:05) - Well, I love on your website where you ask the question, like, what if accountants coded, which I feel like that can happen in like, that's such a unicorn thing.

Joey (00:34:14) - Like if most like, I think about myself trying to do anything creative where it's like, if I'm designing something, this is a true story. I design and a little bookshelf that I made. It's not little, it's rather a rather large bookshelf, but I designed it on Excel because like, I didn't know like how to be artistic enough to do this outside of Excel. And I'm like, that's what I think about when I think about accountants who code where it's going to be like, everything's going to be neat and tidy and things are going to be in there, and it's going to look like an Excel document at the end of the day.

Jesse (00:34:42) - But I want to tell you, Joey, that our stack, our software is really based, like the products are based on a package within Python called pandas. Okay. Basically, what pandas does is create a concept of tables, basically Excel spreadsheets that you can manipulate in code. So, the same way I assume you used VLOOKUP, you use some IFS, maybe even offset indirect.

Jesse (00:35:10) - If you really go crazy, you're giving.

Joey (00:35:12) - Way too much credit.

Jesse (00:35:14) - I mean, you know, plus and minus for sure.

Tom (00:35:16) - I was imagining just like colored cells in like.

Joey (00:35:19) - That's what it was you drew.

Tom (00:35:21) - He drew a picture in Excel.

Joey (00:35:23) - Well, I did manipulate things to like, size it correctly so that I could make sure it fit the space and all those things. So, there was a little bit of stuff there, but like.

Jesse (00:35:31) - Can we agree that you were proud of it at the end?

Joey (00:35:33) - Oh, 100%. It was right.

Jesse (00:35:35) - Like, this is what you like when you're training the next person. You're like, look at this thing, you know, and their eyes are glazing over, or they're trying to figure out what to do with it. But you're like, look, I made your job. I made your job easy for you. Here, I'm giving you the keys, right? And that's like the creative drive behind, like, that's a creative, productive drive.

Jesse (00:35:55) - That's what we're trying to instill in the people that are implementing our product. They're building our products and implementing our systems.

Hannah (00:36:02) - So you said that about coding, and I saw that as well. And I remember being in like one of my very first freshman classes and being in college and being there with a girl who something got brought up about JavaScript. Is that a coding platform? Yeah, like.

Jesse (00:36:17) - The front end language.

Hannah (00:36:18) - Yeah, yeah. So like, she knew it and I was just so impressed. I was like, wow. Like she learned that in high school. And now I'm like, man, how cool would it have been if I'd have had at least some basis of knowledge to that in high school, maybe even my freshman year of college? How different this role could have been for me.

Jesse (00:36:39) - Hannah, that's so funny, because JavaScript is. Sorry. Tom. Did you want to say something? No.

Tom (00:36:44) - It's fine, I don't care, I don't care.

Jesse (00:36:45) - I'm just gonna be okay, okay.

Tom (00:36:47) - Talking. This is going to have the JavaScript.

Jesse (00:36:50) - Like JavaScript is the single biggest hole in my skill set. Like, our head of engineering is a gifted front-end developer. And, you know, I think the collaborations are often defined by what you bring to the table and what you don't. And the things that you're missing. Right? Become the things that, you know, people shaped holes, right, like, fit into. And that's a great way to figure out what you need to build whatever is you like. I think that's great. Not know something. I'm not going to go learn JavaScript. That's not the best use of my time., I'm I've gone by that point in my career. That's in the 20s when you can be like, I could build a front-end interface for this, and they could just click a button and do it. That's when you learn JavaScript, not when you have four kids.

Tom (00:37:37) - Accounting and finances. We're power users of Excel compared to many other professions.

Tom (00:37:43) - And there is coding in theory in Excel like depending on how complex your formulas get. So, like I feel like our brains are already wired to take the step towards coding even low code or like no code. So it's not too late. You can definitely dabble if you want to.

Hannah (00:37:59) - I mean, I can absolutely attest to those three kids, though, like they took a lot of brain cells from me. So, in terms of the time, there's that piece to it. But if I'm like talking to somebody who maybe is early in college, maybe even that's listening to this in terms of taking some of those classes. And I have worked for with a controller who her minor was in something to do with it, and she taught me a ton in Excel. She taught me how to effectively use like summit formulas and VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP and like that has been so incredibly valuable for me. And like, it was so simple. It was like a day of working with her. And she was like, yeah, I had a professor who, like, really encouraged me to minor in this like tech.

