Know Why Your Firm Exists (Dan Schmidt)

Dan Schmidt is the founder and principal at EBCFO (The Emerging Business CFO), a fractional-CFO firm based in Colorado Springs that serves nonprofits and emerging businesses. Dan started in public accounting, spending his first seven years doing financial statement audits after earning an accounting degree and, from a stint in college, a degree in music. He kept getting pulled toward making accounting relevant and useful for decision makers rather than just technically correct, so about 15 years ago he left public accounting for consulting and launched what became EBCFO as a side project, eventually taking it on full time. His own background doing nonprofit work in public accounting, plus his parents running a nonprofit focused on neuroscience-based therapy for kids with learning disabilities, pulled him toward that niche. EBCFO now runs two practice areas: EBCFO Services, focused on management accounting outsourcing for early-to-middle-market nonprofits, and Mission Accounting (also called Mission Finance, or MAP), run together with a business partner he brought on two years ago. Expect to learn the two mistakes nonprofits make with their accounting and how to fix them, how Dan actually uses AI at EBCFO (data manipulation, not judgment), what a real client engagement looks like from first message to signed scope, why niching down into micro-verticals works even in a market as big as the US, and the one thing he'd have done differently after fourteen years running the firm, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:33 From an Accounting Degree to a Music Degree 1:02 Chasing Relevance Over Being Right 1:59 Leaving Public Accounting to Launch EBCFO 2:45 Two Practice Areas: EBCFO and Mission Accounting 3:26 Why Nonprofits Became the Niche 4:48 The Two Mistakes Nonprofits Make With Finance 8:56 Where AI Actually Helps: Data Manipulation 11:48 The Client Journey: From First Message to Engagement 16:43 The Long-Term Vision for EBCFO 19:15 Why Niching Down Works in a Huge Market 20:52 Know Why You Exist 22:27 What He'd Do Differently: Bringing On a Partner Sooner 23:39 Visionary and Integrator: The Rocket Fuel Model 25:01 Where to Find Dan and EBCFO - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Dan Schmidt:   / danschmidtco   Website: https://ebcfo.com - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... LinkedIn:   / mikulaszach   Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com