In this episode of Life In Accounting: The Where Accountants Go podcast,  Kurt Rathmann, CPA and CEO / Founder of ScaleFactor shares with us how his business model, ideology, and management style has created an extremely successful, cutting-edge company that will double in size by next year.Big Firms? Auditing? How Do They Benefit Future Entrepreneurs?Kurt started his post-college (Go Longhorns!) career at KPMG. One of the biggest lessons that Kurt has carried away from working with a Big 4 firm was the value of learning how to interact and communicate with a wide variety of people and personalities. He also learned much from his time in auditing, because you get to see so many aspects of the business and thereby learn about overall operations.Growing a BusinessBusinesses grow when you have a passion for what you are doing. Research your passion. Find the biggest challenge or problem surrounding your field and come up with solutions. Be the one who comes up with new ideas. And when presenting ideas to customers, remember that presentations are enhanced when you can use a story to illustrate how your solution will positively affect their situation.Building the Team…Interestingly, Kurt has found that remote employees don’t work well for ScaleFactor because the arrangement interferes with the synergy of their organization. ScaleFactor thrives in a shared workspace where the creativity and innovation can flow freely. He will be the first to tell you though that it may work for others, it just doesn’t work well for them.

Some additional advice Kurt shares is to make sure you discuss successes with your team, but discuss failures even more. Being able to openly discuss issues helps you to quickly learn from those mistakes and enables everyone to grow from the experience.Who are ScaleFactor and Xero?For more information on ScaleFactor, please visit them online at: https://scalefactor.com/

For more information on the Xero software that was discussed in the audio as well, please visit https://www.xero.com/us/

To listen in on this interview with Kurt Rathmann, please use the player below: