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Stop Donating $15K to the IRS: Smart Solo Tax Moves with Ran Harpaz of Lettuce · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:03
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
• 0:06
  I'm your host, the founder and CEO of Mylance.
• 0:09
  Today I'm really excited to be joined by the Lettuce founder
• 0:12
  and CEO, Ron Harpaz. Ron, welcome to the show.
• 0:17
  Thank you. Thanks, Bradley.
• 0:18
  Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:21
  So let's just get started. Tell us the origin story of
• 0:25
  lettuce. What really drove you to start
• 0:27
  this company? Tell us about how you got here.
• 0:30
  Sure. So I've been working with
• 0:34
  fractionals and solos forever. You know, as, as somebody who's
• 0:39
  done a bunch of startups and build technology, there was
• 0:41
  always this expert that I loved working with who's either an
• 0:46
  engineer who's remote offshore or a marketer who's really
• 0:51
  expert. So always had solos work with me
• 0:53
  through my career. And at some point, I myself
• 0:57
  became a solo advisor to other start-ups saying, hey, if you're
• 1:03
  going to build something, here's what you should do.
• 1:05
  And it was very evident both as somebody who hired solo and
• 1:10
  somebody who was solo himself, that you're in no man's land.
• 1:15
  You don't have a company to worry about.
• 1:17
  You you're not individual. You're you're in between.
• 1:20
  And while it was really easier to not worry about it when I was
• 1:24
  paying others, it was very evident when I'm doing it
• 1:27
  myself, like, OK, this is broken.
• 1:30
  And as a technologist, my heart goes into, OK, if somebody's
• 1:36
  broken, let's let's go solve it with technology.
• 1:39
  And I think it took a while to have enough capabilities in
• 1:44
  place to be able to put together a solution and say, OK, we're
• 1:49
  building something that is dedicated for solos.
• 1:52
  The ability to do that is great. So that drove me two years ago
• 1:56
  to say, let's build lettuce. Yeah, and so tell us what
• 2:01
  lettuce is. Lettuce is a fintech platform
• 2:05
  that was built specifically for high earning solos.
• 2:10
  We serve those people who decided they want to have a solo
• 2:15
  professional life, Consultants, creators, coaches, Realtors,
• 2:20
  lawyers, doctors, nurses. But who decided that this is how
• 2:25
  they want to live their life. It's not a gig, they're not
• 2:27
  going to go back to work next month.
• 2:30
  This is their passion and as a fintech platform, we provide all
• 2:35
  the capabilities for them to focus on their business and not
• 2:39
  on their back office. So we do the compliance, the
• 2:43
  banking, the accounting, closing the books, paying the invoices
• 2:48
  and most importantly running your taxes and your benefits
• 2:53
  like retirements. The way that you would do if you
• 2:56
  had a corporate. The way that actually optimizes
• 3:00
  so that the business keeps the most of profit for the owner to
• 3:04
  enjoy and letting the owners run their business like do what
• 3:10
  they're great at. Which is what they all want.
• 3:13
  I didn't go into starting my own business so that I could do
• 3:16
  taxes and bookkeeping and health insurance and deal with all the
• 3:20
  compliance crap, right? I'm like, I was an operations
• 3:24
  expert. I'm like, I wanted to go serve
• 3:26
  my clients and just get the rest of this crap taken care of for
• 3:29
  me. And that sounds like exactly
• 3:31
  what you guys do. That is 100% and that's the
• 3:34
  conversation I have every day with our customers.
• 3:39
  They come into this because they have a passion and they're great
• 3:42
  doing something. You talk to a therapist, they
• 3:44
  want to heal people, they want to help, right?
• 3:47
  You talk to a creator, they have audience, they want to
• 3:50
  influence. They want to expose people to
• 3:52
  what's happening. None of them show up to work
• 3:55
  saying, oh, I really want to make sure that every single
• 3:58
  receipt is reconciled in my books.
• 4:00
  And I want to go read the latest publication from the IRS and
• 4:04
  make sure that I get that dollar account.
• 4:06
  Like, Oh my God, they typically run away from that and, and want
• 4:10
  to do their business. And when you start thinking
• 4:14
  about what drives people to be solos, it's the passion to take
• 4:19
  what they're great at and serve clients and give it to more
• 4:23
  people. It's never, ever I want to sit
• 4:26
  over the weekend and do the books.
• 4:29
  So by letting them be what they want to be, we say let us worry
• 4:35
  about the rest. That really, you know, allows
• 4:38
  things to fall into place. So I want this episode to be as
• 4:42
  action-packed, tangible value for everyone listening.
• 4:48
  And so we're going to hit on a few different topics.
• 4:50
  And I really want this to almost be like, let's knock this out,
• 4:52
  add some value, and then and then move on to the next one.
