AI: Accounting Intelligence | From CPA to EV Founder

Guzel Lumpkin shares her remarkable journey from a small Russian village to becoming a CPA, CFO, and now CEO of EVLUV, an electric vehicle charging startup. From her early days as a CPA at Deloitte to navigating IPOs for tech giants, Guzel shares valuable lessons on leveraging financial acumen in the startup world. Her current venture into the EV charging space highlights the importance of understanding both numbers and market needs in entrepreneurship.

• (00:00) - Welcome to AI: Accounting Intelligence
• (01:35) - Guzel's Career Journey
• (05:38) - Early Career and Big Four Experience
• (11:23) - Impact of AI and Technology at Big 4
• (17:55) - Transition to Tech Startups
• (21:21) - IPO Experiences and Lessons
• (26:39) - Implementing Technology and AI in Accounting
• (29:31) - Challenges and Innovations in Accounting Automation
• (33:51) - The Journey From CFO to Entrepreneurship
• (35:16) - The Birth of EVLuv
• (40:32) - Applying Lesson's You Learned at Other Companies Now to Your Own
• (45:40) - EVLUV's Pricing and Business Model
• (51:10) - Advice for Aspiring CPA and CFO Entrepreneurs
• (53:08) - Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Learn more about Trullion
https://trullion.com

Learn more about EVLUV
https://evluv.io

Connect with Guzel Lumpkin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/guzel-lumpkin-ceo

Connect with Isaac Heller
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacheller

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Creators & Guests

Host

Isaac Heller

CEO @ Trullion | Modern Accounting Technology

Guest

Guzel Lumpkin

CEO and Co-Founder of EVLUV

What is AI: Accounting Intelligence ?

Join Isaac Heller as he meets with leaders in the accounting technology space to discuss how AI and automation are transforming the accounting industry, how technology has evolved, and how AI can help accountants work more efficiently. You’ll also learn how accountants can embrace innovations to improve their careers and lives and get forward-thinking perspectives on where the accounting profession is headed when it comes to new technologies and AI!

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Isaac Heller: Hey, everyone, this is Isaac. I'm CEO at Trillian. And today on AI, accounting, intelligence. We'll be talking with real people about real things related to AI and the impact on the accounting industry. Stay tuned. Hey, how's everyone doing? It's Isaac here with accounting intelligence. I'm really excited today because, you know, today I have someone [00:00:30] who I would consider a friend and a colleague and someone who's had an amazing career and a pretty exciting story. So Gizelle Lumpkin is CEO and co-founder at Easy Love and has a lot more to share about her background in CPA and CFO. But Gizelle, it's great to have you today. How are you doing?

Guzel Lumpkin: Isaac. Delighted to be here. Excited for our conversation today. Hey everyone. My former CPA colleagues are tuning in today. Is super excited for this [00:01:00] conversation today.

Isaac Heller: Awesome. And and gazelle is is coming from at you from sunny San Diego. I don't know if you guys can feel the energy whether you're on video or audio, but you know, we're going to do our best to to have a good time today. I think what's unique about this conversation today is gazelle has the distinction of being, you know, having a CPA background, being a CFO and now being an entrepreneur, which I think is really cool [00:01:30] and really unique, in addition to all the other amazing, you know, personal and professional qualities. But before we jump into all that, I mean, you know, give us a little bit of background, uh, gazelle and kind of your journey up until today, especially those those little moments of accounting love along the way.

Guzel Lumpkin: Oh, yeah. For sure. It's funny, my story, I would say, is very twisted and turned, but I've always been mathematically analytically minded and always wanted to be in finance or accounting, [00:02:00] but my journey didn't quite start it that way. You know, I ended up, uh, starting my college career in linguistics and then only went after I moved to the United States is when I was like, okay, now I'm going to pursue my dream and my love for finance and accounting. And, um, ended up getting my degree and getting recruited by Deloitte. And that's where now it's like graduating from college and in two months, [00:02:30] hustling and getting the CPA license, you know, test done. And then starting my crazy career at Deloitte, that was super exciting. That was, I think, very, very rewarding part of my career where I learned a ton. It felt like I was getting three years of knowledge in one year. It was just so fun. And then, um, that's where I also, uh, kind of got my bug for software and entrepreneurship [00:03:00] and, um, love for just the tech startup space as well, because some of my clients were in tech startup space and I, you know, got into I was hired to build accounting and finance team for a software called Mindbody back in the day.

Guzel Lumpkin: We're super tiny still and got to do IPO there. And then um, well after IPO, I realized I actually enjoy that [00:03:30] private, super fast growing, fun hair and fire type of environment. And then I joined Procore, uh, another super exciting vertical SaaS startup, and got to do the same thing where just building accounting teams and systems and processes and getting to IPO, uh, with lots of different fun in between. And so yeah, it's been, uh, quite a crazy career. And then, um, [00:04:00] again, felt like I really enjoyed super early tech startup stages and, um, got did got to do some CFO gigs at some tech startups early on. And then I even did medical device company. And so that was a very interesting ride. And uh, realized about a year and a half ago, two years ago now that I want to build something of my [00:04:30] own, I want to solve a problem. And so here I am. I'm sure we'll get to talk about that a little more later.

