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Kenji Kuramoto is the Founder & CEO of Acuity, one of the largest CAS accounting firms in the US. Kenji has provided thousands of companies with a full range of financial solutions, from high-level strategic financial counsel to virtualized bookkeeping and tax services. In this episode, Kenji and Stuart discuss the challenges of growing a company, building a strong culture, and the importance of being flexible for employees. They also talk about discussing sensitive topics in the workplace, and what’s coming next for Acuity.
Join Stuart McLeod as he interviews the world's top accounting leaders to understand their story, how they operate, their goals, mission, and top advice to help you run your accounting firm.
Stuart McLeod 00:00:06.608 Hi, I'm Stuart McLeod, CEO and cofounder of Karbon. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, the show where I go behind the scenes with the world's top accounting leaders. Today I'm joined by Kenji Kuramoto, the founder and CEO of Acuity, one of the largest [KAS?] accounting firms in the US. Kenji has provided thousands of companies with a full range of financial solutions, from high-level strategic financial council to virtualized bookkeeping and tax services. Kenji serves as a board member or advisor for multiple organizations, including nonprofits and accounting software companies. As an angel investor and entrepreneur, he was in the Atlanta Business Chronicles 40 under 40, the TIE Top Entrepreneur, and a Hubdoc Top 50 Cloud Accountants. It's my pleasure today to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, Kenji Kuramoto. Hey, Kenji, great to see you. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:06.012 Thanks for having me, Stuart.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:07.450 You've grown a mo since the last time I've seen [you?]. That's outstanding. I love that.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:11.153 A little bit. It's lightened up somewhat. I had a much larger one for a little while. And then my wife pays too much attention to it, says, "Time to shave that off," so.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:21.858 Yeah, it's time to go.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:22.086 We'll see if I can sneak this one back in the household. But again, it's probably going to end up going away here soon.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:27.978 [laughter] and I think last time we probably caught up was-- was it like just before COVID and everything, wasn't it?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:36.384 It probably was, right, which is probably the answer with anybody these days during this weird--
Stuart McLeod 00:01:41.021 At the moment. Yeah.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:41.377 --two years. Yeah. It was probably before COVID. Too long, man.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:44.513 Yes.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:45.304 Too long.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:45.403 I've definitely missed [you?] [inaudible]. Well, we touched on COVID. I think everybody's a bit over it, right? But how's business during-- what impact has it had on you and Acuity?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:01:58.730 I think it actually had a fairly positive impact for us in that probably like many of the firms and the leaders in the space who've actually been on the podcast-- many I've listened to. I think about like a Chad Davis or Enrico and people who have been on recently. I think the modern firms have probably flourished like we have. We were already in a position-- now I wasn't like Chad out roaming the world in an RV.
Stuart McLeod 00:02:25.124 Oh, my God [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:02:26.047 Yeah. He's able to move anywhere where he's-- so but--
Stuart McLeod 00:02:29.245 Oh, yeah, [inaudible]. He's got it sorted. Absolutely.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:02:31.176 He does, doesn't he? But I think that for a firm like ours, we saw little to very no disruption, and we saw an increased need for many clients, certainly with things around like PPP loans and needing lots of help and support around that. So we jumped in and helped with that. We saw a lot of activity. The only thing I would say that we weren't expecting that was disruptive was we have a lot of our team members who are parents. And so what we didn't anticipate was that new role that many parents took of like pseudo teacher. So all of a sudden they're used to working from home already. They weren't used to having to play like part-time instructor and teacher as well, too. So that's probably the one thing that I don't think anybody anticipated. But we certainly went through that just because we have a very large percentage of team members who have young kids at home. So that was unintended. Otherwise, we saw a nice growth. We tucked in a couple of acquisitions during COVID, one in end of 2020 and then another one in 2021. So we kind of kept moving forward, certainly organically, and even a little inorganically during that time. Yep.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:40.878 Yep. Yeah. Well, just on the parent thing, yeah, I mean, most of your staff are in the USA, right?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:03:47.624 The majority are. We have some team members in the Philippines, some of the Caribbean, but otherwise mostly in the US. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:53.202 Yeah. And let's not get into politics. That's for another podcast. But most states and particularly around Georgia where you are, the lockdowns of schools were relatively in the months, certainly not in the years. Speaking to people in Canada, some schools there were going on two years or 18 months of lockdown. And these parents are just beside themselves.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:04:22.520 Unbelievable.
Stuart McLeod 00:04:23.152 They're literally trying to do two jobs at once. [laughter] there's actually these articles about people that can do that, but not parenting [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:04:32.960 You can't.
Stuart McLeod 00:04:34.532 You can't.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:04:34.941 You just can't do it. And so that was something we weren't expecting. And I think you're right. We actually were in a better position than most because our team is completely accustomed to and used to working remotely and from home. Many of our team members work part-time. And to your point, Stuart, most are here in the US, where the lockdowns, at least the school implications, weren't quite as drastic as places like Canada or elsewhere in the world where completely different. Very different. But still very disruptive.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:02.727 My country of birth was a bit of a shit show for a while, that's for sure [laughter]. God love them. But I'm going back next month for the first time, and they're going to let me in.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:05:12.244 They're going to finally let you in. The native son returns.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:15.265 [laughter] we've got to put this podcast out over after that, so they don't change their minds [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:05:20.901 [laughter] that's right. That's right.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:24.872 No, it was a disaster. And parts of the West Coast of the USA were a bit more difficult than others. But it's not for us to resolve these issues. But I think in 3 or 4 years time, the whole world is going to look back on this and contemplate who did better out of it and whose mental health bills are less than others. And, I mean, the long-term implications are partly unknown yet. And I mean, we're talking as though it's over. It's not really over yet.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:05:54.503 It really is not. It's not there yet. It feels like it's optimistically moving in the right direction. I feel like I'm out in the world seeing more friends and family and other firm owners on a more regular basis, which is great. But who knows? All it's going to take is some other variant or some other type of lockdown. And there are strange things happening in the world these days. And so I think all of us just want to get out of our houses. But at least it sounds like you've settled yourself in a great place to where plenty of good outdoor activities. Because again, I think that's a huge part of it, too. I think that some of these team members we've had that are in really cold climates and there's not like, hey, a ski slope, right, to go up and down on, where they're just kind of stuck indoors during huge months of year. That's one of the benefits we have here in the south is relatively mild climate. You can get outside most months of the year fairly easily. But let's just hope it doesn't go back to that.