• 4:55
  So one of the things I learned when I started consulting was I
• 4:59
  learned all about, you know, LLC versus not and then S Corp
• 5:04
  versus not. And we get lost in the
• 5:06
  terminology. So I almost want to get rid of a
• 5:08
  lot of the terminology because the end of the day, I want to
• 5:12
  take home the most amount of money.
• 5:14
  I also want to protect myself legally, right?
• 5:17
  And so let's talk about taking home the most amount of money
• 5:21
  because that is, you know, just the number, as you said earlier,
• 5:24
  like I want to maximize profit, which is take home the most
• 5:27
  amount of money. Let's just talk about the best
• 5:29
  way to do that. So what is the number one way as
• 5:32
  a solo that I can take home the most amount of money?
• 5:36
  So the answer to that is very straightforward and that is go
• 5:40
  get yourself an S scope and run it well.
• 5:44
  And just to clarify the terminology and LLC is a legal
• 5:48
  entity, you should have one. You're running a business, it
• 5:52
  should be registered, should have an LLC, but that has no
• 5:56
  impact on your tax liability whatsoever.
• 5:58
  The LLC is a legal protection. You should get one.
• 6:01
  The next thing you should do is get an ESCO, which is a tax
• 6:05
  treatment of your LLC. That is now saying this is a
• 6:10
  corporate. You can separate as a corporate
• 6:14
  what you pay the owner in salary and what the business ends up
• 6:19
  providing in profit, dividends, and then you get different tax
• 6:23
  strategies for each of them. And you should do that right
• 6:28
  away. Now there is a well known
• 6:30
  prescription. It's written by the IRS.
• 6:33
  None of this is magic. It just you have to do it well.
• 6:39
  And as you know, and everybody who listens, no, in every one of
• 6:43
  our professions, there are ways to do things well, and there are
• 6:47
  ways to do things kind of running your scope well is
• 6:52
  nontrivial, and you should intentionally do that.
• 6:59
  OK. So I want to summarize what
• 7:00
  you're saying. Make sure every listener has
• 7:01
  clarity on this. So the LLC is a legal
• 7:06
  distinction, right? It is saying that I am not the
• 7:09
  business that the LLC, call it Bradley's LLC is the business.
• 7:14
  So if something, God forbid, were to go wrong with a client,
• 7:17
  you can come after my LLC and the assets associated with that,
• 7:22
  but you cannot come after me personally and the assets
• 7:25
  associated with me. Is that right?
• 7:27
  Correct. OK so then I can choose my LLC
• 7:32
  to have a certain tax classification because otherwise
• 7:36
  the LLC is called just a pass through entity from a tax
• 7:39
  perspective, right? Nothing changes.
• 7:41
  I don't save money by starting an LLCI.
• 7:44
  Get legal protection. Correct.
• 7:46
  The S Corp is what allows me to have different tax treatment.
• 7:51
  And what I heard you say is there is a portion, let's just
• 7:54
  say I make 100 grand, right? We'll just keep it really
• 7:56
  simple. There's a portion I can
• 7:58
  designate. That's my salary as an employee
• 8:01
  of the S Corp. And then the rest can be a
• 8:04
  distribution, right, as some sort of equity.
• 8:07
  OK. And those are taxed differently
• 8:11
  and there's an advantageous tax treatment of like the salary
• 8:15
  gets taxed higher than the distribution.
• 8:19
  So the distribution is actually where I save money because it's
• 8:22
  taxed less. It's doesn't have the
• 8:25
  self-employment tax. Very true so far, very factually
• 8:29
  correct. I really appreciate you putting
• 8:31
  it in order. I want to make sure that people
• 8:33
  understand that this is done intentionally by the IRS to
• 8:38
  promote people running businesses in a professional
• 8:41
  manner. This is not a trick.
• 8:45
  We're not, you know, finding something that is great.
• 8:49
  This is in the books. You're supposed to run your
• 8:52
  business that way. You're supposed to give yourself
• 8:55
  a reasonable compensation salary that says if you're the business
• 8:59
  owner, we're to go hire somebody to do this job of answering the
• 9:04
  phone and sending invoices and making sure clients are happy
• 9:07
  and like everything that needs to happen for the business to
• 9:10
  run. You would pay them X, let's go
• 9:13
  and pay you as the employee of the business that X and tax it
• 9:17
  like salary. And then on top of that, your
• 9:20
  business could be very successful and have great
• 9:23
  margins and you make a lot of profit that is intended to be
• 9:27
  given to the business owner as profit.
• 9:31
  It happens to be the same person.
• 9:33
  That's OK. The IRS intended for you to do
• 9:36
  that. And that's a way for the
• 9:38
  government to incentivize people running their business in a
• 9:42
  structured way. Now, what the government gets
• 9:45
  back is you're running your books, you're paying taxes on
• 9:50
  time, you're filing a tax return for the business.
• 9:54
  They get to see that this is a well organized business.
