Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / Stay Compliant and Take Home The Maximum Revenue: Taxes, Benefits, and Flexibility with Besolo, with Mark Jackson
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
- 0:03Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
- 0:05I'm your host and the founder and CEO of my lands.
- 0:08Today I'm joined by Mark Jackson.
- 0:11Mark is the Co founder and CEO of B Solo.
- 0:14Before that he was a fractional CRO and then started B Solo
- 0:18about two years ago. I'm super excited to have you
- 0:21Mark on the show. Welcome.
- 0:23It's good to be here, Bradley. Thanks.
- 0:25Yeah. So tell us a little bit about
- 0:28your story, because anytime someone starts their own
- 0:30business, right, there's there's always a story of how you got
- 0:34there and why this problem, why this customer?
- 0:37Obviously it's the same customer that we have.
- 0:39So tell us a little bit about the journey to starting Be solo.
- 0:43My dad was a business of 1 excavation company my whole life
- 0:48and I watched him, you know, upstairs during tax season
- 0:52swearing at 10:40 schedule CS. And and he did all of his own.
- 0:57Like he would literally just pile up receipts and like do all
- 0:59of his own quarterly estimated taxes and all of his own
- 1:01schedule CS. And it was always like a touchy
- 1:04time for my dad and being around my dad during tax season.
- 1:08And then when I went to college, after college, I went to the
- 1:11film industry and was independent for about like 6
- 1:14years. And you just really had this
- 1:18like, strong feeling of like, wow, we kind of get screwed when
- 1:25you make the choice to be solo, to be an independent, to be a
- 1:29fractional freelancer, whatever it is.
- 1:32I was even before this, this major event happened in my life,
- 1:36You know, I was already starting to understand, like, why there's
- 1:38a lot of compromise to living this lifestyle.
- 1:42The government's kind of seem to leave us behind.
- 1:45And then while I was fractional, most recently, my wife came a
- 1:51kidney transplant patient. So she got a kidney transplant
- 1:54about 10 years ago now. She's doing fantastic.
- 1:56So we're super grateful and happy there.
- 1:59But you know, when once you need healthcare, you really
- 2:04understand the importance of healthcare.
- 2:06My wife's kidney transplant end up costing north of $1,000,000.
- 2:11All said and done and in the state that I'm in today, I would
- 2:16actually, I'm in Arizona. I would actually rather be for
- 2:19be like a fractionally. I love the lifestyle.
- 2:22I love working for who I want to work for, how I want to work.
- 2:26You know, when I want to work is really important too.
- 2:29But the access to healthcare here in Arizona, you know, with
- 2:33her specialty medications, I think we'd be out.
- 2:36I did the math one day and it was something like 70 to 80
- 2:39grand per year all in, including the premiums and then the
- 2:42additional cost for the medication.
- 2:44And I was just like, super. Pissed about that, honestly, I
- 2:48felt abandoned by my government and and I was like, I wonder if
- 2:56there's some way that we could pull people together to take the
- 3:00solo and and make them powerful in numbers.
- 3:06And I was lucky enough to have a little bit of exposure to this
- 3:10concept of PEO or professional employer organization.
- 3:15Everybody and like most people that's ever been employed at a
- 3:17company north of 50 employees has probably been under APEO.
- 3:21It's basically where companies, multiple different companies
- 3:23pool all their employees together under the payroll of
- 3:27another company. And the big names in these
- 3:29companies today are like ADP just works Rippling, those are
- 3:35all big PE OS. And I was like, I wonder if we
- 3:38can take that same concept and work it to the solo space,
- 3:42right, to find a way to create strength in numbers because
- 3:46there are so many solos today. And so that was like the first
- 3:50exploration of B solo is, hey, is it legally viable to create a
- 3:55group healthcare option for solos?
- 3:59And lot of legal expense later. And a lot of kind of leveraging
- 4:03some of my past life of being, you know #4 at one of those big
- 4:06PE OS, Velocity Global got us to the point where we're like,
- 4:10yeah, we can do this. But we realized we had to be
- 4:13able to support all the other pieces in order in order to make
- 4:17that happen. Because the only way we could do
- 4:19it then was through S Corp, which is like a big topic in the
- 4:22solo space. And I was like, okay, we can put
- 4:24them under our payroll if they're running payroll for
- 4:26themselves, and then unlock our group benefits.
- 4:31But you have to be Escorp to do that.
- 4:33So we're like, well, we can't just be like, oh, you can just
- 4:35do Escorp, right? Because you can't just do
- 4:36Escorp. It's like a big undertaking.
- 4:38So we're like, OK, we have to support all the financial side
- 4:40of Escorp and then we have to support all the compliance side
- 4:43of Escorp. And we realized pretty soon
- 4:44we're like, well, we've got the complete operational and
- 4:50financial and benefits stack for a business of 1.
- 4:54And that's where we are today. So yeah, it's been a journey,
- 4:57but it's yeah. But it started off from
- 5:00frustration. And a lot of people ask me like,
- 5:03hey, why this business? And I was like, well, I found
- 5:07the problem that I hated the most and also saw a solution
- 5:13that could actually be executable within the
- 5:15limitations that we exist in today.
- 5:17So we were like so then we, myself and my Co founder jumped
- 5:20on it. And I feel like a lot of people
- 5:22hear S Corp and maybe their eyes glaze over like, what the hell
- 5:26are you talking about? And so really the simplest in
- 5:29layman's terms, right, is it is a tax classification of an
- 5:34entity where you essentially make yourself an employee of the
- 5:38entity. And then you need to pay
- 5:40yourself a salary, which is where payroll comes in.
- 5:43And that's how you can group the benefits together.
- 5:45And the biggest benefit from a tax perspective, right, is you
- 5:48save on the self-employment tax of the piece that's not.
- 5:52A salary? Exactly.
- 5:54For the 15.3% of self-employment tax right, you can then avoid,
- 6:00whereas if you don't do the S Corp, you're paying 15.3% on
- 6:04the. Whole, no whole thing, Caboodle,
- 6:07all net income goes through that up to yeah, there's a cap on
- 6:11that. It's around I think in 25 it's
- 6:13like 177 or 178, but that's typically where, you know, most
- 6:18solos live in that kind of successful solos live in that
- 6:21100 to 200 range. So most of them are getting
- 6:23pretty penalized by that self-employment tax.
