Jamie Gruol: Welcome back to this week’s edition of Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. This week, we have a special guest, Ryan Elbein, who is the CPA and founder of Elbein CPA LLC, an accounting and tax practice based in Connecticut. He began his career in the tax departments of two large public accounting firms before transitioning to a new role As a controller for a real estate developer in 2021, Ryan decided to create his own tax and accounting practice as a side gig, which turned into his full time focus.

Jamie Gruol: Just two years later, now Ryan is working to grow his tax and accounting practice, mainly focusing on providing a full service solution to trade businesses. When he isn’t working, he is spending his time with his wife, his two sons, and his golden retriever.

Jamie Gruol: Welcome Ryan to Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. So excited to have you here.

Ryan Elbein: Thank you. I’m glad to be here. 

Jamie Gruol: Thank you. So I would love to just start by asking you the question we start everyone with. And that is, can you share us a bit more about the details of your journey through working for the larger firms into that role as a controller and then starting your own side gig and how it got you here today.

Jamie Gruol: We would love to hear all the dirty details of how you got to this point.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah, so, um, actually I think it’s a little bit of a unique, uh, way into accounting, right? So, I actually didn’t know I wanted to be an accountant in the beginning. Um, I went to college for criminal justice. Uh, I thought I wanted to be in law enforcement. And, I had a professor there in my college that basically, helped me see that I was good at accounting. And, uh, I would better off or better served getting an accounting degree instead of getting a criminal justice degree. And I can still go and do whatever I want to do in law enforcement, if that’s what I want to do after I got my degree. and so one thing led to another, I got an internship with a firm called Markham, which is now just been bought out by Seabiz, uh, this week, actually this past week. And I started out with them in the tax department as an intern. 

Jamie Gruol: Oh, cool.

Ryan Elbein: internships with them, got offered a job, as soon as I graduated, my senior year in college, which, you know, how do you say no to that, right? Having a guaranteed job when you graduate, uh, so I got offered a job with them. I went and worked for them for, I think it was about four years or so in their tax department, working on all sorts of things from real estate entities to construction entities, you know, you name it, I probably worked on it, even nonprofits and whatnot. Really got a good base knowledge there about, how taxes and accounting works. Uh, left there after about four years to go to Cone Resnick up in Hartford, Connecticut. I worked there for probably eight or nine months before, , the opportunity arose to become a controller for a real estate developer down on the shoreline in Connecticut.

Ryan Elbein: And real estate being kind of what I wanted to work with, you know, the types of entities I liked working with, you know, I really couldn’t pass up the chance to really get in there and work inside a real estate company, learning it from the inside instead of just knowing the tax aspects. Uh, so I went to go work for him for I was there probably about three and a half years, but while I was there, uh, it wasn’t really, you know, what I wanted to do.

Ryan Elbein: It was a good learning experience, but not exactly, what I want to do forever. once you kind of got to that role, it was really there wasn’t a whole lot of upside for me. they didn’t really have a CFO. It was kind of just a family owned real estate development company.

Ryan Elbein: So Maybe someday I could have been called a CFO, but it wouldn’t have really been any different than what I was doing on the day to day. so basically I was like, all right, I need to get out of here and find something else that’s better for me. I didn’t love the big public accounting firm, aspects anymore.

Ryan Elbein: Right. I didn’t love tracking my time. I was probably like the most dreadful part about being at a big accounting firm, right. Having to track every hour of every day. So I was like, you know what, I don’t want to go back and work for a big firm anymore. I want to try to figure out how to do this for myself and just build my own thing. plus, you know, you look at the big firms and all the partners that I worked for, I mean, half of them had been divorced multiple times. They all work more hours than, we worked as staff and seniors and whatever else. And it’s like, dude, is that really what I want to do when I’m, 60 years old?

Ryan Elbein: I want to be working 70 hours a week still. Like I don’t think so. I kind of almost want to be retired when I’m 60. so I’m like, you know what, let’s do my own thing. Let’s start it out fresh. but the challenge coming from, private into creating your own firm is you don’t have clients to take.

