The Rise and Fall of Retinue: An Insider's Story with with Elvis Sehovic

What happens when one of Australia’s fastest-growing accounting startups signs clients faster than it can service them, scales a delivery engine that can’t keep up, and collapses under the weight of its own ambition?

In this episode of The Ryan Tan Show, I sit down with Elvis Sehovic - former Head of Tax & Accounting at Retinue - for the first in-depth, insider account of a hyper-growth accounting firm that went from meteoric rise… to operational free fall… to collapse.

Elvis was there for all of it: the explosive sales machine, the offshore scale-up, the cultural pressure cooker, the client churn, the staff burnout, the internal panic, and ultimately, the voluntary liquidation that shocked the industry.

This conversation is raw, emotional, and disarmingly honest.

At points, Elvis needed to pause, breathe, and process the memories.

If you’ve ever worked in accounting, professional services, operations, startups, leadership or culture, this is unmissable.

It’s a blueprint for everything that can go wrong when speed outruns structure - and a rare, human look inside a business unraveling in real time.

Today, Elvis leads Accounting & Tax at The Polyglot Group, applying the hard-earned lessons from Retinue to help businesses scale sustainably into Australia.

💡 What You’ll Learn - Inside the Collapse of Retinue

🔥 The ignition point of Retinue’s rise - how an aggressive sales engine, flat-fee pricing, and relentless marketing created unstoppable early momentum.

📈 The growth model that looked bulletproof - and why it worked brilliantly at first.

💸 The economics behind collapse - how underpricing, misaligned incentives, and unrealistic delivery assumptions quietly dug the company’s grave.

🧨 The internal cracks no one could ignore - staff breakdowns, crying in the office, walkouts, burnout, and operational chaos as the workload became unmanageable.

🏗️ Why scaling a services business is nothing like scaling tech - and how Retinue tried to force a SaaS playbook onto a labour-driven industry.

👥 The culture inside hyper-growth - panic, pressure, competing egos, denial at the leadership table, and the emotional cost on staff trying to hold everything together.

🚨 The moment staff started whispering: “This can’t last.” - from impossible client loads to compliance backlogs to frantic internal firefights.

💥 The inside story of the attempted sale - why multiple firms refused to touch the client book, and how Squeeze ended up acquiring it in a distressed state.

📉 The boardroom reality - optimism vs panic, “we’re fine” vs “we’re drowning,” and the psychological theatre behind a business in free fall.

😔 The human toll - Elvis’ experience supporting a team under extreme pressure, dealing with distressed clients, and confronting the emotional aftermath of a collapsing model.

🧭 The lessons every founder, accountant, operator, or startup leader must hear:

• Speed without structure is a death sentence
• You cannot out-scale poor unit economics
• You cannot offshore your way out of chaos
• Culture breaks before numbers do
• Leadership denial is fatal
• “Fastest-growing” often predicts “fastest-collapsing”

🚀 How to build a services business that scales without imploding - sustainable pricing, capacity planning, ethical leadership, operational backbone, and protecting your people.

🔗 Connect with Elvis Sehovic

💼 Polyglot Group - https://www.thepolyglotgroup.com

📧 Email: elvis@thepolyglotgroup.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Stage: Retinue’s Big Promise & Early Hype
• 3:30 Elvis Joins: Early Scale, Early Red Flags
• 9:20 The Sales Machine: Scripts, Targets & Flat-Fee Pricing
• 18:30 Offshore Delivery: The Scale-Up & Strain on Capacity
• 27:00 Complaints, Burnout & the First Culture Cracks
• 36:30 Inside Leadership: Boardroom Dynamics & Negative Margins
• 45:30 Price Rises, Refunds & Why Safeguards Failed
• 53:30 Sale Attempts: Rejections, Wind-Down & the Squeeze Deal
• 1:01:00 Where It Went Wrong: Leadership, Culture & Denial
• 1:09:00 Can Subscription Accounting Ever Work at Scale?
• 1:16:00 Industry Takeaways, Red Flags & Final Reflections
• 1:24:00 The Internal Freefall: Staff Panic, Backlogs & Crisis Mode
• 1:31:30 Elvis’ Emotional Breaking Point: Pressure, PTSD & Processing It All
• 1:38:00 The Collapse Unfolds: Final Weeks, Final Meetings, Final Realisations
• 1:46:30 Aftermath for Staff: Job Hunting, References & Fallout
• 1:52:00 The Ethical Dilemmas: Client Harm, Duty, Compliance & Reality
• 1:58:30 What Retinue Taught Elvis About Leadership & People
• 2:05:00 Industry Lessons: Why Hyper-Growth Breaks Professional Services
• 2:12:00 Rebuilding: Life After Retinue & Finding Purpose at Polyglot
• 2:18:00 Founder Lessons: Speed, Structure & Protecting Your People
• 2:22:00 Final Reflections & Where to Find Elvis

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back to the Ryan Tan Show. Today I'm joined by Elvis Salovi. He's from the Polyglob group and the former head of Tax and Accounting at Retinue Accounting, the firm once touted as Australia's fastest growing accounting company. Retinue launched with a bold wish to reinvent accounting through a flat-free, subscription style model that promised small business, predictable cost, constant support, and modern technology. It scaled at extraordinary speed, hiring rapidly, marketing aggressively, and capturing attention across the professional services world as a true disruptor. But beneath that momentum, pressure was building. By early 2025, the business had begun to unravel. On the foring for February 2025, administrators were reported to retinue accounting for Brian Tree Limited, and just weeks later, on the 24th of March 2025, a special resolution was passed to wind up the company through voluntary liquidation. Former staff have since described the culture of relentless growth targets, operational strain, and link payments that mirrored deeper financial stress. The collapse left clients confused, employees unpaid, and raised hard questions about whether the firm's ambitious pricing and offshore delivering role could have been sustainable. Elvis had a front row seed twiddle from the hype and excitement of its meteoric rise to the day-to-day reality as the cracks began to show. Today we'll unpack that full story. What drove the rise, what went wrong behind the scenes, and what lessons the entire accounting industry can take from one of the most dramatic scale-ups and collapses in recent years. So with all that said, welcome Elvis to the show. Hey, it does it over here. Going well. Thank you for agreeing to this episode. I'm personally very excited about it. Obviously, Retinue was uh largely discussed in the industry over the years and have got quite a story from the rapid rise in Falter, so definitely keen to sit down and kind of unpack that with you. So I guess just kind of starting off in terms of like a pre-Retinu context. Why have you joined RetNue in the first place? What drew you? There's a combination of things.

SPEAKER_01: 2:03

One of the first things that kind of drew me to Red New was the idea that there was there was a startup. So I've dealt with a lot of startup firms, small businesses, micro businesses, usually what we refer to them as. And then, you know, they do what they can do, but you never really help the support when you're when you have the outside view. So once we sit inside and have that opportunity to do so, then you can see things a lot more clearly and they contribute more positively. So from my perspective, it was just here was the opportunity basically timing. And then I thought, great, you know, this is a startup, it's in the accounting space. This is what I'm familiar with and comfortable with. And, you know, they spoke about, you know, this is going to be, you know, revolutionary, it's going to increment technology, it's going to be, you know, we're going to disrupt the industry and show, you know, that we support the small guy. And I got just hearing that, you know, during my interview process, I thought, okay, I think I found the right place. This is good. I'm I'm hearing all the right things that I want to hear. I like it. And then, yeah. And then it was something slightly different as it went as it went along.

SPEAKER_02: 3:17

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:19

I definitely sound that you saw a bit of the dream, honestly, it was quite hyped up, and um, it was the bill and end all back then. So, I guess what was your role initially at Retinue and how did that always the company scale?

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

So I started off as the tax manager, and my role was basically to organize the tax division. So at RetNue, they had a bookkeeping division, they had a payroll processing division, they had an accounting division, which was a hybrid of doing journal entries for the end of the month, and also at the same time doing some manager reports, you know, providing a client here doing some marience analysis, depending upon what the client requested. And then there was my division, which was just purely, you know, we do the best or clients work, you know, to tax return, things like that. And then what happened was it was just OS, here's this. We need you to organize this just so that way we can meet the demand that we are currently experiencing. So when I started, I think it was around about 535 clients. And look, they say that at the time when I started, it was ooh, but I have to get the dates right, I think it was 2023 and something. So they said that they started around April, but it was prior to that. So when I got in at that time, a few months passed, and when I heard the number, it was just like, wow, that's a lot. They introduced me to my team and said, it was this is your team. These are the, you know, this is the platform that we currently use. And just basically, you know, you're the you're the guy, organize it, you know, get rid of the line, ask questions, you know. At that time I had two people who were there as the team leads at that one in time, and they were saying they helped me familiarize myself with the process at the time, just to kind of get things on the line. So I went in there, looked at the process, try to understand what it is, how they do, how they run. And then that was it. It was then, okay, always let's review all the Basswork, let's review all the FBTs, let's review all the tax returns, let's get this organized, completed. You know, we're using, I think at the time when I first started, they were using FYI docs at that time to kind of structure themselves up because it integrated so well with Zero. And so we were using uh XPM and uh Zero Tax at the time as well. So all this worked quite well with each other, and that was basically it. I just structured everything as I possibly could and started processing the work that was needed. Obviously, as time went on, you just saw that number from 500 and something go up to I think by April it broke the 1000 seal mark in 2024 and it just kept going by I think by June we're at 1400, and that was just an insane number in my head. But along that journey, I could see what was happening and where the scrubbers were coming in at that point in time. So it was just this thing where once we hit the thousand, you could just see already the packs were shoals, so it was just and by that time it was just chaos. But after three months, I had the patron to get to be the head of tax and cannon, and the reason being was because they saw what I was capable of during that time. They said else we we had around out. It was about 850 Tasha Tones to do. My team at that time, yeah, great bunch of people, managed to pull off, I think it was about 750 within three months, which to me personally, from my experience, and when I mentioned this to four or three accountants, is unthought of. So for them, it was just you know, they committed to themselves doing the best they could. They they achieved that target, but not where the problem was, it wasn't as squat accountants, especially me, we wouldn't, it wasn't to the benefit of the client in its entirety, it was just to get them compliant and get this thing out the door, and that was how yeah, that section on it worked, but yeah, that was pretty much what I was there to do, is just to systemize, organize everything and get it up the door as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_00: 7:55

Yeah, it's definitely a challenging role, but yes, you didn't expect that stepping into the role, and obviously with such a fast growth for retinue, then that's quite crazy. We will go on to I guess when you started to notice the cracks appearing. I guess in terms of the rise of retinue, what was the original idea behind it and how did it catch fire so quickly?