- 6:25So, yeah, yeah. I mean I know my first year when
- 6:28I switched from an LLC to an LLC tax as an S Corp, I think I
- 6:32saved about $20,000 like it was a big.
- 6:35Deal. It's a big deal, yeah, it's a
- 6:37big deal. It's a big deal, but it's also a
- 6:40big decision, right? And it's a decision that, you
- 6:44know, we as a company offer both LLC support and S Corp support
- 6:48because for a lot of solos, what we're finding is the value of
- 6:54the freedom and flexibility is so high too, that getting into a
- 6:59structure of turning yourself into a corporation and running a
- 7:01payroll for yourself might actually be what ends up leading
- 7:04to them. But we say churning back to W2,
- 7:07right? That's our whole mission now.
- 7:09Our whole mission is to make the solopreneurial lifestyle, the
- 7:13independent lifestyle, as sustainable and free of
- 7:16compromise as compared to AW lifestyle.
- 7:20You know, that's we want to level that playing field.
- 7:22It won't be exactly even in all the bar charts, but it will pan
- 7:26out to being even as long as you can find your own work, Right,
- 7:29Right. Yeah.
- 7:30Right. Because we all know the benefits
- 7:32of fractional work. I don't think anyone at this
- 7:34point is not sure of that. But I mean, I'd love to just
- 7:38hear you talk more about this Like, the end of the day, you're
- 7:42running a full-fledged business of everything a business
- 7:45requires. Bookkeeping, taxes, health
- 7:47insurance, invoicing, all of it by yourself.
- 7:51Yes. Right.
- 7:53How do you do that? I mean, that's like the biggest
- 7:55thing, right? And and business development, I
- 7:57didn't even mention it like, Oh yeah, by the way, marketing and
- 7:59sales and that whole thing, yeah.
- 8:01That little thing, that little guy.
- 8:03Yeah, just the entire, you know, that normally is an entire
- 8:06organization of a company, right?
- 8:07Yeah, you're doing it all. And I feel like beyond just kind
- 8:12of the challenges that we face as solopreneurs and freelancers,
- 8:16infractionals from a, you know, from a, hey, there's a real
- 8:21compromises where you might hit a brick wall and that you like
- 8:24literally cannot move forward with this lifestyle.
- 8:26We're also fairly left behind when it comes to the playbooks,
- 8:30right? There are real playbooks right
- 8:34then and and they are applicable across almost all types of
- 8:39solopreneurs, right? Like a a a contract person that.
- 8:44Does. Excavation or a trade work is
- 8:47actually from a business perspective, not that different
- 8:50than, you know, a fractional CMO.
- 8:53They're actually extremely similar.
- 8:54And that was another big realization for us is to, Oh my
- 8:58God, these actually, these people are actually far more
- 9:00similar than they think in terms of admin compliance, taxes and
- 9:04benefits access. And so like, part of like what
- 9:07we're trying to do is playbook that out.
- 9:10And I think one of the really unique things that that we're
- 9:13trying to do right now is to actually get people to kind of
- 9:15let go of the monthly book close idea, right?
- 9:21Like we're not reporting to anybody.
- 9:23It's not like you have to show your PNL to a board of investors
- 9:26or anything like that. It's, it's, it's you and you
- 9:28probably know whether or not you're making enough money.
- 9:32We're actually finding that one of like our kind of very unique
- 9:34playbooks is to actually recommend doing like a macro
- 9:38reconciliation on a quarterly level because that's when
- 9:41quarterly estimated taxes are done, right?
- 9:43So rather than like worry yourself around making sure that
- 9:47everything's super balanced each month and like kind of freak out
- 9:50and out about that is like what instead of doing like 2.
- 9:54Hours. 3 hours a month. Why?
- 9:55Don't we just stack it all into like one big moment with a with
- 9:59AUSA based CPA to kind of go through and like cool.
- 10:01We're good quarters done. Right.
- 10:04And I think that's. That's one of the big things.
- 10:06Is is it's. Hard to find.
- 10:11The education and the playbooks that are right sized for you as
- 10:15a solopreneur. Right you go.
- 10:17And like, I find a lot of people will accidentally end up in AC
- 10:21Corp structure because that's right for a tech startup that's
- 10:24trying to raise funding. And they're like, hey, I'm AC
- 10:26Corp. I'm like, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no,
- 10:30are you making more than like, because it only makes sense if
- 10:32you're making more than like 750 or 800 a year.
- 10:35And it's like, no, they're just a normal fractional who rabbit
- 10:39holed on some information and ended up in AC Corp structure.
- 10:43So I think that's the other big piece here is, is access to
- 10:47playbooks is going to drastically help the
- 10:50solopreneur. It's happening, you know, like
- 10:52this. There's a wave of of
- 10:55solopreneurism happening since COVID, you know, 3,000,000 new.
- 10:58Solopreneurs. Full time solopreneurs per year,
- 11:00right? Now, and it's like, yeah, so we
- 11:03just want to be a part of that story of helping people.
- 11:06You know, Bradley, what was what was what was the thing for you,
- 11:09though, that really what was your worst story in Solopreneur
- 11:12realism? I'm curious.
- 11:13Yeah, I mean, one of them was, it's a little bit less tangible,
- 11:17but it was lack of structure of my life.
- 11:19Like I would wake up and at one point I at the beginning I only
- 11:23had one client. It was 25 hours a week, but it
- 11:25was paying me more than my previous W2 salary.
- 11:28And so I really didn't need to work that hard.
- 11:31And I woke up almost it with like an existential crisis of
- 11:34like, what do I do right now? All of my friends are working.
- 11:38It's Tuesday at 11. AMI don't really have anything I
- 11:40need to be doing right now. I only need to work 3 hours a
- 11:42day, You know, it's so it was a creating a structure for myself
- 11:46that I had always that someone else had previously given me
- 11:50right? Be in the office around 9, go to
- 11:52meetings all day and do some work and leave at 7 and whatever
- 11:56right? And now I had none of that.
- 11:57It was all gone. I had no manager.
- 11:59I had no boss, I had no peers. I had no anything performance
- 12:02review, promotion, salary. It was just like bizarre.
- 12:05So I mean, that was one, it was like, Oh my God, I need a
- 12:07structure immediately, right? Like, I'm going to work at these
- 12:10times and I'm literally going to set meetings with myself and set
- 12:13my own priorities and OK, Rs and like the whole thing, right?