Hannah (00:38:44) - It something to do with that. And she was like, it has been an exceptionally valuable for me to put my time and energy there. So, like I would say to somebody who's like early in their college career to explore that option. Absolutely.

Tom (00:38:59) - Yeah. Even explore just as a hobby or like it doesn't have to be tied to your major like I Myspace. You guys remember Myspace layouts? Oh yes. That's how I.

Joey (00:39:08) - With your friends. Where you have your top friends on there. Yes, I.

Hannah (00:39:11) - Yeah, there was.

Joey (00:39:13) - This.

Tom (00:39:13) - Yeah. If you wanted to do like a custom 12 or like hide for or like play a song that didn't exist or do any sort of layout that that was all HTML. And that's when I was like, all right, I want mine to look different. And that was my first exposure to any sort of coding language, was like seventh grade, trying to make a cool Myspace page. So, it just, it can come anywhere, I think. I think it's like music.

Jesse (00:39:33) - We have a page, Tom, should we have a phenomenal Myspace page?

Tom (00:39:37) - You should recreate the Tom from Myspace avatar. Like the

Jesse (00:39:42) - The guy. That's right.

Tom (00:39:43) - Why your LinkedIn profile? Hacker.

Jesse (00:39:45) - Yeah, he was on my top five because I just didn't have that many friends., top eight. Top five.

Tom (00:39:50) - I'm not going to touch that one.

Jesse (00:39:51) - Okay. All right.

Tom (00:39:52) - So he's been getting beat up too hard on this episode. I mean.

Joey (00:39:55) - Speaking of college, I have I have a because I was thinking back, Tom, something you said made me think back to, like, my time in college. And I was thinking about like, I don't want to call it useless stuff, but like, the things they teach you in college that like, just aren't applicable to anything we do at all. And then I went to, like, tax memos, like, I had an entire class where you had to, like, write memos with, like the citation on the left.

Joey (00:40:15) - And I was like, thinking back in close to 15 years of accounting, I've literally never written a tax memo or a memo to the file, ever.

Jesse (00:40:24) - How about use the T account?

Joey (00:40:27) - No, I mean, well, that's not true. I've done a couple of things to, like, show people, but like, never practically.

Tom (00:40:35) - Okay. If I talk about my license, I can't do it. Are three letters are getting ripped up.

Joey (00:40:42) - If you're if you're like a young kid or not even a I mean, they're all young compared to us now, but like a college kid and they're like, these guys sound cool. Like, I want to do some practical things to like. Either create some automation, stuff like that. Like what would be a better like if we could redesign college to create skills that are like useful to be really like 2030 as opposed to what we're teaching now, which was useful in like 2015. What sort of things should we be doing in college to like get kids ready to, like, come into the world and be like fully functioning adults?

Tom (00:41:17) - I mean, I think where I learned the best was any sort.

Jesse (00:41:21) - Of like have different answers here. This is good. I'm going to be way different. We're going to be way different.

Tom (00:41:26) - I'll go first so that people don't shut off the episode while you're talking and making people. I think more projects and stuff, honestly. I think like, accounting is the language of business. It's cliche. Everybody says it. It's true. Your business is kind of just an idea, you know, it's your passion, it's your hobby, it's your idea. For everyone else, it's a financial package. How do you measure it? Like that's the accounting part of it, right? Maybe that's not that interesting to you, but like any sort of like creative business market it. Right. How would you go get financing? How do you account for it. Like those sorts of like longer form projects or case studies where you can use all of those skills in a, in a you know, that you learn from a business school in practice is, I think, how you learn the most and get the most excited because just like going to class and like reading a book and then doing homework is the worst way to learn.

Tom (00:42:16) - I mean, you know, yeah, creating case studies would be cool. Also, a flipped classroom. Do you guys ever have a flipped classroom? Do you know what that is? It was so basically you were supposed to do the reading before class and then you come to class and do the homework together. So, it's like you're doing the problems in class. So, you're not getting lectured at. It's very collaborative and community based. That was the most accounting I've ever learned in a class. Everything else was memorizing a textbook, going in and regurgitating it.

Joey (00:42:44) - And then and then not thinking about it again until you have to study for the CPA exam. And then sitting.