Stuart McLeod 00:06:51.409 Yeah. Yeah. No, we don't want lockdowns again. And I think hopefully the science has progressed enough. Hopefully we get to a stage where you go in and you get your flu shot and you get your COVID shot all at once, a super booster, and--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:05.849 Knock it out.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:06.657 --you're right for the year.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:07.214 There you go.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:07.465 That's the plan.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:08.456 There you go. Knock it out and just go. I agree with you.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:11.536 Exactly. Exactly. And so back to Acuity. How many staff? Where are you guys up to these days? Because I remember, I think when we first met, you were probably, what, about I want to say 15, maybe 20 staff way back in the day?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:27.124 Way back in the day, because, gosh, we have known each other for a long time, us old guys, right? But yeah, we're at about a little over 150 team members today. And so, yeah, it's grown quite a bit since those time frame. And I guess you're in a very similar space, too, especially with--
Stuart McLeod 00:07:43.612 Oh, yeah, yeah.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:44.391 By the way, congratulations on the B round. That's phenomenal.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:47.357 Thanks, mate. Yeah. Cheers.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:07:48.555 And I know that that's gotten a lot of growth behind it, too. So yeah, we're probably both in a pretty different spot than we were when we first met.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:55.781 Yeah [laughter]. Yeah, that is for sure. That is for sure. Yeah, we're similar. We're catching you rapidly. I think we're 120 or so today and 130 next week, 140 the week after. It's going pretty rapidly.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:08:10.597 I can imagine.
Stuart McLeod 00:08:11.035 And hold it there. You tell me. How do you think about that growth and developing the culture? I wouldn't say keeping the culture, but sort of keeping the foundations of the culture and developing culture as you grow? I know you reasonably well. I'm sure you're quite deliberate about it. So I'd love to hear about it.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:08:28.369 I am quite deliberate about it, and only because I think I've realized how much more so I have to be. I think it was much easier when we were smaller. We're all together. You knew every team member. You knew every single client. It was easier to have that kind of culture in place. And I've had to be much more intentional about it over time. And in fact, trying to figure out how to scale connectivity, scale community, scale culture, it's been difficult. I mean, very frankly, it's been difficult. It's not something that I was prepared for. I think my nature is to be very team-oriented. That's just who I am. People who know me well know that I'm really good in a team environment. And so I just assumed that those skills of bringing people together and bringing culture would just keep scaling. You add a few more people [crosstalk]. And there are just some spots where all of a sudden you realize-- you go, "Oh, wait a minute, I need some whole new skill sets here." Yes, I may be good at interacting with people and building culture, but it's just such a different animal at 15 versus 150. And so that's an area I've had to grow and develop, I've had to spend more time being thoughtful and intentional about. And we've still got some work to do. How do you make people feel like they're connected to the organization and to you as the founder? I think I'm getting better at it, but it was much more difficult than I anticipated. Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:56.465 Yeah, not just a walk in the park. And where do you find the most difficulty? What are the biggest issues you face? And then we'll move on to some of the joyous aspects about it, as well.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:10:07.161 I think it's in communication, I think, trying to make sure that all team members are aligned, have an understanding and clarity of what it is we're doing. And I started noticing that-- we started getting up around 50 people and 60 and 70. And I started seeing the times to where we'd come back and we'd deploy something new, a new idea, a new process, a new technology. And you'd start hearing some kind of grumblings from the team, or, "I don't understand what the hell Kenji is doing," or, "Why did they do this?" And you realize, "Oh, shit. I needed to explain this better. I didn't really explain the why. Why are we doing this?" And so I started seeing little bits of it. Now at our size, there's a lot of time spent of communicating what the vision is, why we're doing it. And that's just been much more difficult. Actually, it makes me think of, Stuart-- I saw you recently put out-- it was nice of you to be transparent like that and put out your email communication when you raised a round. And I think those types of things are important, things that I wouldn't have considered before. We have to be clear with our team about what it is we're doing. What are we going to do with this large $66 million raise, or why did we go and acquire a couple of firms? And so certainly big strategic initiatives like that, but even smaller things. We just deployed some new technologies here at Acuity that are trying to make life easier for people. And we had a big blowback-- we had a big blowback on it. People are like--
Stuart McLeod 00:11:38.866 You're fucking up my workflow [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:11:40.265 Absolutely. I think people thought, "Wait a minute. So you're monitoring all my emails?" We're like, "No, no, no. Not at all. That's not at all what we're doing." And so the intentionality with which we have to communicate is just so much more heightened. And so that's been challenging. I think now that I have more clarity on it, I get excited about it. I like to try to think about how to communicate at scale, how to get a large group aligned. But I think that, through all these growth periods, has probably been the most challenging feelings, just to keep people on the same stage. And there's nothing worse, I think, as a leader, when you interact with someone on your team and you hear about a negative experience that they've had. And you look at it, and you hear about it, and you go, "Oh, my gosh. This has happened because it was just poorly communicated." Expectations weren't set correctly or the way that this was communicated by someone else-- this is not who we are, but someone believes this is who we are. Here's why it is, just because the communication was poor. And so I think those are the areas that, man, there's times I kind of wish we were a little bit smaller again. And like, "Hey, just come on over here in the office and have a quick conversation. We'll take care of this." But that doesn't happen anymore. That's been tough.
