You may never feel completely ready to start your own firm.

Nick Vernon joins Yuri to share how he left a successful career as a controller and launched a tax firm without any public accounting experience.

Nick explains how he built confidence one return at a time, learned to separate a healthy challenge from work he wasn’t prepared to handle, and used savings and contract work to make the transition less risky.

They also break down the technology behind Nick’s solo firm, including TaxDome, StanfordTax, Drake, and Claude. Nick shares how these tools help him collect documents, research tax questions, communicate with clients, and operate without an administrative employee.

The conversation also explores the tradeoffs between scaling and staying small, why freedom requires discipline, and how to build a firm around the life you actually want.

Episode Highlights:

0:00 - Using AI and automation in a tax firm

1:07 - Meet Nick Vernon

3:10 - Starting a firm without public accounting experience

5:45 - Learning tax without knowing every rule

7:16 - Knowing which clients and returns to decline

11:30 - What gave Nick the confidence to leave his job

16:04 - Deciding when it was finally time to quit

18:53 - Using contract work to ease the transition

20:40 - Nick’s technology stack

24:22 - TaxDome versus StanfordTax organizers

34:01 - Walking away from the golden handcuffs

35:00 - Creating a financial runway before leaving

36:44 - Why freedom requires structure and discipline

39:58 - Competing with bad tax advice online

45:38 - Scaling a firm versus staying intentionally small

50:14 - Building the firm you actually want

53:22 - How networking can shape your business

54:50 - Where to connect with Nick

56:18 - Closing thoughts

SPONSORS

Today's episode is sponsored by StanfordTax: Helping you manage tax document collection in the smoothest way possible.

Go check them out: https://stanfordtax.com/

ABOUT HOST YURI KAPILOVICH

Yuri, aka #thefuncpa, has been in the accounting profession for over 15 years and has seen, first hand, the challenges the profession brings. After seeing that no firm was fitting the bill, Yuri set out to do things his own way with his firm K&A and the journey began with LinkedIn posting at the front end.

Yuri is proud to bring you #thefuncpa podcast highlighting the fun and all the amazing opportunities our profession can bring us all.

CONNECT WITH YURI KAPILOVICH

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ykapilovich/

Website: https://thefuncpa.beehiiv.com/

CONNECT WITH NICHOLAS VERNON

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-vernon-cpa-mba-0281b734/