Isaac Heller: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. And and so just I mean, this is this is like such a fun, you know, arc and and story uh, Deloitte you know, top top big for mind body which you know. You know, it's kind of yoga. Wellness studio management software. Correct? Did I get that right? [00:05:00] Right. Yeah.

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah, yeah.

Isaac Heller: When everyone's starting to become a Yogi. Right? You're living on the West Coast? Um, Procore. A construction software company that just started to grow like crazy. It was it had every elements of the bootstrapped, and then the venture backed and then the IPO kind of SaaS story. And then a CFO, you mentioned medical device. I think when we talked, it was around the time of Covid, right. Which which I mean, these are these [00:05:30] are, you know, all the hot places and now you're in, um, EV as an EV entrepreneur, which is another really, really hot space. Maybe like just thinking back to, um, Deloitte and kind of that starting point. And then you mentioned something about coming to the United States. So it sounds like that was part of the the path, the opportunity, I guess. Did you did you love accounting and finance so much that you knew that you wanted to go to Deloitte? [00:06:00] Or did you see Deloitte in the big four as good entry points into into a professional career? So that's number one. Like maybe it's a little bit of both. And then do you think it's still like that today. You know because a lot of people they're like I'll go to Deloitte work there for a few years and then I'll jump. Um, maybe a little bit of what brought you to the big four. And then if you think it's changed for some of the other people graduating these days.

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah. What a what a great [00:06:30] question. So funny story. Funny story. Um, I think I was like 12 years old. I was getting interviewed at my school, which was a teeny little school in a village in the middle of nowhere in Russia. Right. And I think I was like a student of the year or whatever. They were doing an interview and my mom has a recording of it. And so she reminded me about this because I long forgot about it. But the interviewer is [00:07:00] asking me, hey, who do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you see yourself? And funny enough, I answered, I want to work in tall buildings and wear business suits. I have no idea what sparked that answer and what was my dream at that time? I was just apparently obsessed with wearing a business suit and being in very tall buildings and and where I was growing up, there were no tall buildings. I mean, [00:07:30] the tallest building was 2 or 3 stories. Right.

Guzel Lumpkin: And so I have.

Isaac Heller: To interrupt for one second. Tell us the name of, if you will, can you tell us the name of the town or the city where you grew up?

Guzel Lumpkin: You said, oh my God.

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah. You want to look it up? Uh, it was Ulyanovsk region and the village was called Acumatica.It's like,

Isaac Heller: Wow, I just I just wanted a name.So we can we can feel it. Not a lot of tall buildings. Uh, honestly, hard [00:08:00] to pronounce for me. The the region and the city. So we'll stick with small town in Russia. But I love it. Okay, but but we got to get to tall buildings and suits somehow. So.

Guzel Lumpkin: Exactly.

Guzel Lumpkin: So, uh, Luxo had it that I ended up in United States, and, um, I decided to pursue my passion for finance because my my dad had a different plan for me. He wanted me to be an interpreter because that's how he thought I [00:08:30] will fulfill my dream of traveling the world. And so I was studying linguistics for a hot minute in Russia, and then I came here to practice my English, which was nonexistent. And, uh, so I ended up going to college in Moorpark first to get some of my accounting college classes and stuff, and then went to Cal State Northridge. Cal State Northridge had and still has an excellent accounting program, just one [00:09:00] of the best. And we were there was a bit of a sigh and I was there to I was a president of Alpha Psi actually, too. And we were organizing this get to know you type of events with Big Four. So e BDO, Deloitte, PwC, everybody under the radar that we could bring to campus. And you know, um, I fell in love with Deloitte um, for a good combination [00:09:30] of the reputation and culture. Right. Like every firm, as you know, has a little bit of a different reputation for culture and the stigma. Right? Like PwC is super strong and KPMG is more of a party and Deloitte and the UIA kind of in the middle. And so to me, I think one of the things that I was told by my mentor, when you go to Big Four, it doesn't matter which four but when you go to one of those where you feel home [00:10:00] and you kind of get an MBA while getting paid, right? You get such an intense education, such a kind of compact, cramped, like, uh, some people look at it, they're like, oh, don't divide my salary by number of hours of work because it will be miserable.

Guzel Lumpkin: Right. But you look at it as like you get what you put in. Right? And so yes, we went I actually at least [00:10:30] went into Deloitte with eyes wide open, knowing that I'm going to work my butt off, but I'm also going to learn a ton. And so, um, I think when at that time Deloitte was looked at or Big Four in general was look like, if you want to have a career in accounting or finance, it's going to serve as that springboard for your career. And I think it did for me for sure. Today, [00:11:00] I think generations are different, right? I think what you're seeing today is people value more work life balance. And when I say work life balance, it's more of a life side of it than the work side of it. The generation today, and I think a lot has changed since when I was at Deloitte versus today. And I think we're going to talk a lot about what really drove that change is AI and technology. [00:11:30] We're back in the day, the the work that we didn't like so much that didn't actually contribute to our development and growth and excitement is a lot of busy Easy work that technology has solved. Today that AI has solved today. Right. And so I hope I actually would be curious if you know, firsthand or just talking and working with Deloitte more if number of hours billed by associates [00:12:00] and seniors and managers have reduced because so much of the audit work can be now handled by technology and AI.

