Latest / Only Fee-Only / #81 - Riding the IPO Wave in the Tech World: A Financial Entrepreneur's Journey with AJ Ayers of Brooklyn FI

Transcript

#81 - Riding the IPO Wave in the Tech World: A Financial Entrepreneur's Journey with AJ Ayers of Brooklyn FI · Only Fee-Only

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: How's it going everyone?
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the only few only podcast and, as always, thanks for being here.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: In this episode we got to talk to the one and only, aj Ayres, who is the CEO at Brooklyn F I, and this was a phenomenal conversation.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: She has some really cool things that she's done all over the place, including being a senior editor for a band camp and then eventually just kind of got her interest peaked, along with her co-founder and starting a financial planning firm.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He was already an accountant, so it kind of started that way and then they went on to make this amazing thing that is Brooklyn F.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: She has a lot of great things to say.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: You can tell she's passionate about what she does and they've managed to build the team into something that's really respectable and very large at this point.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And so it was really cool to kind of hear about that enterprise vision that they ended up being as a part of the XYPN community, which is typically less common.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, you see a lot of solo pernures, a lot of boutiques, but they're a larger firm within XYPN, which is really cool, and it was really cool to just hear about how they're kind of building their firm the way that they want to.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So we had a blast talking to AJ and I know you guys are going to enjoy this episode, so stick around, sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This is AJ Ayres on the only fee only podcast.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: What's up everyone?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of the only fee only podcast.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I'm Peter Travelo.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'm here with my cohost, brock Buckles, and Josh Passler.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: What's up, guys?
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: What's up, man?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: What's going on, guys Doing?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: well Living the dream and today very excited to have AJ Ayres on from Brooklyn Phi.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: If you're part of the XYPN network or in the fee only planning space, you may have seen AJ and or her firm, so really excited to have her on and let her share her story.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So, aj, welcome to the show.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: So thanks so much for having me guys Excited to be here Awesome.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Well, for those who don't know who you are and who Brooklyn Phi is, you want to give a quick overview of who you are and what you're doing and who the firm is currently serving.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, so I'm.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I'm AJ Ayres, as you said, I'm a CFP, ea, some other designations that I may have stopped studying doing the CE for, so may have dropped off a few of those letters.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: I am the co-founder of a firm called Brooklyn FI.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: We have been around for almost six years and we serve mostly clients in the tech space.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Our niche is equity compensation.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: We're kind of unique in that we do taxes.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: We file taxes for our 400 ish client households and you know that niche.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: We started out really with the Spotify IPO in 2018, which is one of the first New York City tech IPOs, and just grew like wildfire from there.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: So we're kind of holding it down on the East Coast as an equity comp niche.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I know there are a lot of folks on the West Coast, especially in Silicon Valley, but we've been super successful with that niche here in Brooklyn.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: It's probably worth noting that the pandemic changed all of our lives and it definitely changed our firm.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: We started in a WeWork by, you know, in March 2020, there were about six of us working out at WeWork.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: We sent everyone with their monitors home and said we'll see you in a few months and, you know, never looked back and never went back to that office.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: So now we've got a team all across the country.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Most of our clients, about 70%, are still in the New York City area, but now we work with folks all over the country, big concentration in California, basically anywhere anyone's paying high taxes or those lower tax states where our Californians and New Yorkers have moved to the Florida's and Colorado's of the world.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of a rundown.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: We've got a pretty big team.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: We're crossing the 20 person mark and then we've got some contractors as well and, yeah, it's been a wild ride.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I'm excited to get into it with y'all.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot that we're going to be able to talk about with Brooklyn F5.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: But let's talk about AJ for a second right, Because it's always nice to know the person behind the business.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So, when you like, what was your kind of?