- 12:17Absolutely. And even check in with myself
- 12:19like I literally gave myself performance reviews like how am
- 12:21I doing? Because I've had this
- 12:23existential question of am I doing is this OK?
- 12:26Like can I only work 25 hours a week?
- 12:28And is that, is that allowed? Like it was?
- 12:32And then the other piece, honestly, was the bookkeeping
- 12:34and taxes. It was something I had no idea
- 12:37how to do. I didn't know what I even needed
- 12:40to be doing. I didn't know about quarterly
- 12:42estimated taxes. I was trying not to get, you
- 12:44know, screwed by the IRS. I was like, how do I avoid a
- 12:47nasty letter in the mail or a big bill at the end of the year?
- 12:51I just didn't know what I didn't know.
- 12:52And it was kind of terrifying. So I literally went out and
- 12:55hired ACPA. Yeah, I really did.
- 12:58And you know this. Did you get lucky with it or was
- 13:00it a bad experience? It was not the best experience,
- 13:03but you had started the journey of me learning what I needed to
- 13:06learn. And you know, and eventually, I
- 13:09mean, as you know, I started my Lance and the first product we
- 13:11had was bookkeeping. Like similar to you, I was like,
- 13:14I'm going to solve my own problem here.
- 13:15And I'm not the only one with this problem.
- 13:18So we offered a bookkeeping subscription for like 2 years.
- 13:21My mine wasn't that different than yours honestly.
- 13:22Like I like it was like the third or fourth year in to being
- 13:27fractional, you know, had a OK year and then had a really good
- 13:32year and had ACPA by that point. And I didn't realize that the
- 13:36CPA was calculating my quarterly estimated taxes by just taking
- 13:41the previous year's tax and dividing it by 4 and giving it
- 13:44the voucher once. I didn't understand at that time
- 13:47that like, oh, like quarterly estimated taxes are should be
- 13:50responsive to your net income, not just that's what you pay.
- 13:54So I was, I was going through this year like I'm like, Oh my
- 13:56God, being being independent, amazing.
- 13:58I'm crushing it. I've got like so much more
- 14:00money. I got so much more time.
- 14:02I'm actually like having to figure out what to do with free
- 14:04time. Like do I go, is it OK to go to
- 14:06the beach midweek to go for a run?
- 14:08I guess so, you know, but then got to April and had to pay like
- 14:13I think it was $29,000 that I didn't pay because I did like,
- 14:17you know, 100K more than I did the previous year.
- 14:19And that was one of those moments where I really, I was
- 14:23like, that was one of those existential crises of like, do I
- 14:26want to keep doing this right? This is nasty.
- 14:29Like, I just got not bit by a snake, but like, hit, smashed by
- 14:33a rock. And yeah, all of a sudden, that
- 14:36Goodyear went to like, really not fun but kept moving forward,
- 14:40you know, decided I like the freedom, but.
- 14:42But that was definitely a moment where I almost turned back to
- 14:45W2. So let's talk about turn back to
- 14:48W2 because I think anyone who's going on the fractional journey,
- 14:52nobody wants to quote turn back to W2, right?
- 14:56Like as a business, you don't want that and they don't want
- 14:58that. So what is the biggest
- 15:00difference that you've seen from the people that make this truly
- 15:03sustainable for the long term versus those who, as you said,
- 15:08turn back to W2? Two things come to mind, right
- 15:11is 1 is I do think the idea of the portfolio career in general
- 15:18is becoming a lot more acceptable and also I think
- 15:22should be welcomed. I don't think you have to be so
- 15:27staunch on yourself these days of I'm either independent or I'm
- 15:32not. We have a large percentage of
- 15:35members that what I like to say pendulum and I was one of those
- 15:38people too, right? Depending on how the wind blew,
- 15:42might hop back into AW2 opportunity for a period of
- 15:45time. Because it makes.
- 15:47So much damn sense. And I think that's really common
- 15:50in the fractional and kind of contractor space, right?
- 15:54Whether you're software engineer, designer, fractional C
- 15:57something out. And I think that should be
- 15:59totally OK. And I think one of the things
- 16:02that's really important to think about is to not, you know, to
- 16:07make sure that you still have your side hustle supported.
- 16:12I actually love it when we get members who are what we call
- 16:17solo curious or very early solo. And they asked me the question
- 16:22around, hey, like is if I go back to W2, is B solo still
- 16:28going to help me out? I said, yeah, because we still
- 16:31do your quarterly estimated taxes, which if you're doing
- 16:34self-employed income of any kind, those are still on the
- 16:37table. And then we also do everybody's
- 16:40year end taxes regardless of whether they're they are in AW2
- 16:44or not or whether their spouse is in AW2 or not.
- 16:48To me, this whole space is evolving to be a little bit more
- 16:50flexible. And I think it's a lot more
- 16:53common for somebody to have a side hustle, maybe step into
- 16:56some independent work for a period of time and then go back
- 17:00to AW2 job. So that's like the first thing
- 17:02that comes to mind is like, you don't have to be so black and
- 17:05white and, and hard on yourself about being black and white.
- 17:10If you're consulting and you see an amazing W2 opportunity that
- 17:15you just cannot pass up because it's right for your family or,
- 17:17or whatever it is, that's totally OK.
- 17:21Our recommendation is and, and our, our thought process is
- 17:24like, well, why don't you keep your consulting thing going in a
- 17:29little way so that if that W2 job ever becomes something
- 17:33that's not working for you anymore, you can swing back in
- 17:37like the pendulum and, and be. Really responsive.
- 17:40To the changing tides. And I think that's we've all
- 17:42seen that happen a lot with folks getting laid off without
- 17:45knowing, right? Like that seems to be every
- 17:47every week in the news. You're like, oh, there goes
- 17:49another 10,000 from somewhere. And I just imagine.
- 17:53You know, those people had a good side hustle where they were
- 17:56consulting that would those moments wouldn't be so painful.
- 18:00So that's like. My first thought on it, my
- 18:03second thought is it feels like the folks who become very
- 18:09sustainably solo figure out how to productize their offer in
- 18:14some way, shape or form to say, Oh my God, my, my list rate is
- 18:18250 an hour. And I, I know once I do
- 18:21fractional work in a retainer structure that I'll that'll
- 18:24probably be, you know, reduced down to 150 or 170. 5 or
- 18:28something. And I felt really good because I
- 18:29was making, you know, what an attorney makes.
