From Corporate Life to Entrepreneur Life

My Corporate Career

I started my professional career working for large corporations, before working for a start-up and eventually transitioning to being a full-time entrepreneur.  I’m actually really proud of my background in the corporate world and I think it has helped me immensely in starting my own business.  I’ve worked in a lot of different finance-related roles starting with being a teller at a bank after I graduated.  I would jump roles every few years, but the most impactful experience I’ve ever had was working for nearly four years at the same bank.  I’m proud to say that this bank is Capital One Canada and this company has forged the foundations of my professional career to this day.

In a large company, I didn’t have to look far to see a good manager or a bad one.  When I first started at the bank, I had a manager that took me under his wings and showed me the ropes.  He helped me with the most menial of things such as how to wordsmith emails and I am forever grateful.  I had another manager who mastered the art of building a team and bringing people together.  He was my manager, but I also consider him my friend.  He knew when I was upset even when I didn’t say anything.  He had a soft touch with people always being considerate of their viewpoints.  Only looking back did I realize how big of a task it was for him to bring a team of very different personalities together.  I also have the experience and understanding of what it is like to be managed by incompetent middle-managers, which in turn made me motivated to avoid replicating a similar environment for my own team.

Refreshing Chat with Brent Reynolds

Recently, I met with Brent Reynolds, a former senior leader at Capital One Canada.  He recently left his full-time role at the bank to start his own business.  It was refreshing to briefly connect with him.  I thought that we saw eye-to-eye on many points as we discussed hiring talent and structuring our teams.  Even though we were both building our companies from nothing, we really aren’t starting from scratch.  We’re building our teams from the knowledge-base of our respective corporate careers.  And that’s the advantage of starting a corporate career first before moving into the entrepreneur space.

Brent and I also discussed the obvious corporate life to entrepreneur life topic: letting go of the idea of a stable income.  This is the most daunting thought, especially when one has a family.  Since blogging about being an entrepreneur, several people have come to me about their interest in being an entrepreneur but tell me they aren’t ready to just leave their jobs.  I wrote a separate blog post here about options to consider before taking the pluge of being a full-time entrepreneur.  This is probably the factor that makes this decision the most difficult.

Corporate Life to Entrepreneur Life

Being an entrepreneur means taking risks and making mistakes to get to the end goal.  There really isn’t a lot of guidance, unless one is lucky enough to have a really good mentor that can help pave the way.  This may be a reason why I find that entrepreneurs also tend to do a lot of reading for guidance.  Learning lessons in this way could be painful and financially risky.  For those who are interested in being an entrepreneur but lack a business idea and work experience, I would recommend the corporate to entrepreneur path.  In my opinion, it makes sense to work in a restaurant before opening one.  Also, why make a mistake on your own dime when you can make a salary learning how to do it?

The alternative is people who decide to take the entrepreneur plunge immediately without ever touching foot in the corporate world.  It’s not necessarily the wrong path and there are benefits and drawbacks of doing it in this way.  I think these people are a unique breed and I will discuss more in a future post.

Self-introduction and the entrepreneurship lifestyle

So what does the lifestyle of a full-time entrepreneur in the tech industry look like?  That varies vastly, but I think most people associate this with rolling out of bed at whatever time, working out of hip coffee shops and going to tech events.  It’s the cool part of my job, but it isn’t a real depiction of what I do most of the time.  This blog post is largely dedicated to those who want a more comprehensive look at what my entrepreneur life is like beyond the rosy highlights on my Instagram account.  So what exactly is it that I do?

Self Introduction

I think it’s important to re-introduce yourself on your social platform from time to time, especially when there are new followers.  So here is my self-introduction: My name is Jenny Tran and I am the founder and president of Fint Cloud Accounting.  My company uses finance technology to make bookkeeping and accounting easy for small business owners.  I lead a team of really cool people who all work with me virtually.

 

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Daily Schedule

Even though I can roll out of bed and work at any time, I don’t just work whenever I feel like it. A schedule helps me stay disciplined and productive.  My working hours are similar to those working in a normal office with flex hours; 9am to 5pm roughly with a lot of extra overtime.  On the weekends, I like my extravagant hipster brunches.

 

A challenge for me and I’m sure for many entrepreneurs is figuring out what the right thing to do is on a daily basis in order to move your initiative or organization forward.  I see many aspiring entrepreneurs who set out to accomplish big things, but then get stuck reading books and going tech events endlessly.  As an entrepreneur, there isn’t that simple validation of what you are doing is right from another person.  I could easily become that entrepreneur that never gets anything done, and there would be nobody to tell me not to do that until it’s too late.  Every day I question whether what I am doing is getting me closer to what I want to accomplish, and I try to seek validation through mentors and others who have been in my shoes.

