The Modern CPA Success Show

The episode contains some concrete, actionable insights - particularly around the 60-person headcount decision, budgeted hours pricing model, and specific churn metrics (18-20% vs. 6-7%) - but is padded with extended personal anecdotes (RV living, holidays, board games) that consume roughly 15+ minutes with minimal substance. The core business lessons are repetitive and moderately useful rather than novel.

“We were a hundred and twenty people plus in 2022. It's easy to grow when you don't focus on the right things. What we thought we were focusing on was our employee experience and our customer experience. We neglected the thing that keeps the whole engine running, which is profit.”

“At 60 people, we were able to have enough middle management for there to be opportunities. We had enough people to help people take a lot of vacation and a lot of time off.”

The 'stability over scale' positioning is contrarian to typical growth-at-all-costs narratives, which is valuable. However, the execution relies on well-trodden frameworks (EOS, budgeted hours are not new), and the broader themes - hiring and retention challenges, tech skepticism, maintaining culture - are common in practitioner circles. The specific 60-person magic number is data-driven but not particularly novel conceptually.

“We realized that over 60, between 60 and 80 people, our sales engine would just have to be crazy to deal with the amount of churn that's happening in the industry right now.”

“I think every single firm owner feels a little bit of FOMO with this stuff. They probably should be doing five or six other things before investing in a whole bunch of tech and like AI hype and all this kind of stuff.”

Chad Davis is a genuine practitioner - he runs two operational businesses (an accounting firm and Automation Town), has 13+ years of direct experience, and speaks from real P&L accountability rather than theory. His willingness to reverse the VCFO strategy and cut services to focus on profitability demonstrates actual operator seasoning. However, he lacks the scale or recognition of top-tier guests (no $100M+ exit, no major institutional affiliation), placing him solidly mid-tier practitioner.

“When we did that, it was incredible because now all the CPAs that are working there know exactly what the role is.”

“I remember my business partner Josh and I, who is, Jody, you've met Josh. When we were together in 2022, it was actually coming off of that Expensify event over in Italy. We were going through some really rough stuff.”

The episode includes concrete numbers (60 headcount, $35k average client value Canadian, 1.1-1.2M minimum client size US, 2-3 voluntary turnover per year, 18-20% churn, 10 hours dev time on sales tool) and named examples (Xero, Carbon, Google Sheets). However, many claims lack supporting detail: the 'magic number' analysis is stated but not rigorously modeled; Automation Town outcomes are vague; and broader claims (AI hype, pricing shifts) lack specifics. Roughly 60% substantiation.

“Our dashboard says that on average, we're about thirty five thousand a year for the controllership and under, which is, bill pay, bookkeeping, controllership, some tax.”

“About one point one to one point two million US is the minimum customer we'd work with.”

Jody and Adam ask reasonable follow-up questions (churn breakdown, client sizing, merger lessons, offshore work) and occasionally push back (Adam's skepticism on AI agents competing with their value prop). However, the hosts often allow rambling tangents to extend unchallenged, particularly Chad's personal stories and vague answers on Automation Town's future. The tone is collegial but lacks incisiveness; hosts rarely demand specificity or press on contradictions (e.g., why stability is suddenly working when scale wasn't, despite the same core issues remaining).

“Adam Hale: How's that been on the turnover side both on the customer side, I guess.? Have you noticed higher retention there and then the same way with the team or what's been there?”

“Adam Hale: Do you have any concerns with where your value proposition is in the space? Like right now, I know you're saying you've got a little bit of a competitive advantage because those CFOs are outsourcing to you right now. But with this emerging tech, does it seem like it's going direct to consumer kind of a thing?”