SPEAKER_01: 8:14

So I think so. For me, from what I know, that the idea behind it was to help our small businesses, hence, you know, retinue. It's revenue has a meaning behind it where I think it's just support. You know, you know, work alongside or with a leader to, you know, with a common vision or goal. So that resonated well with me. And then I understood what they were trying to do. You know, have on one-stop shop where you come in, you know, you can like I said, you have bookkeeping, your payroll, your accounting, your tax, everything is in the one place. You don't have to go go around, you know, speak to one person, then then another person, and then, you know, at that time you don't have the funds to have a permanent accountant, you know, or to pay for the salary of that accountant. So just me here saw you at a relatively, or to me, half thoughts were until we're competitive until I found out what fees they were charging were. And then it's yeah, they had this idea of this is what we want to do. So they used avenues, right? They promoted this, they had a very good marketing team, you know. That was it wasn't a big marketing team, but it was very effective. Simple, which just use your Facebook, LinkedIn, use any possible platform that they could come up with and just promote revenue, retinue, retinue. They had the theme, they knew what they wanted, they developed the website. So it was just you know, a lot of asking clients once when they're onboarded, once when they obtain those clients. You know, through cold calling, through Bach, I think they were using using Google Ads, all these other things to get these wise to come in. And as soon as they found, you know, oh, we just have one on the counter drawing bookkeeper, double drop on it. Have a sales team call map. Say, what do you mean? What's the support? We can fly to Mrs. Or what Mrs. Will we cost, so on and so forth. Come along, we'll help you. And that somehow worked. It worked, I think, a bit too well, but that's not the whole story. That's not the whole thing when it comes to it seems too simple. Where traditionally an accountant is an accountant, they're usually conservative. You know, the accountant looks at risks, they look at the quality. You know, clients will look at the quality of the accountant and see what they can obtain from the accountant. But an accountant will look at the client and think, what are your future prospects look like in order for us to brew together? So that way, you know, as you broke, naturally the fees will roll up with it, and that's the idea. But with retinue, it was just because let's just build our book, we get that award. And the difference was usually it would be an accountant who would do all this, who would you know, hire somebody to market, you know, their their phone, and then from there they, you know, word of mouth or through you know conversations and networking, they will come up and have a conversation and then get their obtained clients this way. Once you build up enough of a book, then word of fact spreads. And it's who KR with where Retinue's uh idea was is that there were people who were seeking help. And I could only assume this where a lot of the accountants would prefer not to deal with these highs because it's the effort that was required to assist them is way too great compared to what they could afford to pay for in order to attain that assistance, that knowledge, that IP that an accountant would have to help them. So then Ray just basically had a sales team who worked accountants, who were just doing you know, cold coin and using other platforms to obtain this database of the title people. You know, anybody's like, oh, I'm looking to start a company or I'm looking to start a business. And it doesn't matter what it's saying, oh, I just ended account, let me a book here, bro. I mean whatever that meant, and I was called go through the whole spiel, whatever that was, and then that was it. Once we're done, we obtain them. So from that perspective, it just grew because the fee along with the sales stuff being, you know, very how can I say they don't speak like the countenance. And yeah, but if I've worked in sales, so if you have a very uplifting type of positive attitude, it's like don't worry about, we can help you out. Yeah, say it's pretty much it felt like as if say yes to anything. But if one of the clients said, Oh look, can I get my you know, can I get my dog washed if that was possible they probably would have turned around and said, Yeah, sure, look, you know, we can look at it. We I can't do it, but definitely we can organize it for you. But yeah, they went along and they did well. And I'm not gonna sit there and say that they didn't. My just my my fear and the cracks or show was when this was discovered, was that you guys are an accountants. You do not understand where the flaw in what you're doing is. When you have a professional, right, irrespective of who it is. Say, for instance, and some HD, like Lorpath as an example, the founders, yeah, I'm assuming we're lawyers. So they understand the risks there is in the industry, they understand the approach that needs to be taken in order to assess and attain the client. And that's fine. They assess the risk on certain parameters that they have, and they say to themselves, okay, for this type of service, this is a risk that we could tolerate. This is what we're going to implement, and bring them on and let's do whatever we can do. But if you're just looking at it and you don't understand the risk, say as an example, we have a client who had who was development 27 years. If a normal accountant had assessed this prior to it coming on board, then it would have been that's a no go. I'm a doing that. Because if we lodge everything that you need to lodge and it's the penalties that have come along with it, and you know, you could be in a taxpayable position of some great magnitude that you weren't you know ready for, there'd probably, you know, be some loans, some give seven eight issues that you probably would experience. And next thing though, we come across as the people who put that poor vi or that person in that position when it was like, well, shouldn't take them on in first class. But yes, they need to be compliant, but not the fee of I think at that time or something,$350 a month. You thought that's just that's just too little for what we have to do. We even had to zero not go past, I think it was 2016-2014 to Pfizer was a company or an individual. So we had to get Reuters, their platform, to use that to go back as far as we possibly could. It was like 27 years ago, it's Richmond. I need to go back to 1997 or something, I think, at the time. I thought that's just way too much. But you know, that is a story of how, you know, where I found the first issue. Then, you know, all these other little bits and pieces of, you know, their marketing worked well, the sales staff knew what they needed to do, they had a good script that they developed personally themselves, or the jumpshire management. And it was just they just kept doing the same thing. Here's another semi-clients, or here's another XML of you know, prospects. Core, let's jump over straight away, let's skip the meat, and that was it. That's all I needed to do. And they did that well. They told me, yeah, we've got a good team, we've got a good system, we can help you out. And when we hear$350 a week of all this, I'm just sitting myself, that's fine, that's fantastic. I thought I can't get it cheaper. My guy, a guy that was asking the coaches to help me out, I'm just gonna charge me six thousand dollars just to you know do just to do my tax returning, my best. But that's so much cheaper. But it's like, yeah, but it's the concept of you get what you pay for, but in saying that, it works on the other on the other side too, where you know, when you price yourself so cheaply, you've got to be cautious of what you're gonna pick up along the way. So that's how that kind of played out. But yeah, yeah, cracks were showing everywhere amongst departments, communication. I think we could probably, you know, get down into a line of culture, you know, so that's gonna be that's gonna be another thing. That's where my biggest one with curve was around for the whole culture aspect. But yeah, it was just it was painted bugging at that point in time. And then having to have conversations with staff, accept things around because you know they said personalities that they had to deal with. So one of the things, yeah, so it was just basically Yeah, they had people who were onboarding clients who weren't really that aware of what needed to be done. And then when you compartmentalize this too much, so an accountant would usually say buy onboard a client, I'll pass that on to my manager, I'll sit down and we'll have a conversation to say this is a client, this is what they do, this is their cardbooks, we're just sitting get that transferred over, all these things, and then say, okay, you pretty much know what you're doing, you're expecting your manager to know what to do, and then he'll organize the workflow, say, okay, let's get the or keep in here, so on and so forth. Uh, with retinue, they thought that if we'd split everything into divisions, that's the onboarding guard. This is the the department that transfers I know it's the other thing. If clients were on MYB or some other platform other than Xero, we'll transfer your file over to the new Xero platform because we only deal with zero. And it was like, okay, that's fine. And then it was just imagine seeing like a room filled with, you know, all these people just working at a mile a minute, just trying to figure out, you know, trying to implement, caught the client, you know, can you please give me a bank finance? Can you please give me access to this? And I need the I need your financial for this, I need transferred and over and all this, and everything. It was just wow. Then you had your bookkeeping division, you had the payroll division, you had an accounting division. So everything was where unlike normally it would be the account would be doing the accountant work, they would do the tax work. They could do the bookkeeping, but if you have bookkeeping in the house, you pass it on, you know, and that's far. But yeah, it's a deeper issue with a lot of both they would unravel that this week go all.

SPEAKER_00: 19:41

Yeah, definitely. They're very keen to get into the cracks, I guess, just a bit more on the retinue phase of the rise. I mean, we've talked a lot about the sales and the marketing disconnect, which is interesting. What did the sales in the sentence structure look like? Was it commissions, bonuses, or targets died to pay and sums?

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

Yeah, so it was it was commission-based. So I don't know exactly how how it worked in relation to how they paid for it, but I know that we had the package was one year, three years or five. Obviously, if you take five, you know, if you're locking in for a lot of the fees on guarantee for a lot longer, and that'll be a lot higher than what they normally would be. So they would get a commission, a percentage of the sale that they had signed up to client on. Now, in my mind, if I'm looking at this from the perspective of retinue, I would say, look, if we lock them in for five years, and yes, I get it, you know. It's something your summer sells that it's something that you want, like to say, oh, it's only X amount, say 15,000 or 10,000 over five years, that's not that expensive when you break it out over five years. But if you did that over one year and say, Oh, for this year it'll cost, say about, you know, four and a half thousand penetrat per month, and you'll be fine. And it's like, okay, that's not that bad. You know, I can deal with that. But if you go five years, that's a lot better. And then what happened is they were paying out the commissions on the value of the revenue. Now, when you look at it from that perspective, especially when I when my experience working in, say, the automotive industry when I was working with Audi, everything is based on accountants, you know, management accountants look at this, and they that had tried to structure its sentence in a particular way. So from that, I could tell that they used a very, very simple structure that just worked just to basically get these guys here targets. I remember the sales guys would hit his annual income. It's close to about$140,000 and just in conditions above. And I thought that's a lot more than what a lot of these guys are being paid here, who are bookkeepers and accountants. And you guys have achieved this. So the incentive was basically just bring them in. If you can get them for five years, great. If you can get them for one year, it doesn't matter because the commission structure was relatively straightforward and simple. We just want bodies. That's what it felt like. Bring in bodies, that's all I care about. And we were rewarding that we had it, but there was like, you know, you give them gifts when you have time. Oh, my favorite one was I remember walking into the room and I saw a PlayStation in there. And I thought, what's the council of the PlayStation? And one of the guys like, oh, if we hit our quota for the day, you know, we can you know pretty much just chill out for the rest of the day and just play PlayStation until you know, or if we wanted to exceed that we could. So you from total time you see the guys just sitting there in PlayStation while all the other guys are just you know calling up and having a talk. And you just saw a lot of people just walking around the office having conversations. But that was that. It was because the the commission structure was so favorable for the sales guys. All it meant was just bring it in. Nothing else. Whatever the Audi, when I was when I was working with Audi before, it was if you sell a car, if you sell filed cars in, say, you used car department, you sell pop cars, you will not see, you will not see a commission or your bonus, your monthly bonus until you sold fire cars at a minimum. And you had to do it on margin. So I'm not looking at your revenue. So when you sell a car, it's like coming, this car is say$50,000. If you discount it to$40,000, it's not a problem, but that's now taking money up your pocket code. So then it's encouraging to get the highest price possible. But the scenario is different. Because it's for the online industry selling cars, revenue when you try and sell a service, it's yeah, and the concept is different. Yes, commission, but you're giving commission on future prospects and you're not guaranteeing, especially if the client uh can complain, and if you do not commit to the service based on the contract, the client has every right to say, Oh, my contract cancel, because you're failing to meet the contractual obligations that you promised me. So that's where when you kind of push this idea of a very simple structure. You rewarded the South Stars extremely well. They were really happy, they were young, they were very you know excited and full of energy. And you know, you can hear they'll ring the bell sometime to hear music play. And it was just the vibe was really possible, it was very uplifting, but that's not you know conducive of what it would be like a traditional Macado film so that kind of feels a little weird. But yeah, that's pretty much how it was. It's just commission based on the revenue.

SPEAKER_00: 24:57

Yeah, yeah. The businesses needed align the incentives, right? I mean, uh not made that legal vision, they'll sell multi-year contracts, but they'll only pay half within a certain trash, and then after the second payment is is received, and they'll pay more. And you need to do that from a cash flow thing, maybe otherwise you're sending us a lot for failure. Wasn't there like commission callbacks or reconciliation schemes at all?

SPEAKER_01: 25:17

Not that I'm aware of, no, no. I think it was just if you pay the staff and they gain that's it once when it's paid out. There was sorry, there was an adjustment later on. There actually was an adjustment later on, I remember. There was an adjustment once when I started seeing clients falling off, then all of a sudden, oh no, no, no. Okay, well, we'll only pay your commission three months after, as long as a client stays for that year, or if they stay at a particular point in time and we see that they're happy. But the happiness that they experienced was very brief because it was things were taking place, actions were happening. So when you say, Is this happening? Yeah, yeah, we're getting on top of it, it's been done, and you're having people write emails to you, you feel like, oh, this is so cool. I just paid my first whatever it was as my fee, my introductory fee, things are happening, people are calling me, things are moving. And then so that way it was they unnoticed that if they stayed on board, great, here's your commission now. That that could extend it. So then it was just like because they started over seeing people not staying around as long, because it was very difficult to service a client, especially at that volume. And they to do at that volume, yeah, they had this idea of we won't, it's not clawback, it was just we'll do a commission, and then that was it. And for clients, if we failed to meet their expectation, we would usually refund them. I remember the worst case scenario that we ever had was we had to refund a full year's worth of fees that were already basically paid for, but that was only a few clients, and only in the circumstance of to say, we didn't do anything for you for a year, nothing happened. And that just when I heard that, so this this person was paying for a full year, nothing happened. So in my mind, the well yeah, back the right to basically get that fee back completely compared to where another client say, Well, look, we did your Wikibu for three months and we did this for I said, Well, okay, great, but it's not to the standard that I was expecting, so on and so forth. So then it was just okay, we'll give you this back. But there was no callback from the commission from the sales guys because again, it was just simple. Start off with this, you get the sale. If it doesn't work, you know, once we notice it, okay, we'll send it three months. If it doesn't work, we'll send to six months. And that was just then we had sales staff calling us up. What's the problem? What's the issue? Can we help out? What can we do? So, buddy, you know, the sales start off thing and spit. There's not much that you can't do. But leave it to the experts. But yeah, anyway. That was, yeah, that's how that it was just fairly straightforward, very simple.

SPEAKER_00: 28:04

Yeah, well, sounds like a salesperson's dream, you know, could have to sell to your deals and get the pain up front with your conditions attached. I guess I just want to understand what was driving the early momentum. I mean, obviously, was that leadership energy? You've got Salesforce, I mean the marketing vision, was there investor backing? Like what kind of was turbocharging this whole culture from the start?

SPEAKER_01: 28:23

From my extent, I think there was some initial investment, but the majority of the bulk of the investment was a co-founder from the co-founder. Co-founder was successful in being able to sell a previous business that that he had successfully, you know, sold. So he was just, you know, he knew that there was a decent amount of start of capital based on what he was doing, thinking I'm doing something where I'm machined that he thought that this is different, which he definitely was, but it's different to what everybody else is doing. So I'm gonna give in this money just to keep this thing going until you know this then becomes profitable on its own. You know how like in the the the even he had a good, like almost like a very, very large runaway, pretty much you start like which you say how much cash do you have? It's like, well, that's my runaway. You know, if I put a million dollars, two million dollars, it's like, okay, based on you know my revenue plus my cost, that's my cost, and so on and so forth. But this guy, he had you know fairly deep pockets, and he knew he thought that I'm going to use what I previously did in my other business and thought that business model is going to work. Now, from the sales perspective, to get the clients, yes, that works. It works even better in an accounting industry because when you're providing a service to people, the value of that service is perceived higher compared to say if If you're just selling, I guess, a simple product, or if you're selling an alternate type of service where the structure of our service is straightforward. So, as an example, if somebody was to say, okay, my service is I'm going to provide you with HR support, we're going to look at legislation. Don't get me wrong, this is not a disrespect to HR, you know, I would say community. But their legislation is limited up to a degree, as in how how much there is. I think it was in 2008 the Fair Water Cap came out about calling to our. So somebody from HR who's looking at people who are, you know, who are on um the award ideal wage, they know the legislation they have to refer to. Where in the county, it's different. Our legislation, it's yeah, we've got IFRAS, so we've got the digital production standards, then we've got the Corporations Act 2001, then we have the Income Tax Assessment Act 36, then we're Income Tax Assessment Act 97. So if you look at all of these legislations plus, you know, whatever the government, you know, phrase up there as well on top of that, you know, with profitable links and so on and so forth, that legal cases that we've got consider from time to time, depending upon another, that then all of a sudden under your database that you have to refer to is substantial bigger, more complicated, and it's as let's say when you implement it or when you execute this for a client, it's a lot more complicated. Unlike what was previously done with the gentleman who had this previous business, it was just it's this legislation which he understood extremely well, right? He understood, you know, uh the law of uh, you know, uh the Fair Work Act quite well. He had a system that he was going to implement, he was gonna do whatever he needed to do, and when he executed it went off perfectly. But when you try to mimic that, it throw into something else, where you know, it's not so much you know, the cookie-cutter concept that can work in that world, that doesn't work in this world. But failure to understand that is not because I mean, you know, like you know, ignorance is not so much as a thing of you know, if it's his bliss, but he had enough money, a capital, to throw in to work on sales to say, ah, I've seen experts do it. And I I have a sneaky suspicion. He must have had a larger company who, when he like purchased it, because he had biopractice, he would pattern stayed there for a few years just to pass on his IP and you know, make sure that everything works as it should. And then once we saw how that this larger firm did what they did, he learned a couple of things. Oh, I can't mind that now. I understand this, I understand that, or I can now fine-tune some things. And he obviously he had the experience that he had when he was going through his face of his business uh previously. And so, all right, I know what I need, this is what we do. We're gonna compartment wise everything because that works best. You know, this is my sales team, this is my complaints department, this is my booking department, this is my account department. I'm gonna do everything as it should be, and market, market, market, market. Let's just throw money, let's advertise as much as I possibly can, and this is gonna work. And that was it. That's how simple it was because he had the money. But people have said with the amount of money that was spent or used, in all honesty, that he could have possibly purchased a standard photo and just said, do what you do, and give me the profits from whatever you've done, and I'll be fired. That'll be great. But you know, look, look, he's an entrepreneur, you know, and that's what we kind of want. We want entrepreneurs, we want to disrupt businesses, we want to do what we can do, but uh when you've got money and you think that you have a plan, you should have the the the concept should have been capital sooner. Or possibly people who were such bad at experts should have been consulted more closely and listened to. But in this case, it was just when you've got money and you can throw money at it, everything will grow fast, and no matter what, because it's like I've got family freaks, don't give me a wrong, right? And with diamond sees happen even with successful businesses, you know, mature businesses. A mature business will do the same thing. I've got money, not a problem. We can afford to try something, and if it if it messes up, it's fine. It was like this is my capital that I'm gonna contribute to this or attribute to this thing, this project, this whatever I want to do. And once that one's out, sorry, guys, gang over, right? Let's go for the next thing. That's what he had. So I've got money, I'm gonna throw money at it, and I'm gonna get my marketing because he knew that was really important. We get my sales guys, and then we'll sort the rest out as we go along. And that's where the problem always comes out from my experience historically is you've gotta, if you can understand that industry, that's the benefit, that's what you need, but at the same time, the plan has to be right. It doesn't have to be perfect, right? I understand does have to be perfect, but there has to be enough of a fundamental concept that works at least at stages to understand that once we get here, we need to know and identify. You have to be humble enough to understand once we get here, I need to learn what to do next. So when you got money, great, you can afford to do whatever you want. He knew marketing, sales is what's needed, and that's what he executed on. And that was it. So that went along as it should. Yes, he got people who were the subject matter experts, who were yeah, followed warning science, but then other problems around us out of that internally, which goes back to yeah, culture and yeah, it's start competing interests and so on and so forth.