 

Social Activities

Being in Toronto, there is no shortage of business networking and tech events.  I’m selective of which events I go to now.  Whether I go to an event or not now is a function of how fun it is, how relevant it is and if food is involved.  Events are hit or miss, but if there’s good food served then that always makes things better.  I’m a huge foodie and have written over 300 Yelp reviews over ten years.  I also get invited to a lot of food events.  My company’s very first client came from a casual conversation at a food event, but generally speaking, events are not how I acquire clients.

I try to keep healthy and maintain an active lifestyle.  I used to like trying different fad diets, but I’ve been doing intermittent fasting now for roughly 6 months.  I love rock climbing and would generally say yes to most physical activities if asked to join.

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Social Media

Being on social media is a large part of my life.  I’ve always been an entertainer, a story teller amongst my friends and social media provides me with an outlet of telling stories.  I embrace this creative outlet, and like many entertainers, I am set on growing an audience.  I also recognize the power of social media presence as a business and more recently I am working on finding a way to create a personal brand that is fun and can bring more personality to my business.

I see my social media presence as being an important part of my growing business.  This is totally unconventional for an accounting practice, but I think of my business as being more than just an accounting practice.  I want my business to motivate others to embrace entrepreneurship.  I am grateful for every social media like, tweet, direct message that I get.  I see each positive social media interaction as a message of support for what I am doing.

Business stress caused me to have a panic attack

It is only four days into the new year, and I already have three friends talking to me about wanting to start on a new path for their career.  I wrote a blog post previously covering considerations for anyone looking to leave their job to start a new career in entrepreneurship, link to that is here.

In this post I want to talk about my own personal challenges that I’ve faced in making my journey to entrepreneurship.  I’m always one to encourage people to embrace being an entrepreneur, but I also want to be real about what this actually means.  Owning your own business means that you are accountable for everything that happens, and somehow you have to find a way to deal with that.  In early 2018, I was so consumed with the stresses of starting a business that it was starting to take a toll on my health.

I was dealing with a brand new team that did not seem to be coming together and needed my constant support, a very difficult client that treated our service like a round-the-clock personal finance team, and some potential legal risks among other things.  My phone was ringing off the hook most days and my designated inexperienced assistant was not helping.  I slept after midnight, and sometimes woke up in a panic at 5am.

One day I woke up and had a panic attack.  I was panting, my heart was beating really quickly and my head and body felt I was going through some kind of extreme hangover.  I called my friend who told me to slow down and take the day off.  Here’s a photo of me doing a cardiology test.  I didn’t take the day off, but the panic attack was a big signal to me that I had to do something to change.  Over the next few months, I slowly started making changes.

Stop the barrage of communication

I realize that the constant barrage of communications was annoying and stressful.  I turned off phone notifications for almost every single app.  Rather than having my team message me about non-urgent items at all hours of the day, I had designated office hours.  Eventually, I’ve come to a point where I don’t answer phone calls unless they are scheduled, or I know who is calling and for what purpose.  As a listed business number, there are so many solicitation calls that come in throughout the day.  It simply isn’t possible to be productive if you’re constantly being interrupted.

Letting people go their own way

I knew I needed a team, but there was a serious problem with my team.  I eventually made the decision to let go my only full-time employee.  I realize that I had made the wrong choice with the hire and it was an uphill battle to train someone who was not motivated.  I also let go of my interns who were not looking for a long-term position in the field.  My entire approach to internships has changed, and that will be a separate blog post.

The client that was giving us a hard time?  I was at first reluctant since they came in as a referral from a friend.  As I thought about it more, I don’t think that any true friend would want me to suffer and so I also let go of this client.

Being able to let go of my full-time employee and realizing that I should let go of unnecessarily troublesome clients were two tough decisions that I attribute to my company finally being able to get back on track.

Prioritizing events

If I was invited to an event that could potentially benefit my business and I was free that evening, I would plan to go.  While networking can be insightful and can bring some new sales opportunities, most events don’t result in anything tangible.  Going to every single start-up event in town is a good way to waste time and not be focused on the real goal.  I’m now much more selective about which events I go to, and most events I go to nowadays are due to the social aspects and not business.  If an organic business connection happens from these events, then that’s a bonus.

Paying money to alleviate stress

In some cases, money can alleviate stress.  The obvious case is me paying my masseuse for a massage.  I also paid a lawyer to help with my business’ legal exposures and it made it easier for me to sleep at night.  It wasn’t cheap, but some things (such as professional services) are worth paying for.  I think of it also as an investment in my own mental health and so that I can spend more time focused on growing my business.

Being in control

Taking control of the stressful situation and then minimizing the stress factor is key.  The way that I handled my stressful situation and took control of it is more important than the specific actions taken.  My message for those wanting to go down this path is that each business idea will come with its own execution challenges.  Facing challenges should not come as a surprise when embracing entrepreneurship.  Remember to take a step back for the clarity to deal with these challenges and take control of the situation.