- 18:31So it's awesome. But I feel like that is a
- 18:34potential trap over time if you're just trying to do that
- 18:37one to one hours to money relationship that can lead to a
- 18:41situation that is not sustainable.
- 18:43I know for me, like the big leap forward in my fractional work
- 18:47was when I productized basically this how to become an SEOSEM
- 18:54company and I called it the Foundation Sprint.
- 18:57And it was about building a bridge solution, right?
- 19:00I would come into these companies and take all of my
- 19:03knowledge and, and kind of get them to that new paradigm and
- 19:07they would pay me amazingly for it.
- 19:11And it was a repeatable structure that I could hit each
- 19:14time that I didn't wasn't going to get completely sideswiped by
- 19:17some problem that I couldn't execute against because I had
- 19:20this playbook that I built for a problem that I knew was
- 19:22reoccurring for lots of different companies.
- 19:24So, yeah, I think that's the people that are like, I think
- 19:27that I see that are like really crushing it in the
- 19:30sustainability, at least from an income perspective, figure out
- 19:33some way to take their one to one time to time to dollars
- 19:37relationship and turn it into a productized offering in some way
- 19:40shape or form. Yeah, no, I I love that take and
- 19:44I recently read Built to Sell. Nice, yeah.
- 19:48Do you read it? Have you read it?
- 19:49Yeah. That's great, yeah.
- 19:51And for anyone, we don't need to go into the whole detail 'cause
- 19:54this isn't about productizing offers.
- 19:55But for anyone wanting more clarity on what that means and
- 19:58how to execute it, that book is fantastic.
- 20:02Yeah. It's like fundamental, Yeah, you
- 20:03like kind of need to. When you do and it is the
- 20:06simplest book in the world. Like I love how it's how it's
- 20:10done and the story that they tell and how it is simple.
- 20:12They make it. In practice, executing a product
- 20:15as service is so incredibly difficult 'cause it forces you
- 20:20to say no to so much, right? And it forces you to super niche
- 20:23down and be like, this is what we offer, nothing else.
- 20:26And, and you even, right, you did the same thing.
- 20:28You named your method, right, the whole thing, right.
- 20:31And so you just got to do it and you got to say no to everything
- 20:33else. And the discipline required to
- 20:35do that is one of the most challenging things.
- 20:38I think it's simple. And practical.
- 20:40Wow. For sure.
- 20:41And I think it's like it's evolving whatever you were doing
- 20:44on your kind of personal outreach side of things to also
- 20:48match that offer is I think was a big mental leap for me because
- 20:52I never wanted to potentially miss a foot in the door, right?
- 20:57Even though a lot of times getting the foot in the door was
- 21:00where I ended up with like the worst client scenarios the way
- 21:04we see it, right? It's like there is massive churn
- 21:07back to W2 traps on both sides of the coin, the demand side and
- 21:13delivery side, as well as the, you know, if you hit the same
- 21:18brick wall that I hit where your family actually needs benefits
- 21:22access, that's game over. You know, like you can't in this
- 21:25country right now. You cannot fight that one.
- 21:28It's it's proper game over. Well, until we solo came around,
- 21:33yeah. A lot of the fractional
- 21:36independent consultants of the world, myself included, first
- 21:40client kind of falls in your lap in some way, right?
- 21:42It just kind of happens. It's a friend of a friend.
- 21:44It's a referral. It's like, hey, Mark, can you do
- 21:46some work for me? And you're like, sure.
- 21:47And then you build this good rate and you're like, Oh my God,
- 21:50this is epic. And then maybe another one falls
- 21:53and another one falls and all of a sudden you have this business
- 21:56and maybe you're doing like 20 or 30 KA month and you know,
- 21:59things are good. And then, you know, there's a
- 22:01whole business development journey that you start going
- 22:03down. But let's just put that to the
- 22:04side for a second and let's talk about the other side.
- 22:08If I'm a fractional and I am, let's say, making or planning to
- 22:13make, you know, somewhere around 100 KA year, what are the things
- 22:16like simplify it for me 'cause I feel like it can be very
- 22:19overwhelming to think about. What are the things I need to
- 22:22get set up for my business from an infrastructure perspective
- 22:26that keeps me in a good spot regarding IRS, health insurance,
- 22:31whatever. All of the things like what are
- 22:33simplify it for me if I'm that person.
- 22:36Totally. Yeah.
- 22:37So the operational back office stack for a solopreneur, and
- 22:41it's actually not just. And this is what I loved.
- 22:43Diving into this space as a former is like realizing that it
- 22:48actually didn't matter whether you were fractional graphic
- 22:51designer, a wedding photographer of, you know, a trades person
- 22:55like, like my dad, like it's actually the same stack, right?
- 23:00We find that the first decision that everybody needs to make is
- 23:04their company type. Are you a sole proprietor,
- 23:06right, where you're going to be contracting as yourself?
- 23:10Are you going to be an LLC where you actually register an entity
- 23:12with the state? Or are you going to be an S
- 23:15Corp, which is the most common corporation structure like you
- 23:18said, which is LLC electing S Corp in the eyes of the IRS.
- 23:22So that tends to be one of those big questions.
- 23:25A lot of people lean towards sole proprietor because it's the
- 23:28simplest and you don't have to do anything, but don't realize,
- 23:33you know, that they're putting themselves potentially at risk
- 23:36for a lot of liability, right? If you're contracting, if you're
- 23:40handshaking, if you're accepting money from people as a sole
- 23:44proprietor, right you are. You are effectively saying my
- 23:48person will be on the hook for this work in perpetuity,
- 23:54especially if you're doing it without any contracts that
- 23:56define the limitations of liability too.
- 23:59And you know, what we like to say is like there are certain
- 24:04types of businesses and offerings, right?
- 24:06That like, that's probably OK, right?
- 24:09If you're retouching wedding photo photos as a digital photo
- 24:13retoucher, as long as you don't lose all of them, right?
- 24:16Because that would be like the one big scenario where like, oh,
- 24:18Dang. But The funny thing is like,
- 24:20what if you think about like, that's probably not that risky.