• 9:58
  So the government gets something, you get something,
• 10:01
  everybody wins. This is intentional and
• 10:06
  therefore it has to be done that way, and we'll get to that in a
• 10:09
  second. But there are many ways of
• 10:13
  running your S scope. But part of the way to save on
• 10:17
  taxes is to run it well in an organized fashion.
• 10:21
  Otherwise, I mean, it kind of gets messy, right?
• 10:23
  And which is just you don't want your tax situation getting
• 10:26
  messy. That's the whole thing we're
• 10:27
  trying to avoid here, right? And you want something really
• 10:30
  important. So I'll pause on that for a
• 10:32
  second because again, I'm talking to customers every day
• 10:35
  and many of them know that they are, there should be an S scope
• 10:39
  or they already are an S scope and they're running it with a
• 10:42
  spreadsheet. And what happens is that decays
• 10:48
  over time. You're unable on your own to run
• 10:52
  your business on a spreadsheet and make it be run well, same as
• 10:56
  everything else. Like you wouldn't do your
• 11:00
  primary job on, you know, some some note.
• 11:05
  So running a Netscope is a task. You are now a business owner.
• 11:13
  You're the CEO of your business. You need and you want to have
• 11:19
  the back office that supports the kind of business that you're
• 11:21
  running. Yeah, exactly.
• 11:23
  When we talk about S Corps, and I learned this personally myself
• 11:28
  because my first year in business, I saved $14,000 by
• 11:36
  having an S Corp versus not. So the cost, if you think about
• 11:41
  it on the flip side of not doing the S Corp is you are literally
• 11:45
  just straight up paying $14,000 in my case, more money to the
• 11:49
  government than I needed to. Period.
• 11:52
  End of story. It's very it was very simple.
• 11:53
  That is the most common outcome that I hear all around.
• 11:58
  People are living on the table. 10121518 sometimes more $1000
• 12:06
  every year just by not doing the right thing for their business.
• 12:10
  And your example is, you know, right up the alley of you're
• 12:14
  literally giving away money that you worked really hard to make
• 12:18
  because you haven't made the right choice in year 1 and you
• 12:20
  absolutely should. The the first thing we do when,
• 12:24
  when you go to letters.co, our website is we'll give you a tax
• 12:27
  calculator that says, hey, here is you before here is you after
• 12:33
  it's a straight up here's the answer.
• 12:35
  Just take it. Yeah, amazing.
• 12:38
  OK. So we have S Corp, We have an
• 12:40
  LLC for legal protection. We have S Corp.
• 12:42
  Now, is S Corp right for everybody?
• 12:46
  S Corp is right. If you have a business that is
• 12:50
  sustainable that you're going to run for a while, it's not a gig,
• 12:54
  right? Because there is some set up and
• 12:56
  you want to run it. So it should stay with you and
• 12:59
  it starts making you significant amount of saving.
• 13:03
  Once you make 50 sixty, $70,000 a year or more.
• 13:08
  The sweet spot is people who make 6 figure income.
• 13:11
  At that level you're easily saving $15,000 a year.
• 13:16
  And you start getting into more advanced tax strategies like
• 13:20
  retirement matching and business use of home and vehicle.
• 13:23
  And there is a there is a long list of things you can do.
• 13:26
  As you make more money, it becomes more valuable.
• 13:29
  But it should be a real business, right?
• 13:31
  If you have a gig, that's probably something else.
• 13:35
  OK, great. So now let's talk about the next
• 13:37
  level. So S Corp, you know, can easily
• 13:39
  save on making 100 grand or more, can easily save 5 figures,
• 13:43
  right? Big deal.
• 13:45
  It's a really big deal. Now the next level for me comes
• 13:49
  I think about deductions. Where would you go?
• 13:51
  Like what's the next big way to take home the most amount of
• 13:54
  money? So before we go to deductions,
• 13:57
  which which I have a lot of stories to share about, and a
• 14:00
  really important thing for you to do is make sure you have a
• 14:03
  dedicated business bank account where all of the income and all
• 14:08
  of the expenses of the business are getting in and coming out of
• 14:11
  that dedicated business bank account.
• 14:14
  A lot of people start their business and commingle the funds
• 14:20
  between their business and their personal.
• 14:22
  They send an invoice, they get paid to the personal account.
• 14:25
  They use it to do whatever they do.
• 14:27
  That's a big no no. First of all, it's not how you
• 14:30
  should treat your business. And 2nd, if the IRS comes
• 14:33
  knocking and asking questions, that's the biggest way to get
• 14:37
  your books disqualified and get into trouble.
• 14:39
  If you have a commingled account with all kinds of expenses,
• 14:42
  where is it? My dealer?
• 14:44
  Was there a client involved? Did I purchase this for me?
• 14:47
  Did I purchase this for the business?
