2024 Wrapped with Umar from The Accountant Quits

[00:00:00] Umar: Welcome to the Accountant Quits podcast. Where we help accounting and finance professionals learn how to manage a business using crypto. 

[00:00:08] Umar: I'm Umar, the accountant who quit his job four years ago and fell into the blockchain rabbit hole. 

[00:00:15] Umar: Since then, I've been creating content to help accountants upskill with blockchain and hopefully be inspired to get a career in the web3 industry. 

[00:00:23] Umar: To mark the milestone for Episode 80, I thought I wanted to record an episode on what everyone has been doing for the past week or so. It's the time of the year where we reflect and write down a bunch of goals for the upcoming year. 

[00:00:37] Umar: So instead of me journaling those to myself. I thought... I'd get the mic out and share with the world what The Accountant Quits has been up to in 2024 and what I have in store for you guys in 2025.

[00:00:51] Umar: Now this is going to be a shorter episode and I want to give you a fair warning! It might also come across as me tooting my own horn. So if hearing about wins and milestones makes you roll your eyes and think: "Hey, Umar's being a bit of a show off today!"

[00:01:08] Umar: Well, maybe you gotta skip this episode and I promise I won't have any hard feelings.

[00:01:14] Umar: First and foremost, I'd like to thank you, the listeners. I hope you've been able to get some solid takeaways from all the episodes we recorded this year. 

[00:01:24] Umar: Personally, for me, 2024 was a big year. I went all in on The Accountant Quits and the reason is simple. 

[00:01:32] Umar: The Crypto Accounting Academy that we launched in October 2023 has been a success in relative terms. And given the response I've had from accounting and finance professionals on their need to learn the practical knowledge on how to manage a business using crypto, I knew my focus had to be on growing this business.

[00:01:53] Umar: So my second thank you goes out to all the students from the 27 different countries who trusted us with their education. You guys made this possible and I'm genuinely grateful. 

[00:02:07] Umar: In 2024, we ran three cohorts with students working from both web3 and web2 companies. And I'd like to drop some names here. 

[00:02:17] Umar: So we had students from the Solana Foundation, Starknet, Ava Labs Crypto.com, Swissborg, TRES Finance, Stake Capital Group, and many more. 

[00:02:29] Umar: Yeah, those are massive names and honestly, I'm humbled even just to say them out loud because like a lot of people, I do have the imposter syndrome and many times before launching the course, I thought to myself, am I good enough and why would people trust me?

[00:02:50] Umar: But being an entrepreneur means you have to silence those voices in your head. And the only way to do it is by shipping work. 

[00:03:00] Umar: And if you're listening to this and you're thinking to yourself, well, I want to launch my own course in 2025 or maybe launch my own crypto accounting firm or it can be anything else. The only thing I would say is like, you have to take the first step. Don't aim for perfection. That will never happen.

[00:03:18] Umar: Just start. Trust me. The momentum will do the rest. It's just like me recording this podcast right now. I know it's not going to be perfect. I just have a few notes here lying down in front of me. And I just wanted to hit record and be done with it. Right?

[00:03:36] Umar: Now, as you can see, I just got sidetracked and I got carried away. Something else I'm passionate about is how one can reinvent themselves, but maybe that will be the subject for another episode.

[00:03:50] Umar: So let's get back to business. 

[00:03:53] Umar: Besides those web3 startups and foundations, we also had many accounting firms joining the course in 2024. Some of them joined since they wanted to start offering crypto accounting and tax services to serve this growing market for digital assets. 

[00:04:12] Umar: Others had already started by offering crypto tax services to individuals. And now they wanted to expand into offering crypto accounting services as well. 

[00:04:22] Umar: I wanted to share two feedback I received from the many students who enrolled during 2024. Take this one from Malcolm who's based in the UK and is an experienced web3 CFO. He shared that the course helped to fill in the gaps in his knowledge and that the new products and approaches we shared were beneficial to him.

[00:04:45] Umar: Or take Matthew from Australia, who shared that it is a leap of faith to invest three thousand Australian dollars in a course and hope to get a good ROI. But the course for him exceeded his expectations because it was really focused on the practical knowledge like how do you use subledgers, how do you use enterprise wallets and so on.

[00:05:08] Umar: And Matthew is someone who already runs his own advisory firm. 

[00:05:13] Umar: And the other thing in 2024. Because web3 is ever changing, I know I cannot be resting on my laurels and just be satisfied with what we have. So in 2024, we introduced a new module on company formation because web3 accountants are not just bookkeepers. They need to have the knowledge on the different company structures required when launching a new token.

[00:05:40] Umar: In this module, we go in detail about the typical company structure you would need when launching your tokens and the jurisdictions today that are the most sought after. And for example, in the next cohort that we're doing, we're bringing on two new instructors.