Isaac Heller: It's a it's a great question. I'll I'll take it. I'll take that question. You know, I mean, first just a few things. You know, you mentioned that a mentor talked to you. So I think that's always good if we have time to unpack that. But like finding great mentors along the way, I love, like [00:12:30] learning that you were originally going to do linguistics and actually be an interpreter, because I always say that accounting is the language of finance. So in certain ways, you know, you are an interpreter. It's just a lot more with with numbers than with with the linguistics. And also I just like before I, before we talk about the eye for a second of, you know kind of the big four and where it fits within career development. It does feel like a a really nice time where [00:13:00] there was a lot of people in the world and, you know, maybe they were in Russia or India or Belarus or really anywhere South Africa and a way to those tall buildings. And that career path was through the big four in some of these things, whether I I'm not talking about the American dream, I'm just talking about like kind of the global dream is, is these would be paths to kind of come into the the big business world and the big city. And so it does like make me reflect a little [00:13:30] bit on a time where I felt like that was a common thing and wondering, now we don't have to get into politics or anything like that, but like, if that's still going to be a common path where there's going to be a lot of opportunities for people to come up in this, in this global environment.

Isaac Heller: But let's for now, let's just assume it is. There's a lot of people, you know, working hard out there to get into the the big four and other major companies in finance. I think as you talk about AI and finance [00:14:00] and if I, if I sense in your tone and to be honest, a lot of people who are both CFOs and within the big four, there is definitely a concern and at least a question about how is technology and AI going to impact our job. And, you know, we're talking about it in the context of career growth, right? So there are less CPAs than there were yesterday. There are less there's less prestige [00:14:30] associated with a lot of jobs. A lot of times that's important. You know, you're a senior in college when I graduated I'm going to Deloitte. That's really cool. You know, you got you got stamped. I don't know what it's like today I because I'm not in college but that that prestige is super and super important. So I and and also technology is having a massive impact right. I artificial intelligence guess what the big four is high [00:15:00] human intelligence. That's what you're selling. Really smart, uh, insightful people that will help companies and their clients, you know, find results or new creative strategies, whatever that is. Um, I think it's coming. I think it's it's here and it's coming. And it doesn't mean that, you know, people go away or there's this crazy change. I just think it people need to step back and kind of reframe and [00:15:30] just revisit what the principle of accounting services is, right? Which is which is, you know, delivering good services for your clients.

Isaac Heller: And if you think about it in terms of billable hours, or you think about it in terms of tasks or I don't know, like the classic thing is document reading. You know, we at Trulia deal with this all the time. In theory, someone could give you, you know, 500 documents and you can charge them an hour, a document or two hours, a document to read [00:16:00] those. But in reality, you could also just automate those with I probably charge the same price and deliver the value. So, you know, that's how I feel. I feel like AI is here and it's coming, but that doesn't mean that the model has to change. Like the the challenges and the prestige that is worn off exists because a lot of the technology has not been adopted quickly. So I just assume that, uh, I assume that the sooner [00:16:30] that companies like the Big Four can turn to that technology again, not internally built, working with best of breed third parties. There may be some near-term revenue cannibalization of the of the billable business model. But yeah, the people that are, you know, grew up in Russia or whatever it is and are coming to the big Four to be in the tall buildings, they're going to enjoy their job more. They're not going to think of it as big work. And, uh, when you were coming up, I would guess the fulfillment that you got [00:17:00] right is going to be more than the fulfillment that someone gets today, because relative to the tools that were available when you started, I don't want to say back then or pick a year, but.

Guzel Lumpkin: Like it was back then, it was.

Isaac Heller: Yeah, like, okay, you were using Excel. Well, Excel was fresh and new and it was the best thing out there. And maybe now it's not the best thing out there, but it's still important. So, um. Yeah, I mean, gazelle, I feel, you know, I feel a little bit nostalgic with you, even though, you know, we're pretty young and cool and hip. Um, just [00:17:30] seeing, you know, how fast technology changes over the years. Um, so That's amazing. Well, good. Okay, so so we talked a little bit about Deloitte and that rise. And we're going to unpack a little bit more about AI and Eve love. But just I'm getting curious, um, you know like mind body that pivot from Big Four tall tower to a startup. Right? A yoga startup? Like how? I mean, it wasn't a yoga studio. It was a tech [00:18:00] company. I'm sure you got some benefit helping. You can tell about those benefits, but, like, was it really, really hard to adjust to the tech startup world coming from the big four? And what were some of the ways that you navigated it?

Guzel Lumpkin: Amazing question. And I think it also talks about kind of I can talk about what was fulfilling and what was not fulfilling at Deloitte. Right. Like as an early stage professional [00:18:30] in accounting, what your responsibilities were. And a lot of times, this whole concept of ticking and tying. I don't know if you've ever heard the concept, but it's like, uh, what is it?

Isaac Heller: Tick and tie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guzel Lumpkin: Right.

Guzel Lumpkin: And tick and tying is like reconciling one document to another or many other documents. And I think it was probably the least mind like the, the most mind numbing task and least enjoyable [00:19:00] task that a staff could do. But it was so necessary for quality of reporting and accuracy, right? Things that would get a CEO in trouble, CFO in trouble. Like, you know, that's what keeps them up at night. And so the auditors will a lot of times dragged into kind of mind numbing, mundane work of just reconciling one document to another, making sure there was no typos, [00:19:30] there were no errors, no calculation issues is where I think with technology that can be easily automated and there is a lot more confidence in the numbers, right? We used to like our partners at the time who were much older than me would say, oh, you guys got it easy. You have Excel. We used to have those long, uh, yellow papers with the rulers that we were doing everything on, you know. But, um, [00:20:00] but moving and transitioning to from wearing that auditor hat to moving into the business. Um, I still remember, um, my CFO at the time, Brett White, uh, incredible leader and just a very, very smart man and also kind of came up through Big Four and moved into CFO roles. One of the things he told me in the day one, he's like, gazelle, you got to [00:20:30] hang your auditor hat on the other side of the door. And here you. You are here to solve business problems, right? Not here to tell me what's wrong. If you see a problem, solve the problem. Right. And I think that was one of the most challenging, the scariest, but also the most fulfilling lesson. Right? And experience. Right where you go from. Okay, I'm just here [00:21:00] to tell you what happened. Uh, having more intelligent conversation and how you can bring your knowledge of accounting into solving business problems.

Isaac Heller: I love it, and then I, I and again, I, you know, hearing about Brett and you mentioned mentor. It's just, you know, it's I'm picturing all these these great leaders over the years. Um, Procore you you guys went through an IPO, right? You're [00:21:30] the senior controller VP of accounting, it looks like. What's it like to go through an IPO and be in charge of the accounting world for that that size company? First of all, what was the market cap? Approximately when Procore went public. And yeah, what was that experience like? 9 billion.

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah.

Guzel Lumpkin: So 9 to 10 billion.I think.

Isaac Heller: You guys did good.

Isaac Heller: You guys did. You guys did great. [00:22:00]

Guzel Lumpkin: It was. Yeah, it was definitely I mean, uh, the the times were perfect, right. To, uh, for an IPO at that time. But did the IPO at Mind Body too. And the whole mind body, the whole IPO process is it's an event, right? It's a liquidity event. It's one transaction. It's it kind of gives you a badge of honor that, hey, you've grown up, you've got your stuff together. You have your people, [00:22:30] systems, processes, hopefully. But it is it is a very significant. But it's a liquidity event right. And so it's the question is more what leads up to it, and how do you get to that level of maturity where you can, um, provide insights not only to the business but also to your outside external investors? That is highly regulated to and want to make sure that, you know, it's not like, oh, you know, when you're private, [00:23:00] hey, if we can't report on this today, we'll report on next week. You know, there's not a lot of penalty, but when you're a public company, things are a lot more stringent. And there is a lot more on the line. And there are a lot of more consequences if you report something wrong, like as a, as a CEO of a startup yourself. Right. Like, you know, you still have responsibility to report to your investors. But If next quarter you find something that was [00:23:30] wrong in the previous quarter, chances are you're not going to have big consequences. You'll be like, okay, here's what happened. Here's the reconciliation. No harm, no foul. It was an honest mistake. Whatever. Right. Like and you move on. Where if that happens in the public environment, consequences could be quite severe, right? Where you could lose investor confidence, the stock market could overreact to something that may not have that big of a impact on the business in general. But [00:24:00] that confidence that you've built up can be within the investor community can be easily lost. And so there's a lot more stake. And so you got to make sure that you have. I always call it people systems, processes really dialed in before you graduate into public markets.

Isaac Heller: Got it. Okay. That sounds awesome. And I'm sure it's something that, you know, people will aspire to go through that event. You know, it's funny you talk about kind [00:24:30] of the the investor updates and the external emails, you know, whereas whereas on the public side, you're filing an S-1 and they're going to 10-K and 10-q and everything like that. I mean, I'm just reflecting here at Trulia, right? We're we're at series B between series B and C. And you know, it's fun. You you know, you you were with these companies when they went from series C to IPO. And at each step you know for me it was like seed A B. And the questions you get [00:25:00] change the questions that seed are like okay what's the vision. What's the pitch. You know it's like it's like on a deck right. And they're probably not even a number on the deck except Tam, you know, the addressable market size. And then a they start to ask about are not revenue IRR. Right. Annual recurring revenue. Series B what was your IRR last year versus this year right now getting into series C, they start asking these really strange questions like what's your cash [00:25:30] burn? Right. What's your EBITDA? And then and then all of a sudden as a founder, you're like, wait, what? This is new. And so I'm just I'm just drawing that straight line from the seed stage to where you were at at procore and mindbody, which is really, hey, I've got to have all my financials, right? And all my ratios and all my stocks and all my memos and all my documentation.

