The Importance of Personal Brand & Vibe Coding Tools with Eddy Gramajo

Hello, and welcome to the Big 4 Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Eddie Gramajo, the Head of Revenue Accounting at Velo CFO. And one of my favorite faces to see pop up on my TikTok feed. So thanks for joining me on the pod, Eddie. Yeah, thank you for thanks for inviting me. I'm excited to to chat and, you know, and get into kind of the work that we've been doing at Velo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure. Well, so before we kind of jump into like some of the Velo specific stuff, you know, I like to prime people for kind of what this episode's about. I find that, you know, I tend to talk about public accounting a lot and those kind of traditional routes or like, hey, you know, if the firm you started at isn't for you, there's all these other options. But, you know, I don't talk about industry opportunities as much. And that's somewhere that I find that you really shine. And, you know, we've had Mike Manalak on here before, who I think was like a great, you know, great model of like what you can get to if you follow the industry route and you're very savvy about it. And I think you embody that as well. And you've kind of gone back and forth as well from, you know, pure industry jobs to kind of outsourced type CFO roles. Yeah, I think, yeah, no, I know I talk on my TikTok, I talk a lot about like positioning yourself in a way that's like attractive to like the next role you're going to get. So, you know, my experience was, you know, I started at Deloitte and, you know, I obviously go into it thinking the same way that others go into it. It like sucks that you're working a ton of hours and you've got to like just grind it out. But I always think and I always say in my, you know, in my videos, like it's going to be worth it in the end because it brands you. You could be the worst accountant at Deloitte or PwC or EY, one of these big four firms. But on your resume, it's going to stick out to those hiring managers who are looking for that experience. So even though you're like the worst, if you're the worst accountant, which you probably are, like you're going to be able to like turn heads because it's on your resume. And I saw that early on in my career is like just because I worked at Deloitte opened me to some of the opportunities that I got in tech and kind of so on and so forth. And even today, I still get asked like, hey, did you work at one of the big four? Like even my peers, like it's always like this, like as you get further in your career, it's always like this, like, oh, this, uh, rite of passage, like you had to work at big four and, you know, everybody has and they have all the stories and all that. So yeah. And did you go in kind of again, like with the intention of like, okay, I'm going to do this for a while and then I'm going to head out into industry or did you sort of kind of go by feel you got like those really attractive offers and ended up jumping? So I mean, my, my career in accounting was super interesting because I went into college just, you know, nobody in my family went to college. So I was like, I just want to get to college, do what I need to do in college and get a job. And I was like, okay, well, the people that I know that get jobs are accountants. So I kind of fell into like, you know, the accounting space. I didn't get an internship at any of the big four, um, you know, in any years that I was in college, but, um, it frustrated me. Like I was working at a movie theater and what more, what frustrated me the most was like my college classmates were making like 27 an hour and I was making like $11 an hour, you know, sweeping popcorn and they were like traveling to different States and doing all this. And I was like, I was frustrated that I didn't get those opportunities, but, um, really turned it around my senior year, like went to those networking events, which are super critical to like, you know, meet the recruiters. And, um, I think I went to, I don't know, 50 events right before I like met somebody that we talked about baseball and I handed him my resume and, you know, he, he forwarded it to a recruiter and I ended up getting a, you know, an interview at, um, at Deloitte. And I also got like some other opportunities through like Alpha, you know, some, some, some of those organizations that are in accounting, like Alpha that host of convention every year. Um, they did like a case competition. I went and got a couple of interviews from like KPMG and RSM and, you know, so I ended up with a few offers by the end of it. Um, and my thinking was, you know, when I was making that decision, I did have a mid-tier firm offer me a job, but I was like, well, I want to brand myself. I know going forward, it's going to be kind of the long run is going to be better if I go to a big four. Um, and, but I thought I was going to be at Deloitte for longer. I think it, it just like happened that I actually got fired from Deloitte after a year and eight months. Oh, damn. Okay. Super interesting because I got promoted, you know, I got promoted to a second year. Um, I passed my CPA and then like three months after my promotion, I was, um, out the door. Um, so that was like a super, so I thought I was going to be longer, but, you know, kind of by force I was forced to kind of go look for other opportunities. Interesting. That's, uh, I don't think I had heard that part of the story