Picture this: You’re 26 years old with a newborn baby, eating rice and beans from a bulk bag because your accounting firm is three months away from bankruptcy. Your Excel budget calculation was catastrophically wrong, and you’re facing the reality that your entrepreneurial dream might be over before it really began.
That’s exactly where Nate Goodman found himself in 2022. He was staring at his wife across their kitchen table in Black Mountain, North Carolina, wondering if they’d bitten off more than they could chew. “I told my wife, ‘We tried it, I failed. We’re gonna have to eat rice and beans,’” Goodman recalls.
Fast-forward to today, and Goodman’s firm, Goodman CPAs, just closed 2024 with $1.7 million in annual revenue. His team of 12 professionals serves clients across the country, and he’s building toward a $2 million run rate.
His transformation from struggling bookkeeper to successful CPA firm owner didn’t happen because he suddenly became a better accountant. It happened because he discovered something many of us resist: admitting you don’t know everything can be your greatest competitive advantage.
In the latest episode of the Who’s Really the Boss? podcast, Goodman shares the raw details of his journey, including the pivotal moments when crisis became his catalyst for growth.
From Churches to CPAs: The Humble Beginning
Goodman’s story doesn’t start with grand business plans or venture capital. It starts with chickens, three young boys (ages 5, 4, and 2), and a simple desire to help churches with their bookkeeping while maintaining work-life balance.
In December 2019, fresh out of his MBA program, Goodman launched what he thought would be a small bookkeeping practice focused on churches. “I have some mentors doing this and only working 20 or 30 hours a week,” he explains.
But a conversation with Jim, an experienced CPA firm owner, changed everything. When Goodman pitched his church bookkeeping idea, Jim asked the hard question: “What are your credentials? Do you have any experience? Do you have any education?”
Goodman had an MBA but admitted to a limited accounting background. Jim’s response was direct: “Well, no one’s going to trust you if you don’t either have education or experience.”
Instead of getting defensive, Goodman chose to be teachable. Within a week, he re-enrolled in school for his accounting certificate so he could sit for the CPA exam. Jim sweetened the deal: complete a tax course, and he’d bring Goodman on as an intern for the 2020 tax season.
The Crisis That Changed Everything
By 2022, things looked promising on the surface. Goodman had purchased Jim’s practice (Jim was 85 at the time) and another practice through owner financing. But underneath, the numbers weren’t adding up.
The problem was embarrassingly simple and devastatingly expensive. Goodman had built his budget in Excel, but made a critical error. “I got the calculation wrong. My shareholder distributions were being added back to the cash,” he explains. “When I figured it out, I was like, oh, we only have like three months left, and we’re not going to make it to next tax season.”
The timing couldn’t have been worse. The CPA he’d hired was asking for more money than the firm simply couldn’t afford. “That was my first time terminating somebody. And that went very poorly,” Goodman admits.
That’s when the rice and beans period began. “We bought the big bulk bag of rice and did that whole thing to make it work,” he says. They were literally living on the most basic provisions while trying to save their struggling business.
But this rock-bottom moment became Goodman’s turning point. Instead of giving up, he finally discovered something that would transform his business: CPA communities and coaching groups.
“I did not even know that CPA communities existed, that there were other CPA owners out there that would share common knowledge. And so I was just going blind through 2022. And that was a very dark year for the business,” he reflects.
The transformation began in August 2022 when he found coaching groups that taught him proper pricing strategies and service delivery models. “I could price a 1040, but to price a CFO engagement or a bookkeeping engagement, I was just shooting from the hip and hoping for the best.”
The Systematic Turnaround
The results were immediate and dramatic. After implementing the new models and pricing strategies, Goodman’s firm grew from roughly $300,000 to $1.2 million in revenue in 2023—a nearly 300% increase in a single year.
Part of this growth came from strategic acquisitions. The acquired practices brought about $150,000 in revenue, and a third acquisition added $275,000. But the real growth came from transforming how they served existing clients.
“We were able to present to them, hey, instead of getting your financials once a year, what if we did your bookkeeping once a month, and you could make some more decisions? And what if we could save you $30,000 in taxes next year, and it’ll cost you a fraction of that, but it’s more than you’re paying now?” Goodman explains.
The firm also benefited from being the only CPA practice in Black Mountain. “We’re the only people here that can provide this service now,” Goodman notes, which helped with client retention during the transition.
