Permission to Build a Lifestyle Firm
This week I welcome another IRL friend as a guest writer - Yuri Kapilovich. I first met Yuri at Bridging the Gap in 2025 and I immediately realized two things about him: (1) he’s as awesome in real life as he is online - maybe moreso even - and (2) he’s building an almost-solo firm for the same reasons I am.
Yuri runs a tax-heavy, lifestyle firm in New Jersey. Thanks for being on the newsletter this week, Yuri!
-Erica
First and foremost folks, I am so happy to have the ability to be on here as a guest on this amazing community newsletter so thank you all for reading through this.
It is so funny but lately I been catching some strays online for having a lifestyle firm. It seems that many people consider lifestyle firms as a "high paying job" and that it isn't a true firm. That, in and of itself is so silly because everyone should be able to build the firm they want however they want it and perhaps the haters are just projecting. But I digress.
Lifestyle firms (in my case not working over 40 hours a week ever) are often times just built out of necessity. For me its 2 little kiddos that are 7 and 3 and come home at 3:30pm and picked up at 5:30pm, respectively. That makes the day a bit tight on time and effectively necessitated working backwards to achieve the firm flexibility to get there.
"So what does this mean, Yuri?"
Great question - What this means is that I am highly protective of my time and highly selective with my clients. I currently have 93 clients and set minimum fee at $2,000 allowing me to say no to bad fit clients quickly and a lot of times not even having the call in the first place. When a new prospect reaches out and we have the call I always make sure the vibe is right also. I don't want people who are rude to me or my bookkeeper.
Controlling the type of client and making sure that they are aligned with my style is important because it allows me to actually enjoy the work I do and that is also a part of the lifestyle.
Now I want to be very clear - I have tremendous respect for people building large firms, volume shops and people building firms to eventually sell at 8X multiples but I am also VERY ok with not having that. At the moment with kids activities and me being the main person to drive them to daycare, activities, and just being there for them it is genuinely all that matters.
But to be honest money doesn't always have to be sacrificed because if fees are high that could still mean having a nice life that just isn’t in the millions of gross revenue. And since we are all accountants here we know that millions in revenue can often yield less profit than we are making without the millions.
I talk about stuff like this on my newsletter as well: https://thefuncpa.beehiiv.com/
And tune in to my podcast where I have guests who share their perspectives on all aspects of firm ownership and much more. (The Fun CPA podcast on all channels)
Erica - Thank you for having me here
Yuri
What’s Happening in Aligned
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