Before quitting your job to be an entrepreneur

When you ask a successful entrepreneur the story of their success, typically somewherin that story they quit their job in order to pursue their business idea. It’s often a part of the story that gets glazed over, but as many aspiring entrepreneur would know it really is a pivotal move. It’s not so easy to quit a job especially if you are dependent on the income from said job. As someone who is more conservative with money (as most accountants are), I would advise on taking some preparation steps before making the jump to be a full-time entrepreneur.

Consider pursuing the business idea as a side gig

Some business ideas can be pursued as a side gig until it grows large enough to pursue full-time. This is a good way to test the waters and see if the business idea is a viable one that can also support you financially. And let’s be honest, some business ideas are just not going to work out so this is a good way to get a little taste of entrepreneurship with less risk. Being a bit of a serial entrepreneur myself, I had several side gigs including selling soaps on Etsy, starting a tutoring business while in University and starting a Shopify store based on the basic drop-shipping model. These were all fun and each experience has shaped me as the entrepreneur that I am today.

Freelancing or contracting while starting a business

Freelancing and contracting offers an excellent way of making some side income while the business is growing. When I first quit my job, I was lucky to be contacted by an agency who wanted to hire me on a short-term basis to contract for a bank. Freelancing nowadays can be entirely done virtually and from home. I used upwork.com and freelancer.com to look for contracts. If you’re lucky, you can even convince your old employer to keep you on an as-needed basis.

Going all-in

As my friend and mentor, Yanky Li from Openhouse.ai believes, a truly good business idea deserves 100% dedication. So if you’ve decided to dedicate yourself to your business idea congratulations, now you need to keep close watch on how long you can survive while making little to no income. And if you cannot survive with little to no income, then I recommend seriously reconsidering this option. Personally, when I started to realize the lifestyle change I had to undergo I had to make some quick and fast decisions. It wasn’t an easy task to go from a senior software consultant salary to no salary. I first considered what was important to me (my business, my family), and cut out some unnecessary costs.
  • I cooked more at home and started going to Chinatown for some really cheap meats and fresh fruits. I can cook dinner for a whole week for under $30. I also froze meals for later consumption. I also cut back significantly on ordering food deliveries.
  • I picked events to go to that offered free food, which saves me from paying for an extra meal. The events doubled as a means to grow my network. With very little exceptions, I declined to go to paid events.
  • I stopped buying clothes and make-up almost entirely, which wasn’t so difficult since I often worked from home. Surprisingly, for the first time in my life, I felt content with my existing wardrobe.
  • Getting coffee and meeting for coffee was purposeful, but I actually stopped going for a routine drink at coffee shops.
  • I wasn’t willing to go to a cheaper hair salon, but instead I grew my hair long and reduced the frequency of needing a haircut. I stopped getting routine procedures like getting my nails and eyelashes done. I learned how to wax at home.
  • I’ve not gone on a vacation since I started my business.

Hiring the wrong people was the biggest and costliest mistake that I made

I’m going to outright say that I made so many mistakes in hiring during my first year of business! I’m going to share all of these mistakes so that others need not follow and can learn through my own mistakes.

Hiring Friends

When I first started the company, I figured that I needed someone to do sales. I decided to hire a friend who is also an accountant to do it, and pay them on a commission basis.

Unfortunately for me, I learned that my friend wasn’t very reliable, nor was he very good at sales. He couldn’t even articulate what the company does in order to make a sale. Turning to friends may seem convenient because they are in your social network, but it’s not always the best especially if you’ve never worked together before on anything real.

Hiring Family

I decided to hire family. I am lucky I got out of this one unscathed. I love my family and I think that is all the more reason to not hire them. Again, for the same reason that hiring friends that you’ve never professionally worked with is a bad idea, hiring family is a bad idea.

Okay, so at this point, I realized that I needed to hire outside of my social circle. I needed to post a job ad out there.

Hiring Freelancers

I can write an entire blog post about hiring from the online freelancing community, but in short, I was able to find a few gems that eventually turned into longer-term team members. I found my right-hand woman this way, and I cannot see myself being where I am today without her!

The secret? Having a filtering process to be able to test candidates for language competency, technical skills, communication skills, customer service skills and the ability to work autonomously.

Hiring Local Employees

At this point, I had a few contractors now and decided that a full-time local employee would be the way to go. I took the same approach as I did online and applied the same tried and true strategy. In short, it didn’t work.

The hiring process does not take into account those that are articulate about their skills but do not have the actual motivation and discipline to own up to the job. I can say for certain that hiring the wrong employees was the biggest and most costliest mistakes as I was starting out in the first year. If I could go back to give myself just one piece of advice, it would be to own up to the mistake and end the relationship sooner.

So what worked?