- 24:23But I I actually look at somebody like a wedding
- 24:24photographer and realize, wow, they're holding cameras,
- 24:28probably standing above people in a physical space where
- 24:31someone might really get injured.
- 24:33There's recommending. People stand next to certain
- 24:36things. Maybe somebody falls down.
- 24:38It's all of these like, you know, and that's once again,
- 24:41kind of like the government is not set up well, the country's
- 24:44not set up well for kind of defining that risk for a
- 24:47business of one. Because if you're doing that
- 24:48business, you're the same type of liability that a company with
- 24:52a team of lawyers has, but you just don't have the bandwidth to
- 24:56actually be able to take that hit if something does happen.
- 24:59So yes, I think choosing your company structure and we have a
- 25:01whole, we have a whole bunch of webinars on how to decide on
- 25:05that. And and you know, S Corp tends
- 25:08to be very revenue focused and pretty clear.
- 25:11The fuzzy metric is always around, like how much do I value
- 25:14my freedom and flexibility? So welcome back.
- 25:21We actually had a complete Riverside fail on our first
- 25:25recording and so you can notice the wardrobe change and we are a
- 25:30week later so you won't know that but just just calling it
- 25:32out so. Does my does my facial?
- 25:34Hair look different. I can't tell what I had.
- 25:37Yeah, we're in the second act now.
- 25:42Whole different person a week later.
- 25:45Yeah. So, yeah, I've never had that
- 25:48happen. So this is the first.
- 25:49But so to pick up where we left off, we were talking about the
- 25:54the office stack that a business of 1 needs and we were talking
- 25:59about LLCS versus S Corps. Let's just go there for a
- 26:03minute. You know, how do you think about
- 26:05advising someone on LLC versus S Corp?
- 26:08What are the considerations there?
- 26:10Or neither, right. There's also the sole prop or
- 26:12even AC Corp option. There's there's other options,
- 26:14right, Right. Yeah.
- 26:16Yeah, so let's start at the simplest, right?
- 26:18So sole prop C Corp don't even have to think about it unless
- 26:23you're making well north of like 556 hundred.
- 26:25There's like maybe some math that starts working there, but
- 26:28for 99.99% not even worth looking at.
- 26:34Sole proprietor, you know, is just the basic idea or the basic
- 26:37definition of anybody who starts doing business as a business of
- 26:411. As soon as you make your first
- 26:43deal, you are a sole proprietor. You didn't register with
- 26:45anybody. But the downside of a sole
- 26:47proprietorship, right is like you are contracting as yourself,
- 26:52not as a business. There's no separation between
- 26:54yourself and the business activities in the business
- 26:57liabilities. Right, I'm not a tax.
- 27:00Professional. I'm not a law professional, but.
- 27:02I think what I'll have to do is. Just kind of give people a
- 27:05framework, A simplified framework on how to look at
- 27:07these decisions, right? And so sole proprietorship, you
- 27:12know, something goes wrong in your business and there's a lot
- 27:15of ways that things can go wrong, really stupid ways too,
- 27:18right? Like you can injure somebody on
- 27:21while driving to a job and that may or may not be a business
- 27:25liability, right? You could have a data leak that
- 27:31for a client that you were working on, it wasn't actually
- 27:33your fault, but you're getting sued because the client is VC
- 27:35funded. All these really types of weird,
- 27:37weird liabilities that open up. So in our eyes, you know, we
- 27:43think about it in terms of the spectrum of risk, in terms of
- 27:45should I be a sole prop or an LLCS Corp?
- 27:48You know, if you're on the very, very, very low spectrum of risk,
- 27:51like I put like wedding photo retouchers in that bucket,
- 27:55right? Maybe they don't have that much
- 27:57risk. And there's it's the the photos
- 27:59are duplicated in four different hard drives and everybody's fine
- 28:02with it. But I mean, if you lost the
- 28:03photos, that's there's risk right there.
- 28:05That's on you. Yeah.
- 28:07So sole proprietors, super low risk.
- 28:09And then you can use business insurance to kind of hedge
- 28:14against any of that risk. Like for some people, that makes
- 28:16sense. For the vast majority of people
- 28:18that be solo serves, we work with a lot of consultants,
- 28:21fractionals, software engineers, designers, people that at a very
- 28:26high level actually are impacting businesses in a
- 28:30meaningful way. And a lot of those businesses
- 28:34are venture backed start-ups or start-ups that make a fair
- 28:38amount of money with stakeholders.
- 28:40So in our eyes, it's like it doesn't cost that much to make
- 28:45an LLC and it's really not that hard with and, and we're not the
- 28:50only people that provide like a compliance calendar.
- 28:53Like once you understand what the compliance states are and
- 28:55how to do that, there are options, but it's something that
- 28:57B Solo does too. Once you understand those
- 28:59compliance states, it's not that expensive to be able to say like
- 29:02I'm working as a business and my business made those choices and
- 29:07I have this level of protection to between the business
- 29:10liabilities and my house. Or my cats.
- 29:13You know, I don't know why somebody who tried to take my
- 29:14cats in a lawsuit, but I always that's where my brain always
- 29:17goes. They're going to take my fur
- 29:18babies. That's how we kind of frame the
- 29:20the the the the lens of OK, should I do S soles proprietor
- 29:25or LLCS Corp And it's around your tolerance for risk.
- 29:30And also this, like I said, this day is super easy to check the
- 29:33box. We always say, might as well
- 29:35check the box. You know, they're not that hard
- 29:37to tear down to if you have to. Once it comes to LLC versus sole
- 29:42proprietor, we've found that Desolo is one of the only
- 29:48companies out there giving the full picture of the of how to
- 29:54consider S Corp. A lot of companies and even Cpas
- 29:58will just be like, hey, you're making above this, do it.
- 30:02And they won't ask you questions around how consistent is your
- 30:05revenue, right? Because the S Corp is going to
- 30:08require you to run a payroll to see the big tax savings that
- 30:11come from S Corp. And for a lot of people, it's
- 30:13huge tax savings. But money's not everything for
- 30:17some people, right? Like, and it's not for me.
- 30:19Like for me, the whole solopreneurial fractional
- 30:22lifestyle was about freedom and flexibility.
