When we started the firm, there was one client and certainly no employees. There wasn't a team to manage, an organizational chart to think about, or much reason to wonder what the firm might look like with multiple people working in it. The focus was much simpler: take care of the client in front of us, do good work, earn the next opportunity, and see where it went.
Over time, one client became a few, and a few became more. The workload grew, the responsibilities grew, and eventually it became obvious that doing everything myself wasn't going to work forever. Hiring our first employee was a practical response to growth, but looking back, it represented something much bigger. It was the beginning of the transition from having a job I had created for myself to actually building a business.
Doing Everything Yourself Works — Until It Doesn't
Most business owners know the early stage well. You answer the phone, respond to emails, do the work, send the invoices, make every decision, and deal with whatever unexpected problem shows up that day. There is actually something nice about the simplicity of it. If something needs to be done, you know exactly who is going to do it.
But there is a limit to how far a business can grow that way. Eventually, there is more work, more responsibility, and more opportunity than one person can reasonably handle. For me, that meant realizing that continuing to do everything myself wasn't necessarily a sign of dedication. At some point, it could actually become the thing holding the firm back.
Hiring people solves part of that problem, but it creates an entirely new set of challenges. When you're the only person in the business, most of the processes don't really need to be processes. They're simply the way you do things. You know how you want clients treated, what good work looks like, what needs to happen next, and which details matter.
Once you begin building a team, all of that has to become clearer. You have to communicate expectations that previously existed only in your head. You have to train people, delegate work, build processes, give feedback, and trust someone else to do things that you were accustomed to doing yourself. That's a very different skill set from simply being good at your profession.
Growing Pains Are Part of Growing
We've certainly had growing pains along the way. I remember as a teen having horrible knee pains in the summer and I couldn't understand why. Then, at my first baseball game I was standing in the dugout I have been in countless times over the year and my head almost hitting the top boards when just a year ago I was having to jump to touch them. Now the knee pains made sense. Business growing pains are much the same, you experience the symptoms often before realizing what caused them.
Building a team isn't as simple as hiring good people and handing them work. Roles change. Processes that worked with three people may not work with ten. Communication becomes more important, and decisions that once could be made almost instantly begin affecting more people.
We've learned some of those lessons the easy way and others through experience. We've changed processes, adjusted responsibilities, adopted new technology, and reconsidered how the firm operates as we've grown. There are things we do today that would have seemed unnecessary when the business was small, but they became necessary because the business was no longer small.
That's one of the interesting things about growth: the business that gets you to one stage isn't necessarily the business that gets you to the next one. Owners have to be willing to change along with it.
When the Business Becomes Bigger Than You
One of the biggest changes wasn't operational at all. It was realizing that the firm was becoming bigger than just me.
When you have employees, you're no longer making decisions that affect only your own career or income. People have chosen to build careers with the firm. Their families depend in some part on the business continuing to succeed. Clients develop relationships with members of the team who weren't there when the firm began. Employees bring ideas, expertise, personalities, and perspectives that shape what the firm becomes.
At some point, it stops feeling like something you built and starts feeling like something you're responsible for continuing to build with other people.
That changes the way you think as an owner. Decisions have to be made based on what's best for the organization, the team, and the clients we serve — not simply what's easiest or most comfortable for the owner.
Learning to Lead Instead of Just Do
I think one of the harder transitions for many business owners is recognizing that the skills that helped start the business aren't necessarily the same skills required to grow it.
Early on, your value comes largely from doing the work. As the business grows, more of your value has to come from creating an environment where other people can do great work. That means learning to delegate, setting clearer expectations, developing people, making longer-term decisions, and occasionally getting out of the way.
None of that happens overnight, and I don't think any business owner ever completely finishes learning how to do it. We certainly haven't. But the transition has changed the way we think about our own firm, and it has also changed the way we understand the business owners we work with.
We See the Same Transition With Our Clients
Many of our clients eventually reach their own version of this stage. The questions that once centered around getting the business started begin to change. Can we afford another employee? How much cash should we keep available? Should I continue doing this myself or hire someone? Is our entity structure still appropriate? How should we think about compensation, benefits, retirement plans, or taxes as profitability increases?
These decisions are connected. Hiring affects cash flow. Growth affects taxes. More employees create new compliance responsibilities. Increased profitability creates new planning opportunities. What looks like a simple decision to add another person can be part of a much larger transition in the business.
That's one reason we believe good CPA advice should be forward-looking. By the time a growing business owner asks what happened, the most valuable planning opportunity may have already passed. We'd rather help owners think through what is likely to happen next.
Still Building
The firm today looks very different from the business that began with one client and no employees, and we're proud of that. But we don't view building the team as something we've finished. As the firm continues to grow, we'll continue learning what it requires from us as owners and what our team needs from us as leaders.
There will undoubtedly be more changes, more lessons, and probably a few more growing pains along the way. That's part of building something.
What has changed most is that we're no longer building it alone. The firm has become the product of a team of people serving clients, developing relationships, solving problems, and helping shape what comes next.
There is something pretty meaningful about looking at a business that once consisted of one client and realizing it has become bigger than the person who started it.
And we're still building.
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