Stuart McLeod 00:12:53.144 Yeah. There's a couple of things in there, right? So first of all, acknowledging services business, professional services organizations are very different to software businesses. At the end of the day, you've got to provide value to-- well, we both have to provide value to a customer, but you got to keep doing it over and over, month over month over month over month. And it's a very people-oriented way to deliver work. And your clients interact with your people. Our clients predominantly, 90%, interact with our software and our application and our website, etc. So there is a big difference. So what steps have you taken to try and improve that? Have you got a chief of staff? Do you use an OKR process? Tell me about all that.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:13:40.813 Sure. We use some of those things for sure. We use an OKR process. We make sure those are transparent amongst the entire company. Transparency is one of our core values. We also are big users of Jirav. So we have an employee Jirav dashboard that hooks into our financials so any team member can come and take a look at how we're operating financially. And it gets down through pretty much most all of our metrics. So we have that transparent. Everything from certainly quarterly, all hands meetings, I do-- it's something that I thought was kind of an experiment in the early years. I've been doing it for about two years now. But I do a weekly video from Kenji every single Friday, even if I'm on vacation, even if I'm wherever. And sometimes it's about things happening in the business. Sometimes it's just, "Hey, here's where in the world I am at, and I hope everybody's doing well." So little things even like that sometimes that we do to help make sure people are aligned and have clarity on kind of what we're doing.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:14:41.219 We also do a-- we were just doing some planning on it. We have an all hands essentially meeting that-- we call it a conference. Acuity Con. This will be our fourth year of having it. But we fly everybody to Atlanta. And we were just doing some planning for it. And I think that's been a good spot for us of saying, "Hey, you can work wherever you want to work in the world. You can work at Acuity also as many or as few hours as makes sense for you and your personal life. The one thing we ask is that we'll cover all of it, but we need you to come to Atlanta during September for these two or three days." And so we've found that that's been an important touchstone for all of us as an organization to where we bring in tech stack partners. We bring in speakers. We spend a lot of time together. We socialize and have fun. And we do some training as well, too. And so I think just getting creative with whether it's even little weekly touch points, even silly things from me, whether they're big, important, all hands flying in, building a regular cadence that has different touch points throughout the year is something for us that's been helpful in getting the team to still feel that connectivity that we need them to feel, so. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:15:51.070 Yep. And September in hot land is not too bad. It's starting to get a bit cooler [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:15:58.417 It's starting to cool down. I'll tell you what, Stuart. We've been so lucky the past few years because especially this last year right in the heart of COVID, most everybody had canceled live events. We were like, "We're not going to do it." We gave people the choice. If you want to come, come. If you don't feel comfortable, we'll do a live stream. And so we had a lot of people come, but we were crossing our fingers betting on hopefully good weather in that time frame. And we got it. And we had great weather. So we did a ton of it up on a-- we're in a co-working space on this very cool rooftop we had. So we actually did a bunch of the sessions and even our tech stack partner booths, all open air. And so we just kind of keep knocking on wood, like, okay, let's just keep hoping every year is great weather, because that time of year actually is-- for people who haven't been to Atlanta or spent much time here, the fall in Atlanta is nice.
Stuart McLeod 00:16:53.065 Perfect. There you go. [crosstalk]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:16:54.243 And we're just starting to get into it right there. So hopefully - knock on wood - we'll get the same thing this year.
Stuart McLeod 00:16:57.882 Knock on wood you keep going. Yeah. I mean, I think-- so how many people in the office then as opposed to remote at the moment?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:17:04.074 So we used to-- like today, there was a whopping 3 people here in the office.
Stuart McLeod 00:17:08.611 Yeah. Right. That's less--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:17:09.814 Huge.
Stuart McLeod 00:17:10.074 --than 1% out of your 150 [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:17:12.411 And many days we come in-- I come in maybe one or two days a week. I like to come in because I've got a good standing desk I like to use. I just like to kind of get out of the house a little bit. But we made the office-- made the decision on having the office as completely just a tool, another tool, another asset that team members can use if they elect to. Not required by anybody. We said, "If you're here in Atlanta area--" which I think roughly a little under half of our team is in Atlanta. But they can come use it if they want to. They don't have to. And the way we're looking at it now is that having this space allows us in-- so we have our big conference in the same building. And it's a fantastic building that we end up taking over the whole thing almost for our Acuity Con. It allows us to flex down and have a small space if someone wants to get out of the house and work here for a bit or still facilitate large scale meetings we have, [then?]. In fact, our leadership team, which is 11 people, are all flying in next week. So we'll kind of be in the space a bit. So we can flex up for those kind of things. But on most days-- I'd say half the days here, Stuart, there's nobody in the office. There's maybe 1 or 2 or there's actually nobody here. And so someone recently asked me-- they said, "Oh, that must be great. You guys must be saving so much on rent, being 150 people and having this tiny little space." And I said, "I think what we're saving in rent, we completely put back into events and these places where we're flying everybody in a couple of times a year." And I felt like for us that's the right way to think about it is we're not doing it as a cost savings. We're actually reallocating our spend on a way to make our time together more useful, because we don't need a large footprint for an office, because we don't have people in here. But we will allocate some of that to spend on bringing the entire company together at certain times of the year. And that's the right, for us, cadence way to bring people together.
Stuart McLeod 00:19:05.937 That makes sense. Do you take inspiration from the GitLabs of the world that are sort of a couple of thousand people remote? You think this is a sustainable methodology to get to the next 150, get to 300 staff?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:19:18.536 Oh, gosh, I'm not sure. 300 staff, I mean, scares the hell out of me thinking about that. But I do think it is, for quite a while, sustainable. I think that to me, directionally, that's where we've just typically looked for inspiration is in some of the more forward-thinking organizations. And unfortunately, there's not a ton of them in the accounting space. So we typically tend to look at the--
Stuart McLeod 00:19:37.821 Fortunately for you, yeah [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:19:39.692 Well, I guess that's true. Maybe fortunately for us, but. So we tend to look at what some of the tech companies are doing. I do think that allowing the team to have a voice into what is it that's important to them-- and again, they love to be together and see each other, but doing it in very select times of the year, making that time together very purposeful, making it special, is really what they want. The team doesn't really want to come into the office every day or even every week. And so I do think it's sustainable. Well, to see where that breaks down, I don't know if I want to test the whole upper boundaries of that. Like gosh, when we're 500 or 1,000 people, that may be more of a Kenji thing where I just say, "Ugh." Running [at?]--
Stuart McLeod 00:20:19.380 [laughter] somebody else could have this.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:20:21.189 Somebody else could do it. Running an organization that size is not that appealing, but I still think it could work. Yeah, for sure.