Ryan Elbein: I didn’t have a list of clients that I could just, you know, bring over with me. I didn’t have those connections anymore because I had worked for three years outside of public accounting. so I really had to start from scratch and, I got really lucky where my, my wife’s coworker’s boyfriend, Had made a ton of money during COVID and he needed an accountant to help him, you know, kind of get things under control and figure out how to do his taxes. So he ended up becoming my first client. and I brought him on kind of got stuff under control. and then from there, just kind of spitballed it right. Just did everything I could possibly do and, brought on more clients, friends, family, people he knew, my own friends and family kind of got brought on and word of mouth just started catching fire and people came in. after probably the first few months of doing it as a side gig, I’m like, all right, I have something going here, right? I’ve got, you know, decent amount of clients come in the door. This is, this is feasible. I can actually do this. And, started just bringing on as many clients as I possibly could until it got to the point it was too much work to do as a side gig.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Ryan Elbein: and then January of 2023, I decided, you know what, I’m going to leave my full time job and just do this full time. one unique thing I did have going for me was, the firm Cohen Resnick, I actually was able to, Connect with some of them again and kind of do some subcontracting with them, So it’s kind of a way to work with them still be on the big clients still keep my feet wet in that kind Of world but also, have my own schedule do my own thing and make my own money And that really helped get me comfortable enough to leave my full time job and go out on my own

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that is quite the journey. So I would love to hear more about the mindset that it took you to take the leap. What was it about that, that time where you were like, okay, I can, I can see the potential here. what was it that was like the trigger where you’re like, okay, I know I can safely and confidently do this because I think there’s.

Jamie Gruol: A lot of people who, it’s usually a forced on them decision to go full time, right? Like whether they lose a job or they have to move and they’re like, okay, this is my only option. And then they leap into it. But you had a really great job and were, starting to build the client, list and having the volume that you needed to do it financially, but what was the thing that like you switched in you and you were like, okay, I’m safe.

Jamie Gruol: I can do this.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah, so I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a big risk, right? I had my first son February of 2022. so he’s about just under a year old when I decided to go full time. it was a big decision. I was making good money as a controller of a real estate developer and I was really going, from, Guaranteed money to almost nothing, right?

Ryan Elbein: I mean, I still had some clients that had been going on for a couple of years So I had some clients some money coming in, but it was definitely a big risk You know for me it just came down to really Having to believe in myself to actually go out there and do what it needed to be done, right at this point I’d already been so busy working Crazy hours because I was doing my full time job and then also working at night to get these these clients done So I knew that if I cleared up my table of work for that full time job It didn’t have to do the 40 hours a week plus work for him anymore I knew I had that time to go out there and really network with people and and find those clients that I needed to make It you know viable for me You know, it definitely helped me having a little bit of that, that backstop of the subcontractor work too, because while it wasn’t guaranteed, you know, big firms have trouble getting people these days.

Ryan Elbein: We all know there’s a pipeline struggle, right? So they can’t bring people in the door to work for them. so I had the ability to just say, Hey, I need this many hours, you know, give me work. and they had it available to me. I was very lucky in that regard, but it’s, a little bit of a different thinking, right?

Ryan Elbein: Instead of just having to grow everything from scratch and get my own clients, I found another way to sort of bring in the money so that I could slowly wean that down as I bring in more clients.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. I love that you’re, you looked at it through that lens too, that it wasn’t nothing is forever, right? Like when we have to. make decisions to piecemeal it together for a period of time. It is just that. It’s just a period of time. And if it’s the, the long result or the long, vision that we have is able to come to fruition because we make those sacrifices or, or short term, decisions, then that is the way to do it.

Jamie Gruol: And there’s a lot of people that piecemeal it together for a while too. I’m curious when it came to having that conversation with your past. Employer and saying, Hey, I’m available for contractor. I think there’s some people out there that are like, Oh my gosh, maybe that’s an option I never thought of.

Jamie Gruol: And it can help me in this, you know, the first year or two and getting to being able to support myself with a full roster of clients and, and also the confidence to support a full roster of clients. That’s a pretty big risk too. But how did you have that conversation and broach that with the owners of that firm?

Jamie Gruol: So maybe others can take away from that.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah, so it was actually interesting how it happened. it wasn’t planned by any means. I think how it happened, I actually made a post on social media, about something talking about a different firm I worked for. And, one of the partners reached out to me and was like, Oh, I hope you weren’t talking about Kohn Resnick.