Isaac Heller: And, you know, it's kind of fun to to see the journey. And I guess for, for people out there listening, [00:26:00] um, the, the value of accounting and the scale of accounting changes throughout a company. Right. And I think earlier it can be a lot more strategic and then later it can be a lot more compliance oriented. Now you need both compliance and strategy, I think all the time. But sometimes it's just the nature of how much revenue you guys have. How many, like you said, external investors, like how many people want to put money into your company [00:26:30] at any given moment? Well, better be it better be pretty buttoned up. So it was nice. It's nice to kind of, you know, hear about that, that IPO trajectory. Well, I you know, speaking of early stage, I got to get to EV love. I just I want to I one more question. Right. So you're going into these companies you're obviously more tech savvy than the average former auditor, if I may say no offense to anyone out there, but what's your kind of what's [00:27:00] your philosophy to implementing technology and maybe even AI on your accounting teams? And how do you think that's different than a lot of your peers? Do you think you're ahead of the curve about the same? Um, you know, just kind of tell us a little bit of your playbook and leave some tech implementing tech. And I even.

Guzel Lumpkin: Um, I think because I was so kind of not burned, but annoyed, I would say, by manual work, [00:27:30] even at Deloitte. Right? I was always a tech forward professional, right when I moved into Mindbody and procore. So, uh, implementing systems, always my first answer to any scale solution. Right to scale problem. Right. Like, hey, we want to scale. There's two schools of thought there. Some people say, hey, we have a problem. We've got to hire somebody. And to me it would be [00:28:00] like, hey, how can what system can we implement or improve on or even make sure it's operating as designed? And then what? How we can change the processes to solve this problem. And so I loved always understanding like not just hey, here's a tried and tested types of solutions right. You know, ERP, maybe like NetSuite. I'm a big fan of NetSuite. I've always implemented NetSuite at every company. You know, it did the job and it it could scale really [00:28:30] well. Netsuite can scale from super early stage all the way to supporting a public company, right? But for other auxiliary type of solutions, I always looked for best in breed for problem to solve, right? So, uh, be that hey, you know, for the longest time, interestingly enough, uh, financial models like FMA models lived in Excel because people were comfortable [00:29:00] with Excel. They love. Usually FMA analysts just love Excel. They love their shortcuts. They know how it works. There is no mystery behind it. And so I think that one is usually the hardest to transition into a tool and get everybody's buy in. Right? Um, because frankly, FEMA tools can get really complicated, too. And then you need to have somebody just to support that tool. So that was always my challenge.

Guzel Lumpkin: I would be honest [00:29:30] there. But anything that relates to payments, collections, any sort of reconciliations, any other process automations, uh, I was always on the lookout for what is the best and out there, you know, whether whether it's a commissions or travel system or rev rec solution, you know, it's like where my team members spend the most time, like, you know, capitalization [00:30:00] of software or leases and lease Accountings can get very hairy. And I have a very fun story, uh, from Mind Body Days. Actually, what got me to mindbody was a lease agreement. Uh, if you would hear that story. Um, but, yeah, I think to me I always look at automating things. Um, I think now I see more and more how accounting teams [00:30:30] can run on fewer people with really good systems that integrated with each other. Right. Like instead of having it used to have accounts payable specialist, accounts receivable specialist or a whole team of them, a staff accountant and a senior accountant. I talked to a lot of startups. Now, you know, series B and C stage, even where they have like one person handling all of that and all their systems are just, you know, operating [00:31:00] as a well-oiled machine. You know, they get your apps done, are done, reconciliation is done. You're, you know, you got to just do a review and more or less close the books if you have fairly simple business model. But back in the day, I had to have a room full of an army of accounts receivable specialists, and then a team of AP specialists and the staff accountant. And and now I think you can actually build a business with, [00:31:30] you know, a handful of people.

Isaac Heller: Yeah.

Isaac Heller: It's it's amazing. I mean, first of all, I got it at some point, I got to talk to that person who has a one person finance team. We at trillion we have you know, we have about, I would say 80 employees and we have three in the finance team. They're great right. They're a fantastic team. And and it's kind of it. Teams are getting leaner. But it's like you need certain domain experts for each of those areas right. Like [00:32:00] really strong fpna. Um, really strong revenue if you get into complex revenue. Right. And maybe a couple of people on that team and stuff, you're definitely right that teams are getting leaner, but it's it's almost like These. These leaders are getting really good at picking the software and managing the software. And then I also I've seen a lot of this trend. I mean, you mentioned fpna tools. A lot of people with a CPA Deloitte auditor background, they don't start talking about fpna [00:32:30] tools. Within a few years. They may talk about their ERP and their close management. But I think that's really powerful to be able to expand beyond accounting into some of the forward looking stuff, which is obviously why you you ended up a CFO as well. Now, with that lease story, we'll have to save that for another day. But I'm very, very curious. Um, you know, I don't because I don't think we ever got to work together, which is unfortunate.