actually, but like a lot of people right now, even just luck of the draw, right? Like you're at that kind of like critical point where you're almost a really interesting candidate because you have enough experience kind of in public and they find themselves laid off right now. Right. And so I think it's important for people to see like, what can, what can a bounce back from that look like? And again, you've, you know, to, to name drop a few places, like you've been to some tremendous places like, you know, you're at Pandora, uh, back when that probably saw more use than it does now, uh, calm, which was like super hot through the 2020s to 2022. Like that, you know, that's an awesome place to be, uh, you know, Dropbox. And now with the, with the advisory firm that you're working with, like you're, you know, you and I spoke a lot about this project that you're doing for the revenue accounting type of function at, uh, Cursor, which is, I mean, that's, that's insane, right? Especially in terms of marketability for yourself, but also like, it's really interesting to see what does it look like to build processes for a place that's scaling that fast. Right. And I think sometimes, and, and sometimes this is the reality, but sometimes like we think like, oh, you're going to go be like a internal accountant at this place. You're just kind of going to be doing month end close and all that. And what we spoke about was not really that there was a lot of process building and things like that. So can you maybe walk us through like what the scope of work looks like now that you're kind of at Velo? Yeah. Yeah. Um, definitely like, like you said, I think along the way you kind of get into, you know, as much as accounting has a bad brand, right? Like accounting, like you, you, you see all the, probably growing up, you see all the like a boring person or introvert or, you know, so I think it just gets a bad rap where like finance, it's like this, you have like the Wolf of Wall Street that, you know, glorifies like all the things that they do in finance. So I think the branding and accounting is, is not so great, but that's why like I try to do the videos because yeah, the work that I'm doing is like very interesting, right? Like I get into a place like Cursor and it's like, they don't have a controller, they don't have a revenue person. And it's like, we go in and really like build out their workflows. Like how are we even from as little as like, how are you going to invoice customers? Uh, how are you going to collect on payments to, you know, uh, some of the audit stuff, right? Like how are we going to recognize revenue for these things? Like how are we going to, what are, what does our methodology look like? Uh, so really helping them bridge the gap between like having nothing to hiring their internal team. So now they have their internal teams built out and they're building a little bit more robust workflows. But you imagine like the work that I'm doing is, is, uh, for me, it's very interesting because I'm entrepreneurial. So it's like building from zero to one is like, you know, something that I've always enjoyed. And then even just being at Cursor, they use Cursor to do some of the accounting. So seeing how AI is being deployed and on the accounting team now is like a really great experience because they're vibe coding, you know what it's like, I've never seen accountants vibe code. And now we're like vibe coding some of these like contract validation, like we have a contract validation app that we do that we built using Cursor and it does the contract validations for us for like, okay, we're, we're, we're responsible for provisioning. So we want to make sure the start and end dates are right, or, you know, whatever that those data points, but that is interesting because, um, the systems, the, you know, analysis over the numbers, like that's the type of work that I've been doing along the way in my career. Um, it's been a lot of systems focused, like implementing systems. And I think that's super interesting. And I don't think that gets talked enough about rather than like, oh, you have the closed cycle. Oh, it's boring. Oh, you're doing the same thing every day. So I think my, my work is a little more interesting nowadays and it has been in my career. Yeah. That, that's really cool to me. Like I've, you know, again, I'm a CPA built big for transparency in the era of no code apps. So I haven't really dabbled as much in the vibe coding type of stuff, although it's something I'm very eager to jump into, but as someone who's kind of in the trenches and seeing that, you know, from a workplace that encourages that type of, of process, like how attainable is it? Or like, what are the steps to follow if you want to become a team that is maybe building out all these tools internally to become, you know, ultra, ultra effective, like what's needed there? Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of, uh, there's a lot of front end work. There's a lot of intermediate steps to get there, right? Like you want to make sure that you have the right expectation of like, like for example, we did our deferred revenue waterfalls coming out of an output from Cursor now, but before it was a manual waterfall that we knew like the ins and outs of, we knew the nuances of, you know, okay, like we need to maybe adjust this revenue for this nonstandard contract. Right. Um, and so you, you got to understand the data, the inputs first and make sure that there's no garbage, right? Like a lot of the times when people try to deploy the AI, it's like garbage is already in and so you're going to get garbage out. Um, and so when you're, when you're building out and deploying an AI, I think what's important is to obviously understand the nuances that go along with the data, but also like have in your mind that you need to build good guardrails so that the data doesn't, you know, like, I don't know, for some reason, maybe there's bad data that comes in, right? Because that happens all the time, but you need to have like checks and validations to make sure that you can catch that ahead of time before it gets into your output. Right. So thinking about it from like a guardrails perspective and then, um, you know, just making sure that you're, you're putting on your, your auditing cap or your, you know, like being very skeptical, right. And making sure that when, when it does have an output, you go and look at it and you, and you, and you talk to it, right. You talk to the AI agent that's building it for you and you say, Hey, like this doesn't look right. Why is it, why does, why does this number look inflated? You know, can you give me some details and really like working with it to help it understand like what, what the output should be? Um, I think it's taken a little bit of collaboration between like, you know, um, a few parties, just like the people who know the data and then the people who are building and then just making sure that they have the right guardrails, um, and a documentation. I think documentation is going to be very important. Like, what is it doing? What is all the logic that it's producing? Um, and then, you know, how does it get ultimately get it to its output? So you really understand like how it's actually working. Um, and that's very different than like building out an Excel workbook, right? Like that's like an Excel workbook. We have this inherent trust as accountants, like, Oh, we know, like we can see the formula that's input in the cell and it ties to this formula. And I think it's like now as accountants, we're taking, it's really interesting to see the shift of like, you know, we're trusting this AI agent, but like, we need just, we need to take that, we need to be a little skeptical when we're like getting that output from the, from, from AI. Yeah. So you treat it almost like a junior staff, right? Like, Hey, is what you're giving me any good? And then as you continue to refine it, train it, teach it, you can start to build more and more trust where, okay, maybe now instead of checking every single output, I can audit it and then eventually, ideally, you know, okay, I'm actually just looking at the final outcome to, you know, check for sanity and, and to validate the overall outcome of this and make sure that that makes sense, which in, within the context of what I know about the business. Right. So I think that is really interesting. Um, and there was a post on Reddit, sorry, go ahead. Sorry. Well, I was just saying there was a post, there was a post on Reddit that was like a little bit, uh, interesting about that where someone said like, yeah, you know, we just reported on financials. And I realized that like the AI tooling we'd been using where we didn't have guardrails in place, like basically completely fabricated this thing that like my boss just presented to the board. So, I mean, to be done carefully, obviously the people at Cursor and who are serving Cursor, like have a, have a good understanding to avoid that. Right. But yeah. Yeah. And, and there's a lot of conversations still on like, there's some really good SaaS products still out there. Like SaaS, I don't think by any means is like dead because when you're vibe coding, like maybe, maybe you have the expertise enough to feel good about the output. Right. Like we have really great people and talented people who understand like what, what you need to do to get to a place where it's auditable. Right. And a place where it's going to get through like these reporting cycles. But in the case that you don't, there's still like a lot of SaaS products that do what you need to do. Um, and in the case of Cursor, right, like for the self-serve side, like we're not going to build an entire like gap compliant SOC 2 ready like platform that there's like, you know, a handful of those, those products out there, FinTech products that do it well. Right. Like we've, we implemented Hubify, which is a great product that does like Stripe revenue RevRec and Apple RevRec and Google RevRec. Right. And, and it's like, why would we not like, it's going to be more expensive in the long run to maintain a platform like that in, in a way that's compliant than it is to just like go and buy it. Right. And, and plug it in and it, it rely on that system to do it correctly. So it's kind of like, you have more conversations around, like, what are you going to build? What are you going to buy? And it, it's a little bit more, um, and that's a little bit better than like, okay, we're just going to put it into Excel or we're just going to, you know, do a manual entry to get it into our, into our books. But, um, so those conversations have shifted, but there is still some like benefit of having like SaaS out there. Um, and not just like AI. I think we're very far away from like it all being AI for sure. Okay. You, uh, you very much preempted kind of my next question. Yeah. I was going