• 14:48
  Big no, no. So definitely get a dedicated
• 14:51
  business bank account. We can help you do that.
• 14:54
  And then let's talk about deductions.
• 14:57
  Historically, you would go on TikTok or YouTube and all of
• 15:01
  those places and you're going to have everybody telling you to go
• 15:05
  spend in all kinds of ways because you can deduct it for
• 15:10
  taxes all the way from, you know, go get an extra meal and
• 15:13
  call it a business expense up to go buy yourself a really
• 15:16
  expensive truck because it's deductible.
• 15:19
  The mistake there in my mind is that that's a way to save money
• 15:24
  by spending money. So you have to 1st make the
• 15:28
  expense to save some of it. 2030% depend on the tax ratio.
• 15:32
  Well fine, but not the best strategy in the books.
• 15:37
  While deductions are legit, there are actually tax
• 15:40
  strategies that do not require you to spend extra money to save
• 15:46
  on taxes. Escort that we mentioned is a
• 15:49
  structural way to save $15,000 on your taxes without spending
• 15:54
  anything extra. Business use of home.
• 15:57
  But if you have a vehicle retirement matching, there are a
• 16:00
  number of strategies that are actually optimizing what you
• 16:04
  already do rather than spend in order to save on taxes.
• 16:10
  So I have a pretty strong opinion that you shouldn't be
• 16:14
  chasing deductions. You should deduct what's yours,
• 16:18
  but you should first choose the right strategy for your
• 16:21
  business. So what I'm hearing you say is
• 16:24
  instead of going out and spending more money so that I
• 16:27
  can save a percentage of it, I should make sure that I am
• 16:30
  deducting what I'm already spending, what's necessary for
• 16:33
  the business. But there are other strategies
• 16:37
  obviously S Corp number one, but then there's, you know,
• 16:39
  retirement accounts and there's other ways to do OK.
• 16:41
  So let's talk about the other ways, right?
• 16:44
  We talked about there's different IRA or 4O1K options.
• 16:49
  What else? Like, what are the big top five
• 16:52
  things that a solo should be like?
• 16:53
  All right, I'm absolutely using this strategy because it's going
• 16:56
  to save me a bunch of money. Yeah.
• 16:58
  Let's, let's start with the very easy 1.
• 16:59
  So I think the business use of vehicle, if you have a car and
• 17:05
  you're driving it for the business, you're driving to
• 17:08
  clients to provide the services or you have a warehouse and you
• 17:13
  go bring stuff to the warehouse, then you could deduct the
• 17:18
  mileage that we used for creating income for your
• 17:21
  business. We help you do that.
• 17:23
  There are a bunch of tools to track your mileage and identify
• 17:25
  which ones are root for the business and which one or not
• 17:27
  should definitely use that. The next big one is business use
• 17:31
  of your home. So if you have a Home Office and
• 17:35
  you dedicated a room in your home that is set up in a way
• 17:41
  that you conduct your business there.
• 17:43
  If you're a therapist, it may be where you actually accept
• 17:46
  clients. If you're a creator, it may be
• 17:48
  you are, you know, recording your your content.
• 17:51
  It's the dedicated space where you run your business that is
• 17:54
  deductible. And you know, we can help you,
• 17:57
  for example, identify which portion of your home expenses
• 18:01
  are deductible and how to account for it.
• 18:03
  And you know how it fluctuates over time, but that Home Office
• 18:08
  deductible expense retirement. So most people know that you
• 18:14
  could put money in retirement as an employer and it would be
• 18:21
  deducted from from your taxes. Now most people use the standard
• 18:26
  Sep IRA to put money for retirement, which is a very good
• 18:30
  strategy. You should do that.
• 18:32
  The more advanced way of doing it is actually as an S scope.
• 18:37
  There is a business with employees.
• 18:39
  Open a four O 1K with employer and employee contributions and
• 18:45
  now you actually unlock a higher level of contribution possible
• 18:51
  because you're contributing both of the employee as an employer.
• 18:55
  It comes from 2 pockets of the business and therefore unlocks a
• 18:59
  higher deduction level from the IRS.
• 19:03
  So we can go into the details of each and every one of these, but
• 19:08
  I think the important thing to know is there are many ways to
• 19:12
  get advanced tax strategies for your business.
• 19:15
  Almost every single thing you do or you want to do has an
• 19:18
  appropriate tax tax strategy associated with it.
• 19:22
  We'd love to educate on it. There are other resources.
• 19:26
  I would generally say the more you go to reputable sources who
• 19:31
  can actually deliver on the recommendation, the better off
• 19:35
  you are. I don't have anything against
• 19:37
  TikTok influencers or Youtubers, etcetera.
• 19:40
  Just make sure that you get your information from sources that
• 19:44
  have some skin in the game and are accountable to what they're
• 19:47
  doing so that you know when when you actually have a question and
• 19:51
  you want to follow up, they can handle your unique situation.