Isaac Heller: You were already off into your CFO and entrepreneurial [00:33:00] world by that time. But of course, we at truly and have resurrected leases. If you know, if anyone out there is is listening and and you know, we were talking about this kind of stuff because I remember we did a CFO roundtable in Los Angeles, and this was like a year, year and a half ago. We were talking about kind of AI in the future. I think we did it with Ashoka at Deloitte as well, and Greycroft, the venture capital firm, and Brant and I [00:33:30] remember we had a we had a coffee next door. It was a it was a really nice, uh, la outdoor cafe. And you were telling me about your startup, your potential startup that you were thinking about. And I was just I just remember being really, really excited, kind of pivoting between the I of the CFO discussion and the startup discussion. So I have to I have to ask and I'm sure people will be very curious, uh, what, you know, like, how did you get into EV love and I [00:34:00] guess tell tell us the story. A little bit of that story that you shared that day of getting into now going from CFO and entrepreneur.

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah.

Guzel Lumpkin: Uh, I definitely remember I was it was a great, great meeting and a great it was a great conversation with you. And I definitely really appreciated all the wisdom that you shared, because that's I think mentor work keeps coming up, right, is that you have to find at every stage of your [00:34:30] career, the mentors that can help you and elevate you in like light, a path that you're trying to take. And I think for me, that conversation was very pivotal, right? I you definitely encouraged me. And that's encouragement is super, super valuable in that time. Like where you're like, oh my God, what am I doing? Am I crazy for doing this? Am I like, like I might biting off on something that I won't be able to?

Isaac Heller: We're all crazy a little bit.

Guzel Lumpkin: You got to be [00:35:00] crazy.On the journey because it's a difficult journey. It's not for everyone. It's like you've said. I think at that time, it's like it's a very lonely, A lonely job. Oftentimes, you'll find yourself by yourself, so you gotta build your network and support. But to tell a story about how I came up with Eve love and my why behind it is, um, I think I would always aspire to run [00:35:30] a business and own a business and build really healthy, fun, strong company. And after being in so many startups and investing in some startups or advising startups, uh, and consulting startups to, you know, I've seen a lot of kind of do's and don'ts. And so I think it gave me that confidence to like, hey, I can do this because I've seen enough and I've done enough. Um, but [00:36:00] the idea came actually to me at a pro course, uh, campus in Procore had this beautiful campus on the bluffs of Carpentaria and back in 2017 was one of the first companies I've known installed electric vehicle charging on campus. And that's when I bought my first electric vehicle. And first, I would say a few months. It was wonderful because, you know, finding parking at the charging station was easier than finding [00:36:30] regular parking on that campus. Uh, but very quickly, I think EV bugs started catching up to the rest of the employees, and we started having a ten, 20, 30, 40 EVs on campus.

Guzel Lumpkin: And getting access to the chargers became completely unpredictable. And, you know, sometimes I would be stuck at work at six, seven, 8 p.m. trying to get some charges to get to work and get home because, um, it just, you know, all day [00:37:00] we had this round robin things, you know, somebody would come in in the morning, plug their car, and then you kind of have to keep running and picking or looking at wait lists, and it was a hot mess. It was like slack, Google Sheets, what have you. And so at that time, it was like, somebody has to solve this, you know, this, this problem of getting access to highly utilized, uh, asset or highly desirable. It wasn't utilized, by the way, a highly desirable asset has [00:37:30] been solved before. And it's like, you know, restaurant business. Open table. Solve this problem a long time ago. He's like, hey, how do I get people butts in seats at high peak demand times efficiently and effectively without consumer having to wait for it, and therefore the restaurant owner to maximize utilization of their chairs in the tables, you know. And that's how the idea was born, is like, I want to build open table for [00:38:00] electric vehicle charging because as the number of EV is going to increase and we already see that for the past many years, access to the chargers will become more and more dire and, um, constrained.

Guzel Lumpkin: And I think it was, uh, yeah, 2022. I actually got, um, I looked at the app and I wouldn't tell you which app it was, but it said the stations [00:38:30] were available. In fact, it said three stations available. I had barely any battery left in my car. So I'm fully reliant on this app. And I show up and two chargers were broken and one just got swooped in right in front of me. I could see them pulling up, and I had no charge left to go and find or try my luck somewhere else. And so I actually got towed away. So I missed my meetings. I was, you know, my whole day kind of fell apart. I [00:39:00] was, you know, just very frustrated. And I started doing some research and I was like, okay, nobody has solved this problem yet. It's either that or you're going to go work for somebody else, you know? And so with a lot of encouragement and support from friends and mentors that I was like, you know, I can do this. And so, yeah, here we are, um, launching the product and ready to go.