to ask like in the future, do you think this is like, um, we're subscribing to more AI powered tools or do you think that we're just kind of like building stuff in house? So it does seem like there's some, you know, cost benefit to each of those and, and it'll make sense to different people at different times. Right. To do one or the other, probably one and the other. Yeah. I saw a LinkedIn post recently. It was like somebody built an app cause they were like paying like $40 a month to like a subscription service that was translating articles online to audio. And this person like five coded their own app. And so they're only paying $20 a month for the, you know, chat to BT subscription or whatever subscription they use. Um, and they built an app and now it's cheaper, right? Like, so it's $20 a month cheaper and he built it on his own and he can get his articles to audio. Right. So I think from like, I think about it like that from like a company perspective, it's the same, you know, what I was saying is like, there is some like cost benefit analysis of like, yeah, what are you, what are you willing to like, uh, build? And then, you know, how much risk is there if you build it, right? Like it's a big risk question. Um, and I think in the future it's going to be more of, um, I've seen this, right? Like people have built in-house, like when I was a Dropbox, they had an in-house revenue tool, but it had its set of issues. Every month we ran into a bug and it would delay close. And you know, every month it was like something came up. And so if you're vibe coding a platform, sure you can build an in-house revenue tool, but there's still going to be bugs. They're still going to like, you're not going like AI might be better, right? More efficient at catching them and have like validations and checks and can maybe like triangulate what the problem is and solve it for you, uh, and troubleshoot it on your own. I could see a place where that happens, but I think like you still need a lot of the expertise. I feel, I still think like I'm long on accounting careers because it's, it's not like AI, like AI is going to take over the accountant, accountant, you're still going to need the expertise to make sure that it's like all good, like that the system is running properly, that there's no bugs, that it's, you know, kind of, um, ready to be audited, all that. I think I'm still long on like that accounting career. Um, but I don't know. I don't know if I, I believe that AI is going to take over like, like, uh, our entire function in the future, but who knows? I, you know, nobody knows. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just kind of like at the current state, like it's applying a lot of the same pressures that outsourcing is slash was realistically, right? Like I think it's within public accounting, for example, like I think it's really narrowing the pyramid. So once you have experience in your manager and this is reflected in the data we collect, like you're a super hot commodity because firms can do more. And so they need more people to like manage those client files and be the face of the project and be the advisor to it. But if you don't have those first like three, four years of experience under your belt, like a lot of people are finding it really hard in the labor market right now, because this has sort of like put into question the demand for some of the, you know, quote unquote grunt work that would have otherwise needed to be done by these junior people. And so one of the kind of theses I have is that like, I think some of the more junior roles are going to become more about being a training ground to get you to that point as early as humanly possible versus like actually outputting usable work, right, where like that might become a little bit less necessary. I still think it's a great opportunity, though. Like if you flip that on its head, right, like we have all these like old, older accountants who have never like, like we've all used Excel, like 90% of, like that is still 90% of my client, like maybe 99% of my clients that I've ever worked with, like I've been at so many different companies, I've consulted for so many different companies, they still use Excel, right? And so you have all these like accountants who have used Excel, and there's still like a lot of opportunity for these students who are coming up to go and like learn SQL, like they're all like very in tune with AI, like go, go and go do that, go build a project in AI, like go, go Vibecode, go learn SQL, maybe, you know, like, do, do something with that. Because it's going to make you more attractive to these like big four public company, big four public accounting firms as like, you're now the expert, right? Like we're going to lean on you at some point to be the expert in whatever, like you're going to be building with AI. Um, I think some of that came out with like, um, when I got fired from Deloitte, what I did is I, I took a, like a three month course online to learn SQL. Yeah. So I got fired and then I learned SQL and then I launched a financial literacy app. It wasn't anything like big, but like we launched this platform to like try to teach financial literacy. Um, and, and it didn't go anywhere, but I think on my resume, it stuck out to a lot of people. So like I was able to interview with the Ubers of the world, the Pandora's of the world, the, you know, I even interviewed with Dropbox back in the day. I didn't