Stuart McLeod 00:20:28.255 That sort of comes back to a question that we've been grappling with lately, which is what is work? What is work-life balance? And then this so called Great Resignation, which we've been thinking about a bit-- and here's a theory for you, Kenji. You're smarter than me. What do you think about this? I reckon it's not the Great Resignation, but the great shuffle, right? The great reshuffle. It's like people like to work. People draw purpose and work for purpose. And the reason people are resigning is because their values and the purpose that they desire from their work is not being fulfilled by the organization that they are currently were located with.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:21:08.929 That's right.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:09.499 And all they're doing is searching for organizations where those values and flexibility of location and work environment are more suitable.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:21:18.350 That's right.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:19.160 Well, I'll let you riff on that for a bit, but I think organizations like yours can only benefit from the so called Great Resignation.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:21:28.240 I hope so. But I think you're absolutely right, Stuart. I do think it's a reshuffling. It feels like the pendulum of power has swung back to employees.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:37.889 Yeah, definitely.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:21:38.969 And I say this as you and I both being founders, CEOs, running businesses. It's probably moved away from you and I, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's that balance of power shifts, and currently, it's shifting over and may stay for quite some time with the employees. And I think it pushes us in a good way to say, "Well, how are we going to make this a good experience? What are we going to do to make this a better organization?" Because I do think people are getting choice. I think particularly in the accounting field, where there's already been a very, very low unemployment rate, people have lots of choice about where they go. And I think that you're right. I think if they're not feeling fulfilled or compensated well enough, those two things are going to get people to move in a heartbeat. And I think especially accountants are going to find plenty of opportunities to work elsewhere. I tell my team all the time-- it is not lost on me. It keeps me I won't say up all night, but it keeps me up, of like, I get the responsibility that I and our executive team have, because you all are in the power. You're in the power seat right now, and we've got to do a hell of a job making sure that we're attractive. And I don't know. Is that the same way you look at it with Karbon? Are you facing the same things that we're facing kind of in the accounting profession, too?
Stuart McLeod 00:22:52.178 Yeah, definitely. There's certainly inflationary pressure on wages. I mean, some areas, sales, engineering, finance-related, have gone up probably somewhere between 10 and 40 percent this year in terms of wages in some roles. Some other areas, success seem a little bit easier to fulfill--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:23:14.570 I agree.
Stuart McLeod 00:23:15.010 --for whatever reason. I don't know. But I appreciate the word power. But yeah, the pendulum of influence, the pendulum of sort of the aspect of - I don't know - perspective, influence?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:23:26.772 I think influence is the word. When you said that, I agree with you. I think power is maybe a little overstated, not the correct, right [crosstalk]--
Stuart McLeod 00:23:32.559 Sort of a bit old school like that, isn't it [laughter]?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:23:34.843 I think influence is probably better. The influence probably lies a bit more. There's more opportunities, more opportunities just honestly available, I think, especially in-- I think we're talking about roles that are knowledge-based roles. If you're a knowledge worker, which pretty much if you're an engineer or you're in the accounting profession, I believe by definition you should be a knowledge-based worker. Those you're going to have plenty of opportunities out there. So yeah, I think it's not a Great Resignation. We're certainly having to be-- we're seeing people who leave going to great opportunities when they leave us, and it's tough on us.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:13.074 It happens.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:24:13.354 It happens. It happens. But I think also as an employer, we're trying to say, "Can we still be grateful that we were a step in your progression, that we helped you along that road?" And so I think as much as we hate to lose people, when they're going to somewhere that's a great step, we have to be thankful for the role that we played in that. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:30.340 And the more people that our organizations have, the more just the pure statistics mean that we're either not suitable anymore or they've had a change of aspiration or whatever. There's all kinds of reasons, but there's ways of doing that and going about that, and there's ways not to, right [laughter]?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:24:49.544 Correct. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:51.630 And we're the same. I mean, we've been very lucky. We hired enormous number of-- pretty much doubled in staff for the last four months or so and hired some great people. I mean, maybe they just don't tell me. But the feedback that I get is pretty solid at the moment. So we're very lucky [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:25:10.751 It is always kind of that, "What are they telling you and I?" [crosstalk]--
Stuart McLeod 00:25:14.295 Yeah, exactly.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:25:14.935 [Can I go?]--
Stuart McLeod 00:25:15.880 Fucking email me anonymously if you're having a shitty experience.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:25:18.727 Anonymously. Or yeah, can I listen in on this meeting that you're having? Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:22.589 Yeah, that's right. Just read me. Tell me. I don't care. I'd prefer transparency. Not even anonymously. Tell me, or tell your staff. You tell your managers, tell your team.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:25:31.962 Just give us data points.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:32.863 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we're not for everybody. We get it. I mean, we're not fully remote like you, generally speaking. Some people are, but particularly our engineering groups are sort of two to four days in the office, just mainly this year in particular. And probably flexibility might improve over the long-term as we just get so much bigger. But this year, we've just got so much software to build as quickly as we possibly can with the best quality we can possibly deliver that you just need those-- well, you don't need it. The success is more likely with those parameters of having to deliver if you can communicate in person with your teammates and your leaders and your architects. And that's the decision that we took. But that's not for everybody. And that's okay.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:26:27.592 It's not.