Isaac Heller: Amazing, I love it. And so, so Evie love open [00:39:30] table for electric charging. You know, which it's it's it's kind of cool. Like, look, open table. If you show up at that restaurant and you don't have a seat, you're going to be really hungry, right? But actually, you could probably go next door down the street and eat. If you're charging station is in there, you may be stuck. Right. So we you know, we obviously have to figure this out. This is a big, big infrastructure problem that, you know, EV [00:40:00] vehicles, which we all want because it's better for the environment, right? It's better for everyone. Um, we have to figure out kind of this equation. So you're going and figuring this out. Now, how do you use those CFO or auditor early stage startup skills. I mean, what which of these skills are you applying as an entrepreneur now that you're kind of like, oh, I know that from, you know, Mindbody [00:40:30] or Deloitte, right?

Guzel Lumpkin: Yeah.

Guzel Lumpkin: Um, I think different days, different skills for sure apply. But even, let's say starting the company, thinking about what type of company I want, you know, what is the my business model? I think that's the question number one. Right. Like, I think my experience with various startups and understanding, um, the tech space, the venture capital, the fundraising side of things. Right. What investors are [00:41:00] looking for, what good business looks like, what type of KPIs it needs to have short term, long term. I think that knowledge and the base really helped me, um, to take a measured risk. I mean, entrepreneurship is a risk, right? Undeniably. And to me, I had to make sense in my head how crazy of a risk that is. And like, how, you know, where are the risks, really. And so in [00:41:30] order for this to work, what needs to be true. And then you kind of test it, right, and test your assumptions and stuff. And so I think that was definitely a critical knowledge because I see I've seen a lot of startups crash and burn because they had an idea and they were so fixated on idea that they've never tested, like, oh, how am I going to make money? You know, where the money is going to come from, who's going to pay for it, [00:42:00] And what would be the unit economics? Am I going to be forever losing money or there will be some point of profitability, etc.? And so I think, uh, that part is very critical, right, in making sure that, hey, you're not just chasing an idea for an idea, but you can say, hey, I can build a viable, profitable business down the road.

Guzel Lumpkin: And this is how I think me being exposed, like at Mindbody, [00:42:30] uh, there was no GC up until like six months before IPO, so I wore a legal person hat. I was the the person who is working with the all the law firms and managing internal things. That gave me exposure to a lot of things, be that, you know, cap table, how to form an entity. Because we were opening up new entities all over the world. And, uh, what is S-corp C-corp Corp. and why one is [00:43:00] more important than the other. And you know how to kind of set up a company and all that. I think that was definitely something that helped me a lot. And I think knowing a little bit about every function in the company, by virtue of being involved in the holistic picture of the company at different stages, I think that helped me a lot to like, you know, finding I think you and I talked about how do you find, hire and [00:43:30] manage resources offshore or onshore? How do you make that, you know, decision where to hire? And so I think that was definitely something that, um, I had a skill and experience with already.

Isaac Heller: That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, just, you know, now that we've kind of gone through it, you think about it. I mean, you know, Deloitte is a services company with a billable model, right? Um, and high value on the brand. I mean, [00:44:00] that is a that is a brand big, big brand play mind body probably two sided. Right. You've got studios, you've got users. Right. You've got a software component, I'm sure you got you got to go and maybe adjacencies. If you could do yoga today could you do gyms tomorrow. I don't know what those conversations were like. Procore is really cool because it's it's kind of set up as a feels like a construction marketplace where you've got kind of multiple SaaS [00:44:30] products on a singular platform, probably different models around, you know, usage or, you know, milestones and all that stuff. So I think I can feel some appreciation and seeing all the different models that I think people I think, you know, in the, in the accounting role, um, I think account accounting people, at least internally at the corporations I've worked at, maybe underestimate Estimate the amount of exposure, um, you know, you're getting [00:45:00] because you're getting to see different business models, different, uh, pricing lines.

Isaac Heller: You mentioned legal. You're privy to a lot of interesting information. Believe me, the people, the the staff accountant knows a lot more than kind of the senior sales guy when it comes to to to data and stuff like that. And yeah, I mean, just reflecting on the truly a journey. So many of the things, whether it was a legal entity or a the proper jurisdiction, like if you don't get those things right at the beginning or at least you're thinking about them, [00:45:30] it can really, you know, mess you up along the way. So that's like one more question and then maybe we'll, we'll, we'll wrap it up with a, with a, with another one. Uh, you talked about um, pricing and kind of the business model and figuring out how to make money. Can you tell us a little bit about how you're thinking about that in terms of EV love? And if it's secret, you don't have to tell us, right.