get accepted then, but you know, like, but, but on your resume, if you're doing those things and you're like exceeding the expected skills that we assume you're going to have as an accountant, I think it makes you such an attractive candidate for these roles that are get really interesting in like systems and AI. And that's where I tried, like on my videos, I try to tell the students that there's still a ton of opportunity accounting. You just need to start like kind of flipping it on its head and just say, okay, like, yes, you need to know Excel as like a prerequisite, but now you need to also learn like some SQL so you can stand out out of like the thousands of other people who are studying accounting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the advice on TikTok is pretty bad. And like the reason I really like having you on is like every time you have kind of a take about like, Hey, here's like what I really think you should be focusing on. Like, it's very reflective of like my actual experience where as soon as you have like, even just like such a small leg up, which is what I would say I had in terms of like understanding like data and like SQL and even just the ability to search using things that sit on top of like SQL's logic and things like that, you become like the designated person for that. And it's like, it's again, you actually like really went in and learned it fully. For me, I just kind of like got to a point where I was like, yeah, I mean, I get it. Like I, you know, I probably get it more than 90% of people, but like, I'm not like an expert at it. And that like really changed the trajectory of my time in industry where it was like, Oh, you're the guy, like you're going to bridge finance and data. You're going to be the person. Um, which, yeah, I think that that's like such an important take. One of the other things is like, you've been extremely transparent about compensation and, uh, what's feasible out there. I mean, everyone kind of looks at these, you know, Silicon Valley, uh, salaries and drools, and that kind of extends to the kind of accounting side of things. Um, one of the things that I think is like a bit of a challenge in industry is the dynamic of changing from being a profit center when you're at like an accounting firm or where you are now to becoming a cost center of the business. And I'm kind of curious, you know, you've been in a bunch of different places. Like how has that been in your experience? Like, have you found it much easier to justify increases in promotions, like within public accounting or, or again, like doing the work you're doing now with VLO or like, you know, is there some methodology a lot of people are missing for growth in industry? I think the, yeah, the, the, the interesting part about being, um, so like salary to me is, is, uh, interesting because for me, it's always been like, I'm in accounting early on. I was like, I'm in accounting to make money. Right. And so it's always been like, how do I, how do I do that the fastest? And then, you know, you have your layers of like at, at big four, you have your very, uh, very transparent stepladder of like, okay, first year, second year, senior manager, and those all happen within a certain timeframe. And if they don't happen in that timeframe, then you go and jump, um, into industry in industry. It's really interesting because it's not linear like that. It's not like a timeframe. Like I've been at places where somebody's bit was a senior revenue, revenue accountant for seven years. Right. And then they finally got promoted to manager. Um, or I've been somewhere where somebody gets promoted in six months. Um, and it's, and I think there, you have to balance like understanding the need for the business, um, and, and knowing like, okay, there, there is like, like you are, they increase your, your salary. It's going to increase the, the, the expense. Right. And, and that doesn't always align with like, uh, what they need on the team. Right. So like they, they can't just give promotions out because like you've been there for X amount of years. They, they need to have a business reason to do it. Um, and then, um, for, for being at below, I think what's interesting now at VLO is that there's a component of my compensation that is like, um, variable. Right. Like if I bring in. Cust the clients, uh, if I generate business, if I'm selling revenue engagements, there's a percentage and profit share that we have, right? Like I get a certain amount of money from those engagements on top of whatever they're paying me. Right. And so it becomes really interesting that I am driving revenue, right? Like I am going out and seeking business and I'm driving these engagements and I'm, you know, I'm working with the current clients to maybe like. Increase our scope of work. Right. Um, because that's, that's, uh, all going to be feed the bottom line at below. And for VLO, it's really interesting because you become like they can tie revenue to you as a person. And so the more revenue you're generating, the more willing they are to like give you more money and give you more, you know, title and all that. And, and that at a, like in industry, you're not that they can't tie revenue to you. And so it's like, you just really need a business reason. Like maybe somebody leaves that's above you and they need somebody to take over or, you know, they're expanding because they have a new product line and everything's