Ryan Elbein: I’m like, no, no, I wasn’t. he goes, Hey, you know, if you ever want to come out and work for us again, like, you know, we’re always looking for people. We’d love to have you back, and it kind of just opened up that conversation of like, well, listen, I have my own firm now.

Ryan Elbein: I don’t really, want to go work for another firm. if you guys need somebody to get some work done, happy to work for you, but I can’t necessarily do it as, an employee cause I want to do my own thing. I want to give this a shot. and we kind of just came up with the idea of like, Hey, what if we do like a subcontractor arrangement?

Ryan Elbein: a lot of these firms are doing it with people in the Philippines and India and all that. They’re already doing it. but maybe not so much in the U S and it was definitely a process, trying to get to the point where my insurance company was comfortable with our agreement and work with their, legal department and trying to put together an agreement.

Ryan Elbein: Definitely took, I think it took like three months to get an actual agreement together. but it was just that thing of just a random conversation, just kind of open the door to, you know, Hey, maybe we can make this work. And I’ve been, you know, doing some work with them since. I think it was 2022 that I really started this subcontracting a little bit. so it’s been, two years plus of doing some work with them just to kind of get some income that’s more steady than having to find my own clients.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. And I think, you know, the, the things that I took away was one, maybe don’t be afraid to ask past employers where you left with on good terms. If you are somebody who is building a practice or are looking to build a practice, go back and ask like they’re, you never know. There’s such demand for skilled workers right now to help with the load.

Jamie Gruol: that it’s very likely that you will get, the other thing is, is know that there are some legal ramifications around that as being a subcontractor. And it sounds like talking with your insurance company is a good starting point. So you can understand like, where, what you need to have in place to cover yourself and be able to work for someone else.

Jamie Gruol: But also, you know, Being flexible in the process of coming on board with someone. So would you have any other tips that you would share with anyone as far as like that part of the process goes, just so that they could kind of lay it out in their head of how they can have that conversation.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah. I mean, don’t be afraid to have the conversation and just reach out. we all know these firms are having trouble bringing new people in the door. and they all promise their clients, Hey, This will get done. And right now they’re just working their people to the bone.

Ryan Elbein: Right. so. if you present them with an opportunity of, Hey, I can take some pressure off of the people you currently have working for you by working 10 hours a week. you know, here’s the rate that I want to get and you kind of negotiate it from there. They’ll tell you what they’re willing to pay. and then the big thing is really talk with your insurance company, right? If you’re going to start your own firm, you got to have, you know, E and O insurance. so talk with your insurance company. Mine was great. I sent them the contract that, the firm sent over to me and they kind of reviewed it and said, Hey, here’s what we think these things we don’t really like.

Ryan Elbein: I think initially they wanted me to have like a million dollars of cybersecurity insurance and that kind of stuff. And it’s like, listen, I’m a small, small business here. I don’t have a need for a million dollars of insurance.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Ryan Elbein: and even my insurance company was like, listen, we can get that for you, but it’s going to be super expensive.

Ryan Elbein: so it’s negotiating back and forth. Like, Hey, I’m willing to do this for you, but here’s the things I need. I had to give up some things, they had to give up some things, and we just kind of made a deal work that, we were both happy with. they’re getting the work done they need, I’m getting a little bit of money that I need, and, we’re all happy, 

Jamie Gruol: Well, Ryan, so when you’re building your business, I know, actually, because you, like us, are a tax dome, certified consultant. So you’re using technology and I would love to get your take on why using technology is important in your practice and what that has done for you as you’re growing your practice.

Jamie Gruol: Because I also, while we’re talking about this, maybe you can talk about who’s on your team. Is it just you? Do you have an assistant? Do you have part time tech? Like. seasonal help. can you kind of just explain to us kind of where you’ve taken the practice of your business so that you can still be a present dad, a present husband, get out and do hikes and play with your family and your dog and make sure that you’re enjoying life while also building a thriving business.

Jamie Gruol: I would love to hear more about that.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah. So it’s just me right now. my wife, helped out a lot. she’s a nurse, not an accountant, but, during maternity leave with my first son, anytime he was napping, she would help me with doing engagement letters or any kind of work I needed here and there.

Ryan Elbein: She’d kind of help out with, I’ve even taught her how to use QuickBooks a little bit. So now she’s helping me, you know, anytime she’s got some free time, she’ll help me out, do some stuff, but it’s mainly just me. the technology has been great. the reason I went with tax still in the beginning was just That all in one solution, right?