- 30:25I like to spend time with my wife while she was, you know,
- 30:28going through a kidney transplant process and
- 30:30recovering from that. Like it was way more about being
- 30:34able to be there in my life, could be present and it was
- 30:37about saving another 3 grand. So everybody else says, S Corp,
- 30:42you get above this level, do it. We say that's consideration #1
- 30:46revenue threshold. If they're, if you're above a
- 30:48revenue threshold, then you might actually open the door to
- 30:52tax savings opportunity. The next consideration is about
- 30:57the operational burden of running an S Corp, and that's
- 31:00revenue. Consistency.
- 31:02It's going to be far easier to run a salary for yourself, which
- 31:06can be a lot of people will do that quarterly.
- 31:08A lot of people, some people even do that annually.
- 31:10They'll do like one big salary at the end of the year.
- 31:13Our platform is set up to do salary just like that AW two job
- 31:17every other week. It's a lot easier to do that if
- 31:20your revenue is consistent. We say hey ±10% is ideal, and
- 31:27the revenue threshold that we say is like more like 80 to 100.
- 31:29K because we don't want people to just do S Corp.
- 31:32And then have to pay for something like the Solo or one
- 31:34of the other providers and then like net out $500.
- 31:38I promise you it's not worth it for $500 because because of all
- 31:42these other things we're talking about.
- 31:44The third consideration is your value on freedom and flexibility
- 31:49in this lifestyle, right? How much, how important is it
- 31:54for you to just be able to, you know, not think about your
- 31:59business that much? Because the, the payroll piece,
- 32:01we like to call it the payroll treadmill.
- 32:03You're going to get on that treadmill and it's going to keep
- 32:06going at a certain speed and you got to keep walking with it.
- 32:09Otherwise you're going to fall behind and you get really
- 32:10stressed out. It doesn't necessarily mean
- 32:12there's going to be fines or big compliance challenges, but it
- 32:15just means it's way easier if you're.
- 32:18Able to just walk on that treadmill.
- 32:20So for some people that want to go to Bali for six months out of
- 32:22the year, you know, make make 150 grand the first six months
- 32:26doing some focus project and then bail out and go work in a
- 32:29bar in Bali like S Corp probably not a great fit.
- 32:33So those are our, those are our three considerations.
- 32:35So just to simplify what I'm hearing, the LOC versus sole
- 32:40prop is more of a legal risk decision.
- 32:44Yes. The S Corp is a taxation, which
- 32:48is more of the the finance and taxes decision of are there tax
- 32:53savings for me there? And as you make that decision,
- 32:57the additional consideration is the consistency of revenue
- 33:01running payroll, the additional compliance pieces that come with
- 33:04an S Corp. It's not something you just
- 33:06elect and it's like done. You need to stay on top.
- 33:09Of it, it's not a boxy check. There are operational burdens.
- 33:13The compliance, compliance goes up.
- 33:16Payroll compliance is a payroll operations.
- 33:18Payroll compliance is a real thing.
- 33:20Having cleaner books, no connection of business personal
- 33:23finance at all? Yeah, like way more stringent.
- 33:27What about the other things, Right, There's health insurance.
- 33:30There's obviously like invoicing, more back office
- 33:32things. Like, what are the other things
- 33:33if we just talk about the entire toolkit that this solopreneur
- 33:37needs? Yeah, What are the other things?
- 33:41Yeah. And real quick too, I think an
- 33:43even even simpler way to look at LLC versus sole prop versus S
- 33:48Corp is how am I viewed in the eyes of the state, which is
- 33:53basically answering the question is how am I doing business?
- 33:56Am I doing business as an individual And that risk is tied
- 33:59to me as an individual? In the eyes of the state.
- 34:01Because law and courts happen in states.
- 34:05And then if I'm electing LLC or Escorp, I'm now registering as a
- 34:08company in that state to do business as a company.
- 34:11And then the escort piece how whether you're escorp or LLC is
- 34:16in the eyes of the IRS, right? So how am I viewed as a business
- 34:19in the in the eyes of the IRSLLC and sole proprietor exactly the
- 34:23same and for all intents and purposes in the eyes of the IRS
- 34:27as Corp and LLC very different. So all of that is like the
- 34:33fundamental question that most solopreneurs face from day one.
- 34:38How what is my business structure going to be?
- 34:41We find that for the vast majority of people, it's
- 34:43starting as LLC and then leaning their way and growing towards
- 34:48escort while understanding their own personal tolerance around
- 34:52freedom, loss, flexibility, gains.
- 34:54That sort of thing is on the there's two sides of the coin,
- 34:59right? If you're holding up your
- 35:00solopreneurial business as a coin, there's the delivery,
- 35:03sales, marketing, right? Actually doing whatever it is
- 35:06you do to get paid, closing clients, marketing your
- 35:09business. And then there's the back office
- 35:12finance and benefits, right? So everything the solo does is
- 35:17on the back office side, right? We do give webinars and such
- 35:22around sales activities, but we're not, we're actively not
- 35:24touching that space right now. All the back office things are
- 35:29the things that you just the boxes you need to check just to
- 35:32even do business in this in in a solopreneurial way at all,
- 35:37right? Everybody, if you start doing
- 35:39business as a business 1 and you reach a very low revenue
- 35:43threshold, you have to do quarterly taxes.
- 35:46You have to estimate how much you're going to pay over that
- 35:48year and then pay the IRS 4 * a year.
- 35:50That's one of the big things that people get really freaked
- 35:52out about is like, oh man, how do I calculate this?
- 35:56And a lot of people end up working with ACPA, who doesn't
- 35:59like you because you're a small business and you try to ask
- 36:02questions that they are not allowed to bill for.
- 36:05We're basically the least favorite clients in the eyes of
- 36:08most Cpas with B solo, like our accounting system will actually,
- 36:13because it's connected to your business bank account, all the
- 36:16inputs and outputs, it's seeing those and can actually do like a
- 36:19fuzzy estimation. We call the quarterly tax
- 36:22pedometer. That's happening in real time as
- 36:24your business is growing. And then once the quarter rolls
- 36:26around, you have a much better idea of how big of a check
- 36:28you're going to write to the state and the Fed.
- 36:31So let's just go over. So like first big decision,
- 36:35right is business structure, sole proprietor LLCS, Corp.
- 36:40The next big decision is business bank, right?
- 36:43If you're doing an LLC or an S Corp, you should probably have a
- 36:45business bank. It's best practice to uphold the
- 36:48corporate veil that liability protection that those structures
- 36:51give you by having your business and personal finances separated.