growing. And now they have like all these types of systems that they need to implement. Right. So there's, there needs to be a system reason or a business reason for that. So, yeah, it becomes really interesting when you talk about like promotion in industry. Um, what I find though, is that you need to be very vocal about that because, and, and, and in my career, I was very vocal and there was times where people said no to me about promotion and it was like business reasons, right? There's no reason that we need to promote you, even though I'm doing all this great work, automating all these systems, like, you know, like saving all this time. Right. Um, I still was getting denied sometimes for like a promotion. And what I did instead was like looking, look outwards, right? Like I'm doing so much great, valuable work. Maybe there's some other company that could utilize me in a bigger capacity. Right. And so that's why you see like maybe every two years I shift jobs because I want to, like, I want to increase my experience in different areas. Right. But I also want to keep progressing in my career. I don't think that some, you know, for me personally staying somewhere for three or four years without any promotion was the most effective or efficient way to go about my career. And so just like, you know, being in tune with that and being in tune with what you really want and like being vocal. So at Pandora, I wrote. about everything that I was doing, and I was ready to show that to my director and be like, this is why I should get promoted, right? And then at, you know, at Calm, just being like, hey, this is, you know, these are the things that I'm doing. This is why I should be, you know, a senior manager. And then they were like, no, you know? And so I looked outward and I went to Dropbox and I was a senior manager, right? So I think, I think you gotta be vocal. And sometimes you just gotta, you know, know that like businesses, they're not loyal to you. They don't owe you anything. And you gotta just look out for yourself sometimes and kind of look, you know, look outward. Yeah, long-winded, long-winded question or long-winded answer, but that's my take on like promotions and whatnot. Well, that's like a thing I like to hear shared by someone who's like been successful on that front. Cause like, for me in the industry, that was like a huge thing of frustration because I don't think I like recognized it fully at the time, but like I have always been deeply entrepreneurial and I do all these random, like super out of scope things that would sometimes pan out into huge outcomes for the business. And I was like, hey, like I need this to be recognized. And I found it really annoying or like just difficult to do like the advocacy for yourself without that becoming oppositional almost. Whereas I like the tone of a lot of kind of what you share and like, you know, you make it somewhat impersonal, which makes it maybe a little bit less like emotionally charged in terms of like actually getting, you know, what you should get, you know, you should be looking out for yourself in that way. So I like having people to kind of share that about kind of the industry experience. Cause I think that's super important. And I have seen people who just like don't advocate for themselves and in public accounting context, that's actually like that kind of works out to a degree, but like in industry that like just truly will not fly. Cause you're just going to stay where you are forever unless you push the envelope really. So. Yeah. And it's going to be, and it's going to be like, you're going to, you're going to run into conflict. Like there's no, you know, like those conversations are never going to be easy because on being now on like the manager side and like who on this side, you have to make a business case to like your superiors. Right. And then the people above you. And so it's like, I can't always promise a promotion either from like a manager. So there's always going to be kind of, you know, friction because maybe you're not talking to the person who's making that decision, but you need to figure out a way to like really get that, that message across to whoever is making that decision. But yeah, I think those are uncomfortable situations and I've had very uncomfortable and unpleasant conversations with people who I'm talking to about getting promoted. But, you know, to your point, it's like taking that personal way and really just like thinking about it, like what's best for you and what's, you know, like what feels right for you. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think what you do and how you communicate that is a big service to the whole industry. I mean, one of the biggest theses behind Big Four Transparency was like, we want people to be able to advocate for themselves. Right. And so that's a big piece of it. So yeah, I really appreciate what you do in the industry, which kind of like, speaking of, I wanted to ask, like what drives, you know, you and your role to want to kind of create the content that you're creating online? Because, you know, it seems like professionally you're doing exceptionally well and the content that you're creating isn't necessarily, you know, gonna be feeding that. And so I'm just kind of curious, like what, you know, what's the motivator there? Yeah, I mean, I like to tell this story just cause it kind of outlines like how I've been like kind of in my life. Something that