Ryan Elbein: I didn’t want to have a whole bunch of different things I had to piece together and figure out how this technology is going to work with that technology and put it all together. I wanted something that was simple to use and can really just help me run my practice and keep track of everything instead of having a spreadsheet to track my clients and then figuring out, you know, okay, where am I going to store the documents and all that. what it really helped me with is designing my own processes because starting out fresh, I didn’t have a process, right? Like I was just. Get the stuff, do the work and send it to the client. There was no real, like, how do I actually make this a process? so by being able to use the pipelines within tax stone, I was able to figure out, okay, here’s where I want to start my process and I need to get an organizer.

Ryan Elbein: I need to get the documents. I need to do a return. I need to review it myself and sort of created my own process. Now that I can follow with every single client, it helps streamline what I’m doing and also just help me collect everything in one spot, which was really nice. and since then, it’s really taught me that technology is, super important in the businesses that we create. one of the things that it gave me was a phone app, right? how many accountants can say they have a phone app? when I’m talking with new clients, it’s like, Hey, I’ve got an app on your phone. You can do everything. You can pay me from there. You can message me. You can put your documents up through there, and clients are like, I can do what?

Ryan Elbein: Like, I don’t even need to go on the computer. I can just go on my phone. fine. I’m in.

Jamie Gruol: Really nice.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah. so technology is super important. I’ve been trying to find more ways to use technology in my business too, just to kind of, streamline processes or help clients do things easier so that they don’t have to spend so much time working.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Ryan Elbein: and as far as what you said about, you know, how I spend time, with my kids, you know, the great thing about having your own practice is you get to set your own hours, right? So maybe. The long term goal is not to work a million hours a week, and that’s fine, I get to work whenever it’s convenient for me.

Ryan Elbein: So if my son has to stay home from daycare because he’s sick, I don’t have to work during the day that day. I can work during his nap. I can work at night when he goes to bed. being able to kind of change my schedule around what my family needs so I can spend the time with them and help them when they need it, It’s just second to none that that’s the biggest thing about owning your own firm is just being able to do what you need to do to help your family and be there for them.

Jamie Gruol: and I love that. I mean, that’s why I started my business too, right? Like I got tired of the 60 hour weeks working in corporate and I, set out to take my skills and build my own version of freedom. one of the things I’m curious about is how you think technology has allowed you to scale and grow your business to this point over the last four years.

Jamie Gruol: to where you are able to still be a solo practitioner and still make a good wage without working a million hours. I think there’s a lot of people out there who have, you know, if they’ve been doing it for a while, they just have kind of gotten into this routine, of just doing it all and working long hours and trying to keep it all in their heads and trying to, you know, they wake up in the middle of the night and they’re like, Oh my gosh, I forgot to send that email.

Jamie Gruol: Or I forgot to follow up with them and, or they’re drowning in like questions in all the time. Right. And so they spend their waking hours trying to get the work done, but then spending their hours, they should be sleeping, like responding to emails. Right. So how has technology helped you avoid some of those traps and pitfalls that.

Jamie Gruol: Starting a practice, a tax practice specifically, where there’s so many moving parts all the time. And with just you,

Ryan Elbein: Yeah. I’ll say a huge time savings is to just embrace video. one of the best things I’ve done in the last couple of years is instead of having wrap up meetings with every client, I do a quick video for them. the videos are anywhere from, 10 minutes. 

Ryan Elbein: At the end of their tax return, when it’s ready for them to look at, I do a quick video to show them, Hey, here’s where your tax return stands. Here’s how much money you made. Here’s how much taxes you owe. and the next steps are X, Y, and Z. I need information. I don’t need information, whatever. And I can film those in the middle of the night when my kids are sleeping. You know, if that’s when I’m working, I can film them then I don’t have to try to match up my schedule or my client’s schedule. They can go and watch it 24 7 whenever they want to watch it, they can watch it, right? So it’s more convenient for everybody. And I’ve found that just by doing that video, I’ve answered so many of their questions that I don’t get questions anymore. And if I do, it’s more pointed questions. Like, Hey, I saw you put, you know, this on this line. Can you just tell me a little bit more about that? Perfect. Yeah, here’s an answer. instead of this, hour long meeting where we’re kind of going back and forth.