unknown: 36:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:23

Yeah, well more wrong. I think it was a bit of a playbook that we had used internationally, and they had come to Australia and kind of given that playbook to uh you know staff here to kind of roll it out. So again, we wouldn't have any war about it. It sounds like it could have been a lucky streak here. And obviously, the kind of new sales and marketing is the forefront to the is to drive that. And what you said, you know, you've got a basic MVP or you've got a concept that's tested and kind of works, and you you pump it, and then from there you kind of you know pick up the cracks and see where things land over time. It looks like he's then replicated that model in a different industry. So that's very interesting. And it's just lastly on the revenue scale-up phase. Was there a heavy reliance on offshore stuff for delivery? And then I guess how proficient and supported were the Australian-based teams through all this.

SPEAKER_01: 37:10

So from that perspective, okay, in the initial phase, there was the idea that they were going to go. So when I was coming in, that's where they began. That's where they began the offshore phase. So their plan was to go offshore. They wanted to use the Philippines, they wanted to, you know, where the label was cheaper, the you know, the the intellectual property there, you have yeah. They're a group of people who would just you know come out of university, they know what they're doing to an extent to a degree. It they because they had a university degree, we could train them, we could teach them this is how we do bookkeeping, this is how we do accounting, this is how we do tax and Bass in Australia. So that was the idea to offshore as the work to the Philippines and then have client managers here in Australia. So it'll be the idea of we communicate with the client, we look after the work, we manage the client, then on the other side, we manage the work and ensure that the work is done timely, accurately, as much as you possibly can. And then from that perspective, you they can do the checks that you need to do. Once it's all done, we deliver. All right. So, and that's the path that they were using. We're using human capital to basically you know provide the support for the speed of that scale up. It there was a lot. I think we're out of time, there was close to oh yeah. Uh from memory, it was probably about 80, maybe even 120 offshore staff that we had. So, well bro, because I know that in my team alone, there was clearly about 10 that were allocated to the tax division, and then for accounting, everyone used sort of people had the ability to switch. So I would use them temporarily for tax, and then for the end of month process, they will shift over and then help out along with the accounting to do the month-end journal entries and prepare the reporting packs, and then you had a bigger team who were doing the bookkeeping and so on and so forth. So they were just like they were utilizing as much as they possibly could because I was assuming also that we're probably having or struggling at that point in time to get a human capital in the Philippines because they were running out of space, and at the same time, it was just the speed that was happening at was just ridiculous. But yeah, then the support here, the part we draw about the support here, so there was support to a degree. When the parts were showing up, it felt like nobody was listening. And we could advise as much as possible. But when you're speaking to somebody who is failing to understand the basic structure of, say, just say bookkeeping, it's hard to communicate this, it's harder to get this to express the importance of the volume that we're dealing with is not sustainable from a human aspect. If we could in technology that could do this at that time, you know, AIDAP was still new and fresh. And no, so no, but again, it wasn't like AR was gonna solve the problem. It was just technology is dead to an extent. We weren't utilizing that, we're still using human capital. And then, you know, we were expecting or expecting bookkeepers, and this is where I just thought this was insane, bookkeepers to handle 80 clients. And it was like, no, no, that's fine. Look, once we get the system in place, in my head, it's like there isn't really a system once we use a human to look at something, the only technology that you have is the software, human aspect of integrating in the software and then expecting that person based on transactions. From my understanding, is when a bookkeeper does something, usually we'll quote on how many transactions per month. When this person is doing the transactions and there's a lot of transactions to go through, yes, there might be a few clients like a bottle of what two transactions per month or per week or whatever, but then you've got a heavy claim, big client. That one client will possibly or could potentially disrupt your whole month. And then it ends up being a situation of I can look deep before and you want me to deal with 80. So then the care and the understanding was just there's a disassociation, there was no, you know, it was it felt like the staff would were not listened to even though we were saved. I remember telling them, yeah guys, I'm communicating the senior management, I'm having a conversation with I telling them that they can that you guys cannot do this. No, no, no. Also we're we're we're we've got we've got a new idea, we've got this new thing that we're gonna do. People structure it a certain way, you know, to make it, you know, so that way, you know, they can handle their and out and these guys can handle their amount. You're just shipping things around that's not really doing what we're meant to be doing. So yeah. That was basically when you ought to realize the strategy of offshore, have the clients, have the the client managers here, manage clients, manage staff, and then take from there. So that way the bulk of it was offshore, but all the communication and the management of process was meant to be here. But even with that, you cannot handle a client right for one person and then just expect them to cut it. I would do this month, 10 months out. Like, you know, from my experience when I was an outsource CFO, what I had to do, I remember the maximum I could handle, and that was not me doing the actual work, but just doing the analysis, doing separate as I'm looking at the budget, doing the variance analysis, doing all the reports, and then presented the reports running by commentary, the maximum I could handle was 20. And I'll be pulling out my hair after the two weeks because you know, time is of it, is is of the essence because no one wants to get their reports half midway through the month, the earlier obviously the better, because then we say that way decisions can be made, good discussions can be had. But when these guys were required to do 80, then it's just well, you're not respecting what we do. So you're discounting our value. Our you know, of a bookkeeper of an accountant, you know, or the person who does paywall, you can't just, you know, that's where I just score. You guys, that's it's disrespectful to just draw out that number, like an arbitrary number, and say, yeah, it'll be handled 80 clients. And it's like, okay, well, that means you're just always to me. That was it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:56

Yeah, it sounds like they kind of just took a spring sheet, you know, it was very not less than they just said if you've got to do 80, you've got to pay back your senior, but got eight hours targets. Yeah. That was a much fact up. The human element or even at the high level was reasonably possible for staff to kind of complete. And that's I guess the other part of it where you maintain that conflict of interest for an or an accountant and the bookie, but you have the statutory duties and ethical duties to do the best by the client, but at the same time, it's uh conflict of interest in the business model where you're gonna try to punk someone to do four times more on what they can actually realistically do. And in that kind of moment, the client's been a duties kind of out the window.

SPEAKER_01: 44:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We I remember like just on that, it was just like the duties of the client, like as an accountant having to look at something and say, I've got a now, I've got integrity. I've got, you know, I've got to look at, you know, if there's any conflict of interest, I want to be, you know, integrity. I want to look at yeah, the the pillars for ethics. And then all of a sudden, that gets thrown out the door because the volume that I've got to deal with is not conducive of the level of care that I need to show for the client. And a lot of the staff, they're young, and a lot of them were very excited. You know, we we're uh you know, when you tell, you know, we're here to help clients who would never normally receive that help because it was too expensive for them to go to the traditional accounting firm. So we can do that for you. And then that that excitement, that glitter in their eyes, you know, they say, like, okay, you also we're gonna help the small, the smaller businesses, you know, the ones that really need that help. And it's true, I still strongly believe it's the smaller businesses that need that helpers or more than any else. But when you're there and the volume that you have, it's like, I can't, but again, it's like this link. The effort or cost to put that effort in is quite high. The amount that the person wants to be paid to, you know, from the like as an accountant, doesn't okay, but it doesn't matter, boo. You know, I've I've studied whether about a 10th university, I've studied, I've obtained this knowledge. I feel like this is my value, I'm gonna do the best that I can, and I want to help out the client. Well, you're throwing down this many. I feel like, okay, I I want to be paid more because I feel like that's a lot of work that I've got to do now. And then all of a sudden, you got one side that's fixed, which is the price, the cost is going up, and then try to help. Now it's not all about the case. I then have to say, forget about this. It's all about getting it up the door. All right, and then I remember catching myself. I will kid you not, right? I'm telling you now, I'll call myself doing this. Looking up eight year old legislation at looking up uh the APSB, you know, for you know all the FO concerns and everything. And remember, sitting there going, okay, I need to now convince my staff that all we are trying to do is be compliant for the client. It's not best for the client, but at least it makes them compliant. That's all that we're after. And everyone's like, okay, it's only temporary, we're gonna do this for three months, and after that, we're done. But remember, the client, when they're eligible for certain expenses that they can cleanse deductions, you ask them if they fail to respond within the time frame that they need to do, right? Yeah, we just do the best we can, or we send it off, and we say, here you go, you know, sign it, you know, and then we'll lodge, right? And that's what we're pretty much doing. And it's like, we're not breaking the law, but we're not benefiting the client either. So then it's just like this is this is that thing that the thing that we initially thought to orgo to do was to help the client is now gone because all we now need to do. But it's just basically make the client compliant and I'm sorry, but but I'll put it possibly put you in a better position, maybe taking advantage of building up your, you know, the losses for future profits that you might obtain. Or if you had paid tax and it was slightly harder than you should have paid because, you know, this year you had incurred more expensive that we need it to. So you possibly get you something of that refund with the tax that you've already paid? No, that's out the week don't. We just need to make sure that we just lodge a tax return and that was it. Or get your report out to you. And my God, the call of the reports are coming out from Toyota. They were horrible, but yeah, so that's how that happened.

SPEAKER_00: 48:42

Yeah, I definitely want to delve into that. I guess the emotional impact on yourself and advisors in the next section. But I guess moving on to uh where the cracks appeared, and I mean you've kind of shared a fair bit of info on when you started to notice things were being unsustainable. But I guess when did you first notice other cracks? Were they like climate payments, uh slow conversions, maybe team fatigue and stuff to hover? Yeah, so everything that you pretty much just mentioned.

SPEAKER_01: 49:04

It was just it started off with, you know, things became desperate, but the first thing that we noticed was the the drastic increase in applying complaints. All of a sudden, we we converted a department that was meant to be doing, say, bookkeeping account even tax to a department that was just basically looking at, you know, uh it was uh, you know, conflict resolution, you know, trying to figure out not conflict resolution, trying to figure out um clients, you know, concerns and the reason why they're unhappy and they're just you know putting out fires. And when I saw that we were spending too much time doing this and not doing the actual work for the client, then it forced me to look into things. And then when I noticed the volume, then when I noticed stuff, then I had to figure out I need to figure out the capacity of my team. So I went and looked at the capacity of the bookkeeping team, or the capacity for payroll, or the capacity for accounting, and not the capacity for the tax side. And then once when these complaints kicked in, you see we are way out. Then you emotional as the capos, stress, tears. I had never ever been in a workplace. The only time I've ever been in a workplace where somebody was captured, somebody crying or anything like that, it's because a loved one passed away. Never have I ever experienced where somebody would say, This is too much. I cannot handle this. You had staff throw their headphones just at the desks in frustration and just walk out just to catch their breath, just to like either actually just leave in half the time, and look at just like that. I need to leave, I need to relax, I need to de-stress, I need to unwind. You even saw eating certain staff were very aggressive in the way they just started treating each other. And then that we had to, you know, I remember having to deal with the bad issue as quickly as possible. But yeah, it was just my god, it was the complaints from the customers, the way staff were treating each other, the way they were reacting, the reactions, being upset, walking out, quitting, and just yeah, the turnover. I felt like I was spending more time in room meeting rooms, having interviews with replacements and new staff coming in that you know, trying to deal with the growth and trying to deal with the work and trying to. But yeah, it was just that's when I noticed that it was just, you know, the client complaints was a first burst thing and the volume that it was happening at. And I even remember having to ask direct or calls to me, and then it ended up being I was an oddleneck because I want to let my staff do their work, but then it was just but be getting the opportunity to ask the question. What I dropped the jury rate in the first place. What's what's the or in the half yeah? So what's the problem? I need this to get done. So once we find out all this, what needs to get done, not a problem, we'll deal with it. You just have to understand, you know, you're in line, we'll let it to you as quickly as possible. There is no issue, you know. We just calm them down. But then, you know, after a while, you kind of start thinking it's the same thing again and again and again and again. And it's just that I was promised this, I, you know, I want this to get done and stop getting done, and this that was being done, anything that was being done was being done incorrectly, or something was distributed bad to say if it would happen. A lot of times where interfinancial reports were based basically blank pages because there was no financial data in there. It's like, well, why are we giving them anything is this area no financial data? It's like, I'm not just it's just the way we're processing right now. It's like, okay, well, that's another issue altogether. But yeah, it was just and then I asked the question. Price, it's just cheap. And then it's like, like, and it's understandable. And then I'm looking around, I just remember hearing the phone constantly going off. Yes, we understand. I understand though, but we know that you're not happy. We know that you're not getting it stone. We'll attend to as quickly as possible. We're on it right now. And the weird thing was is that there were people there, that wasn't weird, but it was it was nice to see uplifting the seed. There were people there who knew how to deal with it, but they dealt with it in their own way. You know, one at a time. I don't care, and that was it. And it was just people, you know, bite it back. Some people were polite and just, you know, I remember one of the staff there who I really respected, just basically, you know, I think this is enough. And just we have an awkward and I'm gonna go. And once I saw that that one person quit, it was just like, yeah, I think that was in our coffin. And kind of said, I don't like this, I need to ask the questions, and if I'm gonna get the answers, then I am myself a mulligar. And yeah, that's when all the other bits and pieces unfolded, ran up.