I like to do is try to pay forward the advice and the education that I've gotten. And so when I was in high school, there was a librarian who she, you know, there's a bunch of people, somebody donated a microwave to my family cause I didn't have anything, right. And somebody, you know, this librarian paid for my college application cause I couldn't afford it. And their messages were just like, hey, I know at some point in your life, like you're gonna be able to pay this forward. And so, you know, when you can do that and that sticks with me because of those people who like were just so generous in that moment. And for me, it wasn't always like paying it forward with like money, right? Like it wasn't always like, hey, I'm gonna give you 50 bucks to go pay for your college application. But it was more like along the way, there were so many mentors and people who like guided me to the right place, like head of department at my university. Like she helped me like fix my resume and shifted certain things so I could position myself to go and apply to big four. And, you know, that really changed the trajectory of my career, right? And really changed the way that I was thinking about my career in general. So now I'm in a position where I've learned so much because I've been through so much. I've gotten fired, I've been laid off. I've been, you know, like I've been, you know, promoted. I've also like been consulting and then, you know, in industry, so I have so much to give and so much I feel like I've seen. And I think that's my way of paying it forward. I just like doing that. I like mentoring. I like, you know, giving advice. And so that content aligns with the kind of what I, what I wanted to do. It started off as like giving advice to small businesses. And then, you know, eventually I was like, I got questions about from students who just like commented on my posts. And I started just giving advice to students, to students and like early career accountants. And it just became this thing. I love seeing like emails. I got an email the other day. It was like somebody that I coached was like, hey, I got a job, you know, like, thank you so much for pushing me to go to this convention. And, you know, I know I didn't get the job that I interviewed for there, but all that led to me to get a job at, you know, this mid-tier firm. And I love seeing that. That gives me like the stuff that I don't get at work, right? Like that gives me so much fulfillment of like that I'm giving good into the world and, you know, paying it forward, paying the stuff that I've learned along the way forward and it's helping people, right? So I do think that's part of the motivator there. I don't know what I'm doing with the content really. Like, I don't have like a funnel to like, I do coaching calls, but I try to do it cheap. Cause like, I don't want a college student to feel like cheated out and, you know, all that. So it's not really like my bread and butter of like, you know, making, paying my rent and stuff. But I think like, I do enjoy it. I just enjoy like, you know, sitting there with the students and, you know, being able to help them and answer their questions. So. Yeah. Yeah, I love that, man. There's nothing that feels better than like the occasional message I get of like, oh my God, I realized that like, we were way behind and I was able to, you know, either have that hard conversation empowered by the data that you kind of share out and managed to get a raise. Or, I mean, sometimes it's less of a win-win, but it's someone being like, oh, I realized I was way behind and I just left where I was at and got a 30% raise or something like that, right? And it is really cool to just see like the impact that has on people's lives. And I think that's really powerful. And I think, you know, it has a way of coming back to you. So, you know, on behalf of a whole bunch of folks, I wanna thank you for taking the time to do what you do. I think it's really important. And yeah, I'll make sure I link your kind of TikTok account in the podcast show notes. I don't know how that clickable link will go, but anyways, if you are on TikTok, go check out Eddie, really good content in the accounting space. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Yeah, I really appreciate it. And yeah, thanks for having me on. And then the last thing I'll say, just cause I wanna plug this for Avila CFO, we are hiring four consultants. So, you know, just if you are interested in that consulting path in accounting, just hit me up and let me know. I'm happy to talk and chat with you if you're interested. Consulting's a bit broad. What are we really looking for? We're really looking for people who have done like accruals, lease accounting, revenue accounting. So, you know, a little bit more technical stuff. We do a lot of cleanup for like books and clothes and setting up close processes and, you know, fluxes, recon. So it's kind of a mix of both. Like you'll, we have like a Philippines offshore team that does a lot of the day-to-day. So you'd be more like quarterbacking some of these engagements and, you know, helping out kind of build that workflows. Yeah, be sure to go check it out. Velo, I mean, does have some of the coolest customers in the game. So a good place to do all that stuff. But yeah. But thank you, Don. Thank you, Don, for inviting me and it was good chatting. And I know that, you know, I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.