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: What did it look like?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: How'd you get into it?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: You know, where'd you go to school?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: How did you decide, hey, I think I might want to do this.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And then how did that ultimately lead you kind of into saying maybe we should start a family financial planning firm?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's a really long story.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I only know we have less than an hour, but I'll try to keep it brief.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: So, growing up I always wanted to be a book editor.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I went to school.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I went to Skidmore College in upstate New York, a really tiny liberal arts school.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: That was awesome.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I majored in English and international affairs.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about money, finance, math.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I was really bad at math actually, I only got to geometry two in high school, fun fact and moved to New York City right after college, worked at a book publisher, kind of had my dream job kind of like, did the thing.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: I worked for a publisher called Bloomsbury.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: They published a book called Harry Potter.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard of that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe once or twice.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: They made a movie right.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a few, I think and so I worked in the academic book publishing space so very high-brow, complicated stuff.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I worked in the music space which, kind of long story short, led to this other job at a company called Bandcamp, which is basically like a music marketplace.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: So if you think of Etsy, how you can just sell your stuff online you can sell your music online at this company called Bandcamp and they hired me to do editorial.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: So I was actually interviewing bands.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: So my career kind of led me to be a music journalist.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: But I was working for a tech company and I got granted incentive stock options or ISOs and I had no idea what they were.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I was being paid well for the first time in my life because, as many financial advisors know, media does not pay very well and I was looking at my bank account and thought like, oh, I have some money here, what do I do with it?
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: I guess I should invest.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: There's this thing called the stock market.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Started looking around for someone to give me advice.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Didn't really find anyone who was explaining it to me in a way that I could understand.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what people meant by the stock market and I'm a journalist.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I wanted to learn more about it and really understand it, wrap my head around it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: So I started a podcast called Money Splained while I was working at Bandcamp and was interviewing experts to just kind of explain concepts to me which, looking back, that first season of that show basically was the CFP curriculum.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: We did an episode on estate planning, an episode on investing and taxes and one of the people that my friend who worked with me at Bandcamp said I should talk to you as her accountant she's like my accountant's really cool, like you'll like him, he's not your typical accountant and that was Shane Mason, my business partner and brother and best friend and lifelong collaborator.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: And it was just this like Kismet serendipitous meeting.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I interviewed him on my podcast.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: You can listen to the first hour we ever meet.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about taxes and we just totally hit it off.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: I hung out a few times that summer and I got really into learning more about personal finance.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: I was just kind of obsessed with it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Shane was working in accounting and already had a CFP, was kind of like further along in the journey to make the leap and we were like let's do this thing and kind of just took this blind leap of faith.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: That was August of 2017.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: We launched the firm in April of 2018.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: And it's been kind of a wild ride ever since.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: That's so cool and you guys are both co-CEOs together.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: So what was the original business plan in the beginning Was just like you're going to do taxes, shane, I'm going to do the financial planning and we'll all kind of do some marketing.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Like what was the original game plan in those first few years of the business?
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: like yeah, it's so funny.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: I was thinking like what was it like in the beginning?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I blocked out, I can't tell, I don't remember.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: That's really funny.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: We understand People are like what was it like?
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it was hard and now it's a little bit easier.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: You know, originally.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: So originally I had no finance background.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: So originally it was like AJ, go get your CFP, go get your EA, learn everything you possibly can.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I had an editorial background, I had done a little bit of PR and marketing, so I kind of started shaping our brand and our voice.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: But it was very much collaborative, the two of us kind of on everything from the get-go.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Originally we were like what are we trying to do here?
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Are we trying to build a practice where what we call a lifestyle practice?
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: And we were like, no, from day one, let's make this, there is a gap in the market.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: We basically instantly we knew it was working, we were getting clients.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of like let's figure this out together.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: So yeah, in those early days and neither of us had ever worked at an RIA, like Shane worked in a public accounting firm and I think that really helped us because we didn't have any quote unquote bad habits we were compliant.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Of course Now we have a CCO, john Owens, who's our newest partner.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: But in the beginning we were like, yeah, let's do a blog.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: And I've talked to so many advisors over the year.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: They were like how do you get that past compliance?