- 36:55If you have a business bank and you are only running your
- 36:58business expenses, meaning you're buying stuff on debit
- 37:01card or credit card associated with that business and you're
- 37:03receiving money from clients into that business bank account,
- 37:06it's actually really easy to do the business accounting.
- 37:08Now with a modern accounting system like Bsolo, it just
- 37:11integrates with the business bank and helps you categorize
- 37:14all those things. And then by categorizing all
- 37:16those things will help you get much closer to being able to do
- 37:19those quarterly estimated taxes far easier.
- 37:22So business structure, business banking accounting to drive
- 37:27quarterly estimated taxes and annual tax understanding and
- 37:29also overall business like performance.
- 37:32How much am I making this year? And then kind of woven into that
- 37:38is compliance, right? There are dates that matter to
- 37:43businesses, all businesses, businesses of one are no
- 37:46different. If you have an LLC or an S Corp,
- 37:48there's a statement of information you have to file
- 37:50every once in a while. The quarterly estimated taxes
- 37:53come up every quarter and then annual taxes every year.
- 37:56And there are even for infra S corps, there's even more dates
- 37:59associated with that matter. So being able to know, hey, it's
- 38:02time to do something is how be solo where we have a dynamic
- 38:07compliance calendar that's basically built off of the
- 38:09formation date of the business that says, hey, it's time to do
- 38:12this. Ask our team if we need help.
- 38:15And then the final piece is you know beyond annual tax filing
- 38:20which we do with USA based dedicated Cpas for every member
- 38:25is OK. I've got all.
- 38:27That stuff figured out. How do I recreate a benefits
- 38:29package that I had at my job? And that's a really nasty
- 38:34problem, right? A lot of people spend the first
- 38:38zero to 24 months kind of wedding wading through
- 38:43everything before the benefits access piece.
- 38:46And then they get their revenue dialed.
- 38:47They're like, oh, cool, I'm making 10 grand a month, I'm
- 38:49making 120. You know, this is all right,
- 38:51cool. And I'm working half time.
- 38:53OK, very cool. And then they get to making a
- 38:56lot of money. I should probably put some of
- 38:58that away, like what's my retirement structure?
- 39:01And most people full on choice paralysis, once they get to
- 39:05benefits, can't figure out what to do.
- 39:08And so that's another thing that we've done is like turn those
- 39:11things into toggle switches. Like here's a really great solo
- 39:13401K. If you're truly a business one,
- 39:15this is the best option and it's included.
- 39:17In the platform fee. Does that help them decide
- 39:19because they know there's like a Sep IRA, there's 401K solo and
- 39:23four there. There are options, right?
- 39:24There are options. Do you guys, is it a custom
- 39:27depending on their situation or is it like most people are going
- 39:31to fit into this bucket? If you are a true business of
- 39:34one, most people, the solo 4O1K is the best option, right?
- 39:38So and then of course, we have retirement advisors that folks
- 39:41can talk to to make sure that they fit that box.
- 39:45But you know, we scream and make sure that nobody who's going to
- 39:49like who wants to hire employees.
- 39:52You can keep in mind you can have as many contractors as you
- 39:54want. It's totally fine.
- 39:55And that happens all the time. Now we call it a band of
- 39:57pirates, right? You can have a company.
- 40:00It's got 6 contractors and it's you and six contractors and it
- 40:03looks and feels and smells like a company, but it's actually all
- 40:06contract based. That is still technically a
- 40:08business of one, right? So in that scenario, Solo 4O1K
- 40:11is still a really good option. And a lot of people get really
- 40:14fuzzy around Sep IRA, Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or
- 40:20Solo 4O1K. At the end of the day, Solo 41 K
- 40:23$69,000 contribution limit Max and you can do this really cool
- 40:27thing called the Solo 4O1K loan where you can actually take down
- 40:31some of the balance if you need it up to 50% of the balance.
- 40:35So it's actually up to it. It has a Max cap of $50,000, but
- 40:39it's actually a really cool way to stack a rainy day fund in a
- 40:43tax advantageous way, right, which is like very unique.
- 40:47So that's why you know and of course, if anybody has any
- 40:50questions about this, please reach out to us.
- 40:52Everybody's unique like we need to make sure you fit into that
- 40:55box. But for the people that Sola 41K
- 40:57is really good for, it's NRI is the best option and is very
- 41:02flexible in this way. Awesome.
- 41:04So I'm a solo preneur, and I'm, you know, kind of been keeping
- 41:07my head above water with all these different things, trying
- 41:10not to get sued or, you know, the nasty letter from the IRS.
- 41:14And I want simplicity, right? Yeah, When I come to be solo,
- 41:20what do I get? Like, what does it look like?
- 41:22How do I just make this simple? Because that's, that's what I
- 41:25wanted when I was in this situation.
- 41:26Like just take this off my plate and make it simple.
- 41:29Give me Peace of Mind. That's really what I wanted.
- 41:31I wanted Peace of Mind. So.
- 41:32Yeah, we like to say that. The the actual product of B Solo
- 41:37is playbooking this space, right is it's actually the tools that
- 41:42we have in the platform are a reflection of the playbooks that
- 41:47we find to be true across the vast majority of businesses of
- 41:511. And I think the retirement plan
- 41:54scenario is a very clear example of this where it's like, yeah,
- 41:59for the vast majority of folks who are true businesses of one
- 42:02solo 4O1K is, you know, is above, up, above and beyond
- 42:06versus the other options. So let's make that really easy
- 42:09and turn it into a toggle switch that they can turn on if and
- 42:12when they want to. So be solo, right?
- 42:16It's the compliance, the formation, the tax, the
- 42:22accounting, invoicing, time tracking all in one place, human
- 42:27support around the tax cycles, the really scary tax cycles.
- 42:32And then if and when you need some benefits options, we've
- 42:36curated options to turn those into toggle switches.
- 42:39And all of that sits on a really strong foundation of playbooks
- 42:44for the space and expert support, meaning our team that
- 42:48you can ask as many questions you want to, right?
- 42:50And we found that, you know, and I found this for myself being in
- 42:55this space. And you probably did too, right?
- 42:57Like choice paralysis is brutal when you're trying to put
- 43:01together your operational stack. You're like, am I harvester?
- 43:05Am I toggle and my QuickBooks and my wave and my zero and my,
- 43:08you know, and like, which silver for 1K plan is it?