SPEAKER_00: 54:28

Were there other colleagues as well that had these thoughts? Because we may have a doubt, I'm sure a lot of staff were kind of questioning things, but most of them speak up at a strategic level, think what this means with a company or addressable leadership. So we have big conversations with our staff, we were kind of thinking around you know, this whole thing copyright collapse.

SPEAKER_01: 54:47

Yeah, it was communicated quite openly within the organization. We were having normal profit conversations, you know. We you developed freaks. So as friends who we suck because we're colleagues and became friends, you know, would have a discussion, then would communicate that to senior leadership, and then it was just general gossip around going around the office, say this cannot work, this is not sustainable, the volume of turnover of staff, it's ridiculous. And then people started the people started discussing, you know, like pay. Then it was all of a sudden out of nowhere. It was known throughout the industry that you know you go and retinue, you're gonna get paid. And it's not all it means, but a bookkeeper will you hear a bookkeeper first starting off at 65,000 and went up to 75,000, or into 80,000, 85,000, 90,000. We got to a point where I was looking at it, some bookkeeper was high for like around about 95, 20, 100,000 plus super sweet. No fit, but bookkeeper industry, but my god, that's a lot. And then you had bookkeepers in who actually paid more than tax accountants, and then dealing with that, and then they talk about themselves, and it was just pandemic. And everyone was saying, This cannot be sustainable, you're paying way too much. And remember something, these guys, they're accountants, they're bookkeepers, they're tax accountants. They know this, it's not complicated maths. They just think to themselves, okay, let's just do what they just look around. We have X amount of staff who are on average in paid this. And if that's getting paid, and we're dealing with this many clients that we've got to deal with, you know, they use uh, yeah, say 60, 80, or whatever it was, and say, and then we're charging you this much because they no, because it was pretty open how much we were charging for certain services that we're providing. And then all of a sudden, looking at it, thinking to yourself, my god, we suspected that the cost to certain suppliers is exceeding what they're paying. Some people realize that, some people left. We're trying to communicate it, we're trying to keep everybody calm, we're trying to see what we could possibly do, but not until I go into the position of being head of tax and accounting and getting the seat at the exhibit table, or I wouldn't say executive, but higher up there, and then we'll was lucky enough to view the financials, and then whatever was gossip, whatever was he say, whatever was your kind of speculation, you know. But it wasn't, it was just it was interesting to see when people panic and when all of a sudden I don't know, people show up for the so they try to figure it out things for themselves. We can't do this, this has to happen, or this is not sustainable because I think we we cost too much and more clients complaining and so on and so forth. And all these things are happening, all these communications are happening, happening informally amongst themselves during lunch, during breaks, in between hallways. And then you just kind of like, you know, but they're we're seeing it at the leaders walk past, it just no, oh it wants to around, they keep the mail strong, they just walk off. Yeah, okay, let's get back to work here. But that was the thing, it was way too much. People just felt like you cannot not address the elephant in a room where got too many, too many clients, too many complaints are happening, I'm feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling overwhelmed. John, are you feeling overwhelmed? Yeah, Sandra, are you feeling overwhelmed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also in it, like people uniting because everyone is feeling overwhelmed. So then, you know, that's how all of a sudden things started changing. Things were then like okay, people say, okay, I'm on a jump ship, I'm here, they've ever found another job. Or, you know, money then no longer became an issue. Initially, I want to be paid. You know, I want to be paid well. Oh, I was okay, I'm getting paid this much. That's fantastic. But then when you realize what the kind of work that you have to do and the volume of work that you do, uh, and then you realize, forget about money, and this is not worth it anymore. So then the conversation starts revolting when it says, We need to get this confirmed. And people, I remember looking at me, Elvis says, Are we are we gonna collapse? Is this gonna and I was up cool? Also looks at things like I don't know. Look, but in my mind, I'm thinking, I think what you're thinking or not thinking you're pretty much in line. So, yeah, this probably could, you know, be the case. That was the the conversations that were taking place. That was the communication style that was occurring, and that was what the concerns were raised, what people were talking about. Leadership was trying to, you know, tell everyone, no, no, it's okay. We we never coming up with strategies and solutions, we're coming up with alternative methods, but you can't do that to people that know they're you know, they're study account, they they're not naive of how businesses operate, they understand this. So the the person you shouldn't be lying to is the person that is giving all advice or guidance to a client who wants the business to succeed. And then when you turn around and it's like you're telling me something that doesn't make sense that you know apple plus apple gives me a banana. What then it doesn't make sense. So then once when they heard this and they experienced it, it's like okay. What you're telling us is our truth. And we feel like we're being lied to. And I remember that seeking elbows once the truth, it's happened. Let me find out. Let me ask the questions. You know, we can only communicate to the leadership as so much as the possibility can. But if the head is distracted or focused on something else, rather than that problem, which we're not kind of expecting, you know. The fairness to be always concerned about, but if you're relying on human capital to carry out the work, it the that projected sound sounds the same and it's constant, and everybody is telling you the same thing, and it ends up being blown where it doesn't sound like multiple voices, it's a one big massive voice say, hey, this is too much, this is not sustainable, the cost is way too high. We feel like you know, you're just getting more, you're not you know, taking your foot the accelerator, spot out. But by then, it was too late. And you can see it that it was, and then the then I could just imagine how reluctant it was for the sales for the new leader who was very sales focused to say, all right, but take it off for the accelerator. And then people say, Well, well, you still got for the gas ticket. When we say take your foot accelerator based on what's happening now, or what you're probably got braids. We don't want no more new clients to come in. Stop if we need to deal with what we're dealing with right now because we can't service what we've got now. And that's yeah. What's my opportunity for the break? Then new jokes sat a couple of dark. It's like, oh yeah. Like I'm going that I'm going around about saying thousand columns per hour, but they they took the fourth accelerated a little bit. So, how fast are we done now? It's about 500 kilometers per hour. I also only at half speed, but still fast. I mean, if I don't feel comfortable about 500 colleges per hour, but that's you know, that's that that that communication piece that they were to bring out to people when they were raising concerns. And then, yeah. Just having to ask, having to tell senior staff, do you guys know what you're doing? You know, is is this really happening? How, what are we doing to resolve this? And then when you're telling me that I need to communicate this out to to my staff. I just remember saying, I can't do that. It's just difficult because they're not idiots. We're dealing with intelligent people who know their job, who know what they're doing. And it's just, and then on the guard that looks like it's like on the filter between between between senior leaders and you know, the staff who are doing the work. It's like them can't be going, you know, they know that I'm a good person. But it's a bill with us, you're lying to me. I can tell you a lie, and you just see it on their face, and it's just like it ends up it ends up the situation of me having to tell an alternative method to just basically count everybody down and just say, just go through the work at your own pace, slow down. You sit the time. Yeah, I'm here to work for you, right? My job, it's all come to you guys. So until you is slow. Just do it to serve the supplies. What about I'll deal with that? What about complaints? I'll deal with that. Right? As long as you keep them who are you working on currently as much as possible, that's what it matters. But I'll handle communication, right, between the complaints and anything that's senior say I'll filter it down to something that's more favorable for the spark to hear. So something that can put them at ease. But even then, it would doubt it itself was a shrug to to pull off. So yeah. I've been seeing it's a bit hecky. It seems it's a bit overwhelming to see a serial points.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:19

No, no, but I don't know, I'm visualizing myself in that kind of industry. That was a fascinating story. I guess how is you know, and how is management behind closed doors, obviously, pension, you have access to financials, like the Bellship, PML, all those kind of things. You know, were management aware of the tumultuous nation of what was going on, and do you think they werecome proactive? And and how were they emotional? Were they really invested? Were they dismissive? What were they like?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:42