Stuart McLeod 00:26:27.742 But please don't join us if you're expecting to live and work in Sydney and not come into the office. That's all [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:26:33.883 Right. Right. How has that been? I mean, have you found, especially with the focus on being a software company-- you're no longer in the Bay Area, right? which was just always considered-- that's just the spot.
Stuart McLeod 00:26:45.817 It's just what you had to do. Yeah.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:26:46.996 Has it been more beneficial or more challenging for you building up an engineering team now that you're outside the Bay Area?
Stuart McLeod 00:26:54.063 Yeah. To be honest, the years that we were in the Bay Area, we didn't have the money really to be able to build a Bay Area company. I mean, we were competing against companies that raised series A 80 million bucks. And that was four or five years ago. That's like, fucking hell. We still haven't raised 80 million [laughter]. And so from that sense for us, for our company that is selling to people like you, Kenji-- and there's 198-ish thousand accounting firms in the world that we can sell to. And that number has not changed a single bit in the last 10 years [laughter], right? I mean, I was talking about this on another podcast. I do have to go and look it up. I'm being lazy. But my guess is that the number of people that retire in accounting is exactly the same as the number of people that come into the industry. So our [inaudible] is not increasing, right? So what that means is we can't raise as much money as, say-- if you're doing machine learning and AI and crypto company and stick that on a deck, you can go and raise unlimited money at the moment, right? But that's not us. It's not us. That's fine. We're very comfortable in our own skin.
Stuart McLeod 00:28:12.437 And the point of all that is I think we do have a competitive advantage now because we raise money here in the US. We're a US-based company. We are predominantly building software in Sydney, which given the unfortunate situation where somebody decided to invade another country, the currency is taking a pounding. And we can hire-- and we've raised some good money recently from some great investors. Dave Yuan at TideMark. We love you. And Joe, sorry, if Joe listens. We can go and find good people, pay good money. And we have that advantage versus Australian companies. I mean, we get poached-- people get asked by-- [Lassie?] and Mike and Scott, if you can leave our employees alone, that'd be appreciated. Go and fucking buy energy companies and stuff like that.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:29:05.339 And leave us alone, damn it.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:06.345 Exactly. Leave us alone [laughter]. And Google and some of these are sort of finding Australia appealing at the moment, which is fantastic for the industry. I mean, I think COVID sort of lockout stalled the economy for two years. So there you go. There's a long answer to a short question. It's like--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:29:24.281 No, it's--
Stuart McLeod 00:29:24.532 I think we're better off--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:29:25.061 I found it fascinating.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:25.146 --outside of the Bay. Absolutely. Definitely 100% better off outside of the Bay Area. Yep, for us. For us.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:29:31.815 Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that makes good sense. I know I would be-- again, I'm not an engineer. I can't code. But if someone said, "Okay, I got a chance to live in Tahoe near the ski slopes somewhere and kind of get out of some of the craziness--" I mean, some of that stuff that happens in the Bay Area, too, just gets to be absurd, right?
Stuart McLeod 00:29:49.343 Yeah. Yes.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:29:49.752 So getting a chance to step out of there and be somewhere unique while you're still actually not far away, so I love it. I think it's great. But, interesting.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:56.280 And California. I mean, fuck, we're not the only ones that left California. We were just pre-COVID, right? But like the taxes and the traffic and the bullshit that goes on is just extraordinary, right?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:07.831 It is extraordinary. I've been out there a couple of times recently, and I get out there and I'm like, "God, this is just a beautiful part of the world." And then you kind of look at--
Stuart McLeod 00:30:18.570 And then you step over shit and needles [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:20.358 [laughter] shit and needles. And you've got to peer through some of those-- oh, the taxes. Oh, the taxes [and?] all the-- yeah. So it happens. It's the way it works sometimes.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:29.241 It does. It is. It's unfortunate.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:31.549 It is.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:32.390 But I'm sure San Francisco will have a renaissance. They'll come back from Miami one day and [laughter]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:39.255 [laughter] they'll all leave Austin, Texas, at some point. Like--
Stuart McLeod 00:30:42.682 Yeah. They'll all leave Austin--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:43.344 --"I'm not for this."
Stuart McLeod 00:30:44.834 --because they would have turned it into a little San Francisco [crosstalk].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:46.822 Exactly. That's what our team members in Austin keeps saying, is like, "Guys, get the Californians out of here."
Stuart McLeod 00:30:51.477 Oh, my God. Those Californians.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:30:52.757 Get them out of here. Get them out of here, so.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:54.836 I mean, not that I want to destroy a wonderful conversation with politics, but there was some articles recently around in America-- but this doesn't happen in Australia as much because the polarization isn't as significant. And I think that that's because of compulsory voting to some degree. But there was some articles saying - and it makes complete sense, right - people are following their red and blue affiliation to their physical location. And that's another interesting kind of take on remote work and where you want to live and your work-life balance and all of that. It's kind of interesting, I think.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:31:32.226 I think so, too. I saw that same thing. And when I saw that article, or at least that discussion, it made sense to me. I mean, I thought, "Oh, I can see this absolutely happening and playing out," because with the level of mobility that people have, people are starting to choose and decide, "Well, wait a minute. Where do I want to be?"
Stuart McLeod 00:31:52.049 "Where is my tribe?"