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: And I was like I'm compliance, I'm not doing anything wrong, I'm putting my clients in diversified portfolios.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: If someone has a question, I'll happily answer it, so it was that kind of constant risk taking.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Your original question was what was the business plan?
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: It was like yeah, let's grow this thing, let's help people in Brooklyn who aren't being served by traditional financial advisors.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: That's really cool so did you, and you guys are still on the XY chassis.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Did you guys start with XY planning?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Because it's also probably been interesting to grow and see XY grow and your firm grow as well too.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So what was that like in the beginning, and how are they still supporting you to this day?
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean could not have done it without XY.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: I mean not are neither of us had any idea what we were doing.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: They helped us, you know, get registered.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You know we use their software recommendations in the beginning, took all the discounts.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: We still are XY members, active members of the community.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: You know Alan and Michael and a lot of the team there, you know, have been so supportive of us over the years.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: We've made so many, I've made so many friends, you know.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Shout out to the girls at mana, at Eric Rodriguez out on the West Coast.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You know these are people that I consider like my friends, not just fellow business owners.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And you know we're.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: We actually get a ton of leads from their fine-tuned advisor platform.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know, that's everyone's experience.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: But yeah, still love the XY community.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I know we're kind of one of the bigger firms now, you know in in the XY network, but I just we owe them so much and continue to support them.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is interesting to kind of see the evolution and the different kind of dynamics within XY.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Right, because I would say maybe I'm misspeaking, but from our experience, who we've talked to, who we know, lot of solopreneurs, a lot of people want to have a lifestyle practice.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: You've got some of the boutique stuff and then you've got some firms that are kind of getting larger and larger and larger.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I mean crossing the 20 person mark.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't, I'm not sure there is another firm Maybe there is, but I don't know of any other firms at 20 plus people with the nxy.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So that's really cool.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: What were some of the things you guys said?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Immediately you started growing right.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So that's a different problem than a lot of people have.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are like if I have 12 months for the runway and if we don't get anybody in the door, like we're gonna shut down, I'm gonna be looking for a job.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: You guys didn't have that experience.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: You immediately were off the pavement right, taking off into the stratosphere finding clients.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So what kind of problems did that present with systems and hey, we have to figure this out.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And and how did you guys kind of move through that?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question and you know I don't want to say that it came out of thin air, right?
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: You know Shane had been doing taxes in his bedroom.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: That was how I learned to do taxes, as we would literally sit at his little desk.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I'm like you 1040s together For that first tax season.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I had a full-time job and I was getting my CFP.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I would literally log into this laptop this like old clunky dell at like 4 30 am, prepare a bunch of 1040s before work.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Shane would review them.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: We get them submitted like it was scrappy.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: So there was their clients coming in from the tax firm.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: You know, I had this, this network.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I was 27, 28 at the time, like my friends had figured their shit out.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Sorry, we're going explicit.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: That's all right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: You know they figured it out.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: They were looking for financial advice.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: So, like our first, you know that first month we signed 12 clients.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: You know some of those came from the tax practice.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Some of them, you know, we'd said like we're gonna do your taxes and then when our firm launches in May, ish, you know, come on down, we'll do financial planning.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: We'll expand our services.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Someone gave us bad advice early on that we didn't need a CRM and we could just use a G sheet.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: That was terrible advice.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Definitely need a CRM.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: It was XY.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know how did we start this firm?
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: We listened to every single episode of the kids's podcast and the XY podcast and that was how we started the firm and in those early days, every time a new episode would come out, we'd be like oh no, we got to change our business model.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Every time we learn something.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: And now I don't listen to the podcast anymore because I'm just like I, we're done, I'm good.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, it was just, and you know, also like talking to other firm owners, sean to Alaska at ballast point early on was so generous with like you're like how do you do financial planning?