So from what I saw, all right, it was like in the initial phase, they were, you know, everything was being done professionally. You know, they didn't, they had one person was a professional, right? And you know, he knew what it was doing. There are other people around there that didn't quite know what was going on, they didn't understand the nature of our business, but it felt like at the beginning, you know, it was still fresh, you're still young, they there was like a power dynamic struggle. So they weren't focused on the clients, some were focused on the business. They were focusing on give me the ball, let me prove what I can do. So the senior executable, these they weren't sitting there basically having their own form of internal struggle and power dynamic, you know, people challenging one another, wanting to have an opportunity. Then as it went down, you know, the person who was rational, who had the experience, realize I'm no possibly I'll no longer be respected, my peers are falling flat and no longer being valued. So you assume that that's it, we're done. Then there was a like I said, it was a boss like a like a vacuum that occurred, but now people were trying to rip each other's heads off to get to the top spot. They came to it, I could tell that they didn't quite understand, right? And a way they could tell they didn't understand is because the first point of action was where they introduced Salesforce. After we had FYI docs, then we had carbon, and then we had Salesforce. It's like you don't change your CRES your workflow processing tool that frequently within such a short time span, thinking, you know, that this is the solution to a receipt problem. It's not no no no, you can tell. I want to do what I want to do, the best way that I know how this is the tool that I use, and I'm comfortable with using that tool. But it all that shows that that tool that you're gonna use doesn't work quite well within this industry. But my needs go for it. You can use it, right? I remember that being asked the question. And what I ended up doing was I remember myself lying to my senior exec staff member, saying, Yeah, yeah, seems like a good idea. But in the back of my mind, okay, my god, you have no idea. You really don't. But sure, got a problem. We went along, we went along, and I don't know, I felt like as if they started believing their own narrative. Yeah, how is this happening? What's happening? What's going on? Oh, this is what we do, this is how we're gonna do it. Yeah, this is what's we're fine, we're fine. And now about then the question started asking. It's kind of weird. As an external observer, I'm looking at you telling me one thing that it's fine. What do we do this or what to implement this, and once when this happens, everything should be fine. But I'm seeing you having meetings, and these meetings are intense, especially with the founder, and certain things are being communicated, but then we will have other meetings where it's like, hey guys, you know, we're doing well. This is what's happening, this is our next phase, and it's like, you know, you're you've created a narrative or a story that is trying to do what calm us down to show that you're creating logic out of chaos? I don't know, because it doesn't it doesn't seem to make sense. It almost felt like as if uh you guys are kind of lying to yourselves. Like are you is one person and the ego taking over and lying to possibly with the founder? And there's a founder asking the questions, but maybe hypothetically, the founder will probably say, This is what's happening, this is what's happening, I see this, this keeps happening, we're gonna pull the pin. Assume this, I don't know, because the founder cannot be that naive and think I'm listening to somebody tell me something, the results are saying something else, and the the result that I'm assuming is not happening in the manner that I thought it was in the story that I'm listening to, the person that I would charge is telling me. And then he ends up looking like as if I personally believe that we're lying to it, so sat in the meeting when I got the opportunity to be the heads off. It got confirmed that the margin was negative. No business should be a negative margin. Not profit margin. Profit margin that happens, you know, you your fixed costs ends up being a little bit more, you know, outweigh the uh, you know, the initial revenue that you have. But when you're on like a gross margin, you're looking at it and there's a negative. Yeah, but we haven't even attached the fixed costs yet. We haven't even achieved that yet. And they were trying to control the narrative. So then I understood that it felt like I don't want anyone to talk. I'm in that room and no one wants to speak up. It was almost like as if are we scared to say anything that we might get fired. My mind about calling it time is thankfully, I'm glad that for me to find another job, it's not that difficult because I know my sense of worth and my sense of power. But when you try to come up against somebody like me, I'm gonna ask the question. Because I'm looking at this again, even till the my final day, I was still thinking, looking at this, thinking I still care about the felder. This is not some more money. Thinking of the felder, thinking what the stuff I'm thinking of the most important thing, I'm thinking of the clients. Like, my God, like you do this. The biggest concern was it what got me angry at that point in time as well was they didn't understand the knock-on effect what was going to happen if the Brettonie fails. Because what you did initially was these clients had a bookkeeper, these clients had important people doing the work that they need to do to produce information that these people were relying on to make decisions. And if you guys fail, and if I'm looking at these, this the the the financials, I'm thinking to myself, my god, you're a negative margin, what is happening? I asked the question of what are you guys doing in order for that margin to be fixed? Just to see what, just to see if there was a rational, a rational answer that could say, this is what we're gonna be doing in order to fix that problem right now. It'll take us probably two or three months, we're not too sure. But if we reduce the cost in this area, or well, I was hoping somebody was gonna say increase the fee. That's all we're gonna hear. Increase the fee. Because we're doing too much, we're charging too little, and that's all we're gonna hear. I remember the CEO, the the final CEO at that time sitting there next to the CFO, and all of a sudden, the CFO was just about to open his mouth and say something. The CEO interjected, and then the answer that I got was a sales pitch. Using jargon, corporate speak. All this look, we're at the phase right now that we've identified where the issue is, we're going to uh you know, address that issue once we address and then smile, it's like when I speak to a client and I was saying, I'm having a chat chat or saying, Jack, Jack, we've got a problem. This is too much. This is the part that we need to cut down. Can we cut it down yes or no? That is my main source of the value proposition provide. I can't cut that down. Okay, and this is the cheapest that we can go? Is there any other strategy? No. All right then, buddy. I think we need increased price. Have a candid conversation, don't sell me something just to basically keep me there. And then in my final conversation with the CEO, or final conversation, what else? Oh, the lady said, Elvis, is there anything that you think contribute? But buddy, yeah, I think everybody was telling you what the issue was. Everybody was telling you, I don't think you need to hear it from me. I wouldn't be surprised if the CFO was even telling you what the issue was. But it just either it felt a defease, I don't know. That no, the maybe at that point in time the the the founder was bothered, like this is it, this is it. I'm getting you, hypothetically, two million dollars. And if this doesn't get turned around, that funding is gonna stop, and then we're showing up shop. And that's it. I'm gonna try and sell. Well, her back though. Oh, that's another story. Well, they're trying to sell the business. I'm going, there is no one in their right mind will buy these clients at the value that you're gonna at the revenue that you're that they're producing, right? At the number of them. If a lot of counting fluid just had to go, that much, that's what we're doing for. And to continue that, no. Because you know automatically, the moment you bring that in, I can't take on that model, I can't take on that price point to bring it to my business and continue that service level at what you're at what you're what you promote initially. Because once when I get it into my business and I say, sorry, but the true cost is I'd say the public at the thousand dollars a month, well, it's no longer the the 350 we're initially charging, it's now a thousand. Well, that's way too much. That's a lot more. I can't afford to give you twelve thousand dollars a year. It's like, yeah, well, that's the problem. So we kick in there, they'll line ten cells. I just called the line tenseless, then they lied to us. They were telling you, it's like, you know, when somebody tries to actually that's the best mileage I could think of. Have you ever seen a motivational speaker somebody trying to psych themselves up and saying, you can do it, you can do it, I know you can, you're a winner. Yeah, that's not logic. That's just you hyping yourself up to basically put your head through a wall. You know, I could do it, yeah, yeah, your head will go through a wall. Let's first find out is it a brick or is it past the board, right? Before we go commit to that thing that we're about to do. And that's how I felt like that he it was just motivation, just motivational speak. Yeah, no, no, we can do it. Got this, we got this. It's like, buddy, I don't think you're using watching anymore. That's out the window now. Now you're just talking at me and you're not getting me the answers that I'm requesting. And then once we're up at that response, that's when I said, okay, I've got all the pin. I asked a question, I left a question on the full balance sheet, how much you still want and if it wasn't line, how much contribute capital, whatever it was. I once we've femmed up the number, I was just like, okay, yeah, I think we're done. I think you guys have reached your limit. I didn't think the co-founder was gonna put any more money in, or the founder I should say, and he's gonna pull the pin. And I would I need to leave before I'm stuck here without a job. I think so. That's what basically what it was, it's just them convincing themselves in a weird way, other than that one CEO who I think was the only possible, other than the staff from the CEO, except who's the only rational person who just thought that I just said, yo, this isn't working. This is a bit of work. And yeah, they had to polite, you know, we're having our original agreement and we believe. But then the other person, yeah, the CEO is just, you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, this outdoor. It's like, yeah, that works for saints. If that only works for saints, but when you wouldn't when you want to when you want to apply that to a business model, if you cannot yourself understand what you need and have those people communicate with all honesty without you interjecting, you were searching your dominance, you're asserting your power, you're asserting whatever it is that you're doing. And it's just like I just saw it in that room looking around, no one wanted a backtrack. As soon as anybody said anything, he would come in and let me know if I'll I know the answer there. I I I hear you, I know. We happen to look for the person to finish up the sentence. He could have been talking about coffee, you know. If it does anybody have anything else to say, oh would you like me to oh no no, I can I can answer that. That you know, we we don't ask me job any. It's coffee. Yeah, he does he just jump that person's job the gun. Never get a per chance for anybody else to be heard, and if they did, I just felt like as it was just I'm only here just to hear what we got to say, and I'm gonna wait for you to finish before I offer my my answer or my feedback or my whatever that is, you know, my point of view more than anything else, under there, but whatever you use, just say, don't worry about it. Yeah, onwards and upwards we go. And that's yeah, that's how they felt.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:12

So like that's the grandeur delusion, uh, a lot of self-deception. And I guess that's often what brings down these companies, big and small, is that you know it kind of it's an um it's an emotional response. Sure, the business strategy and underlying wasn't great, and then obviously that economies weren't there, but and you know, the boardroom and execs, you know, a lot of ego control and dominance, and they failed to actually address the elephant in the room, yeah, which is what you would say. I mean, did you ever have any reason to believe the finances had been fabricated or you know the numbers were selectively being you know, I guess pulled to kind of paint a more rosy picture?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:46

No, no, no. None of that was happening. No, no, that level of transparency was not available to any of the I guess the long little staff. It was just more, you know, as long as you keep fueling this machine until this thing somehow sorts itself out, till we can find the white mechanic to fix this problem, then I'll keep throwing money at this until that gets fixed. If it doesn't get fixed, then we're done. So none of that was because when you look at it, if God forbid, if they imagine laid dip, you know, somehow cooked the books. Well, I could just imagine what's what the ramification of that would have been like. But why it's understandable to know that you wouldn't do that to yourself. Because if you did, you wouldn't be able to understand where I really at? What is really happening, I need to know. But the other thing that they didn't do was just don't communicate that to the staff. Because if they get an inkling of this or they understand it, and they do understand, that would have like it would have been like rats on a sea ship, I would have just fled within a moment's notice. But the only thing that they were promoting all the things else was, hey guys, we're at 800 clients, hey guys, we're at 900 clients, hey guys, we hit the magical 1,000 points, now we're at 1,200. And it's like after a while, it just built eggs up. Please stop stop having these meetings about telling you how many more clients you just onboarded or because it's giving us all of us anxiety, right? So that's them did that was communicated. None of the financial were serious or that. I personally believe that if they did, if at any point in time they say, guys, you know, we're struggling. Oh, some people, you know, you know, we gotta cut costs. And because some people say they're transparent about their salaries in some in some unique way amongst themselves. I could just the the conversations were like, well, I'm not taking a pay cut. It that like I'm busting low, busting myself, doing as much as I possibly can try to achieve what I need to achieve. It's like mate, I think, and and just hearing the echo, I think it's just you guys only raise your prices. And then it's like, you get what I mean? They know. And so they don't need to sit financials, they don't shouldn't give them the financials, but yeah, for them to cook the books, they will have done that because you know, if you had to report anything, they would have been the lobo, they would have been forget about the trouble of a failed business. That is a big enough hit to your ego, but you will want to go down the path of you know, lie about the financials to the starve, because then you're now opening enough enough another Pegorus box where some of other issues could possibly come about if you just said, Yeah, we're doing great guys, all right, much and 35% always. And it's like shut up, please. But yeah. So that was it, yeah. That was that was that part.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:49

Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I guess around you that he mentions I guess this is bounding metrics. You know, like you can talk about clients on board and all we can talk about you know, percentage mirrors and expenses, but you know, oftentimes you know, staff want to see the metrics. The open is preached transparency, so you know if the numbers are that good. Show you the umbers, don't show percentages or kind of hide them or give selective data because people's intuition will always come out at them, and that's what you're saying of the Remy stories that they knew it was too good to be true, they could sense that without each other, pre-fifty a month we're gonna do all this work, like you say, to pay XYZ salaries. You kind of just do the maths and you're saying, okay, this can't be true, it can't be real, sir. Yes, it's quite a crazy story. I guess in terms of the the you talked about the business sale process, you know, was there when the numbers um weren't adding up and you had these conversations with management and you know, like was a ship in the fan. What was the the double and the conversation at the moment management? I mean, you said they were looking to actually sell the business, and I guess you know, what was the resistance to the to increasing prices?

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:55

Well, there were okay, so they did look at increasing the prices, and I think they did take some things to account. So they added public clause in the contract to say that if there are getting variations other than the standard pricing, you know, if this so we've got a model. So what service we are selling you if the outcome of what you require of us to do, say, we're gonna do your bookkeeping from this point up and move forward, we're gonna do your payroll, your tax and everything like that. Anything before that we're not ever dealing with. But if you want us to deal with because they realize, oh my god, there's so many delinquent clients or clients that have not, you know, submitted, you know, historically based as tax returns and so on and so forth, it's like, okay, if you want to fix that, we're gonna charge you a thing per the service that we do. And because no one else wants to touch it and think, oh yeah, sure, oh, we'll we'll do that. I'll pay for it. But when it came to them doing that, that was their intent. But then, okay, we're gonna deal with it. But then what I want to do with the other clients that I need to do who are compliant? If I can't serve the stem and I've got to serve somebody else, what is gonna happen then? So then not only am I now, yeah, okay, great. You can price the price, let's jump on this, let's do the work print, let's get the compliant, but I'm too busy now trying to calm down another screen client who is compliant, who is paying and doing everything else at the need, even though they're still paying to the cheap. But you've locked in these people for one year, three years, five years. You can't change the parcel. So now, with let's say, with let's say that I'm always 1,000 clients who've got contracts locked in for what, three or five years at a very, very discount, if at the discount rate, you still have to service those clients. And then, yes, great, you got the new clients coming in, but the reluctance is is that they had I'm assuming that they had this idea that if we raise the price, we're not going to get that many clients coming in. Or again, that's how you weed out the things that you don't want, you know. Sometimes price is the indicator, you know, like I'm assuming, you know, just uh not I'm not digressing, but just for as an example, right? For example, at Polyblock, we provide the price point for bespoke services. Lawpath does an alternative service to say, we get yes, it's fixed, but we've got alternative pricing points for services in the whole one you request or what you want. And then when I saw that they were doing, you know, the whole tax component thing, you know, PTSD kicked in and the alarm bells pick off. But it was after I think once you explained it, then it made sense. It was like understanding then that what you had mentioned was that we overdoing this. So it's like, uh-huh. It seems more reasonable that someone come in to say, that's election and noise value proposition. You know, you gotta do my BAS, you know, do my tax return, plus my financials for a fixed B that is gonna happen, you know, once like the or core for, you know, for the Bass. And it's like at least the price seems relatively fair. It seems naw, yes, it's cheap, great, awesome, but at least that way there's no surprise. So that's great. But you're not over-delivering, over-promising at that price point, because that's indicating that people should say, when you look at price, that should be the indicator. You kind of have to use that as am I what am I gonna attract? What am I gonna get? And what am I gonna deliver? If I attract something that I don't want, and then without recognizing or realizing that my God, to service that client costs a lot more that that client doesn't care to process to thinking, I'm gonna get something cheap. Great, but then it I can't deliver to it because their expectation is so high. And surprisingly, that happens a lot. So the people who are a bit more aware, yeah, subconscious, or you know, hey, yes, it's a little bit expensive, but at least we get some value out of it, right? These are the kind of people that you'll prefer. And then there are other people that you know that just throw us out, I'm just good for a barbie. You have to be skeptical of those people. So hence I always say the price point for me is that indicator that kind of says, This is what I'm going to attract, this is what I have to avoid, or this is what I want. And if you can't get that right, then unfortunately, you know. What do you expect it to happen? You know, you attract what you get based on the price point, what you deliver.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:52

Yeah, so let's going into that, the business set, obviously. You know, the business had a bit of the downturn and tumultuous ending, and you know, the running is kind of all the walks. What was that process when the uh leans made the decision to kind of float the business? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:06