Ryan Elbein: They’re not grasping what I’m saying. And then a week later, they’re like, you know, I was thinking about this. So you just filed my return, but you know, what about this? it’s like, well, I wish you told me that before we hit submit, you know? So, definitely embrace video, use it for everything that you can.

Ryan Elbein: Even, questions like I filmed a standard video for how to pay the IRS, a standard video for how to pay Connecticut state. And anytime a client sends me an email, Hey, how do I make this quarterly estimate? Send them a link to the loom video. You don’t have to record it again. It takes three seconds, you know, that, that’s, that’s the best thing.

Ryan Elbein: I mean, think about it. If you have a hundred clients and you’re doing an hour long meeting with a hundred clients, that’s what, two weeks of time, you know,

Jamie Gruol: and that’s just sitting with the clients. Like that’s not even like the getting the work done, right? Like there’s all of that on top of it. And love that. We call them in workflows for tax pros, uh, loom reviews, right? Cause we’re using the loom software to do that. Um, but they, So many of our clients have come in and been like, Oh my God, this has been a game changer because they were tied to the belief that they had to get in front of their clients.

Jamie Gruol: They knew they didn’t like it. COVID kind of helped shift that for some people, but they felt like instead of doing in person, they just had to do it via zoom. And the time that it takes to schedule an appointment, To get on your calendar to get on their calendar, make sure that they’re all aligned.

Jamie Gruol: Somebody forgets that they have it. They have to reschedule and your whole calendar is booked. So that means they have to go out weeks and weeks, or you squeeze them into your Saturday morning because you feel bad, right? And all of that goes away. You literally are opening up 40 hours, possibly depending on how people are scheduling their days, but most people it’s at least 20 hours of time on your calendar.

Jamie Gruol: And you’re getting that back because like Ryan said, it takes 10 minutes. 10 minutes to record a very thoughtful, very streamlined review of the return that your client understands exactly what you have going on with them. You do this for the really big guys. You do this for your little simple guys.

Jamie Gruol: Everybody gets treated the same and that standardization makes you uber efficient. It saves you. I mean, if you think about it, Ryan, right? Like you complete the return the week before or a couple days before they’re scheduled to come in at 11 a. m. You still have to look at the return or remind yourself what the heck was the situation with this.

Jamie Gruol: So there’s another like 15 minutes of like getting your stuff together for the conversation. And it’s the hour of time that you spend with people and maybe five or 10 minutes of it is the actual review of the return that you just did with them. The rest of it’s kind of answering their questions and how can I do it different this next year, which are not conversations you should be having in the midst of your tax return preparing like review, right?

Jamie Gruol: Like you should be having those conversations in December and November when you can actually do something for them. And you should be getting paid for those hours. Like don’t give away Your benefits to your clients for free at that time. They’re not going to take any action anyway. So, you know, look at this as you’re preparing the return.

Jamie Gruol: You want them to understand what the return contains. That’s all that review session should be. And if I’m wrong here, I am like, you know, pipe up because I am, I’m talking about from the taxpayer side, because I am not a professional tax preparer. in my experience when I’m getting a review of my return, I just want to know why I’m paying, how much I’m paying.

Jamie Gruol: And how it all laid out. Right. I don’t need to know all the things I should change next year in like right now, unless it’s something that I need to be taking action on right now, I just want to get my taxes done.

Ryan Elbein: For sure. And one of the, I guess, hidden benefits to doing these review videos, right, there’s a couple of things. First, you can stack them all together so you can plan out, Hey, I’m going to spend two hours on a Friday morning. And I’m just going to do all the videos I got to do for these clients. Just knock them all out in two hours, right?

Ryan Elbein: As opposed to, you want to plan, just like you said, you plan for a meeting, you got to spend 15 minutes going over the return to make sure you know what you’re talking about. Then you’ve got to do the meeting and then you’ve got to kind of, relax after the meeting because your brain is so crazy with whatever you just talked about, you need a break before the next meeting.

Ryan Elbein: you could just pump out, you know, five, six videos easy within an hour, And the other added benefit is that you’re reviewing the return another time.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. 

Ryan Elbein: through what I do is I show the return on the screen and I just kind of go through it with them.