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: And he was like here's my you know PowerPoint.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: We were like, oh cool, that makes sense.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: So, like the XY community is just Everyone's so generous.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: We're not competing with each other.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: We all have the same goal.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: And that to me, was such a different Difference from the world of like music journalism, which was so competitive and like as a young woman like, oh, I hated that so much.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: And then I come into person like financial planning and I'm like all these dudes are rad, like they're so supportive.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I just instantly fell in love with, like the world of financial planning.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so cool.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: So I mean, you mentioned earlier, as far as like business development, that one kind of big breakthrough or connection that you have is you know the long, or the IPO of a Spotify.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So you know, when you hear like Niche marketing, right, it's thrown around so much like find a niche, you know, find a network like what are your initial reactions to that?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Now, having done this Six, seven years and growing to the enterprise firm, like you know how, like what would you say to other people when it comes to niching down or finding your?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: You know your niche.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I think it when you have no, when you're just starting out and you're like, what do I do?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I think it does really help.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: You know, we actually switched niches.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: When we started the firm, we were very focused on creatives.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Shane's tax practice was really focused on Musicians, photographers, artists my friend group was successful musicians, photographers, artists.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: So really, for the first I don't know eight months, that was our focus and it we found that these musicians and artists were married to Product developers and designers who worked at these tech companies, who had stock options, and we were like, well, these people also have tax problems.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: So we kind of like naturally shifted our niche as the IPO started to go crazy.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: You know it was kind of a right place, right time thing.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: We picked that niche because we got really good at taxes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: You know, shane and I and our all the CFPs on our team, we know so much about equity compensation Like we have learned so much our our CPAs, like we correct Work from other CPA firms all the time because they just don't understand the complexities of equity compensation.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: So you know I I stand by that niche.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: It's been really tough from 2022 to 2023, when the IPO market literally disappeared you know it was amazing from 2018, 2019, 2020, we had the biggest year ever or was it 2021?
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Of IPOs.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: We were there, we were able to scale quickly.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: You know, we hired really quickly, we grew, we were able to serve clients.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I'm so proud of what we did.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: It's really like growing that fast is really painful.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: So, you know, for those thinking about going big, like you got to be ready for the next year, you got to be ready for, like, the rodeo.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the rodeo?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt, and get ready to get thrown off the bull, yeah, but so just for like perspective, like where were you beginning of 2020?
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Just as far as headcount?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're still in the we work space and then all of a sudden you know, hey, go home, we'll see you in a couple months, you know, and how, like I feel like that was maybe like one like chapter of you know Brooklyn FI and there's like the post-COVID era.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think, when I think we were four people, maybe five people in March of 2020.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: We had a little office, maybe we were six.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a small team, it was not more than six.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Send everybody home.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Covid happens, tech stocks go crazy, ipos go crazy.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: You know we were already pretty set up.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: You know we ran a lot of meetings on Zoom, like we already kind of had a firm that was ready.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: You know it was like unplug your docking station, move it to your desk at home.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: So that pivot happened really quickly.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: You know PPP if you remember that fiasco we worked.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: You know I was joking earlier like I blocked out, like that period was Shane and I were working and our team was working literally around the clock, like I would roll out of bed in my little one bedroom in New York City to my desk that I bought on Amazon and my husband would like literally slide food under the door, and I do not recommend that.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I regret that honestly.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So we're all in the beginning of it is, but I mean, we've had a lot of people in the podcast say this but it's like by all means necessary.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: When you're trying to make something work and you're a person that's been in at least a few different industries right Between being an editor and then band camp and now this you obviously know what it takes to succeed, and so sometimes, unfortunately, we default to the things that we know and that is just like head down, working as hard as you can, running as fast as you can and look what's come from it.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: But, like you said, it's like huh, I don't really remember anything from those years, except for working every day.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So no, and you guys know this as entrepreneurs right Like sometime, like doing that kind of work is very fulfilling, like working that hard yes it's hard.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: It's hard on your body we all need to remember to stand and take walks but like it's awesome when it's working and you're like, wow, yes, I just worked for 12 hours but I helped six people not divest out of the market during this scary time Like that feels really good.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: It's really hard to replicate that in a nice slow growth, controlled environment and I don't knock people for wanting to do that For me, like there was a reward for working that hard.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and on top of it, the fact that you're building it yourself right.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Like you're building this, you're invested in it.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It's kind of your baby.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: You want to see it do well, right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: So you and Shane are like, well, we're not going to give ourselves an option, this has to work right.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: And I think that when you take that kind of approach to it, that's definitely a good mindset to have.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Josh, you've got to have something.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Man, what's going on over there?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Can you guys hear me?