So from the conversation, so I wasn't there when that was actually happening, but it was communication that was relayed out via email and so on and so forth, where that was saying, okay, you know, we're at the point now that we want to basically sell business to somebody who could possibly do a lot better than well, you know, we can. So it felt like at the time that they actually understood how bad it was. They understood that we cannot do what needs to be done in order for this business to succeed and be profitable. So then they tried it, you know, obviously got floated, besell it. And I could just imagine, you know, I heard that about four accounting firms came into play. They all four technically rejected it. And it just, you know, rumors had it that someone was saying that, you know, we don't want the plants because they're just not quality. Some people say that we cannot replicate, you know, that at business model to continue on to Saberspar or Sober Pints in their current state because they think there's gonna be a drop-off. Like people normally know that when you buy your business, if you're gonna change something for the business based on what the original plant was gonna uh what they would promise originally and then something else sort of be delivered, then for them it's just like, okay, I don't want this anymore. You know, it's just not what I'm after. But it ended up being that squeeze in the file uh here's Jane Girls Craig, along with uh some of the co-founders. And look, they have a background, you know, in accounting, you know. Um I think it was Gribble's Paul at CFO for Nike, and you know, he was in New Zealand Airways, he was you know the French Patrol though, so we so there was so it was good to know that there's somebody who understands the account of them, and you know, that's what was needed, it makes a bears. Who understood, you know, we speak in the industry of a commercial aspect and then the public practice, you know, aspect. Yeah, when we're accounting funds do what they do, and it's up that it's not exactly day and night, but it's different strategies, different techniques, different way of functioning and operating and how they look at things. So when they came to probably purchase it, you know, they did whatever they did, you know, they handled a certain amount of funds. They're currently right now, you'd probably see it's public that they advertise or buy, you know, they're shaped right to you that they're having next round$12 million of capital raising. But you know, my question is, you know, when you would I look at this, is that you know, had they sorted out that issue, you know, how are they dealing with this from that perspective? Yeah, because Retinue just gave a you know, clients they purchased what they could, and now it's like, okay, I've got that and that's it. So it was an attempt that you know founders of Ret New made. They realized and recognized what was going on. They said, we're gonna sell this. They didn't, they were successful in being able to sell, and I didn't know what the sale price was, to be honest with you, but I can only imagine it was heavily reduced, it was at a distressed value, you know, because it's probably a situation of like forget it. I'm contributed enough to this, I'm not gonna contribute anymore, I'm not gonna recoup any of this money. So I should have found a great interest person just said they're gonna waffle heads a bit. I'll he meh probably purchase some or get in some funds to squeeze different. Say, look, if you guys can do this, you know, here's this, I'm gonna get a bit of cash to what you can do, and hopefully. So that's you know what where they're currently at now, where Brittany is at now. You know, they're it's gone, it's done dusted. You know, I've had people, I had to do a lot of reference checks for a lot of staff who were seeking, you know, drops elsewhere. So, you know, they did the best that they can. They tried, it didn't work out the way that it was technically for me a shame. I wish they been the one initial promised me that there was technology that they were going to implement. I wish that was true. You know, I wish there was something there that there was technology, that we there was an interface of some type that'll make this whole thing that they were trying to do streamlined and it could work. So that means it would be great if you could deal with 80 clients and being able to service those clients to to the way they needed to then alternative to provide an alternative type of value where you can sit down and have a conversation with it, guide them, you know, you know, raise concerns or whatever the issue might be. And that would have been fantastic, but unfortunately, it didn't transfire into that at all. It just was a typical thing of we need human capital, we want cheap human capital, yeah, we want them to be able to do what they need to do. And that's what you know the Philippines was for, you know, these people, you know, lovely people, met a lot of them, you know, through this whole process. And yeah, and then that was it. It didn't work, ended up selling, and now squeeze, I guess, is having some possible different alternative type of attempt at this kind of thing. So it'll be interesting to kind of keep an eye on this, you know. I've got my own personal opinions, my reservations about this, you know, I've got personally, yeah, and I think it's gonna be difficult because you know, through some of us said, you know, through oh they can't I can't mention it in eight dollars, but there are some people that said that yeah, the the level of class or the number of class has you know reduced and it's just not, you know, uh I guess sustainable. It's just uh they were not happy with the service. We don't, but but I'm assuming that you know it's probably more more than anything else. Maybe it was probably the price that the public try is something different to what the original war tragedy. So then it's just you know, I can't afford that and let's just go. Yeah, that's pretty much all I'm gonna say. Now it's the I guess in the end squeeze and let them kind of do all do whatever they can with it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:19

No, definitely it's interesting and very fitting to squeeze. So have to uh squeeze what they can have of Red Day. It is interesting from the counter border perspective, is like how do you value that? I mean, look at the like amortization of customer base and what everything you've got negative margins, you got contracts, I mean public info, you block Google. When I was researching for the interview and Red Hat, because people come lending to the ACL or EDR bodies and the companies and liquidations uh again not having a too informed tank, but you're very curious to understand you know how this kind of all ends up over the next few years. I guess to kind of time to the closing part of the interview, what are some things that you think retinue got right? And where did it and what did it miss that sealed spent?

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:03

What retinue got right? Does it do anything right or for the things that we're working for in a pair of time? Look, the only thing that retinue got right, and this is only basically but that's only not that it took advantage, it's not taking advantage, it's just considential that retinue hired people who kind of brought people together in a way, but within a stressed kind of weird environment that just you know was very tense and people banded together, so it was good to see that there was an element of people wanting to help out people. The only thing that I believe that they possibly could have gotten right was the the fact that they just sold the business at the end of the day. It's like you know, uh you recognize that you uh you couldn't do this. I wish you would have been nice a little bit earlier because the value probably could have been a little more higher, possibly. But it's just there's too many things, too many elements, too many moving parts that was just overly complicated unnecessarily. And just the feeling of trying to reinvent the wheel, where you know, you can't discount that a lot of other people try to do this. But the only way, you know, you've draw sympathy was is the combination of technology and human capital where I feel like they failed to identify that. And they didn't have something to do about that. So from my perspective, yeah. Reit me, I think, was just I don't know, it was it's we it's a failure. But personally, I learned something, but that's it. Nothing I can't sit there and say, you know, Ray got anything right other than Yeah, and it just had a group of people that knew what needed to get done, but unfortunately it's just it it wasn't listened to. I just feel like the struggle, internal struggles, power dynamics, there was just too many people trying to, you know, get on top of each other that you know banded together to form alliances to that conflict with others, with other people, and then it ended up being just yeah, like a toxic version of I guess like the uh if you're what would the analogy be if you were watching the Housewives or the House How Housebite show, they call it like you know yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like like you know, the the conflict between the amongst themselves just to kind of well for that it's well for entertainment, but for these guys, they're just doing it because they were just competing ideas, too many competing ideas that just clash and offer content bringment. And no one was thinking, you know, rationally about it, so that's it. I guess you know, the grasp of things I don't I just seem for it just didn't get it right, and that's unfortunate. You know, the idea the the idea was good, you know, because in say that it's not we took a look at, you know, like two firms are separate, you know, like you were saying, law path, yeah. They had an idea and it's been executed and it's working and it's still around, which is great. Yeah, but when you look at, you know, like if I say, you know, world can't be working. You know, Polybloot, been around 30 years, different idea, different process, different everything, both of them law path, retinue, polyblot. It's like you can say they're both kind of in the same realm, but not really, but they took a different approach. And you know, identifying what worked, what didn't work, that was the key. You know. As I mentioned before, they're subject method experts, they had this thing that they wanted to execute, they're trying it out, and it's working great. You know, on number hand, you know, the other spectrum, you know, creep out with you know, polyglot, she did this thing where it's saying, okay, I'm gonna do an HR Tanner position. That's where she was really good at. And then she hired the experts and listened to them. That was the other thing. And listen, she listened to them to say you can do payroll. Payroll then came about, you know, we're not showing how we were dealing with payroll, and they're fantastic. And then, you know, okay, let's now, you know, clients were asking, clients who are asking because the value of trust, the people that created that trust, then said, Do you do this? And that's where I kind of learned retinue, along with law path, they care, law path cares about the people to kind of say, you know, what are your concerns? What is it that you know to address the issue to see if we can do it to achieve the outcome that you want? Retinue was trying to do that, but just it just went way too fast. Then you lost the human aspect. That's the other part. It's like we internally down it together to kind of support one another as emotional support because we're all distressed or suffering from PTSD and everything like that. But at the same token, it's like they're helping each other, they're redirecting all the energy and effort to support one another to get through and not to help the client. And it's like that's what's happened. You know, we're all hugging one another to kind of basically the emotional support to just to kind of say, we can do this. We know like darn it's there is a light in the tunnel. We know this is stuff. We're using things like this as done, this will make sure we'll come about in the other end. I can assure you that I'm not, you know. We're all working now, like you know, it's different. Let's say, well, you can never probably tell me like no, uh what somebody's got all part. Yeah, I'm gonna show you that you know the people are different, they they interact with each other differently, you know, and there is time for the most important thing there, and that's the client. You know, written you did want to do that, they did, right? The people did, but it's just where did you lose your way? What happened? Was the number of clients more important? Was the revenue from that number of clients? Was the concept of my god, could you imagine we are the fastest growing accounting folk out there? Did that narrative take over your logical reasoning? That that's what you wanted to do, you know, and then all I hear when I hear that, and I've heard that saying, you know, there's like come on guys, be part of something that we can be. Hopefully we are the fastest growing. And maybe you mentioned the two prints as well. It's really our conversations. But when you say guy, I feel like that's ego behind that's that that statement. It's not your human component, it's self-interest, it's not about the client. Yeah. We are the fastest problem because we've helped. We've got proven trap recourt that shows something different. You know, where it's it's at the end of the day, when you're providing the service as a human element, rate me, Mr. Mark, and that unintentionally. You know, Lord Path, Polyclub, all the other firms, all the other successful businesses that are out there, they look at things from a different perspective. But the one thing that they didn't discount for one second, and that was the client. And that's what really mattered. You know, you're helping somebody who doesn't know they, you know, like I work, I do the best that I can do. I see this thing, I've got an idea, I've got this thing in order to try, and I think this is gonna work. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, how to do this. Then look up online, Google something. Oh, these guys behold you set up a company. Oh, these guys help, you know, in understanding how business works. They got accounted, they've got bookkeepers, they can support this and do this. That's what people need and all up, you know, they need assistance. Yeah. We'll admit, you know, price and cost is always a consideration. But, you know, the human component is what where the value is. And we all we all I catch guys out until today, right? In order on treatment your time is valuable, it's worth a lot. Don't discount that. When you're offering advice, when you're getting people support, understand that there's a value to that. If you miss and discount that self, then uh the person who is receiving that will see it themselves. And trust me, self-interest kicks in, then will take advantage. And if that's the case, then you know, you lose uh what you're offering, what you're offering is your knowledge to help people out. So if you can help that person out, great. You know, yes, you overextend yourself, and that's fine. It's fine. But it shows to the person, I'm here to help you. And if the person is genuine, they'll expect it, they'll reciprocate it back. I don't need them to all the top to sit in and say, yeah, like when you hang out with your mates, hey, you know, right, bank teams, mate. Yes, thanks for shouting me last time for a mule. I was really thinking, like, let me take out my shot. It's that, that kind of connection between people. And when you offer your service, you know, people will, if a person is genuine, they'll see it, they'll appreciate and say thank you. If they can afford it, trust me, down the line, they'll pay you by for that. But that opportunity has to arise in order for that to take place. But if you're doing that rat of fight, let me just do this, you miss that. And that's what it is. That's what you know what we all stand for human connection. And if you try to automate everything, it's great. But the value has to be somewhere else where we've identified this, we're using technology to scale, human interaction, you can't scale because it's personality. And if we can deliver value via our knowledge and our support, that's what they value. And at the end of the day, thankfully, you know, PolyPlot is doing great when they're doing that. Lorepath is doing exceptional well, you know, with what they're doing, and that's it's good to see. But unfortunately, that and I'm hopeful for squeeze. I hope they achieve what they are set out to do. But unfortunately, rate new, you know. They initially had that idea and it just didn't you just didn't pan out. It just flew flat, and that was it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:52

Yeah, totally. Now on the cultural bit on the personal aspects, obviously you mentioned, you know, a bit of cognitive dissonance around being in that position where you couldn't tell self the truth and you knew things were crumbly and you had that intuition. I guess that combined with all of your time, a very short time, a very impactful time at the Red Me. What kind of role did that play personally? How do you feel about Dolphini? Like you mentioned PTSD, having all that doubtless has a huge impact of and does it still something on you today? You still feel like trauma or stress from that ball experience?