Kenji Kuramoto 00:31:52.660 "Where's my tribe?" Right? And they say, "Well, okay. Well, I'm going to move to Texas, or I'm going to move to Vermont," or wherever it might be, "because--
Stuart McLeod 00:32:00.415 Wherever it might be.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:32:00.742 --that's my tribe." And so I think that's-- I guess in certain ways, as someone who really values independence and freedom, I like that people are getting more of a choice. I'm not crazy about the potential for more polarization. I don't know that that's--
Stuart McLeod 00:32:15.230 Yeah. That's right. That's right [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:32:17.179 If it creates more of these weird edge cases of where regardless of what side you're on, you're on those way far outside edge cases, to me, that's just being a pain in the ass and distracting. And the rest of the world lives somewhere kind of in the middle. So I hope it doesn't create that. But it could. It certainly could.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:34.737 It could.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:32:35.107 It has a propensity to do so.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:37.207 And online was sort of the first sort of instances of living in your own bubble, right? And maybe that physical trend, the real world trend, is a version of that. I'm going to go and live where it's all blue or live where it's all red and people are going to tell me exactly what I want to hear every day [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:32:54.549 Right. Right. Let me get in my own little echo chamber, because that makes me happy.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:57.627 Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:32:58.696 And yeah, you're right. We're seeing that in terms of where people kind of go and find their communities online, for sure. Let me go and just kind of get that cycle going. And people may say, "Well, I kind of want that from my neighbors living around me. Or when I run into someone in the coffee shop, guess what? I want to be around those types." It's interesting. Again, I'm a little split on if that's going to be a good or bad thing [laughter].
Stuart McLeod 00:33:21.126 Yeah, no. Well, yeah, time will tell. I think the discourse has increased to such ridiculous levels. We're avoiding politics deliberately because the-- and not that you and I would, but the risk of debilitating into personal differences didn't exist 10 years ago, right? Like you could have a perfectly reasonable conversation and agree to disagree. Now it's like it's topics you avoid in case you disagree, which--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:33:51.696 It is.
Stuart McLeod 00:33:52.365 I don't know. It's--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:33:52.764 It is. I think that's something that I know has bothered me for sure. We've seen this. We've seen this inside of our own company before. I think it's something that probably also in my early part of the career, I think that it was easier to have a civilized conversation, but also there was probably a bit more of a thought process around, "Hey, those are not work conversations. Those are not things you have inside work." And I think in the workplace now, what I'm finding is I have to be open to those conversations happening inside the walls or the virtual walls of Acuity. And it's not appropriate for me to say, "Sorry, that's not something we could-- this is work. That's separate." It shouldn't be that. But I think what we've talked about as a team, when we've had our challenges with this-- certainly in organizations of two people, let alone the size that you and I have, there are going to be differences of opinion. And we've said that-- I've learned this through some other good leaders who helped me through. We had some tricky-- we had some fairly difficult, actually, conversations. Was that the way to handle some of these were to see if we can facilitate conversations internally, where the place to have these-- I tell my kids, right? I've got kids who are teenagers, right? And so I've said, "Listen. Social media, that's a whole nother ball of wax. That's not a place where you have a conversation with someone. That's a place where you disclaim outrage. You market yourself, whatever you're doing. That's not a conversation." And I've heard people say before, "The best conversations typically happen with the fewest number of people." So how do you have small, intimate conversations? Because I think someone who's far left or far right in a smaller conversation have a better opportunity to actually have some form of understanding. Now, if we choose to have that in a public forum, in social media, that's just going to be a disaster. That's going to be a shit show.
Stuart McLeod 00:35:47.335 Yeah. Guaranteed.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:35:48.554 So how do we take those things and say, "All right. Well, let's create some civil discourse here of difference of opinions are totally okay." Those are some things that I wasn't exactly-- I didn't realize that I, as a business owner, was going to have to find a way to navigate. We had to navigate--
Stuart McLeod 00:36:05.394 Mediate and facilitate.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:06.825 Yeah. I had to do that. I kept thinking to myself-- honestly, Stuart, I was like, "Can we just get back to helping clients with PPP loans?"
Stuart McLeod 00:36:13.030 Yeah, yeah. Can we do some financial--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:15.052 Can we just do some work?
Stuart McLeod 00:36:15.700 --reports for charges [laughter]?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:16.970 And that was my a little bit naïve way of just like thinking, "Let's just do that." And realizing that, nope, we've got to go and allow some of this discourse to happen. We have to do it in a civil way. That's what drives people.
Stuart McLeod 00:36:28.248 A respectful way.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:29.268 A respectful way.
Stuart McLeod 00:36:29.740 That's the difference, right? That's what's gone missing around the world, particularly in America, but.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:36.233 Yeah, absolutely.
Stuart McLeod 00:36:37.462 And yeah, I remember going through those workplace trainings when we first arrived here in the States 10 years ago, where they come and they say, "Well, you can't talk about politics. You can't talk about sex. You can't talk about religion."
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:50.607 Religion. All the things. Yep.
Stuart McLeod 00:36:52.036 And you can't even talk about sports these days because there's so much opinion. So what's fucking left [laughter]?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:36:57.336 What's left? How do you have a relationship with someone? I can't talk about debits and credits all damn day. Are you kidding me? Good God. It's just too much. So I'm glad that I think that is changing. I'm glad that I think the younger generation is saying, "Hey, we have to have these here." But I think there's still a hell of a long way to go for how do you do it, to your point, Stuart, respectfully? And I think--
Stuart McLeod 00:37:20.734 And hopefully intelligently, too.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:37:22.737 I hope so. I've certainly seen some things that I really scratched my head on, like, "What in the hell is going on there?" But yeah, things you just don't expect, you're going to have to-- we're busy trying to serve customers, trying to build great teams. And the next thing you know, you're mediating a political discussion [laughter].
Stuart McLeod 00:37:39.143 [Fucking?]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:37:39.363 Like, "How the hell did I get here?"
Stuart McLeod 00:37:42.761 Rob DeSantis is the next Jesus [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:37:45.350 [laughter] like, "Okay. Let's--"
Stuart McLeod 00:37:48.449 We've got some work to do here [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:37:49.830 It's like, "Okay. We're going to spin that up as a separate Slack channel." No, let's please not do that.
Stuart McLeod 00:37:54.216 Yeah, let's not.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:37:54.626 Let's not.
Stuart McLeod 00:37:54.907 Let's not [add?]. Well, and then Slack-- okay, I don't want to bag Slack. But the short asynchronous written communication has increased the discourse, as well, in the workplace.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:38:06.266 100%. 100%.