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: The wifi is terrible here so it keeps cutting in and out.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping that you guys can hear me.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: You're good, all right.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Cool, aj, you have a lot of success with Brooklyn AFI.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's going to be times where it's just you know, you just burn out at times.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: But how do you prevent from burning out with such a large practice?
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: What do you do to you know, take time for AJ?
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: How do you whether it's like golfing in the morning or something like that you know what's your go-to stress reliever?
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Well you still, you stole the answer.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: So you know, as a cliche former music journalist and now financial advisor, I have become completely obsessed with golf.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: So AJ time is golf Very cool.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I've gotten a lot of advice over the years about, like you know, meditate and like anyone who meets me knows that, like I am not a chill person, like I'm just too intense, yeah, and I was just struggling with like meditation.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I'd like sit there and be like okay, when am I going to calm down?
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Cause there's a million thoughts running through my head.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: But when I picked up golf, you know it's really, it's new for me.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: It's about it's been about two years, you know it's like okay, I got to remember how do I swing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I got to hold my hands, I got to transfer my weight.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: I got to do this and I would be out on the course for like two hours and all I was thinking about was golf and how beautiful it was, and I didn't think about any of the stresses or problems or other things in my life.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: So that's been a huge change for me.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: And you know, shane and I we didn't take time off for those first really four years.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: You know Thanksgiving was the precious time where the office was actually closed and no one was doing anything.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: But I think the only thing I probably regret is just not carving out a little time for ourselves.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: You know long weekends.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: You know we, you, in the moment, you tell yourself you can't with hindsight, like you absolutely can close down your inbox and not open your laptop for 24 hours.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everything will be okay, I got one more question, so come up tomorrow If the internet is still really good.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: I got one question here.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Obviously, you know, from a brand design perspective, brooklyn FI is unlike Many, many firms in our industry the boldness of your colors, the website to your own personal brand, like I remember when you were going in for an interview on TV and you had like that I think it was like a pink laser that was just like popping, and I mean so your personal branding mixed with your Brooklyn FI branding, like what's a you know, I guess the biggest question is what's?
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: What advice do you have for other firms that are maybe not as bold or have a great personal brand like you do?
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's you know.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Know who your audience is.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: You know our branding is just ourselves, right?
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Shane and I are wacky.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: We're risk takers.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: You know, if someone invites me on television to talk about estate planning and Barbie, yes, I'm going to order a $300 hot pink blazer and hot pink heels and wear it to the New York Stock Exchange.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm going to do that.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Now other people might not do that because that's not their personality.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: So you know you don't have to be a big, bright personality.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: In fact, some clients don't like that, some prospects don't like that.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: You know they're like you guys seem wacky and cool, but I'm looking for a more traditional firm.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: It's always pissing me off because I'm like who cares?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Like we're going to do the work, like.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: But we all know that, like, finance is so personal.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: So you know, people want to work with people that are like them.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: So, you know.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: If your personality is that you're not loud or you're not an extrovert, you know lean into that.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Find those people.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: There's plenty of people who are like you, who are going to be attracted to your less loud demeanor or your branding, whatever it is.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: But just be yourself, you know.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: You can just tell on a firm's website.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: You know we're one of them.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: There are hundreds out there where it's like these people.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I know exactly who they are Like.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I'll watch a 30 second clip.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I know exactly what their whole firm philosophy is going to be and I appreciate that, and I think clients and prospects do too.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don't even have to be loud, right, it could be, you could.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Just you could be kind of quirky and weird, and that's okay.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I think that the world is moving away and I think it's a good thing.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: From the traditional, you know, pompadour haircut guy in a suit how can I help you?