Tom (00:42:48) - Down for the CPA and going, is revenue a debit or credit crap., but that's yeah, that really happens. So, Jesse, go ahead. What's your idea?

Jesse (00:42:57) - Well, wait. First, I want to hear the answer. Is it a debit or credit?

Tom (00:42:59) - The only reason I know it's a credit is because of the accrual.

Jesse (00:43:02) - So okay. All right. Good. My job, my work here is done. I was going to say, you know I think we need more common preparation in classics like reading the classics., some technical math, science, statistics., I think that, the way we talk, the way we write., could use an upgrade. I just think that we need we need a larger body of common work. And I know this has come under fire in the last 20 or 30 years, but, you know, a sort of core curriculum so that you've just got more stories in common that you can refer to when you think about human nature. My feeling is that that generates more productive, collaborative, people. And you can't help people figure out what they want. You just have to let them chip away at what they don't want. Over time, I'm a big believer in the marble statue model of building a career, where you start with a block and you know, you chip away stuff over time and eventually, hopefully earlier in your career, but sometimes not.

Jesse (00:44:08) - You wind up with something where you've chipped away all the stuff that's not you. All the subjects, all the skills, all the people, and you know, by the end, you kind of. Oh, this this is who I am. Because we're all still figuring it out.

Joey (00:44:23) - It's a really great point, because when I talk to the high school kids, that's the number one thing I tell them is like, look, you've got to be able to communicate. Like, if you can't communicate effectively in whatever you're doing, you're not going to be successful. And I think about Hannah's going to laugh because it's a well-known crutch within my consulting, which is that I've got kind of one pitch and that's and that's the sports fastball. Like, I can give sports references, I can make sports analogies, I can do. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. This what you want me to talk about pool? I will talk about pool, but if someone doesn't know sports, like I don't have any other.

Joey (00:44:58) - I don't have any other pitches in the Arsenal. I can't do a John and Paul. I can't make a music reference. I can't make a pop culture reference. I can't and it and it's all about connections. So that's an area of my growth where I've got it, I've got it. It's got my repertoire.

Tom (00:45:13) - Spend more time on the internet.

Jesse (00:45:14) - Funny, I have to say. Like I will take a minute, even though he's even though he's acting a little petulant. I'm going to take a minute and credit time.

Tom (00:45:22) - Don't read these old books talking about. Then you want to say two words.

Jesse (00:45:26) - Oh yeah, two words. I'm a big believer in that. Like just learn some freaking words. But in terms of like, Tom is probably the best person that I know at making analogy and like metaphor and simile are just such powerful tools when you're trying to have a difficult conversation. Right. And, you know, there's some sports analogy, you know, I really just need you to sit on the bench or.

Jesse (00:45:49) - Right, let's, let's how do we hit this one out of the park? You know, these are I'm sure there's some good ones that I don't know. But the ability to bring to bear these ideas, it just it can crystallize a concept that's otherwise not so accessible. And I think you get that from being well read or watch, you know, being on the internet a lot. I think you get that from being well-rounded and communicative and involved. So that's all of this is just making me think about how much I'd pay to be back in college.

Joey (00:46:18) - Oh, all the I think about that like once a month.

Tom (00:46:21) - I can't go back.

Jesse (00:46:22) - Youth is wasted on the young man.

Joey (00:46:24) - That's the number one piece of advice to give to kids is like, you are never going to have as much free time as you have right now. It doesn't get any you have. It never gets better. You just have less and less free time. So, enjoy. Play all the call of duty you want.

Joey (00:46:39) - Just do it.

Tom (00:46:40) - I was going to say it goes away. Yeah, it goes away. Yeah.

Jesse (00:46:45) - Tom, I thought you were going to make an analogy as a follower I gave you.

Tom (00:46:49) - No, no I wasn't. It's

Jesse (00:46:52) - I thought I gave you a lay up there.

Tom (00:46:54) - You're being nice. I thought you were going to keep being nice, but it was like a short lived being. Nice. But it's fine. I'll take it. I'll take what I can get, I think. No, I think those types of. You know, people understand what they understand. And when you can put something in a context that they'll get more quickly. Right? You're just going to have a more effective conversation with that person. I feel like I definitely use sports analogies more than anything else, though. I'll be like, don't put don't play them out of position. Right. Best player available. You know.