Ryan Elbein: And there’s been several times where I’ll go through it and I’ve already looked this return probably three times and I’ll be like, wait a second, now that I’m trying to explain this to them. That doesn’t make sense. Let me go back and look at this and make sure that this is actually, you know, what we’re saying here, So, it helps you kind of go back through the return and really understand everything going on with the client, make sure that the return looks good because now, instead of you just throwing, you know, numbers and boxes and scanning through it, you’re actually trying to explain why they’re there. And that helps you kind of just look at it again and make sure that’s actually the way it needs to be.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. and you can also fix it on the fly and not feel when you’re trying to fix things like that while the client’s in front of you. That doesn’t feel good for you. Right. And then it makes you like think, Oh my client’s now not going to see me as professional. You can do all this, hit stop or cancel on the record, go and fix it and then rerecord it.

Jamie Gruol: Right. And then send it off confidently. And your client never has to know that you missed that one line or made that one little mistake and you can fix it. so I we’re huge proponents of the loom reviews and the video reviews of the returns, because it just opens up and create so much white space for people to do the work.

Jamie Gruol: To then be able to take their weekends off, go home for dinner with their families, have the flexibility to your point of being able to, you know, navigate kids being home and or days off or heck even taking vacations, right? 

Ryan Elbein: Yep.

Jamie Gruol: people, I feel for the people that are doing it the same way they’ve always done it, which means that their calendars from basically February 15th through April 15th are booked nine to five.

Jamie Gruol: Like that just to me is like, if you get sick in the midst of that, it can blow up your whole tax season. And so they just work and work and work even when they’re sick or need a break. and that’s just, a hard life to do year after year after year. So I think Ryan, what I want to just wrap up with today is I would love if you’ve given some great like value bonds here today.

Jamie Gruol: but I would love if you have any other tips for the person who is maybe in corporate right now or working for another firm has built the side. Gig where they’re helping a few people and they see the potential, but they’re just not sure how to leap off that ledge. what would you say to them today that would help them take that leap?

Ryan Elbein: Yeah. I mean, I’d say, first of all, just do it. So even I thought about it too much. I think I moved pretty quickly, but even I just, you know, analysis paralysis, you think about it so much and can I do this? Can I do that? is it going to work? Can I find the clients? Yes. You can find the clients.

Ryan Elbein: They are out there. Maybe you have to make some concessions in the beginning, right? Everyone says go in niche and that’s great, but maybe in the beginning you’ve got to make concessions. You just take on whatever you can get to make the numbers work. you know, find a way to do what you want to do, whether that’s finding a firm to subcontract for, whether that’s going to work for TurboTax, maybe if that’s how it works, right?

Ryan Elbein: Just to get out on your own and start doing things in their own, making your own schedule. Maybe you go work for them. you know, find a way to just go do what you want to do instead of being stuck in a career that maybe, you know, you don’t want to be in that company forever. You want to do your own thing.

Ryan Elbein: Find a way to make it work. just find a way.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. Remember you have the skills that are valuable and people will pay for them. And if you can provide a great client experience and use those skills and be willing to figure it out, you will succeed. It’s just, there’s no doubt about it. Well, Ryan, I really appreciate it. I would love if you’d share how people can connect with you, follow along on your journey as you continue to build your business.

Jamie Gruol: We didn’t get a chance to talk about what’s next for Ryan. So I don’t know if you want to give like a 30 second, like, here’s what my vision is for my business. And then people can come and join and follow along on your journey.

Ryan Elbein: Yeah, for sure. So people can find me, on Twitter. I’m pretty active on there, at RLBlind. you know, I’m also active on LinkedIn too, Ryan Obelein on LinkedIn. but basically, you know, what I’m looking to do is just grow my business for trade businesses. I’m trying to bring on more trade clients.

Ryan Elbein: I love the ones that I have right now. trying to really help them in full service, you know, whether it’s accounting taxes, kind of that, outsource controller, CFO type work. I love doing that stuff for them. they’re great working with their hands, but they maybe not the best at working with the books, right?

Ryan Elbein: So they need our help. and that’s really what I’m trying to do. So feel free to follow along.

Jamie Gruol: Awesome. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for your time today. We’re really excited about what your next chapter entails. And, Yeah. Thanks for sharing all the goods. Appreciate it.

Ryan Elbein: Thank you for having me.

Jamie Gruol: We’ll see you next time.