Stuart McLeod 00:38:07.698 Tone is gone and sarcasm might be missed. And we've got a whole-- I don't know how you do it. We've got a whole Slack etiquette - you can steal it if you haven't got one - which has helped somewhat. But my God, you can get into arguments before you even realize. And then the day is gone, right?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:38:26.135 Completely gone. I'd love to see that, by the way, because I think that's a place to where so many companies and firms have moved into these places to where there is a lot more asynchronous communication. It's happening in much more succinct manner. And so, yeah, it misses a ton of nuance. I can't think of how many times-- as powerful as some of these communication tools are, how many times we've had to go back and correct things and unwind a problem just because context was lost in terms of just doing the quick firing off a message. And so, yeah, I'd love to see that. I may steal some of your Slack etiquette.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:03.898 No, please. Please, please.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:04.776 Or at least put it on--
Stuart McLeod 00:39:04.966 [It's?]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:05.837 --my own wall. Before I'm firing somebody, I go, "Oh, wait, Stuart said not to do this."
Stuart McLeod 00:39:11.911 Well, what's the good one? Oh, turn off the fucking noise. That ping just drives me nuts.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:16.184 Oh, yeah. Notifications off.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:18.254 That's the first one. Yeah. Gone.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:19.968 Notifications. Get those things off. Excellent.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:22.307 I'll get lucky and [seen?] to publish this.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:24.713 Yeah, that'd be a great one.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:26.125 What's another one? After work hours etiquette. Workflows. Photos and profiles. 150 people. Set up your photos so people know who you're talking to. And we introduced a sarcasm emoji so there's absolutely no doubt. If you're being sarcastic, fucking make sure you use it, right?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:45.478 Be explicit about your sarcasm.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:47.480 Be explicit about your sarcasm. Yes.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:49.432 I love that. Oh, my God. That's fantastic. I got to use that.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:53.860 I'll send it over to you. And yeah, I'll get the guys [crosstalk]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:39:57.069 Yeah, I know certain of our team members - and they would know who I'm talking about - should probably use that emoji for every single Slack they send.
Stuart McLeod 00:40:02.762 [laughter] yeah. Matthew May, we're coming--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:40:05.275 Matthew May--
Stuart McLeod 00:40:05.504 --for you.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:40:06.693 --[we're coming?]-- and my God, would it save me a lot of time picking up pieces. Oh, we're doing it.
Stuart McLeod 00:40:11.062 Yeah. Oh, Jesus, what's he done now [laughter]?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:40:13.171 Everything. Always.
Stuart McLeod 00:40:14.682 Everything. Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. I love it. I'll send it to you. And so what's the next in the-- I know you. I bet you've got a 5 year plan or a 10 year plan going on. What's next off the list in your 5 year plan?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:40:26.560 We do. The big thing we're really focused on here on 2022, I would say-- I was looking at our strategic initiatives. And they're incredibly boring externally. Okay. Because we've had all these fun announcements. Okay, here's an acquisition. There's an acquisition. And you know this. I mean, those are great ones externally, where everyone goes, "Oh, that's so wonderful and amazing and so cool." So it's almost like a capital raise, right, where you just get a ton of noise around that. And behind the scenes--
Stuart McLeod 00:40:54.413 Yeah, that's the milestone. It's not the milestone.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:40:56.187 Oh, it's not. Behind the scenes, you're going, "Oh shit. Here comes all the work." Like, "Here comes all the work." So in fact, 2022 is really going to look like-- what's exciting for us is all the things we're building internally to make sure that we scale correctly, because when we've got 150 people and hundreds if almost thousand clients we're serving every month, it's just noisy. And so we're working on--
Stuart McLeod 00:41:21.942 Yeah. [Do?]--
Kenji Kuramoto 00:41:22.091 --a number of initiatives to make communication more streamlined, some RPAs, I guess all the buzzwords, right? I can't quite be a Chad with all the no-code, but a lot of things behind the scenes, getting our systems talking, to where at the end of the day, we want to make Acuity easier to use by all of our team members. We want people to say, "Hey, I'm an accountant. I chose to work here because the way that you've built processes and systems, gosh, make my life a hell of a lot easier." And so a lot of what we're doing there is doing some absorption and integration of these acquisitions and just getting some things kind of built internally. So we'll do that.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:41:59.798 We are looking at-- I think there's been some firms who've been really also smart with coming up with some different interesting practice lines. I think looking at what I think folks like GrowthLab have done, a few others out there, around FP&A functions I think are kind of interesting. So we're kind of looking at that. We've been inspired by them and some others to kind of maybe take a look at an FP&A function that would be kind of supportive of our outsourced CFO practice. That's something we're going to tinker with later in the year. But yeah, otherwise most of the things we're doing, for me are incredibly exciting because it should make life easier for all the team members, but probably externally seem relatively benign compared to a few of the things that we've done in more recent years. The one thing I am looking forward to that I'll say this year that I'm hoping is coming soon is we've submitted to be a certified B Corporation, which we're pretty excited about.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:53.759 Well, there's a whole-- yeah. There's a whole nother podcast right there.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:42:57.431 We've been in the queue for that now, waiting for, gosh, about eight months. It's a long queue. I think it's becoming popular, but we've been told that we're around the corner from kind of getting our final bit done. And I certainly hope it will happen this year. I'm hoping it's sooner than later. That will be fun to announce. And when we do, just talk about why we did that and what it means to us and some things. But yeah, to your point, that's a bigger conversation. That's probably one of the more public milestones that we hope we have that is meaningful for us at Acuity. I think it's a little bit of a differentiator, but it's taking a little longer than we thought.