Building Systems That Weather Storms (Literally)
By 2024, the firm had grown to 12 team members working in a hybrid model. Some work in the office, others are fully remote, and they even have team members in the Philippines. But their systems faced the ultimate test in September 2024 when Hurricane Helene hit.
“The eye of the storm went through our town,” Goodman explains. “About a 10th of a mile down from our house turned into a lake.” While their community was devastated, with power lines down and infrastructure destroyed, Goodman made a crucial decision.
“We’re like, well, we could take the server, take the networking equipment so people can VPN to the office, and we can set it up at my parents’ house in Roanoke, Virginia,” he recalls. “So we drove to Roanoke, plugged in the server, hooked it up to their internet, and then our team could work from my parents’ living room.”
This wasn’t just crisis management—it showed how the firm’s systems had evolved to handle unexpected challenges. The team maintained operations while their entire region struggled with basic utilities.
The Power of Peer Networks
Goodman’s discovery of peer communities happened almost by accident, but it became a game-changer for his business. During summer 2024, while mowing his lawn and trying to complete CPE requirements, he discovered he could listen to accounting podcasts instead of sitting through webinars.
“A friend of mine told me about Earmark to earn CPE with podcasts. I was like, ‘This is great. Now I don’t have to sit down for like a webinar or something,’” he explains.
That’s when he found the “Who’s Really the Boss?” podcast and heard discussions about fractional CFO services and team structures, and listening to the podcast helped him discover the team structure the firm needed to move toward.
The remarkable part? His firm had just overhauled its structure two months earlier. But instead of sticking with something that wasn’t working, Goodman brought the new model to his leadership team with complete honesty. A willingness to abandon recent work in favor of proven systems accelerated their growth significantly.
Current Focus and Future Goals
Today, Goodman’s firm operates with metrics and systems that would impress much larger practices. Team members earn performance bonuses based on four specific metrics: maintaining accuracy above 90%, achieving client satisfaction scores of 90% or above, keeping client retention at 90% or above, and completing month-end closes by the 15th.
The firm also specializes in serving direct primary care practices—doctors who’ve left the traditional healthcare system for a subscription-based model. “We really believe in what they’re doing and the model they’re building. So we’re trying to be the great back office so they can focus on patient care,” Goodman explains.
They’ve even hired a dedicated salesperson with a compensation structure of $50,000 base plus 8% on collected revenue and 4% on first-year residuals. It’s a sophisticated operation for a firm that’s only five years old.
The firm’s current focus is on process optimization and AI implementation to help their team work more efficiently. Their goal? A 36-hour workweek with half-day Fridays while maintaining their growth trajectory toward $2.5 million in revenue.
The Lessons That Matter
Looking back, Goodman’s transformation offers clear lessons for other firm owners:
- Be willing to admit what you don’t know. “I’ve been surprised at how many people are relatively open with what they’re doing and willing and wanting to help you and your development,” he reflects. “And so just asking the question, asking for a virtual coffee has been extremely helpful.”
- Find your community. The isolation of trying to figure everything out alone nearly destroyed Goodman’s business. Once he found coaching groups and peer networks, his growth accelerated dramatically.
- Implement proven systems rather than reinventing them. Goodman’s breakthrough came when he stopped trying to create everything from scratch and started following blueprints that other successful firms had already tested.
- Stay teachable. When Goodman discovered the team-of-three structure just months after reorganizing his firm, he didn’t let pride prevent him from making another change. That flexibility to adapt has been crucial to his success.
At 29 years old, Goodman is quick to acknowledge he still has much to learn. “I love to learn from people who have been here and done that,” he says.
His advice to other young firm owners facing similar challenges is simple: “Don’t stress out so much. It will work out.” But pair that with action: seek mentorship, join communities, and be willing to admit when you need help.
Your Next Step
Goodman’s story offers insights into pricing strategies, team structures, acquisition approaches, and the systems that enabled his dramatic growth. If you’re ready to move beyond struggling alone and start leveraging the collective wisdom of successful practitioners, listen to his full interview on “Who’s Really the Boss?
Sometimes the difference between eating rice and beans and building a multi-million dollar firm isn’t what you know; it’s your willingness to learn from those who’ve already walked the path.
The crisis that could have ended Goodman’s entrepreneurial dreams became the foundation for extraordinary growth. Your current challenges might be setting the stage for your own breakthrough if you’re willing to be teachable enough to find it.
Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a Texas-based, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 15 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through community, groups, and one-on-one advisory.