• 19:54
  Yeah. Is there, is there more to keep
• 19:57
  going on like the top things? So we're we're talking about a
• 19:59
  bunch of different ways that that solos can save money.
• 20:03
  Would you keep going down the list?
• 20:04
  Like what are more opportunities that we're missing?
• 20:07
  I want to make sure that we really get to the big ones.
• 20:09
  I think we talk about the big ones.
• 20:11
  I think as you start going down the list, they become other most
• 20:14
  specific to a specific industry like things for Realtors, things
• 20:18
  for creators, things for truckers and they also have a
• 20:22
  diminishing return. So over time the effort to get
• 20:25
  the extra deduction may not be worth at the time.
• 20:29
  What I would say which is important is a lot of solos have
• 20:35
  fluctuating incomes and a very strong Q1.
• 20:39
  They may have a slow summer, they may have a very strong end
• 20:43
  of year, but it comes and goes. So planning in itself is a
• 20:50
  pretty important strategy for the business and also for taxes.
• 20:55
  Making sure, for example, that you put money aside for taxes
• 21:00
  when you have your peak season and you make more money so that
• 21:04
  later on when you don't have enough, you don't have to go
• 21:06
  into your savings and pay taxes and you don't get surprised
• 21:11
  comes tax day. Planning your year and
• 21:14
  understanding the fluctuation is really important.
• 21:18
  And again, I talked with a lot of solos who make a significant
• 21:21
  amount of money, but it ebbs and flows.
• 21:24
  Some call it feast and famine. Sometimes you have a couple of
• 21:29
  clients who are paying you on time and everything's great.
• 21:34
  Then they may go away for a while and then they come back.
• 21:37
  So have a horizon of planning that is not just next month, the
• 21:42
  really important strategy. And I want to kind of bring this
• 21:46
  up a level because there's, we're talking about all these
• 21:48
  different strategies and tactics for, you know, the end of the
• 21:52
  day when we started this by you, you want to as a solo, you're,
• 21:55
  you're wanting to deliver for your clients and your area of
• 21:57
  expertise and all this other stuff.
• 21:59
  You're like, just get it done right.
• 22:01
  From a mindset perspective. I'm sure you've seen so much
• 22:06
  around this area of how do I need to be thinking as a solo
• 22:11
  that serves my business in the best way?
• 22:15
  Yeah, what I observed with those who get very successful in this
• 22:19
  and stay for a while and you know, teach others what to do is
• 22:24
  the CEO mindset. You're running a business like a
• 22:29
  company. Sure, it's a company of 1.
• 22:32
  You chose that You want to have the life of a company of one.
• 22:36
  You don't want to succeed by hiring dozens of people.
• 22:39
  That's not your passion. Great.
• 22:40
  Still, you should be strategic about what you spend your
• 22:46
  precious time and mind space on. So the very successful ones are
• 22:51
  constantly thinking about excellent in client service,
• 22:55
  business development, networking, growing the pie.
• 23:00
  How do you partner to deliver more for those who need your
• 23:04
  help? For example, I see a lot of
• 23:06
  solos who are actually delivering a lot more than what
• 23:10
  they can do on their own by partnering with other solos.
• 23:14
  So, for example, if you are a great creative marketer and you
• 23:19
  know how to build amazing websites, but from time to time
• 23:23
  you need a video editor, you need a copywriter, you need
• 23:26
  somebody who's exceptional animation building that network
• 23:31
  of solos around you. You are then able to deliver for
• 23:34
  your client a much more comprehensive piece of work.
• 23:38
  Now, why am I saying all of these words?
• 23:42
  In order for you to be strategic and think about your business
• 23:45
  that way, you need to have that confidence that the back office,
• 23:51
  the rest of it is managed. And when I see a lot of folks
• 23:57
  trip on is that the day-to-day running of your business takes
• 24:03
  so much of their attention that the kind of being dragged down
• 24:08
  to, Oh my God, paying the bills and the invoices and estimated
• 24:12
  taxes. And what about, you know, this
• 24:14
  expense and this deduction and the entire energy goes to a
• 24:20
  place of the day-to-day minutia and not strategic.
• 24:24
  So, you know, we started letters with that in mind.
• 24:28
  But if you, if you don't hire us, hire somebody else, get
• 24:32
  something or someone to take off your plate, all of that stuff so
• 24:38
  you can be the CEO of your business.
• 24:41
  I really love that you said that.
• 24:42
  You're like, if you don't hire us, hire somebody because it
• 24:44
  shows your passion for the customer and the problem, right?
• 24:49
  It's like we started this business because we care.
• 24:52
  And at the end of the day, right?