Stuart McLeod 00:43:28.678 Yeah. Yeah, no, it does. It does. Well, let's touch on that briefly. What were the reasons that you thought that that was important?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:43:37.410 I think there were two reasons for me. One is I'll just say personally, as a founder, what's exciting is you kind of get to run a company the way you want to. Much of what happens in the B Corp world-- and I think about some of the initial founders of that, the companies like a Patagonia or a Ben and Jerry's, these are great for profit businesses that have great whether it's sustainability, community mindedness. You can be a great business. You can also be a good citizen, right? And I think that those have been always great examples for us. So I've always personally felt very aligned toward, "Hey, great. I want to do well financially, but I also want to make positive impacts in my community and elsewhere." So it had a good personal alignment. The second one is is I look at Acuity-- this is our 18th year. I wear the-- and I think all of us do as the founders. I have to wear the responsibility of culture more than anybody does. And I worry about that in the sense of, "Well, what if I get hit by the bus?" Or what if in a couple of years, after 18 years, I hit 19 or 20 years and I'm just like, "You know what time? Time for something new." How do I make sure we have a framework, an infrastructure in place to make sure that things like culture continue?" And if it's all resting on my shoulder-- I think we were always taught as we're scaling the business, that if too many things are dependent on the founder or one particular team member, it's at risk. And so we're trying to decrease that a little bit by saying-- we think that by following the B Corp methodology - it's got someone coming in and auditing, essentially, you on that every couple of years - it's a forcing framework that will help make sure that we are treating employees the right way, our community, certainly environmentally, that we are thinking about other stakeholders beyond just the owners. I think that's going to be something that'll help me at some point if, again, hopefully it's not hit by the bus. Hopefully it's, "Kenji pulls a lottery ticket someday and just does [nothing to?]--
Stuart McLeod 00:45:35.140 Well, no, no.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:45:35.587 --[crosstalk] ski boat.
Stuart McLeod 00:45:36.745 Dies trying to do the final Warren Miller's son film off an 80 foot cliff. The landing was too soft, and he buried himself in something.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:45:44.798 That's how I want to go right there, Stuart. So if that ever happens, then I want to make sure at least there's a framework for where the-- we can file something and still have that good culture intact. And we saw the B Corp process as one that we could continue to follow beyond just Kenji and Matthew would help us. And I think I'd say-- I'll add one third one in there is I think it's an amazing group of companies and founders who are part of that movement, who I just want to be in community with. The next political issue that pops up, the next issue around world conflict, because there's going to be-- I mean, shit. You guys talked about conflicts aren't slowing down. They're only going to happen more. And we got to figure out how to deal with them in our own businesses. And I want to be around some other leaders who are forward-thinking to where how do we address these in our own businesses? So I'm looking forward to being part of that community.
Stuart McLeod 00:46:35.081 No, no, it's certainly something that I've thought about quite a bit. And we haven't started the process yet. What we have done, though, is last year we offset our emissions plus some, and we're doing the same this year. And obviously, as we grow, that becomes quite a process and quite an experience. So we're a net zero company.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:46:57.714 Oh, that's fantastic.
Stuart McLeod 00:46:58.719 And that's probably a little step along the way.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:47:02.661 It is a little-- but I think it's a meaningful one. It signals to the team who we're about. I think you start earlier on those things, and, boy, it's a little easier to kind of make it a sustainable part of the process for everyone from team members to shareholders. And they understand who Karbon is, right? And so I think that's awesome. Hats off to you guys.
Stuart McLeod 00:47:20.920 Cheers, mate. And speaking of culture, you've got a podcast that you guys do, as well?
Kenji Kuramoto 00:47:25.680 We do.
Stuart McLeod 00:47:26.816 One of my favorite topics that I shouldn't-- well, people that know me would just call bullshit if I was denying it. So you talk and have a drink at the same time. So I think that's fantastic. It's a bit early today for us to do that here, anyway. You can.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:47:39.577 It is a little early. Depending on the circumstance, though, you can always--
Stuart McLeod 00:47:44.991 Sneak in a 9:00 o'clock Baileys [laughter].
Kenji Kuramoto 00:47:46.804 That's right. That's right. Sometimes you just have to warm things up a little bit. Yeah, we do. I appreciate you mentioning that, Stuart. Matthew and I have been doing our little podcast in a video on YouTube called Drink While You Think. We've actually kind of said it's really more of a happy hour conversation at the end of every week where I will say that we're really damn transparent about the really strange things we're doing at Acuity, being a little bit of a strange firm. And so if you ever want to hear the things that are going on week by week, we're pretty open kimono telling about everything that's happening: the good, the bad, the ugly. And we also bring on a lot of other firm owners who are friends of ours just to talk. And we felt like that was a good way-- we knew that we needed to find other channels of communication. And Matthew and I looked at each other and said, "Well, we hate writing blog posts. We've already learned that." Like, "What else could we do to make this sustainable?" And we said, well, "We love happy hour. We love talking to our friends. We love talking about the really weird, bizarre things we do at Acuity. So how about we just--"
Stuart McLeod 00:48:47.196 Let's just record it.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:48:48.065 "Let's just record it and have a drink." And that's what it is. And now, 100 episodes later, here we are still screwing around doing that. So feel free to check it out.
Stuart McLeod 00:48:56.440 Fantastic. All right. Well, Kenji, I was so looking forward to this all week and this has been fantastic. Miss you guys a lot. And hopefully we can get some skiing in before the end of the year or at least over the next couple of years, at the very least.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:49:12.659 That would be wonderful, my friend. It's always good to see you. I would love to see on the slopes or, gosh, anywhere would be a treat. So let's make sure we do that here.
Stuart McLeod 00:49:20.360 That'd be fantastic. Kenji, thanks so much for your time. Well done.
Kenji Kuramoto 00:49:23.691 Thanks. Cheers.
Stuart McLeod 00:49:24.624 Cheers. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting, fun, you'll find lots more to help you run a successful accounting firm at Karbon Magazine. There are more than 1,000 free resources there, including guides, articles, templates, webinars, and more. Just head to carbonhq.com/resources. I'd also love it if you could leave us a five star review wherever you listen to this podcast. Let us know you liked this session. We'll be able to keep bringing you more guests for you to learn from and get inspired by. Thanks for joining and see you on the next episode of the Accounting Leaders Podcast.