Joey (00:47:25) - I told the client this morning, like, you got to treat this like a basketball game.

Joey (00:47:28) - You're fouling at the end of the game because we just got to keep the game going as long as we can. I like that. Ended it because you never know what's going to happen. Just keep extending as much as you can.

Jesse (00:47:37) - I like that you foul them enough. You get into the bonus.

Joey (00:47:41) - Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or you know, I know that, you know, if anybody is a Texas A&M fan, they always say down there hey the Aggies never lose. We just run out of time I like. And that's where it's like you know you got to keep extending it as much as you can I like I love to make fun of the Aggies. So, I don't know if anybody's a Texas A&M fan on the podcast, but no.

Jesse (00:47:59) - Tell some Aggie jokes next time.

Joey (00:48:01) - Yeah, it's a hobby, a passion of mine.

Jesse (00:48:05) - Well, guys.

Joey (00:48:06) - This has been like 48 of the fastest minutes of my podcast life. And we usually like to end with something lighthearted, which we've totally already done.

Joey (00:48:14) - But I think we should I think we should more lighthearted. Yeah, we should double down on the fun stuff. So, we've learned a lot about your history. We've learned a lot about the company. What's something about yourselves like? What's your most proud fact about yourself that nobody knows that you're willing to share? Like, is there like a secret skill, a secret hobby that you're, like, super proud of?

Tom (00:48:32) - God. I mean, Jesse, you have cooler stuff than me.

Jesse (00:48:35) - I knew you were going to say that. To try to make me go first.

Tom (00:48:38) - Yours is actually cooler. You should go first.

Jesse (00:48:41) - My. You think you know what I'm going to say? I don't know. You go first.

Tom (00:48:45) - And then I'll say something extra.

Jesse (00:48:47) - Nice about you. The coolest thing about me that nobody knows.

Joey (00:48:50) - I put you on the spot. I'm sorry. This is.

Jesse (00:48:52) - An I'm going to go. All right. I'll go with

Tom (00:49:01) - Dude. Come on.

Jesse (00:49:02) - You played the Billy Joel video.

Jesse (00:49:04) - Billy Joel. Billy Joel. Fine, I don't know. I did play an original song for Billy Joel in college that I wrote about him in front of 1200 people at Irvine Auditorium in, at Penn, and that was definitely him. I'm sorry to say, the highlight of my musical career, but I don't get to talk much about music these days. But I'm a piano player and a songwriter, and, you know, maybe once my kids are a little bit older and, you know, hopefully get a sweet equity payout with Fin Optimal, I'll spend a little more time getting back to my real dream, which is to be a rock star. So, you've created the fame. I'm not gonna fail. I'm just. I just might run out of time.

Joey (00:49:44) - Exactly, exactly.

Jesse (00:49:45) - So I.

Tom (00:49:47) - Don't think that's a good.

Joey (00:49:48) - Start, though. That's not. That's gonna that's tough to beat.

Tom (00:49:51) - It's very hard to beat.

Jesse (00:49:52) - Sorry. The best part of that story that I should tell is at the end he said, what's your last name? Reubenfeld.

Jesse (00:49:58) - Oh. So you might not need an accountant. That's what Billy Joel said to me before I knew I was going to become an accountant. So, I suppose I should give him some share of my choice, my chosen profession. Okay.

Tom (00:50:13) - I can't follow that up.

Jesse (00:50:15) - That's why you make me go first, man.

Tom (00:50:18) - Because I was hoping that we would just talk about you. And then I know I don't have anything. I feel like I'm just like a basic person that lives in Brooklyn. Like, I just have all of these hobbies that you'd be like, oh, of course you do that. Like, of course you're gonna come in and.

Jesse (00:50:30) - Be like, I want to look like you look like.

Tom (00:50:34) - I know, stand up. Yeah, I've done stand up. I brew beer like and cook like. You just do all the basic Brooklyn stuff. I feel like I'm a walking caricature of what people think of when they think about Brooklyn. So. Yeah.

Joey (00:50:49) - So true or false? And I say this.

Jesse (00:50:51) - Y'all aren't going to tell us yours.

Joey (00:50:52) - Oh, we will, I need I need to ask Tom this follow up though. True or false.

Jesse (00:50:56) - Yeah.