[00:05:59] Umar: There's Adrian, the founder of Steakhouse Financial, for a new module called the Balance Sheet View of Crypto. 

[00:06:06] Umar: Some of the topics that Adrian will cover will be on stablecoins and their place in the hierarchy of money and how to account for decentralized protocols. 

[00:06:17] Umar: Some of the clients that Steakhouse Financial work with include industry renowned names such as MakerDAO, ENS, Lido, Morpho and Badger. They pioneered a methodology for creating real time financials that is open sourced. 

[00:06:34] Umar: You can check it out on their website. And they use a principle based approach and that approach is independently verifiable.

[00:06:42] Umar: And now the students will get the opportunity to get that knowledge from Adrian, right? 

[00:06:47] Umar: The other new instructor joining us will be Mathieu Baril, the Founder and CEO at Octav, who will be teaming up with Nik Pletikos, our instructor specializing in treasury management and token economics, to deliver really practical and real world strategies for managing a crypto treasury.

[00:07:08] Umar: Based on the feedback I've received, you know, a lot of times Foundations, DAOs and other web3 organizations, they hold their treasury in a wallet and these funds are just sitting idle and not generating any yield. And usually like the finance function of a web3 startup or DAO, it's pretty small, you know, it's probably just one person doing all the operations from AR, AP, payroll, the monthly reporting, dealing with reimbursement of expenses.

[00:07:41] Umar: And now you have to add to that treasury management and knowing which DeFi protocols they have to invest in for yield generation. Sometimes it's just too much if you're not DeFi native. So companies who understand DeFi, they can have a longer runway and they can burn less of their initial funding since the working capital requirement they need would be covered by those DeFi yield.

[00:08:09] Umar: So in this class, you will learn how to identify DeFi protocols and how to invest according to your risk profile. So I don't know if you feel convinced already, but the next cohort starts on January 16th. So Cohort 5, and I want to ask you not to wait till the last minute to join. We don't have many spots left and you can register by visiting: theaccountantquits.com/crypto-accounting-academy 

[00:08:38] Umar: Now, I don't know what resolutions you've set out for 2025, but I'm just going to assume it's a year of personal and professional growth. So you have a few days left to think about it. I'm happy to also jump on a call with you to provide you more info on the modules covered and the different career opportunities in web3 right now.

[00:08:59] Umar: The second course we released in 2024 is called the Crypto Accounting Accelerator. And for the anecdote, I actually launched this when someone reached out saying, Hey, we don't have time to do the course over seven weeks, which is the time required for the Crypto Accounting Academy. But instead we want to do the course over two days.

[00:09:22] Umar: Is that possible? I accepted. And we tailored the content for them over the two days. We didn't teach them everything, but it was a full day, eight hour course, back to back. And that's something we've then been offering to a few other companies. We had accounting firms, traditional accounting firms come to us and they wanted to upskill their team to start offering digital asset services.

[00:09:48] Umar: And that's something we did. I'm not going to spend too much time on this one. And if you want to find more, again, you can go to the website. 

[00:09:57] Umar: Moving on to the podcast. So in 2024, we, we released 25 episodes. Some of the most listened to episodes were an episode with David Byrd from EY on internal controls for digital assets.

[00:10:14] Umar: There was another episode with Dominika Stobiecka, the CEO at Toku, which was on token compensation and tax compliance. And the third most listened to episode was on company formation for web3 startups and DAOs with Han from Otonomos. Now, I shared the most listened to episodes, but I want to share something else about why I'm doing this podcast.

[00:10:42] Umar: Everything I'm doing today, you know, like doing the course, creating content, everything started from this podcast. And even if the course generates, more revenue than the podcast, the podcast is something I never want to stop because it helps me to keep networking and to keep learning new topics to really know what other accounting and finance professionals need to learn and come up with content. 

[00:11:11] Umar: So I'm saying this because if I have a piece of advice to any company listening that is thinking about having their own podcast, I want to tell you it's not too late to launch your own podcast. Yes, it's a lot of work, but you just have to find your recipe for consistency.

[00:11:31] Umar: In the beginning, when I launched the podcast, like three and a half years ago, I used to publish one episode per week, but for me, it was too much and just not sustainable. And I realized that this work is not a sprint, but actually a marathon. And I've been publishing one episode every two weeks instead.

[00:11:52] Umar: And that's how I was able to publish 25 episodes this year. For me, it's like the pain I'm willing to sustain in the pursuit of success in this tiny niche industry of web3 accounting. Every content creator faces struggles. You just have to ask yourself, what will your pain be? 

[00:12:13] Umar: Now in 2024, I also doubled down on building the email list of The Accountant Quits and sending out a weekly newsletter.