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Today mentality it's like it's people should have an advisor that kind of fits who they are and there's never been a better time to find an advisor that kind of has that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: What advice would you give AJ to not somebody necessarily trying to start an enterprise?
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Because I think we have to take baby steps, right, so let's let's don't do it Run.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: So what advice could you give to somebody that's like hey, I think I want to go out, I want to start my own firm.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of have this idea about what I want it to be.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But, with all that being said, assume that I'm joining X, y, I have you know availability, or I have access to the, to the tech, tech stack, but I don't know where to start.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to spend my time day by day.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: What advice would you give to that person?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Ooh, that's a great question.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, just what we did, which was just start doing it, you know, like you don't have yes, you have to be registered.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: But I think in some states you can do like you can have like three clients before you register, like you have to know if you like it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I think a lot of people end up starting firms and they're like, ooh, I don't know if I like listening to people's problems or someone getting you know, get stressed out for for six hours a day.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: So my advice would be just start.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: You know, pick up, pick a software.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I don't care, right, capital E-money.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: Who cares?
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: You know I get at this point.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: I've been asked that question so many times.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I'm like it doesn't matter, they're all the same.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Pick the cheapest one If you don't know if it's going to work like you.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Save money here.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: And that's how we started, which was like, hey, well, do your tap to turn, but hey, would you be interested in doing a credit analysis?
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Or oh, you want to buy a house, let's.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: You know, shane and I built all these spreadsheets of just like we.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: I built a house hunting spreadsheet because I was looking for a house and I was like, oh, this is useful and now we use it in our firm, so just start doing stuff, even if it's for yourself, you know.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great tip.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I remember talking to an advisor one time.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: He went to a bunch of conferences and there's kind of near the end of the conference season.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: If you will, I'm like.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, like, you know what was the biggest takeaway?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: He's like well, I just got to go implement it.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like yeah, well, that's correct.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Amazing, Um.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: So I mean, what's it been like scaling with Shane?
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean, I've followed Shane like vicariously.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I know he travels quite a bit, so what's that been like as far as your guys is dynamic, as far as running the business together and continuing to grow?
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've been through a lot together.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: You know both of us.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I'm based in New York, but I also spend a lot of time in California.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Shane's currently based in Mexico City.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: We don't know where he's going to be next winter.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: It might be Portugal, might be Puerto Rico, we'll see.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: But I think the pandemic changed everything.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: You know we.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: It's funny.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: We had an employee come to us like January of 2020 and say hey, you know, I really don't like living in Brooklyn.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I want to be with my family on Long Island.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Is there any way I can work from home or come in a few days a week?
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: And they were like no, absolutely not.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: The office is really important.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And then, like you know, three months later, the world changes forever.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: So our dynamic.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: We used to work.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: We used to sit next to each other in an office all day long.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Um, you know.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Now we see each other a couple times a year.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: We try to make plans.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I'm going to visit him in Mexico City in a couple of weeks.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Every time he's in New York we hang out.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: But I think you know business partnerships are really difficult.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Most don't work out.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: I think the secret to ours has been first of all, we like hanging out with each other and I think we have a lot of respect for each other.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: But what I always come back to is like this has to work, like we cannot be fighting in front of our employees.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Like we have to go into this client meeting or we have to make a decision about which compliance firm we're going to hire, and like, yeah, I might be mad at Shane, he might be mad at me, and we like get pissed off, and we get pissed off and we move on, and then we move on to the next meeting.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: So like just knowing that, like you can't stay mad, like you have to just move on, I think has has kept our, our partnership, you know, really strong.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: We have no idea what that's like, pete, do we that sounds familiar.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Brock has just married this past year, but I tell, morgan Brock was married to me long before you.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Business, yeah, yeah.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: We are married, I have a husband named to be all who's wonderful, but yeah, but she is like it is really intense sometimes and you you have to.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: You know we have to make so many decisions, right, that's what's hard about running a business is that you know I'm, you're afraid you're going to make the wrong decision.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: You know what to charge, you know what should your firm be called?