Joey (00:50:56) - Brooklyn brisket is better than Texas brisket because that is something I've heard from people.

Jesse (00:51:01) - Very carefully about this, because we're going to vote on whether you should keep your job after this.

Tom (00:51:06) - Brooklyn hometown barbecue in Brooklyn is phenomenal. I haven't had enough Texas brisket to weigh in. But, you know, I've seen the pictures of the three slices of brisket on a little piece of brown paper, and everyone makes one, one.

Joey (00:51:22) - Pickle in the corner.

Tom (00:51:23) - Hometown barbecue is amazing. I'll stand by that. It's a phenomenal. So, I'm not going to say one way or another that's hometown barbecue is like the number one. Yeah. Barbecue spot like in New York for sure. And definitely time you're.

Jesse (00:51:38) - Here we'll go to the pit room and you can just you can decide.

Tom (00:51:42) - Fair. But yeah, so I don't know.

Tom (00:51:44) - That's not a good answer. I'm not that passionate about my barbecue. So, you know, that's fair.

Joey (00:51:50) - That's fair. I just that's whenever I think about Brooklyn I'm like, man, I saw this eater, this meme five years ago about how they're like, this is the best barbecue in America. And the whole state of Texas was like, whoa, it's good.

Tom (00:52:01) - Slow your roll. It's very.

Jesse (00:52:02) - Slow your roll.

Hannah (00:52:04) - All right, Joey, your turn.

Joey (00:52:05) - Oh, man, you're gonna make me go, I was.

Hannah (00:52:06) - Hoping. Yes, I am. Oh, yes I am.

Joey (00:52:09) - Okay, okay. So my hidden talent is I do a lot of cooking, so I do most of the cooking for the family. So like, the thing that I'm really doing a lot of now is like making all the pizza doughs and everything from scratch and all the sauces from scratch, because we, we redid the backyard here at the house because, you know, you've been in the place for six years.

Joey (00:52:30) - It's like, well, I guess we'll stay. So, we put a little Ooni pizza oven back there. So yeah. So, you know, having to having to play around.

Jesse (00:52:39) - But you know how to do.

Hannah (00:52:40) - Let's say why you cook though. Like let's like.

Joey (00:52:44) - Oh yeah, we'll do why. So, when I was in college, I convinced a professor at K-State to like, let me get course credit for going overseas to Italy, to go to culinary school for a month and a half and, like, write a paper about it was like a marketing class. But he was going over there to do some programs. So, like we met up in Florence and like, took them all around the spots and spent like a month and a half just at culinary school. Just. While learning how to cook from an Italian grandma, which everybody should do once in their life.

Tom (00:53:13) - That's awesome. My best friend is a chef. I do like pop ups with him when he's like, you know, that kind of stuff.

Tom (00:53:19) - And I'm the beer guy. So like, once the thing about hits, I'm just going to spend all of my money on a restaurant with my best friend, and that's going to be the whole thing. And then I'll then I'll be back at square one, working as a CPA again once we eventually squander it. And John Taffer doesn't save us in time, but that's the goal, man. That's the dream. I love it work really, really hard just to like, waste all your money on a passion project with your best friend Joey.

Jesse (00:53:41) - Have you seen Mostly Martha?

Joey (00:53:44) - No.

Jesse (00:53:45) - It's a cooking move. I think they may have made an American one, which I haven't seen, but it's a German movie about cooking that I think is you. You can't miss. It might inspire you.

Joey (00:53:54) - Oh, I see it here. Okay. Yep, yep, I've got it. It's on. It's on Netflix. Hold on. Maybe not. Okay, we can make this happen.

Jesse (00:54:02) - Check it out.

Joey (00:54:03) - Hannah, give me yours.

Hannah (00:54:05) - I feel like I'm such an uninteresting person. Like this is so hard. I am just, like. Just this typical girl lives in the South that really appreciates college football., I did spend like 30 minutes this morning reading the time article about Taylor Swift because I do, in fact, love her and can appreciate tying it back to storytelling. Like, I feel like she is an absolute expert at telling a story through songs, so I just love her, I guess.

Jesse (00:54:39) - What's your favorite Taylor Swift song?

Joey (00:54:41) - There is a right answer.

Hannah (00:54:42) - Hard.

Joey (00:54:43) - There's a correct answer.