• 24:54
  Like it's clear, it's so clear that you care and every solo
• 24:57
  didn't start their business to shut it down or to get bogged
• 25:00
  down and all this stuff. And for me, it's all about
• 25:04
  making it sustainable over time. I think of the two big buckets
• 25:08
  that makes it challenging to be sustainable over time is 1, all
• 25:12
  of the back office and then two, finding clients.
• 25:16
  If I nail those two, then I get to focus on my zone of genius
• 25:20
  that I love doing the most. But if I don't nail those two,
• 25:23
  then my time in this business is limited.
• 25:26
  You're absolutely right. And and by the way, you see all
• 25:29
  the stats, right? The stats are telling you how
• 25:32
  hard it is to sustain that kind of business if you don't get
• 25:35
  those two things right. And what I'm encouraging
• 25:38
  everybody is go focus on your zone of genius.
• 25:43
  And your zone of genius should be very well aligned with
• 25:47
  finding clients. You're great at something.
• 25:49
  People should speak about you. You should write about it.
• 25:53
  People should read about you. That there should be a virtuous
• 25:57
  cycle between your zone of genius and getting clients.
• 26:01
  There doesn't need to be any kind of cycle between your zone
• 26:05
  of genius and the back office. Find someone to help you find a
• 26:11
  way to outsource it. Find a way to give it to an AI
• 26:14
  bot. Give it away.
• 26:16
  Focus on your zone of genius, please.
• 26:19
  That's going to make our entire industry happier, healthier,
• 26:24
  more solos, more fun. Yeah.
• 26:27
  I mean, I can't agree with you more.
• 26:29
  So there are a few other companies in the space or people
• 26:32
  have, you know, solo bookkeepers or when you've been building out
• 26:36
  lettuce and you think about what differentiates you from the
• 26:40
  competition. And I'm sure you, you know,
• 26:42
  build with all of that in mind, whether it's building the
• 26:45
  software, building the team, customer support, marketing.
• 26:48
  What are the top differentiators for you that you've really
• 26:51
  leaned on to separate from the competition?
• 26:54
  Yeah. So there are, I think, 2
• 26:57
  conceptual things that are important for US1 is we want to
• 27:01
  build a full solo operating system that has everything in
• 27:05
  one place. We don't want our customers to
• 27:08
  go pick seven different things and connect the dots and run
• 27:11
  spreadsheets over the weekend. So one integrated solar
• 27:15
  operating system and then the other one is technology enabled
• 27:20
  so that it's easy and reasonably cheap and scaled really well.
• 27:24
  And those two connect to each other.
• 27:25
  And I'll tell you what I mean. There are many solutions you can
• 27:30
  pick off the shelf to go do your taxes, or go generate invoices
• 27:35
  or go reconcile your books or have ACRM.
• 27:39
  Like you could go and do it yourself by picking 6-7
• 27:43
  different solutions. And at the end of the day,
• 27:46
  you're going to find yourself becoming the IT department, the
• 27:50
  accounting department, the connecting tissue between all of
• 27:53
  those do it yourself systems. Now, some people are geeks and
• 27:58
  love it and enjoy it and they export stuff and import stuff
• 28:02
  and good for them. By all means, go do it.
• 28:05
  We believe that there should be 1 integrated solution, and I'll
• 28:10
  talk about it in a second. But that solar operating system
• 28:13
  should include not just your tax and accounting and the legal
• 28:17
  entity and compliance, but your health and benefits, your
• 28:21
  retirement, financial planning, everything that is needed to run
• 28:26
  a sustainable, you know, future for yourself.
• 28:31
  The second part is driven by technology.
• 28:35
  I think what happens is a lot of people rely on someone they
• 28:41
  know, their uncle, their friend, their son-in-law of whoever they
• 28:45
  went to school with. And, and that person is supposed
• 28:50
  to take care of you, but that person is a human.
• 28:54
  And humans have a lot of benefits, but they also have a
• 28:58
  limitation. They get tired, they get
• 29:00
  confused, they forget. The nice thing about financial
• 29:07
  management is that you can teach a computer to do this
• 29:11
  repeatedly, every single day, every single dollar, forever.
• 29:17
  Never get tired, never get bored, never forget.
• 29:23
  And this lends itself to technology solutions that now
• 29:28
  with AI and development are easier and easier to build, but
• 29:32
  are really consistent that when you call that accountant, they
• 29:37
  don't have to go open up that shoe box and say, remind me
• 29:40
  again, Bradley, who with what kind of business the system
• 29:45
  knows every dollar from three minutes seconds ago that moved
• 29:49
  in your account. So those two things, a fully
• 29:53
  integrated solo operating system and a technology first never get
• 29:58
  tired approach are really important in how we think of
• 30:02
  solving this. Yeah.
• 30:05
  As you think about 5-10 years down the line of the company,
• 30:10
  what's the big vision like? What are you so excited about
• 30:13
  creating over the next decade? So I personally believe and, and
• 30:17
  I'm seeing evidence that the the future is independent.
