Ep. 57: Richard Starkey - Digital Nomads

Contact Richard Starkey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardstarkeyyves/

CronosNow: https://cronosnow.com/meet-the-team/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)

Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and I'm happy to bring you episode 58 of our series today. We welcome back Richard Starkey, serial entrepreneur, digital nomad and one of the first guests we had on our show. He talked to Mitch again this time explaining his shift in business focus and highlighting the benefits of being a digital nomad. Richard's first episode remains one of the most popular in our series and we're sure the second one will be just as well received. Let's go to the conversation now. 

Mitch: (00:42)

The last time we spoke, you talked about how CronosNow automated a lot of accounting services. I know we've kind of focused on the small to medium size businesses, entrepreneurs, the opportunity that you recognize since that conversation. How is your business focus really changed? 

Richard: (00:58)

I think it's been quite an interesting journey because we've landed up actually never in our niche quite a bit and that's been driven by our marketing. As I personally have learned more about marketing, which is key to any digital nomad will you, if you can't market online, you can't fit an income and the other aspects is also just increasing the speed at which we learn about the new systems that we implement and the way we implement them for clients has become a lot less so we can, we can implement a new system in a fraction of the time compared to what I thought we would be able to even even a couple of months ago. So I think we've learned to kind of be the monster of a very small niche. We get things done quickly and marketing that niche in a much more effective way. How clients get the gains because we are able to pass a lot of the cost savings along to them. but also we get to keep up what are those gains, which means we're more profitable on net space that we make and I just, I've learned in that space that's as an accountants and I think I might be, I'm definitely going to generalize in my next statement, but we do have a tendency to overcomplicate things, right? And the tail wagging the dog as aware. And I've just really learned about the importance of the principle that it 80-20 rule and the reality that although accounting is incredibly important to us and perfectionism in that space, it's quiet, quite difficult to overcome for most of our clients are entrepreneurs. You know, the accounting and back office function is never going to be something that turns them on and gets them excited. Right? It's something, it has to be done and only if it becomes an absolute priority if something's going wrong. Mmm. So yeah, it's been a very interesting, especially in the digital nomad world because that's what we are, my wife, myself, our staff. But that's what our customers are. 

Mitch: (03:07)

And I just want to kind of clarify something for our listeners too. You mentioned the principle and 80, 20, you know, what in your opinion, is the end goal of following this principle? You know, what are you actually trying to accomplish? 

Richard: (03:21)

The end goal is that we need to deliver on an objective. So obviously it's about fitting the objective correctly, but that 80 20 rule for us as accountants means that we, we actually deliver it. We don't land that we're running over budgets. We don't run into never, never systems that never end. So it's about delivery and efficiency in that delivery. 

Mitch: (03:44)

So I think, you know, being in this technologically advanced, you know, business environment, having the opportunity to really complete, I know what you said about 80% of what you're looking for with automation. So roughly 20% of the time, you know, that's where the cost savings comes from that you were referring to, right? 

Richard: (04:04)

Oh yes, absolutely. So I think there's the kind of sets, the 80% of aim to deliver the 80% in the 20% time. And then along with that, the, another application of principle, which we've discussed previously, is looking to automate, a lot more of the FM cost. So if we can achieve 80% of what we want in terms of automation with 20% of the FM costs, well, I mean we have to let go affection as tendencies and deliver on what the customer wants because ultimately the customer also one better to lower costs. So you can deliver 80% with automation, with 20% of the efforts. Why not? 

Mitch: (04:54)

That's perfect. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that, you know, we kind of clarified that and know another, the term that you've referenced now is the digital nomad. And I know, you know, I've done a little bit of research on this and my understanding is it's essentially someone working exclusively online. So I just wonder if you can kind of expand on that a little bit and tell us what that really means to you and for your firm. 

Richard: (05:21)

So first of all, I agree. And in terms of the simpler kind of view of the term digital nomad. It's all about somebody can work online. but for me it goes a bit deeper. It's about, about having freedom rights. So it's, we can work. My staff, myself, my wife we work from wherever we want in the world. So we have freedom in terms of location and to large extent, we also have freedom in terms of time. So yeah, we could be working and we've done this quite recently, sitting on a beach in Cape town, you know, I'm sitting with a non alcoholic beverage while we're doing our work, but that's, we could just as easily be sitting in a coffee shop. So that ability to work online and deliver the same results, but actually at a lower cost is what drives our effectiveness in the, they're just from nomad space, if that makes sense. 

Mitch: (06:20)

Yeah, that's great. And I am quite envious of sitting on the beach in Cape town. I think that sounds like a great place to work. but I know, you know, you're not the only one. And what I mean by that is many businesses are going online, a lot of client services are being provided remotely. So I'm sure you can speak to this better than I can, you know, what are some of the challenges of working in that kind of environment? 

Richard: (06:45)

Ah, so I think there's quite a few challenges that come with it. I'm far outweighed by the benefits, but some of the challenges if I talk about it from an accounting practice perspective is that a lot of our clients, sometimes we'll battle with the technology for communication specifically. So yeah, you and I might be comfortable on zoom. Another of customer might understand Google and other one might know Skype. And this is actually quite a geographic thing, which is interesting. And learning when we actually just got to pick up a phone, for seven clients. so I think the, the challenges really come down with your client's comfort with the technology that you use. And I'm also seeing a shift in order to make that easier, which is really a way of overcoming some of these challenges is I'm really enjoying the shift to single sign on, across devices. So, you know, sign in wi...