Hannah (00:54:45) - I think maybe the one that comes to mind that I like constantly stuck in my head is all too well. The ten-minute version I was gonna say.

Tom (00:54:53) - Is it like the nested version?

Hannah (00:54:55) - It's like it's the ten-minute version. I think that is probably my Taylor version.

Tom (00:54:59) - Taylor's Taylor's version. I just can't keep up with it.

Jesse (00:55:03) - We're in these props though.

Joey (00:55:04) - She completely. She's reinventing herself every day.

Hannah (00:55:07) - She is.

Tom (00:55:07) - Yeah, she's a master.

Jesse (00:55:08) - She's a superstar.

Hannah (00:55:09) - She is. I'm in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Jesse (00:55:12) - Okay. Oh, not that far. Not that far. Not that.

Tom (00:55:15) - Your college football team, then I'm in Houston.

Hannah (00:55:18) - Oh, Houston. Yeah. Ole Miss, Ole Miss.

Tom (00:55:22) - That's Eli Manning, so. All right, we're. This is a good place to bond.

Jesse (00:55:25) - So my, my father-in-law was a defensive end at LSU. Oh, I'm guessing that's a rival.

Hannah (00:55:33) - That's a rival. It is a rival. Yeah. However, my husband says that if he wasn't an Ole Miss fan, he'd be an LSU fan. And I'm like, I just like, I grew up in I grew up in South Alabama as an Alabama fan. Like, I mean, LSU Hate Week is very real for us. So, I feel like that was a slap in the face. But that's what he says. But it is a rival for Ole Miss. Well, that.

Joey (00:55:54) - Stadium is such a cool place to go. So, like my sister-in-law got to go is when the University of New Mexico played LSU last year, she got to go to Death Valley for a night game. And it wasn't even a big night game. They knew they're going to beat us by 60. And she was like, it was still the best environment I've ever seen at a college football game.

Tom (00:56:11) - That's insane. I wish I had that. Binghamton University in upstate New York has nothing. We have, drinking and fog.

Joey (00:56:18) - So that's I mean.

Hannah (00:56:20) - That's, that's the grove at. All

Joey (00:56:22) - That's 80% of college, right? Yeah.

Tom (00:56:23) - But you have the sun and football also. So, anyway.

Hannah (00:56:29) - There's that.

Joey (00:56:30) - Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us today. I think this is, this is certainly the most fun I've ever had on the podcast that we've, we've done, for those of us and, you know, I think we could spend a whole another podcast just talking about Fin Optimal. Where can we go to find out more about you and Fin Optimal and all of the things that you are doing to optimize accounting.

Tom (00:56:51) - Yeah. Go to finoptimal.com, finoptimal.com. You can find everything about us there. Follow us on LinkedIn., if you think this is fun you definitely check out our LinkedIn posts. They're just about as serious as we've been on this podcast., and yeah, don't hesitate to reach out. Accounting firm, company, whoever you are, happy to talk. Happy to see what we can do to help you. I would also plug when is this episode releasing?

Joey (00:57:16) - That is a good question. I think we're it's probably going to be late February or early March I think is when we're when we're booked out too.

Tom (00:57:24) - So, check out our new podcast.

Joey (00:57:26) - More often. Often, you know, once a week instead of once every couple of weeks.

Tom (00:57:29) - Yeah for sure. All right. So, I'll plug our new podcast because our old podcast we sold it.

Tom (00:57:34) - So we have a new podcast. So, check out another not another accounting podcast that will be live by the time this airs.

Hannah (00:57:40) - We sell our podcast.

Hannah (00:57:42) - Like what happened do that?

Tom (00:57:44) - Yeah. We're not allowed. It was called not another accounting podcast. We're not allowed to talk about it. So, our new podcast is another, not another accounting podcast. So definitely check that one out when there's.

Hannah (00:57:55) - No non-compete signed I see. So yeah, there you go. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being on the show with us and excited for our listeners to join in on the fun and then obviously continue the fun by connecting with you all outside of the. So, thanks for joining us.

Tom (00:58:09) - Thank you.

Jesse (00:58:10) - Thanks for having us. It's been great.

Outro (00:58:12) - If you're a young CPA looking to develop in their careers, we're always looking for great people. Visit our website for remote work opportunities with Summit Virtual CFO, or find all our open positions at Anders CPAs and advisors.

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