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:22

Um look, I will say that yeah, I do this yeah, there were moments that are a bumper that stick to my that stick in my mind. Having having stuff break down and cry that assists with me and I take that to with me everywhere I go. But also understanding that, you know, if you're dealing with somebody that wants to set the narrative of a different thing that's not true or that is not, you know, just to kind of calm everybody down, I get it. Because then I understand that there is a self-interest to fear. In order for me to be able to do my job, I need the person to be calmed and to be able to do their job, you know, thinking, you know, without emotion and as irrational as possible. And the problem is that I'll look you up from white, then I'm a bit selfish. I felt selfish. So, but at the same time, you know, if I say on top of that, guys, you know, I don't want you to worry, do the best that you can do, then it kind of negates the initial part of me, kind of not lying, but having to tell them just relax. Yeah, because it counted as as they are, you know, it doesn't matter. Bookiness accounts in it, it really doesn't matter. There's people who work in the services industry who, you know, provide services to people in general. You know, if if there was someone who can tell them, just calm down, it's okay, then they'll feel like I don't have to stress or struggle, and they just go along as best as they possibly can. So I've learned from all this experience, you know. You in in a high pressure, high stress situation, just maintain composure. Yes, it is difficult and I completely understand, but if your mind is going at a mile a minute, then your answering, it's like turning around and having like a glitch in the matrix or the system. You're having a conversation with something about something that the person just said, oh, did you want? You know, if book don't want it out of carp down with Lextic, you know, you you get your bearings, and you just realize you just ordered a coffee and you had a conversation with a coffee barista about the person that they about your situation at work, but all they asked was, oh, or do you like it going flat white or how's your day? And then you just offload. So it's just like that's how that feeling is. It's just you just need to talk to people, and that's what I felt like. It's like as long as you've got the opportunity to have a conversation with somebody. I understand that stress has to be managed. It's difficult because stress there's external factors, some people deal with it differently. There's only a limit that you can implement in relation to having a process to kind of put ideas or things or write things down to say, I will deal with these things, you know, in my time. But at the end of the day, it's an emotional response. So if the environment, you know, is not helping out in that situation, then I know that next time when I identify this, I know pull myself out. I'm not going to stay there because it's not I can handle it, but then when I request that type of stress, you know, for that work to be carried out on my staff, that's unfair. Because my major was when I was in there was as long as you guys serve the clients and the clients are happy, I am, right? You are my boss. I am heed of service to you, not the other way around. Okay? Because as long as you keep them happy, I will do whatever you need to do. Whatever you want me to do, open door policy. I need to be on the betting core. Like I'm I would say with someone off a surgeon, you know, um, you know, just page me and I mean kind of the, you know, an hour 24-7. And sometimes people after hours, after work hours, you know, needed to have a conversation, need to talk. And I remember them calling me up, asking me questions, they always say that, you know, are doing things right. Like in the self-worth, their confidence in your ability to be able to do their work, but they question things. And then it's like, oops, are we gonna survive? Or was are we, you know, what's on for tomorrow? What's next? You know, it's like oh god. It felt as if I needed to become just to be able to understand where there sorts of issues are coming from. You know, how do I how do I calm that down? But that's for me, that's pretty much where I is to identify certain things. I have developed strong values out of it to say that I will not compromise on these things, irrespective of what happens. I now, as a person, which I realize that I identified that, I now feel comfortable and confident to understand that irrespective of CEO, CFO, CEO, team lead, managers, whatever, we are all human. And if we all embrace a concept, look, we can speak to each other respectfully, right? And not in an aggressive tone. But if you're going to lie to somebody or manipulate something or do something, remember this date age, everything like that, people not once they're not gullible, they're opportunistic to get they've got a positive outlook on life in general, and they will always see the best side of you, no matter what. Once you stop that out to get it, you're never gonna get that back. And then you're gonna get different results, different outcomes, different attitude, different communication style. And it's just forget about hierarchy. Yes, there is hierarchy because it's needed. There always has to be a leader, there always has to be somebody who has to delegate, you know, because everybody has a skill set that would act. And I know this, but we all have to respect one another. And no matter how stressful the situation is, it's one thing that I'm happy about is that with him always come back to that whole short you said what you write you get right, it's not the written you got it right because culture is not developed. You know, fully in an organization, culture will be developed by a process or a system or through documentation, you know, stand up real procedures. That will be delivered. But that just sets the ground at work. That's all. It's the person who is leading the other person who's going to set the tone. And that's the person. If I come in and I reckon you because things were very informal, because it was growing. You can't have that policy or procedure set in place. I reckon you we do not do this or we did this, we will authorate this. Yes, to a degree, you can. But at the end of the day, it's I'm the one that has to set the tone. So if I said the tone off, guys, relax, take easy, don't worry about it. I'm not gonna bite your head off. And if I want them to say, because I want the best at it, you're focused on the client, right? Then I'm gonna get what I'm gonna get. Happy clients being service as they should be, and you know, if they pay for it, obviously, you know, get paid, you know, they pay for what they receive and they see the value in that. That's great. Give the people opportunities to expand themselves to understand. I understood now the concept of, you know, what the the concept of dictatorship. I understood, you know, management techniques that are being implemented. So the concept of, you know, when somebody says something works as a dictatorship or as a democracy. You know, we heard that, you know, never I've heard that real book once, and it was just interesting to see it come out to kind of say where time is restricted and you have to deliver something, it's a dictatorship. And you know, but to it to tell people, guys, look, it's gonna be this way. I'll give you a brief moment to raise concern. I'm always, like I said, over the door, come up to me and tell me if you're seeing an issue because together we'll identify it and we need a nippet at the butt. But at the end of the day, if it doesn't work, I'm sorry, but this is how it's gonna be. Compared to if time is not so much of a restraint, then yeah, democracy, of course, everybody has a say. People can vote, people can then, you know, offer suggestional solution. And that's how I and I realize that when you do this, you know, because you had the opportunity to try out different techniques of management at rate because these were trading so fast, see what worker did it. I learned that, you know, this works better than that, but respect the idea that if things happen uh fast level and they need to happen, great. But look fucking Jupiter all day long about this at the end of the day. It's just about people. It's about how we interact with each other, how we open ourselves ourselves to get that true to a triple goal. And as long as that goal is to help and assist, it makes everything a little easier. You know, life's easier. Not trying to take advantage of somebody, you know, we're just trying to deliver something, you know, doesn't matter if it's some sort of product, but you know, being able to identify this, to be able to speak, to speak up about it, to communicate that comfortably to senior meeting leaders and not have to worry about uh you know repercussion, that's great. Making people feel comfortable that they're gonna say what they need to say to me, that's what I like, because at least that way there's not gonna be that issued ever again. But in that situation, when you get to the point where you just you you break you reach breaking point, you don't care anymore, and you just say, you know what, I'm just gonna do it how I know best. And then it's an experiment, pretty much, and worked out to my favor that I've learned that from the onset of all this, it's just again, I can't, you know, it's just us humans. Be nice, be polite, help one another, unify it, right? And I never take that with me. You know, I've got a fantastic team at the public block that work really well, you know, they service the clients, so the clients are happy, you know, and then you know, it's different type of clients, they're larger clients, but just having that ability to be able to give them flexibility to think for themselves, to think that's the other thing, to be able to say you have time to think so you can personal grow. And then when you fall and stumble or succeed, when you succeed in Cristo, it feels fantastic. But when you fall and stumble, it's like ah, but no one's gonna hold you to account about it gonna echo at you because you've got time to rectify, time for me to champ for some time to you know to have a conversation with the other call excess hook right, does this scene right? You know, and if it fails, great, at least you're all bored. Hey, we found something out, you've learned from it. Let's just move on, and that's in. But when you don't have time for that, it's just it's it's you can't. You just you don't have time to have a conversation to calm a person down. It's all I can forget about, forget about, forget about next, next, next. So how will I fix this? Well, I've got to fix it now. And then how could you imagine hearing that? It's like, oh my god, no, I don't feel like I am, you know, appropriate for this role or for this job because now my leader has to, my, you know, my manager, sorry, has to deal with my my mishap or my error. And some, you know, I don't have I didn't have enough time to tell them it's not your fault, buddy. You know, just continue to the extent, I'll deal with it. So that's pretty much what I've learned, and that's what I'm grateful for. If it's a mistake trader, you fell out. But yeah, it's just yeah, people. That's all it is at the end of the day. Some people know how to communicate with other people correctly. Ego aside, you just respect everybody else's opinion, and that's it. And collectively, you achieve what you need to achieve. And it's good. I'm happy to see that in this generation, like now, with how everything was going, you know, even the word disruption, like I'm glad that, you know, I think you can correct me if I'm all on this one, that the word disruption is used a lot less now. You know, it's up now, we're here to disrupt something, you know, but you know, whatever. Like it's like now, no, we're here now not to disrupt, but we're here now because we found that there's a gap in the market. You know, we're here to service that market that that that wasn't previously service. And when you hear it like that, that sounds positive. Where when I look at you here disrupt, yeah, or you weren't disrupting, it's like, well, what are you trying to do? It's like you're that sport kid coming in and go, I'm gonna kick out everyone's Lego pieces kind of thing. But you know, it's just yeah, the language now is the best time to, you know, to you know, for startups to achieve what they want to achieve to, you know, bring technology in, and it's good to kind of see, you know, what I'm seeing out there. So you know, it's good to see, but yeah, like I said, law paths recognition was they try that failed, you know. Hopefully, Squeeze can take over. And yeah, look good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59:56

Yeah, fantastic. No, and definitely it's it's quite a an experience. And it will you taught you the lessons and never forget you can't forget those experiences. And everything that came out of it needed good to bad, I believe so. And you know, you can share your story because a part of that is decompressing, sharing it with people that you said and make someone hold that space for you just to listen and to kind of lay process a lot of it. If you could do that, you can actually like manage yourself inwards. That's all that yes, right? Because you had pressure cook on for converse or seven, eight months, and you're just go goer, like you said, when you're in that, there's no time to innovate or process improvement or anything. It's just go, go, go, just forget about everything else.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00:36

Yeah, that is exactly that's that is spot on. There is no time for innovation. And startups, that's what they're relying on. They need innovation. It's like you need to, you know, got this idea, hasn't been tested before. We need to be able to have people who can support that. We need to be in need of creativity. You can't have creativity if all you'll be doing is is task-driven, you're just being pushed to do something. But yeah, that's ruined that's absolutely spun on. You know that you need that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:01:05

It's like the Nazl's Iraqi or B tribe. It was that firefuckers box you could never access those more creative pursuits or planes or anything else because you just you know focus in that run on the drill because you're the line, let's just forget anything else. Nothing's gonna come productive from that.

SPEAKER_01: 2:01:23

No, no, that's absolutely spoiler. Nothing, nothing will come from because it's just like yeah, like I mentioned before, you don't have time really to think, you're just putting out fires. That's all it is, you know. Initial phase when you have some clients, where we get, yeah, you can address some areas like that, and we're doing it at a speed, so that means you can focus on the process, focus on finding something to to accommodate for all what we are trying to do. But then when that gets lost, once we're the volume of kicks in that pyre, I'm no longer thinking about how to you know innovate, how to kind of implement technology or say cannot find a solution that could do something because I'm too busy keeping everybody calm and focusing on just deliverables and that's it. And then who are the innovators? Innovators are the people who, unfortunately, I'm sorry, but at that point in time didn't have a clue with what we do in our industry. You know, you are you're a subject matter expert in sellings, people sell, sell, sell, all. But if you get the combination of, you know, like somebody who but also sells on Audi, yeah, I knew the car because I was a mechanic. So I knew the cars. But when I'm selling the car, I knew the features of the car. So I'm a dangerous combination. Like I'm effective because how would you never car mate? I know it's back to front. It's got these features, this and this happens, you push this button, this happens, it's great, blah, blah, blah. And it's like the people go, oh, I developed trust, I can trust you, I know that what you're selling to me works. But if you're just purely sales, right, then it's just oh, okay, well, how are you gonna do this? And if that happens, then you're gonna stumble into a bit of a problem. When do you take your foot off the accelerator and uh get the person who is bringing these people on your clients uh look? You can even say it, uh do they even want this service that we're actually providing to them? Because you imagine it's like, oh, I was just after some bidding, fixing another who apparently starting a business, selling bits. What if what just happened? It's like the salesperson can be to the person, don't buy don't worry about buying a bit. The best thing for you is sell bits, but oh okay, what what should I do? Well, you know what I mean? They motivates to to identify the need and to get the person in there, but that's not to disregard people who world in sales. But uh if our industry is based on a service that is required on knowledge, uh and unfortunately, you know, yes, you are you are asset if you can sell and you are charismatic, but you know the product, left, right, center, and you know what you deliver, then you are yeah, fired. But at least then because you've experienced it, you you can yourself as a SaaS person can identify the issue as well. You know, I think we're selling for two, don't get me wrong, but like, you know, sometimes our money will be too much of a distraction. Like, you know, this is great, I'm getting more money. But I can at least identify it, hey, I think you know, we're selling too much. I think the guys had to be struggling a little bit. And you can identify, oh, that's not our client, that's our client, that's not our client, you know, at the price point, you know, ask the necessary qualifying questions that you need to ask before you onboard a hive. So, you know, there's that give and take. And if you want to wear there is an issue or there is going to be an issue, at least that way you can say, I'm sorry, but you are we cannot we cannot help you in this in this regard because what you're after is this. You have to figure that out your own. You know, that's basically how it is. But if you can see it and even identify it, great, but if you just focus on sales, then you do not care what the pine water needs, you just deliver the show kind of thing. So but that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05:16

The grand tough thing disconnects between sales, marketing, wider company, culture, strategy, the whole system from the top down, and then obviously got the conflict of interest, especially your film, you know, if the accountant needs to then hit that target. So therefore they're giving you advice, which customers pay for, but at the same time, they're still thinking with the dollar of core. Yes, that's challenging for a customer etiquity standpoint on what the customer's getting. But like you said, with revenue as well, and it's not something customers actively thought about from a Hodger standpoint, but they're looking for advice and they're looking for an advisor that knows their business and knows what they were looking for and how they can help, especially for chartered accountants. So then, you know, I guess minimizing and being aware of that conflict of interest of like can I, you know, sort of have an advisor on a certain remuneration level where I paid the center of a child being$800 an hour plus giving them advice and is there a conflict of interest versus getting some of the triple retainer rate, but then having to make targets and that obviously impacts the uh level of ability, and then also how much you know the will of the catching that spin and relationship and whatever to get getting you onboarded looking out for you, and that's when that Mr. Chuck of the Camelot's coming right because that's special as knowledge is steady up to date with the CPLs, it can actually look out for you. So it's a very different kind of revenue string revenue model, and uh, this revenue versus then traditional embedders are not that one is not better than the other. We're both here to serve the market and the participants and different price coins that understand, but we just totally know what you're getting into, what services kind of best benefit you, and if you are going for a cheaper service, nothing wrong with that, but just be aware if it can be it's or what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06:52

Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's like look, thing at the ROM, you don't need to be, yeah, it's there are there are they they are it's a different approach from re you to the standard, you know, traditional cowling firm, you know, whether you're C G C A or EV, that it's also just kind of like it's understanding. That's the it's the thing. It's the thing of understanding, you know. If you don't know, small it down, right? You don't you go, I don't know where I'm going, I don't know, like you know what's the end of this road, who cares? Put your full accelerator. You don't do that, you know, because what if over that horizon over that crest is a wall that you didn't see because it was just skidding, you know what I mean? And you don't have enough time or enough leeway to pull it to pull the brakes into step on the brakes and slow down, you know, your action response time could be off. But like it's like even with like look again, you know like with like with polar blot, right? Corin, she is a subject manner expert in talent positioning from HR. You know, she learns payroll because she pays staff to an extent, but not the liberal service of you know pulling share skins and things like that. But she didn't drop a mix over right now and just sit there and go, yeah, I'm going, you know, okay, all guns out blazing, let's just, you know, whatever. She just understood, okay, I don't know this, slow it down, right? China accounting firms, they do the same thing. You know, the expert is like, yeah, I need to assess the risk. I need to assess the client. They need to understand, is this client going to give me value? Like I said at the beginning, you know, like, you know, they need to assess the client. If you do not assess the client enough, but again, it's industry specific, the same thing wouldn't work. You know, it's like your client, telling the position, still no says the client, right? You need to know I'm about to find a candidate for my client, and I need to know the client plus the cabinet, right? So I need to know hey, child, different sorts, different concept. Payroll. Yeah, I need to know rules, laws, and legislation is around payroll in order for me to execute this thing. But again, I need to know payroll, but I need to know the client, what their needs are, what they need to know. I need to slow it down because I'll put this, I'll but this, and I don't do this about. As Zachary says it's important shares, things are a relatively complicated area. Not everyone knows how to do it. And if you get a payroll person that just says, Oh no, all I do is just process the payroll, I just do it weekly based on the hours at work, whatever. But then all of a sudden I know it's an important share scheme. It's like, oh, now we're gonna understand how much shares I've got to allocate to this person based on this document. It's like, well, now it's a little bit complicated. How do you identify when does the best impurity kick in, how much should be allocated, and so on and so forth. So now something as simple as payroll all of a sudden became more complicated. And now if you don't know what you need to do, and you'll say yes to that client, but you do not have the ability to pull that off, there's your problem. That's the thing. Yes, it's good to work fast, but if you can think fast, you can vision and you know what you need to do to execute, you know because you understand, great, life is easier, that's fantastic. But if you're just gonna go, I'm better job. Do you know how to take the order is? It doesn't matter, we'll figure it out. What's the outcome if you turn out what you're dropping into? You know, you can't sing a rocks down below. That's the point. You just you can't have that aren't you. Yes, speed works, it's good. Sometimes you need to be if there's if there's something that you want to execute, you need to execute faster because speed is important and it's understandable, and then somebody else is coming in, you know, that's that that works fine when it's too mature industries. Like calls of wars, yes, if they got an idea for something that they're about to pull out of a strategy, yes, they're trying to be each other in being able to execute first, but they have to stand for what they're doing compared to when you go when you're telling me like, say, for instance, uh somebody else, if the business is mature and you're trying to execute something fast, but if you're kind of trying to figure out something, just try and figure it out, yeah. How long, you know, like I don't know, I have a well, we'll look into it one day. How long did it take Sam Altman and godness who else to you know for this whole open AI thing to kick kick it? It wasn't, I didn't think it was that fast. Do you know what I mean? Like this is something completely new. Yeah, they were a startup and you know they perceived funding and they felt bad. They try to, they, you know, try to do whatever they did needed to do, create a platform, have an access point, yeah. This thing, this model does whatever it needs to do. But I think it was just like yeah, yeah, just go, bo, go, go, and even understand. Yes, you don't understand, you don't understand the outcome. Well, what's gonna happen? But you understood something. There had to be something then that you understood. And that's where I believe that there was just some dynamic aspect where something colossal on the way was breaking you that you went guns blazing, you just jumped into or into, you know, like the ocean or off a cliff face without knowing what was on the edge. You just didn't know. Yes, you hired some people, but sometimes you need to know the top people that you need to hire in order to execute what you need to keep executed, but you have to be aware enough to be able to say, this person might not look like they know what they're doing. Or that person does know what they know at what they're doing. Because I'm seeing this reflected in my numbers, or they're good at convincing me that my idea or my thing or whatever I'd be might need to change, I might need to pivot, I might be to, you know, they can communicate that back out as long as you put it your side. But other than that, you know, if you listen and what they say is valid, great, not a problem. But if you refuse to listen for whatever reason, then it's just not gonna work. So that's why I think slow it down, you know. It's you know, but you've got time. If you need something new and innovative, and I think somebody can come with that unless like it's really, really new. Yeah, somebody needs to be able to read your mind and understand what we're trying to do. Right. And then feel the kind that came up with the idea and somebody sees it, you know how to protect that IP. Great, right? That's what it is. It's the protection of the IP that's more important than anything else. And then somebody will buy it or somebody will help you to achieve your account because they have specialists who know what you need to do to execute. But if you just see now, I know I'm doing it, but I could do this. All right. Take a look at it. I say this, take a look at the history, right? This is not a shock at the person who's done retinue that we take a look at the history of the other things that they've done, other than the one thing that they did successfully, right? That was one. Okay, congratulations. You did well, right? You've got enough funds to make mistakes, which is good. So it's a lot more than what other people can do, and they don't have the amount of capital. But what you did, and then how many times after this you tried some alternate things and they didn't succeed? I think, buddy, it would have been a reality check for you to figure out. But maybe that you should have just kind of pulled back and said, Hey, yeah, I knew this thing, I could execute this thing, but I don't know this thing all that well. Maybe you should try to execute it. But hey, in life we live alone, you know, you can make a mistake, but as long as you got enough from the pocket that get to the day for say, hey, or to be able to get employed again or whatever. Yeah, because you fall, beat yourself up to a ticket, but just some green advice and reflection.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14:36

I just want to tie it off finally with some broader industry commentary, I guess. Uh some multi-pronged question, but I guess you know, what does a revenue story reveal about the academy industry's appetite for innovation? Are there lessons here for other firms chasing record scale to try to take the startup model to professional services? And then I guess do you do think flat fear county and subscription spell levels? Can they still work in their structure differently? And I guess the fourth letter part relating it back to retinue is do you think that the downfall of retinue was the payroll and the bookkeeping component of the service?

SPEAKER_01: 2:15:11

I guess okay, so to as these parts, so priest says, Look, I always welcome innovation, especially with an accounting, okay, because it it's sometimes it is needed, right? There has been talk about you know about uh automating the tax process, you know, so that way people can just do it themselves. And so having to get an accountant to do it for them, but sometimes you know, there's certain situations are just a little bit more complicated. So yeah, I do want uh I want technology, you know, to be uh implemented. I believe that accountants should definitely go for it. For instance, uh as an example, just with that with the whole AI thing, as long as you self-check, you know, and I is a great tool to use, if you can just uh teach it to references some things. And once just references, check it. Don't just think I blindly accept this as what it is, right? It can help you and do it so many things so you can do things not scale, but just queer. So that way, you know, if you'll take if you were to offer some advice to somebody, you can offer advice, check that it's correct, tailor it a little bit, you know, prompt the AI tool to do certain things and adjust it to be what you'd need to be. And then from there you can say, okay, now I want to make clean it up, expand it, put more crafts, do whatever you need to do to kind of communicate this. Yes, I agree. The whole thing about are you saying using the fixed product pricing model? Yeah, it's fine. That is fine as long as you identify that what you're offering, say using the simple concept of Bass. You can use a BAS and say it doesn't matter how many transactions in the BAS, the only thing that increases is possibly potential to risk more transactions and the value of those transactions, there might be increasing your risk. Businesses out there out there usually to kind of take it bait, just say, Oh, I'm gonna claim be a massive expense because I'm gonna get a massive GSA refund. If it looks suspicious and we as accountants identify this straight away. So for instance, if I try to say, Oh, I'm getting a million dollars in you know sales revenue, but a billion dollars in expenses, obviously, there's a problem. But when it comes to that looking at a BAS, a BAS is relatively straightforward. You can standardize that, you can put that in and say, okay, it's financials, similar. You can say, look, the system, the process, all the the I guess the technology can get all the information, compile it together in this nicer, here's a PL, here's a Belcher, here's cash flow, compile it together and bring it up to be nice and you know, presently. Yes, you can standardize that and if you charge a particular fee, a fixed fee for that. So on and so forth. Tax is a little bit different, and I'm always going to say this. Tax is a little bit different only because sometimes people would claim to say that an individual tax return is relatively straightforward. Yeah, but an individual tax return could be for a sole trader. And if a sole trader could possibly have two concepts of one sole could possibly be working and have a business while they're progressing over completely business, you know, completely a sole trader, no employment. And how difficult is that? How have they accounted for these things? Are they just going to come up to you with a shoebox full of receipts and then you have to build together? Then all of a sudden I know I'm not the bookkeeper, right? Here's it with the poem is I'm not the bookkeeper, but you're requesting me to filter through this and then compile it in say an Excel spreadsheet to then come up with your revenue, come up with your expenses, come up with what's deductible, what's not. You see what I mean? It's that process of doing what you need to do. And all of a sudden, inadvertently, you just become the bookkeeper. So that's the point. Identify, identify the the client. So that way you say, is this product that I'm about to offer them? Can this be done? So with certain things, you can't say, book, we'll do this as long as in your contract hypothetically say, okay, well, first time route, we'll charge you, say, two brand. We'll spread that over 12 months, it quick pays it feels like you're putting that so by Tana. And then once when the tub costs to do your attachment, we'll do it. If we notice that there's something variant out of it, we'll discuss that maybe next year, that will might increase that cost. And if we or it could have possibly been just the first genius structure you, once that'll be structured, you're going to be able to do it next year. But assess it, allow flexibility to be able to be assessed along the way. And then that way to go say, you know what, it's actually this is right, this is right. Every year we chime saying hypothetically,$4,000 financials, tax return, this great, this works. I can do this. But with the bookkeeping part, with the bookkeeping side, it's a little bit more if even though bookkeeping does sound relatively standard or civil, but if you can structure up an idea or something to say, look, we've based it down on transactions. You say then you need to have five transactions a month. Okay, right. Then I'll charge you, say, about half an hour's worth of work, right? And that's my fee for half an hour. And if I could say this is what it costs, and then put it in like a step before the fixed stepped fee. So every half an hour, like the well, we're H ⁇ M block, they do this. You approach them and on the spot, I want to do a bit of this, and they classify this bookkeeping, right? They'll say it's$50 every half an hour block. So if you pass at 31 minutes, then they'll charge you$100, right? Because that's what it is. But they've standardized it. So this still works, it's still room for it. You can't implement technology. Cero is doing the same thing with their whole, you know, you know, we I but I think that also spotted that off a while ago, but they use a different process ready for a system, which I'm not familiar with, I'm not I'm familiar with that, but I'm not, I don't know the IP behind it. Where you know they identify a transaction based on your bank transactions and they say, oh, last time you allocated like this, do you want to continue to do it again at the same thing? But again, it still requires human interaction. So from that perspective, I want to see their county world innovate. I want technology to be utilized a lot more because there is a large, large amount of small, what we classify as micro businesses out there that need that support. And if we can somehow do certain things to reduce our costs, to give access to these people so they can come in on board, great. That'll be perfect. But at the same time, we always have to be mindful to understand where does the value for the client really come from? Yes, I'm doing this transaction and all that, but it's a story or the information that they receive to be able to make a judge in court is where the key value is. But yeah, definitely. I definitely do see that this is gonna be I hope that accounting, you know, iterabates, just as way, you know, the legal profession has kind of found its way to innovate itself. You know, I hope that accounting can do the same thing. But yeah, what was the other thing that you were saying? Oh, sorry, I was with the word hit on.

SPEAKER_00: 2:22:28

I guess you could another flat fee accounting or subscription style model, could that still work at different contests? Was that done?

SPEAKER_01: 2:22:35

Yeah, no, no, or yeah, that that yes, that it definitely can. Like with all just saying that as long as there's a bit of flexibility or that it's the scale, chasing fast growth. Yeah, and that just yeah, oh, and yeah, definitely lessons for the scale and chasing fast growth. Just please more than a sense, this is the PTSB, kick it in.

SPEAKER_02: 2:22:55

It's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22:56

So we're like when when you reached out, like when I reached out to you, trying to think about two, like law path, it was that was that thing. When I saw that bird of smoked, and it was just like it just that shock just kicked in. And I just wanted to make sure to kind of basically make it aware that I hope that you guys look I know that you did. And the in the e trust me, when you explained it to me, it's like off, thank god I can't good. There are people behind the wheel that know what they're doing, which is good because you know, hey, if they did it, I don't want it to go down, you know, down that rabbit hole where they don't know how to get themselves out because reputation, reputation, my god, that's the other thing that I've learned. Reputation matters a lot, and that was the one thing that I think I noticed at Breck New that even people, individuals as themselves, their reputation, their brand, their personal brand was now like, you know, hey, I feel reluctant to do this, or I don't want to be associated with Breck New because like that brain now's getting tarnished. The name sounds awesome, it sounds cool, it has a mean which everybody was aspiring to. But then once when things happened, it's like that personal brain reputation, you you can't you can't shake that off. It's like ink. You gotta you really gotta watch, you know, you know what you say. And it it's good because every single time we have a meeting with somebody now and they say, Oh, I heard you would threaten you. How was that? And it's like, yeah, yeah, they feel empathy towards you because of my. I've just imagined, you know, what you went through. It's like, yeah, it was it was a lot. Yeah, we'll talk about over the or a cup of coffee sometime. I'd think like you and I would be able over a podcast, but yeah, it's just that's that thing, is the reputation. Do not tarnish that at any point just because you're chasing broke or you're chasing revenue. You know, be cautious because if that breaks, then forget it, you know. We don't I don't even explain to you, you've seen it time or time again. That happened when somebody just says something, something. And then it's you know, I was like, but oh god, let's not do that again.

SPEAKER_02: 2:25:08

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:25:09

No, look, that's uh very good advice. And thank you so much, sir. So what's striking about Elissa's story isn't just the scale of Redney's rise, it's how completely success can fall when growth outfaces, delivery, culture, and financial discipline. The rising fall of Britney is a mirror for every professional services from chasing stun-up style velocity. A reminder that disruption isn't just the best feat or for us, it's about balanced trust and resilience. Thank you so much, Golis, for taking the time to share an honest inside look at what happened behind the scenes. It's rare to hear this kind of candor about growth, leadership, and the human side of failure. If you've worked in accounting, sales of leadership, this story is a lesson worth remembering. The higher the climb, the more crucial the foundations. So with all that said, thank you very much, Elvis. Now people want to reach out to you and stay in touch and even engage you professionally. How can they do that?

SPEAKER_01: 2:26:01

Yeah, just look, I just reach out to the Polyglot Group on our website. You know, you can reach out to me, you know, via Elvis at thepolyglotgroup.com. I'm there to, you know, provide this order help for any business out there that is looking to scale up that is planning to come and expand into Australia. But yeah, that's you know, we should be there and definitely have discussion, you know, if you want about anything, about business, about life, about about you know, about county or anything else, uh taxation, all that stuff. But yeah. Now, Ryan, thank you so much. This was this is really good. I feel it was a nice therapy session to get things off my chest. But yeah, I appreciate it, and uh thank you for the time. You're welcome. Thanks so much, Alice.