TFP #034: Reflections On 3 Years In Business

Read Time: 8 minutes

Welcome to the 34th edition of the Tech Financial Planning (TFP) newsletter.

It’s crazy to think that Chris and I started Coastal Capital Advisors over 3 years ago.

What started as an idea in late 2019 became us quitting our jobs and starting in April of 2020.

Chris quit his job in early 2020 with a 3 month old and I quit in March 2020 as Procore gave the work from home order as the pandemic started.

Not what I’d call an ideal time to start a business.

In many ways, it feels like we just started yesterday. 

But if CCA was a college student, we’d be entering our senior year - this blows my mind.

So I wanted to use this as a chance to reflect on the last 3 years, and spend a little time looking forward.

Facts About Coastal Capital Advisors (CCA)

  • We are a team of 2 (Chris and Joe)

  • We work with 128 ongoing clients / families

  • We’re currently taking on new clients - our ideal pace is 1-2 clients a month. 

  • We have a specific expertise with tech professionals with equity compensation

Running A Business Is Hard

There is no instruction manual for starting your own company.

The last 3 years we’ve had to wrestle with questions like:

  • What type of insurance do we need? (spoiler alert - I miss my Procore health insurance).

  • What’s the right service model?

  • How big do we want to get and what’s the right number of clients?

  • What are the best ways to charge for our services?

  • How do we put together an operating agreement?

  • What software do we use?

  • What should our logo be?

This stuff is harder than we thought, and a lot of this continues to evolve over time.

But CCA has turned into a real business!

We started out with only a handful of clients, but we’ve grown steadily over the last 3 years.

We certainly won’t make the Fast 5000, nor will we end up on any industry lists of biggest firms any time soon.

But we

  • Are paying ourselves a liveable wage

  • Have a physical office in Santa Barbara

  • Have outsourced legal/compliance and taxes/bookkeeping

  • Have a steady and consistent stream of inbound prospects

A quick note on this last point. When we started, it was almost overwhelming thinking about how and where to get clients.

At Procore it was straightforward - I got assigned a territory and I had 200 - 300 companies that I targeted.

Pretty easy to figure out who to call.

Now? 

Anyone you pass by on the street could be a potential client.

We tried a number of different ideas and strategies (and made a lot of mistakes) but we’ve found social media (primarily LinkedIn) to be our best and most consistent source of prospective clients.

The strategy is simple, but not easy - I write content that is relevant, interesting, and valuable to people.

My goal is that if & when people are ready for an advisor, they think of me and reach out, provided I’ve built up enough trust and expertise with them.

And they do - so far in 2023 I’ve had 36 people reach out to me and 33 of those were from social media.

Our Clients Are Fantastic

We have awesome clients.

I am so thankful for this - it makes each day really fun.

When I worked in sales at Procore, one piece I didn’t like was that you were constantly sourcing new deals, and once you closed them, you passed them to implementation and likely never talked with them again.

So if you had an awesome client you enjoyed working with, you might talk with them for 3 or 4 months and then boom - the deal is signed and you move on to the next one.

I love that we get to build long term relationships. 

My goal (provided we continue to be a good fit for each other) is that I get to work with these families for the next 30 years.

I’m fortunate that I get to be a part of their lives, and our clients have so much going on.

They are getting married. Having kids. Taking a sabbatical. Starting a business (one in another country!). Traveling. Getting massive promotions. Getting to work optional. Going through an IPO. Moving across the country. 

I love the chaos.

I do calls with kids crying, dogs barking, and delivery people dropping stuff off.

It’s a lot of fun and it’s also really rewarding that we get to play a part in our client’s lives.

It’s not something I take for granted.

Learning and development

I’ve grown a lot as a planner, a writer, and a marketer the past three years. 

It’s been drinking from an endless fire hose, but as I look back to where I was 3 years ago, I’m feeling more and more confident in my role and abilities.

I know how to read a tax return, find an expense ratio, get clients started with estate planning or connect them with an insurance agent, and walk through their 401k.

I am fluent in stock options (and AMT), RSUs, and ESPP.

I’ve created a strong social media presence that provides a steady stream of inbound prospects

And while I’ve grown a ton, there’s so much more I want to do & learn.

I want to get better at taxes and tax strategies.

I want to continue to improve as a communicator and listener and ask better questions.

I want to better understand what good real estate investment looks like.

Looking Forward

The Business

I don’t anticipate too many big changes over the next 12-18 months.

I see Chris and I continuing to bring on clients, dial in our processes and growing the firm.

But we do need to start planning for the future and what we want CCA to look like. 

Each firm does it differently but I anticipate when we get to 150 - 175 clients we will start to hit capacity.

At that point (and preferably before then) we will need to get clear on if we want to keep growing (probably yes) and think about hiring, which comes with its own set of questions.

I’ve been talking with a number of other planners the past couple months and asking them how they’ve thought about growth, hiring, and goals. 

Some have decided to intentionally stay small, serving a select group of households.

Others have decided to grow and bring on staff.

Chris and I still need to work through this, but I anticipate we continue to grow the firm because a) we can hire people to take stuff off our plate and focus even more on the stuff we like b) we can potentially offer more value and services c) I like the idea and challenge of growing a team.

This could always change, but it’s how I see things right now.

Clients

Over the last three years, we have worked with a wide variety of clients.

I recently read an article by Ryan Townley, who’s a planner who works specifically with nuclear power plant employees. 

He said, “My original decision was to open the firm to anyone. I had no target market, and I kept everything vanilla and generic so I wouldn’t offend or discourage anyone who might potentially reach out. Similarly, I used a very generic marketing and content creation service, kept my reach to my local area, and created probably the most boring and non-specific website in the history of advisers.

For the sake of brevity, while we are happy to work with anyone, we found that we have an expertise with tech professionals with equity compensation.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise considering I went through the process and made many of the mistakes myself.

Going forward, I would anticipate that trend continues - the vast majority of people engaging in our services right now are in the tech industry.

Some are moving to smaller companies and have complicated scenarios with stock options.

Others are moving to public companies and receiving significant RSU packages.

Serving Clients

I’m constantly reflecting on how we can better serve our clients - and for better or worse, that often looks like “what else (more) can we be doing?” 

A new report. Following up more. A new strategy or idea. 

But something I’m reminded of is that our number one value to our clients is to be there when they need us (thanks to Meg Bartelt for the conversation on this!). 

It’s not to say that the reports and visuals and strategies are bad.

But I’m continuing to learn to balance the two and especially try not to hit people over the head with value and action items - even if it’s valuable, if there’s 14 things to do, nothing will get done.

Our clients have busy lives, so the most important thing is to be present for the big moments of their lives.

Putting It All Together

I’m still not sure how three years have gone by. It still seems like yesterday that I said goodbye to Procore and set up shop on my kitchen table.

While there has been a fair share of challenges, this is by far the greatest and most rewarding job I’ve had.

Every day is different but there hasn’t been a single day I’ve dreaded going to work.

I legitimately love what I do, who I get to work with (shout out Chris, the best business partner), and the people I get to serve.

And for that I’m tremendously grateful.

On to year 4!


WHENEVER YOU’RE READY, THERE ARE 3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU

1. Connect with me on LinkedIn, where I post every weekday (unless I’m on vacation). https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshalljoe/

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