• 30:19
  More and more people are choosing their primary way of
• 30:24
  delivering their genius to be through independent work.
• 30:28
  So when I look into the future, I think letters should be the
• 30:33
  enabler of that future of independence.
• 30:36
  And I'll tell you a bit more what I mean.
• 30:39
  You're seeing this coming from a number of directions.
• 30:41
  You see Gen. X people who've been working at
• 30:44
  corporates for a long while and are ready to leave the the
• 30:49
  corporate escapees, as we like to call them.
• 30:52
  Either they're tired or they see the layoffs coming or all of
• 30:56
  that stuff drives them to say, OK, it's time for me to take
• 30:59
  everything I've learned and deliver it.
• 31:02
  On the other extreme, on the Gen.
• 31:03
  Z side, you see folks who know from day one that they need to
• 31:08
  have a portfolio career or polyworking as they call it.
• 31:14
  They they come out of college already having three jobs at
• 31:17
  once. So they understand that they are
• 31:21
  the main driver of their career and not any single corporate.
• 31:24
  So because of all of those trends, it's clear that the
• 31:28
  future is independent and many people are going to do that.
• 31:30
  But a lot of them are still scared or held back by lack of
• 31:36
  infrastructure, afraid of taxes, not having a healthcare
• 31:41
  solution, just not knowing what to do.
• 31:44
  So Lettuce was started and is moved by the mission to enable
• 31:51
  that future. Let every person choose if they
• 31:55
  want to be independent, go do it.
• 31:57
  I love it and it's it's such a beautiful future and everyone
• 32:01
  having this independent working life.
• 32:05
  And it's also scary in a lot of ways because they and they need
• 32:08
  this infrastructure, right. The finding clients is a whole
• 32:11
  nother discussion. We can talk about it another
• 32:13
  time, but the back end, I remember when I was running my
• 32:16
  my business, I'm like, I just don't want to screw anything up.
• 32:19
  Yeah, right. I just don't want to get that
• 32:21
  letter from the IRS. Exactly.
• 32:24
  And I can tell you, you know, it's very timely.
• 32:26
  It used to be the people who were worried mostly about their
• 32:29
  ability to make ends meet and not getting the letter from the
• 32:32
  IRS. We are now hearing more and more
• 32:36
  that the issue of healthcare benefits in general, but
• 32:41
  healthcare specifically is a huge concern that the number
• 32:45
  that I just heard was 42% of freelancers don't have
• 32:50
  healthcare they can rely on. That's really scary.
• 32:53
  And with everything that's going on around us, it's only getting
• 32:57
  more complicated to get the right coverage you need.
• 33:00
  And what that results in is people who should be independent
• 33:05
  and have the talent and will to go do something that's great on
• 33:10
  their own behalf are held back because they need to get that,
• 33:15
  you know, health insurance from their employer.
• 33:16
  So again, part of the future is let us is moving in to go offer
• 33:24
  healthcare benefits for business of 1 so that you can take that
• 33:28
  one off your plate as well. In the decision making process
• 33:32
  of I can be a great solo, I can add a ton of value to the
• 33:38
  universe by going independent. Let me not worry about all of
• 33:43
  that, healthcare included. Yeah, there's just, there's
• 33:47
  these certain elements, right? It's the bookkeeping, it's the
• 33:49
  taxes, it's the health, health insurance, maybe business
• 33:53
  insurance. There's certain areas that just
• 33:56
  need to be taken care of so that I can go give my gift to the
• 34:01
  world. You know, really what we're
• 34:02
  talking about here is like, I want to be able to go give my
• 34:04
  damn gift to the world and not worry about this crap.
• 34:07
  And of course, take home, you know, to me as a business owner
• 34:10
  who's like, you know, what's a marketing operations product, it
• 34:12
  feels like a nuisance. I'm not.
• 34:14
  I know it's like your bread and butter.
• 34:15
  It's your world. To me and most solos, it's
• 34:17
  probably like I don't want to deal with this.
• 34:20
  And that's exactly the idea what I am building in Lettuce and and
• 34:24
  the team is so committed to make happen because the team at
• 34:27
  Lettuce are solos themselves building for solos.
• 34:30
  So we know this first hand. We're trying to build that
• 34:35
  operating system, that box that does this for you so that you
• 34:41
  don't have to worry about any of that.
• 34:43
  And the reason we use technology is because we also don't want to
• 34:47
  do this ourselves with our own hands every single day for every
• 34:50
  single customer. We want to build something.
• 34:54
  That's why I keep using the word operating system that just runs.
• 34:57
  It just works. It takes care of everything and
• 35:00
  you show up to be great at what you do.
• 35:05
  Everything else is taken care of.
• 35:07
  Yeah, I love that. It's empowering.