I went back to focusing on hiring freelancers since that was working fairly well. For those freelancers that were doing well, I gave them a raise and asked them to commit all of their available working hours to my company. I guaranteed them security as best I can. Since they were working well, I asked them to refer their colleagues and this has worked really well.

What was sacrificed?

To the best of my ability, I do not let poor hiring practices impact the work that we do for our clients. What I did sacrifice instead was my mental well-being in having to fill-in for poor hires. I knew that I needed this to work in order for the company to move forward.

Hiring Interns

Stay tuned for an article on how I was able to turn an internship from a burden on resources to a positive experience for both employer and intern.

Your Start Up and E-Commerce Accountant

Jenny Tran, CPA, CMA

5 Lessons that I’ve learned in my first year of starting a cloud accounting firm

It has been several months since I’ve last blogged and I have a good excuse for that. I’ve been busy! Like any entrepreneur trying to make their vision come to fruition, the first year of building a business is just immensely challenging. I’ve been busy learning some really critical lessons in my industry and as a new business owner of a cloud accounting firm.

Documenting the process of becoming the president of a cloud accounting firm was something that I’ve wanted to do, but in this first year this process took precedence to the actual documenting. Moving forward, I will be blogging regularly and sharing my journey through various mediums including this blog. I have also been sharing this journey through social media, Twitter and Instagram @fintcloud .

Here are some critical lessons that I’ve learned in my first year of starting a cloud accounting firm, which I plan to elaborate on in more details in future blog posts.

#5 Partnering with the right people

Networking and meeting new business contacts can be really exciting, but sometimes some skepticism is warranted. I’ve learned that treading carefully is a good idea, and doing some background research on those you partner is worthwhile. It’s kind of like checking out a Yelp review before trying a restaurant.

#4 Managing growth

When I first started the business, I was super gung-ho for new clients and growth. I realized that I really had to pull back on business development in order to for me to first build the operations in a way that was sustainable. It’s a good problem to have.

#3 Having the right software stack

There was a bit of tinkering to figure out the best software stack for my company. Keeping an open mind and staying flexible really helped here. I plan to blog more in future about the cloud applications my company uses on a daily basis.

#2 Taking on the right clients

When I first started the business, I wasn’t choosy about the clients that I took on. As long as they knew how to use e-mail, it was a green light. I really had to take a step back from that to redefine my ideal client. This is still a work in progress, but long story short, we had to let go a few clients who were not a good fit. Letting go the wrong client can have a positive impact on profitability, resource availability and staff morale.

#1 Hiring the right way

When I hired my first employee for Fint, I was very naive in thinking that anyone can learn anything. This isn’t true, and that’s a hard fact. Motivation, drive, ambition, discipline are just a few factors that go into determining whether someone can do the job. When hiring employees, contractors or even interns, it is so important to do this the right way, consciously. Not everyone can do the job. I will most definitely go into more details about my learning on hiring in a future blog post.

Your Start Up and E-Commerce Accountant

Jenny Tran, CPA, CMA

@fintcloud

Take 15 mins to execute this Christmas personal finance hack

Christmas in more recent years has become a time of reflection for me.  It is a time when I review what has gone well and what has not gone well when it comes to life events, relationships, career and my own financial situation.  If new years is the time for a fresh start, changes, and new goals then Christmas is a time to think about what it is that defines our life purpose.

There has been a lot of firsts this year for me from leaving my consulting job to starting my own accounting firm, getting my first client and hiring my first employee.  In my personal life, I celebrated my twin dogs turning one this year and met some new friends who taught me more about myself.  I attribute many of the good things that happened this year to being able to let go of some of the things that were not so good last year.  Sometimes you have to re-evaluate and make room for more good things in your life.

On that note I’m going to share with you a personal finance hack that took me 15 minutes to execute this Christmas.  I cancelled my main credit card.  Well, to be more accurate, I called in to my credit card company to report my main credit card as being lost.  Why?  Well, these days it is common to have dozens of recurring subscriptions whether it is monthly, or annually and it is admittedly difficult to keep track of these costs.  If you can’t remember every single subscription you have, and can’t be sure that you won’t be hit with a subscription charge for something you’re quite sure you’ve cancelled, then I recommend this hack for you.  I’m now going to have to update my credit card information for all of my subscriptions, but I will gladly do that to be more conscious about my costs.  I assure you that if you do this, you will find at least one subscription that you can do away with!

Best thing about this hack?  I can do this in the comfort of my family’s home while snuggling with my dogs.  Furthermore, Christmas tends to be a slow time for call centres (at least that is what I remember it to be when I used to be the one picking up the calls).  Make sure to thank your customer service representative and wish them well.  And while you’re executing this hack, you can also take a minute to follow my new YouTube channel by clicking here.  Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Your Start Up and E-Commerce Accountant

Jenny Tran, CPA, CMA