Guzel Lumpkin: Um, I'll give you a quick kind of overview, but you can't. I [00:46:00] think at this stage you have to be open to many different opportunities. You can't be fixated on one model, but you have to explore viability and profitability of different models. Right. I think it's not a secret that anybody who wants to open up, you know, financial statements of existing, more established charging networks, the profitability is an issue, right? And I have a personal opinion about that, of course. But, um, again, to me, I feel like the [00:46:30] the one of the missions for EV love and why I'm building EV love is to, um, bring effortless EV charging for EV drivers while providing profitable business venture for businesses that host these chargers. Both sides have to happen and meet and be happy in order for EV adoption to take place, right? If [00:47:00] the host is not making money and if it's an unprofitable business, they're not going to install EV chargers. If there are no EV chargers, nobody's going to buy EVs, right? At the same time, EV drivers have to have effortless, seamless experience in order for them to keep coming back to this asset, to this charger, and therefore make it profitable if the asset is not being utilized. If the charger is not utilized, it's not going to be profitable, right? Like there is no ROI.

Guzel Lumpkin: And [00:47:30] I've talked to some of the networks and providers. They're like, oh yeah, we've installed this charger and we spent an unknown amount of money on it, and the payback is probably five, six years. Well, yeah. What's your utilization? Seven 8%. Right. Why is it. And so and I think the the answer is if the Drivers don't have great experience. They're not going to come back to that charger. And if it's not being utilized, it's just, uh, you know, [00:48:00] forgotten thing that's sitting there and costing you, you know, uh, money. But our model is how do we increase utilization by providing that effortless, seamless experience. And if our goal is to help the both the drivers and the hosts to have, you know, effortless charging and profitable business, we want to take part in the profitability, right? Like, hey, our goals are aligned. We're not here [00:48:30] to drop as many chargers on your property as possible. We're here to bring a profitable business while still providing maximum access to your tenants, guests, employees, you know, what have you. Right. And residents. And so, uh, all that to say like there is a different models that we exploring that there could be a subscription based model, but there also could be a rev share model. Again, it depends what that particular [00:49:00] host, what problem they're trying to solve.

Isaac Heller: Its.Very very interesting. I love it. So we're going to we're going to end off on a question. I'm going to ask you a question in a second. But just just kind of digesting some of them. So some of this. So you've got to monetize the driver aspect and the, the host aspect. Right. That's super that's a super challenging play I mean open table you know obviously had to market to users [00:49:30] and to restaurants. Same with Yelp. Same with Airbnb and Uber. These marketplace models are really, really challenging. But when you crack it, you know you get the spoils. And in the same way, you know, Uber started in 1 or 2 cities and maybe launched in other cities. There are different ways to scale these business models. That doesn't mean it's it's not easy. But what I love, first of all, you're a gazelle. You are a EV owner, correct? You've got an EV car.

Guzel Lumpkin: You don't have gas cars. So [00:50:00] very, very.

Isaac Heller: Passionate about it. Which really, really helps. Um, you know what? I'll what I'll say about hearing, you know, you and just thinking about my experience, it is very possible that good ideas are very, very good ideas. But it's still early. And I think that's one of the hard parts about entrepreneurship, is we're so used to this, like instant reward kind of media blitz, uh, thing where everything [00:50:30] used to happen in weeks or months and now it happens in hours or seconds, information wise. And in reality, we're in the early days of EV, right? Like and you are on the cutting edge of a problem that absolutely needs to get solved. And there are tons of, you know everything from real estate company to logistics platforms, thinking about how to solve it. So I will just share. As a side note, that's a blessing and a curse of entrepreneurship is being. Being early means you have an [00:51:00] advantage, but being early means you got to really have that passion. So I think being being an actual EV user, right. And having also that confidence of a career is great. My last question is and then we'll wrap up, um, if you are a CPA or CFO or comptroller and you're thinking about starting a startup, right? What is one question you should ask yourself or answer like one thing you should ask yourself to to say like, [00:51:30] like, am I ready to do this right? What? Give us just a preview before someone, uh, takes that jump.

Guzel Lumpkin: Great question. And what you just said about the, I think what you call it patience being too early. And it's interesting because both mind, body and procore were too early to where they were. They had ten year overnight success. It took them ten years to get to that first milestone of any sort. Right. Because, [00:52:00] you know, there was no 5G network and construction sites until 2012, 2013. So and they started 2002. Um, so with that said, I think is related because you have to know your why. If you're a controller, your CFO or an accountant, uh, by default, um, very analytical, right? And very money savvy, but also could be frugal, right? [00:52:30] Like, hey, money is kind of important and I want to see profit right away. I want to see, you know, outcomes and pay and all of that. And without knowing your why like and having high conviction on your. Why? Why are you doing this right? How much passion and how much patience do you have to go through? Very high highs and very low lows. Um, without knowing your. Why? I think [00:53:00] it would be very hard for anybody like myself to start an entrepreneurship journey.

Isaac Heller: I love it. Well, good. Well, gazelle, I really appreciate the time. It's fun talking from a small village in Russia to CEO and co-founder of Eve. Love. Always know your why, right? That's. That's the key. Um, just great seeing you again. And everyone can, you know, listen online and I'm sure you can catch gazelle on LinkedIn and all the other sites to learn about what she's doing and what she's [00:53:30] building. So, uh, we'll see you next time.

Guzel Lumpkin: Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun. And like everyone.