• 35:10
  And I hope everyone listening feels empowered of like there
• 35:12
  are people like you and your entire team that are committed
• 35:16
  to helping them live in their zone of genius.
• 35:20
  So that right like the world ends up being a better place.
• 35:23
  There's a great book and who not how?
• 35:25
  I don't know if you read it. And it's like, who do you need
• 35:28
  in your business to support you? You don't necessarily need to do
• 35:33
  it all yourself. In fact, you definitely should
• 35:35
  not do it all yourself, right? It's like 100% people.
• 35:39
  And that could be hiring a company right as a service. 100%
• 35:43
  and and that future we're talking about is closer than
• 35:48
  people realize. The reason I'm so motivated and,
• 35:52
  and you can see it when you talk to everybody at Lettuce, we are
• 35:54
  all so motivated every morning is you see the before and after
• 35:58
  of people who have a zone of a zone of genius and can tap into
• 36:01
  that and how it unlocks their enjoyment of like, yeah, let me
• 36:08
  do my thing. You guys take care of everything
• 36:11
  else. It's just the the smile on their
• 36:13
  face of not having to worry about that is is really
• 36:17
  satisfying. We have a few more minutes left
• 36:19
  in the pod as we wrap up. Is there anything that you'd
• 36:23
  leave our audience with from a advice perspective, a something
• 36:27
  that supports them the most? We've obviously shared tons of
• 36:29
  value already, but what have we not covered that you'd love to
• 36:33
  lead the audience with? When I think of what the future
• 36:38
  holds for every one of those solos and the economy as a
• 36:43
  whole, I would love to see a movement toward people being
• 36:49
  more independent, more in control of the future, more
• 36:54
  successful in their own way. And what I'd love to leave
• 36:58
  people with is this thought of there is a structured way of
• 37:04
  being a very successful independent.
• 37:09
  You can follow those instructions and be safe and
• 37:15
  sustainable and successful and happy.
• 37:19
  It requires a decision that this is something you want to do.
• 37:23
  So I would encourage people to imagine that everything else is
• 37:28
  solved. And if they could lean into that
• 37:32
  future, can they imagine themselves at that end state, at
• 37:36
  that beautiful point where you are in your zone of genius and
• 37:39
  you're contributing to everybody else from that point?
• 37:43
  And if you can see that, and that's in your future, let us
• 37:47
  take care of the rest. It is possible, it is knowable,
• 37:51
  it is solved. Take that moment.
• 37:53
  Imagine yourself in the future. If that's you, go do it.
• 37:59
  I love it. Ron, if people are interested in
• 38:02
  connecting with you working with lettuce, we'll have a link for a
• 38:05
  full transparency. We have an affiliate deal with
• 38:07
  you guys. So we'll have our our link and
• 38:09
  you'll get a discount for my Lance members as well.
• 38:12
  But any other place other, you know, while we will send that
• 38:14
  link. But if they do you publish
• 38:16
  content on LinkedIn. Is there a newsletter?
• 38:17
  Is there any other way that they can connect with you?
• 38:21
  Yeah, we have a newsletter called The Wedge coming from
• 38:23
  letters. That makes sense.
• 38:25
  Definitely encourage everybody to come to our website through
• 38:27
  your affiliate link so they get all the benefits they can.
• 38:30
  We are on LinkedIn, we are on Insta and Meta and YouTube.
• 38:36
  You can find usasletters.co. We publish a lot of content.
• 38:40
  We just hosted a large solo summit that has incredible
• 38:46
  speakers and I encourage everybody to come in and get
• 38:49
  that content material, get educated.
• 38:52
  It's all free, it's all available.
• 38:53
  It's for the better future. Come get all of that content,
• 38:57
  get educated. We are here to support you.
• 39:00
  Yeah, amazing. I just, I really want to
• 39:02
  acknowledge you further. There's such a clear why, why
• 39:06
  you do this and offering free value.
• 39:08
  I got to participate in that event that you guys just hosted
• 39:11
  as a panelist and the energy was incredible.
• 39:14
  The attendance was unbelievable and it was such a well run
• 39:17
  machine. I mean, really acknowledge it's
• 39:18
  not easy to put on that a virtual event for thousands and
• 39:21
  thousands of people and you guys absolutely nailed it so.
• 39:24
  Thank you for being part of that.
• 39:25
  It takes it takes a village. Totally does.
• 39:28
  And you know, I know it's months in the making to make it go
• 39:30
  smoothly, so was really honored to be part of it and look
• 39:34
  forward to being part of it in the future and continuing to
• 39:36
  partner with you guys. It's been such a pleasure.
• 39:39
  Same here, we love this. Amazing.
• 39:41
  Well, thanks so much for your time today and all the expertise
• 39:44
  and we'll have to have you on for a Part 2 coming up.
• 39:47
  Happy to thank you for hosting me, had a lot of fun with the
• 39:50
  conversation. Looking forward.