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Like all these things like if you make the wrong call, just undo it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Like there are very few things in this business that like can't be undone and we think about that all the time.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Well, and then also like putting the right people in the right seats and knowing what you're good at versus what the other person's good at, right, like I think that's been times where Pete's had recommendations, probably to me, and I'm like no, dude, listen, no, not right now, not the right time, whatever.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And then like, like, for instance, this podcast.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And then like he's like, well, let's just do it, and then the podcast turns out to be a massive, massive success, but there's, for whatever reason, in your brain.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: At that point you're just like we don't, that's not what we're doing right now and I'm like very one track mind and Pete's got a lot of ideas and it's a good dynamic, but, yeah, it's a huge thing.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: So what would you say as far as your dynamic, like who likes to do what and where are you guys kind of at with that?
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: I mean it's interesting, we're different personalities but we both just have the same obsessive drive.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Like this worked really hard and I don't think it would have worked without that, and there are times where one of us is working harder or it's tax season and Shane's just like Matt.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: We had a tax manager go on paternity leave.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Shane had to step in and review tax returns, which is something he said he never wanted to do again.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah right.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: So, honestly, at this point we're actually both taking a step back from the business.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: We have an amazing department leads team in place.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: We've got Emily who's in charge of operations.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: We kind of run an EOS model.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: We pick and choose the EOS model.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: So Emily's our new integrator and so we've delegated a lot.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: So right now, shane and I we do some sales calls, we give support to our department leads, but we're kind of fading into the background a little bit and it feels good, honestly.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: So where's Brooklyn Fye heading?
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, you just added another partner.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: What are you guys thinking just as far as how do we scale this thing more?
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the 100% growth that we experienced along with the IPO market.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to give ourselves all the credit.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: That was definitely a market force.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Keep doing what we're doing.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Last year we grew 12%, which was very little for us.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: So if we can maintain that and this kind of more comfortable, steady growth and then when the IPO market comes roaring back, hopefully we'll be able to pounce and hopefully being on this podcast and other things like people know about us.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: So just finding great people is what is going to help us scale.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: We're in the advice business AI, whatever tools you can use.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, clients want a person that's going to tell them what to do, that they can trust, and our whole business is built on really smart CPAs and CFPs and the people that support them to deliver that advice.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: So as long as we can keep that hiring pipeline and keep finding great people to service clients who are finding us, I think we have big plans.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah Now I mean, what you guys are doing is absolutely incredible and it's been honestly amazing to hear your story and what you guys are doing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And you're a very interesting person because going from editor to you know, kind of in the music industry and the band camp to, I gotta get out there and hit a nine iron today, like it's just it's cool that you can have your phone.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I'm actually better with my seven, better with my seven, all right Cool.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta take out the driver, though, and just whack it right, but I think everybody should be kind of following along with you guys' journey and what you're doing.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So where can people follow along with what you guys have going on?
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Sure, so our website is brooklynficom.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: My golf Instagram.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, not just a pretty swing.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: And you know so we don't do a podcast anymore, but we had this podcast called the liquidity event.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: We loved doing it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: It was weekly, it was a lot of work.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: It was Shane and I.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: We would shoot the shit.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And you know, unlike you guys, our listenership was kind of just flat and it didn't grow as we wanted it to.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: So we kind of shut that down.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: But if you want to hear us kind of talk a lot about the business, financial news I'm sure some stuff is stale, but the liquidity event is our podcast.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for sharing.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I'm also going to have to track down that first conversation between you and Shane before you got started, but thank you so much for coming on and we look forward to seeing you at upcoming conferences and, of course, on social.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Awesome.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me, guys.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks for that.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you.