[00:12:24] Umar: In this newsletter, I share the latest tools, articles, interviews, workshops, stories, and more on how to navigate web3 accounting. I've also been curating remote only web3 accounting and finance roles, and once a month I share that in the newsletter. And trust me, if you're looking for a fully remote role as a crypto accountant in 2025, it's highly achievable.

[00:12:52] Umar: You know, it's no longer just the developers or marketing folks that work remotely. Accountants in web3 also do, and I know a lot of them. And the newsletter itself, it's one of the work that I'm most proud of in 2024 because it grew by more than 700%. If you're listening to this episode right now, I think you should subscribe to it and you can head over to theaccountantquits.com/newsletter 

[00:13:21] Umar: I was speaking with the CEO and Co-founder of TRES Finance, Tal, like a few weeks ago, and he shared that he had recently unsubscribed to most of his newsletters, but among the five newsletter he's currently subscribed to, The Accountant Quits is there. It's really the practical information that you need on how to navigate crypto accounting.

[00:13:44] Umar: And you know, those feedbacks like I hear from Tal or the other students or the listeners, it's sometimes I need to hear it because it just reassures me that we're doing good work at The Accountant Quits. 

[00:13:58] Umar: Moving on to, the articles we publish. So in 2024, I also doubled down on publishing articles and we published more than 20 articles.

[00:14:10] Umar: Now, while I do enjoy writing, I know that my knowledge of crypto accounting and finance is limited. Like me, for example, I like writing articles about crypto accounting or how to use different tools. So I started experimenting by having external contributors write at The Accountant Quits and half of these articles were actually written by external contributors.

[00:14:37] Umar: And if you're listening, I want to tell you that anyone can come and write at The Accountant Quits and share their thought leadership.

[00:14:45] Umar: Take for example some of these articles which were written by external contributors. Mackenzie Patel at Hash Basis, which is a crypto accounting firm, wrote a piece on the best practices for accounting firms to onboard crypto clients. Or Dominika Stobiecka from Toku wrote a very comprehensive guide on employee of record services for crypto.

[00:15:08] Umar: Now these articles are meant to be educational pieces, when written by, external contributors, it's not meant to be shilling your own product or services, but really try and educate the rest of us on something very specific to web 3 accounting, finance or operations. 

[00:15:28] Umar: So if you want to write these articles, I'd highly encourage you, to just reach out to me.

[00:15:33] Umar: You can send me an email at umar@theaccountantquits.com or you can reach out to me on telegram @accountantquits, reach out to me on LinkedIn, Twitter. I mean, it's so easy these days to reach out to people and I'm pretty responsive on anything I receive. 

[00:15:51] Umar: The other thing we launched in 2024 on the website is a tools page.

[00:15:57] Umar: So, I picked up a new hobby in 2024 and I started curating the most widely used web3 tools from CFOs, accountants, and other operators.

[00:16:09] Umar: And at the time of recording, I believe there are 44 tools on various categories like subledger, token distribution, payroll, AR, AP, corporate cards, treasury management. And what's cool is you can easily compare different tools. There are filtering options by blockchain, by integrations, and also by certifications like are they SOC 1 certified? Are they SOC 2 type 1, type 2 certified?

[00:16:39] Umar: So these are information that accountants need, and I wanted to make sure these are available on the website. 

[00:16:45] Umar: And before I share what I have planned for 2025, I just wanted to speak about some of the conferences I attended in 2024. So I went to crypto conferences like ETH Denver, ETHcc and a few more, but I wanted to share the learnings I gathered from web2 accounting conferences, and I went to two of them. In April I actually took a booth at the Digital Accountancy Show in London. The idea for me was to measure the level of interest among accountants in general. About them wanting to upskill with blockchain. I thought, okay, that's a big conference in London. And, I just wanted to have a chat with them and hear what they think of it and whether that's a career field that they're interested to upskill in.

[00:17:38] Umar: And I must say I was pretty disappointed and the results have not been great. I'm probably not going to do it, in 2025. I don't know. Maybe it's a bit early for like these... this traditional crowd to start upskilling themselves with crypto. Maybe crypto is not mainstream enough. It's still too niche. Because there's a lot of accountants who now are knowledgeable with crypto, but there are so many more accountants who don't understand crypto accounting.

[00:18:11] Umar: And I was disappointed because I don't know, they felt like they don't have to learn it. Or maybe there's just like too many things to learn and AI was the big topic at that conference and I still organized a presentation on what crypto accounting is and honestly that one I was shocked to see how many people attended that presentation.

[00:18:36] Umar: Honestly, there were people even sitting on the floor watching but i'm not sure maybe what I need to figure out in 2025 is more on how to give people jobs in the web3 industry because it's one thing to come and learn crypto accounting. But if you're not going to use it at your company, why would you even do it?