- 43:10Which where should I for my LLC? Do I need a registered agent?
- 43:13And we're just like, let's just check.
- 43:15Why don't you just make one decision?
- 43:17Let's check all those boxes in one decision and then give you
- 43:21human beings you can talk to as things come up.
- 43:24And also you just know that we're approaching it as a
- 43:28there's a playbook that is true for a business of 1 and our
- 43:31tools reflect that. Amazing.
- 43:33So if I'm listening to this, who is it for?
- 43:37Like how do I know if I'm a listener right now I should come
- 43:40to be solo and check it out? Or maybe it's not for me.
- 43:43Yeah. So we found typically the fit is
- 43:46really good for people who are in their first three years and
- 43:50even more specifically their first 12 to 18 months.
- 43:55That tends to be the time when folks are trying to put together
- 43:59this stack and struggling. We are openly saying today that,
- 44:03yes, it's more complex if you've already got all of these figured
- 44:07out, like you've got you've got QuickBooks, you're using Gusto
- 44:10for payroll on the escort piece. You got a great CPA that you
- 44:13love. Some people sometimes you'll
- 44:16hear, well, like I've got a guy that does my escort taxes and
- 44:19he's like 500 bucks. I'm like, that's amazing.
- 44:21Do that. That's I can't compete with that
- 44:23at all. Yeah, but if you're like
- 44:25completely overwhelmed, right, Or even moderately overwhelmed
- 44:30with stepping out of the walled city of W2 work where everything
- 44:35else was built for you and all you had to do was deliver to Oh
- 44:39my God, I have to build the house that I'm living in.
- 44:41Like while I'm trying to work and do this, we can just kind of
- 44:46help build that whole shell with one decision.
- 44:49And for, you know, we have helped people who have been on
- 44:53QuickBooks and we can import that in, right.
- 44:55So it's not like a hard line that like, if you already made
- 44:58some of these choices, you can't still come in to be solo.
- 45:01But if the idea of making one decision to check, you know, 10
- 45:05or 15 boxes on this side of the coin sounds exciting and and
- 45:09like a relief. I, I've had people thank me
- 45:12like, oh, thank you for making this.
- 45:14Like, I just, I didn't want to think about this anymore.
- 45:17It's not and it's truthful. It's not worth your time.
- 45:20And and at the end of the day, having the human CPA is probably
- 45:25going to be comparably cost costed to what the solo costs
- 45:28anyway. And we do it in a nice monthly
- 45:31service fee with no commitments. Yeah.
- 45:34Amazing. Yeah.
- 45:34So and if people have questions or are looking for just a
- 45:37consult, do you guys do like a free consult or, or just a chat?
- 45:42OK, cool. So we'll we'll, we'll get the
- 45:44links for all of that in that show notes so everyone can
- 45:47access it really easily. Is that the best way to get in
- 45:51touch with you? Yeah, yeah.
- 45:52We'll, we'll put together a landing page for the My Lands
- 45:55community and you can book a demo there.
- 45:58But if you, you know, review everything and be solo and you
- 46:01want to just get started as an LLC member, there's a link to
- 46:04that that's got a discount associated with it already.
- 46:07You get free LLC formation. You just got to cover the state
- 46:09filing. Fees and then we also do a no
- 46:12risk free. Trial for the first month that
- 46:15nobody's backed out of yet, which is really exciting.
- 46:17So that's a good sign that we're on to something.
- 46:21But, but, but you don't have to be scared.
- 46:23And if you do decide to back out, the LLC that we formed for
- 46:27you is still yours. It's it's that's yours.
- 46:29Yours to keep. Amazing.
- 46:31Cool. Any last words of wisdom or just
- 46:35something you want to share with the audience before we wrap up?
- 46:39Yeah. I mean, I think in general, if
- 46:42you're, you know, if you feel like you stepped into this world
- 46:46and it's overwhelming, we found that a lot of people are just
- 46:48afraid to even ask questions, right?
- 46:51They don't want to seem like they don't know if it feels like
- 46:54everybody else has this figured out.
- 46:56They don't. Everybody from, from, from my
- 47:00experience, 90 to 95% of people are living in some type of fear
- 47:06of a compliance tax or benefits issue.
- 47:10And that's where we're here to help, whether that's with just,
- 47:13you know, you can engage with our education, you can engage
- 47:16with, you know, one of our team members just to get some
- 47:18clarity. At the end of the day, we're
- 47:21just trying to be the guides in this space to like get this done
- 47:24right and make it easy and sustainable.
- 47:27And however we can help, we're here to help.
- 47:29Amazing. Well, I'll second the person
- 47:31that said thank you because I there's just a huge community of
- 47:34people actually need to support. And I know first hand it's not
- 47:38an easy business to build and navigate all the compliance
- 47:40stuff. So yeah, I know how challenging
- 47:42it is. So thank you.
- 47:43You want to be happy for the community and then the sole
- 47:45preneurs out there that really rely on you guys.
- 47:48Once we saw it was possible, like we couldn't Unsee it.
- 47:50You know what I mean? We, we being in the shoes of, of
- 47:53a, of solopreneurs for 10 plus years.
- 47:55I was like, I'm having my dad, you know, have a business on my
- 47:58whole life. And watching him complain around
- 48:01tax time and complain is a very light version of what he was
- 48:04actually. Doing, you know, it was like,
- 48:07all right, we. Got it.
- 48:08We got to make this work because it's no longer a niche.
- 48:11You know, there's, there's around 3,000,000 new full time
- 48:14solos in just in the United States alone.
- 48:17And like I said, the majority of them are doing exactly what
- 48:20everybody else is doing, which is walking around in a jungle at
- 48:23night with a flashlight, hoping they don't fall into a pit or
- 48:27get bit by a snake or something. And we're like just gonna give
- 48:30you the backpack, give you the trail map, give you the
- 48:32flashlight, make sure you got the right shoes on, and overtime
- 48:35will make it so that it's just very easy to get to a totally.
- 48:38Amazing. Well, Mark, thanks so much for
- 48:40being on the show and sharing all the insights and just
- 48:42everything that you're able to bring your time, energy, all of
- 48:45it. So appreciate.
- 48:46It thank you. This is the best part of the
- 48:49job. It's just getting to push this
- 48:51space in the right direction.