[00:18:58] Umar: You know? So that's something I've started to work on. On doing the course and giving that person like a job at the end of the course. But I need to work on it a little bit more in 2025, but I'm curious how you think about it. 

[00:19:15] Umar: But if you're listening and you're not sure whether that course is enough for you to start working in web3, I'd love to speak to you. And I'd love to share more of the opportunities currently available, especially the remote working opportunities. 

[00:19:29] Umar: Alright, so that's what we had for 2024 and maybe I did miss a couple of things, but I want to talk about 2025 now.

[00:19:39] Umar: The vision I have for The Accountant Quits is to empower accountants worldwide and have The Accountant Quits as the go to platform for learning how to manage a business using crypto. Now something I want to clarify, even if I'm always saying accountants, I actually use it as an umbrella term for any accounting and finance professional.

[00:20:01] Umar: I mean, you can be a CEO, you can be a COO, a CFO, a Head of Finance, a Controller, an Operations Lead, a Treasury Manager, or really just anyone who wants to learn the practical knowledge of using crypto for your business. The Accountant Quits is for you. So I want to keep building on what we have so far in 2025 and I thought maybe I'll share some of the items that I'm already working on.

[00:20:28] Umar: I've got a lot of ideas but I do have limited resources but these are the things that I've already started to work on and some of them will be announced very soon. So we already have two courses, the Crypto Accounting Academy and the Crypto Accounting Accelerator. And in the next few days, I will be announcing the third course.

[00:20:50] Umar: And this one will be a specialized course on Advanced Treasury Management. And I'm targeting all the web3 CFOs or Head of Finance or anyone who wants to optimize their treasury strategies. They want to understand how to leverage DeFi yield. And if they're doing a token launch, they want to understand the best practices or who are the best service providers that they need to reach out to.

[00:21:17] Umar: I'm not going to be sharing everything, but these are just some of the topics that will be covered. For example, there'll be modules on token design and supply, there'll be modules on token launches and how to deal with market makers, on risk management and on treasury allocation. So that's another reason why you should subscribe to the newsletter to be the first one to know because there will be a waiting list.

[00:21:43] Umar: All right. So that's about the course. I'm not sharing anything more. 

[00:21:48] Umar: The next big objective for me in 2025 is to turn The Accountant Quits into a community.

[00:21:55] Umar: So right now, the community that we have is for the students only. So during and after the course, people keep networking, sharing recommendations, asking for advice, sharing jobs on crypto accounting. And I want to extend this to the broader community of podcast listeners and email subscribers we have. So I'm still tinkering on the different perks of, what the community will be.

[00:22:24] Umar: Will it be a paid community? Will it be a free community? And I'll be announcing everything you have to know on membership in the upcoming weeks. 

[00:22:35] Umar: And the last topic I wanted to share before I wrap up this episode today. Well, I wasn't sure if I need to share it because it's not been approved yet. I was hoping it would, but I'm just going to share it. The Crypto Accounting Academy will soon be NASBA certified.

[00:22:54] Umar: Now, if you're a CPA living in the US, you probably know what that means already. It means that when you complete the Crypto Accounting Academy and you attended all the live classes, you will receive a little bit more than 20 CPE points, which is actually half the annual requirements of a CPA in the US.

[00:23:15] Umar: And that is massive. Now, this is not official yet. We didn't get the approval yet. But I'm expecting this before we start the fifth cohort. 

[00:23:27] Umar: So if you're listening to this and we didn't get it, well, maybe I'll regret, saying this on this Pod today. And if we did, well, it's maybe another reason why you need to enroll in the Crypto Accounting Academy.

[00:23:43] Umar: All right, so that's what I wanted to share for 2025. Like I said, I've got other ideas, but, these are some of the core areas I will be focusing on.

[00:23:53] Umar: That is on launching more courses and on continuing the Crypto Accounting Academy. The same cohort style that we've been doing, on launching the community and on making sure that everything that you do at The Accountant Quits you can actually earn CPE or CPD points for it. 

[00:24:13] Umar: So usually when I invite guests on this podcast, I like to end on the last question where I ask them, for their favorite quote or maximum. And because today there's no one, so I'm going to be sharing a quote with you. And this one is from Benjamin Disraeli, the former British Prime Minister, who shared that action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

[00:24:39] Umar: This is a Crypto Accounting podcast to inspire and upskill accountants for blockchain. 

[00:24:46] Umar: So closing thought to wrap up this episode, if you're currently contemplating. If you're thinking about starting to work in the web3 industry, I mean, just thinking about it won't make you happy.

[00:25:00] Umar: You're going to have to take action. And I hope that in 2025, you do take that action. 

[00:25:07] Umar: Our next episode will be with RSM where we explore the new tax changes for crypto taxation in the US 

[00:25:13] Umar: until then, I'm sending you my best wishes for 2025 and stay safe. Bye.