On this note, I wanted to highlight some of the things you should be doing if you want the call to go well: 1) When the call starts and the person you're talking to asks you something along the lines of "How's your day going," do not just reply with good. Say what you've been up to so far or have planned for the day, lie if you have to. If you just rolled out of bed at noon tell him you went to the gym when you woke up and just got back from class. 2) Keep the small talk going for a bit, but once that runs its course, find a way to transition and take charge of the call. It's weird to go from small talk to firing straight into questions about the job. I'd recommend a transition that thanks them again for taking the time and lays out a framework for the rest of the call. 3) It's always good to have questions prepared to fall back on, but its important that you ask good follow ups that show you pay attention and have some understanding of the industry. If you just go down your list of prepared questions that don't flow together well, it's going to come off as unnatural. 4) Check on time at the 30 minute mark. Say something like "I see we're getting pretty close to (whatever time it's about to be 30 minutes after the start), do you have a hard stop or do you mind if I ask a couple more questions? Only do this if the call is going well. If it's going poorly, you should just kill it there by acknowledging that you're coming up on 30 minutes and thanking them for the time. At the end of the day, it just comes down to reps. Your first couple are going to be bad. Once in a while, someone is going to be having a bad day and be a dick to you on the call. Never forget that its a numbers game.

we are hosting a banker event with nimble gravity at our place on 10/1 around "ai in investment banking". dinner, drinks, hands-on use-case / demo stuff - we'll have a big team from NG, including CEO, engineers, etc. if you're a lmm / mm banker and want to attend, we have a few slots left. shoot me a dm.

I'm polling hundreds of finance professionals on how they use AI at work It's a no bullshit survey on what vendors bankers and investors actually like and use, and I'm extremely excited to share the results in a couple weeks Survey form is below but curious to hear from you

Unfortunately, I think that we are at a point where AI has gotten good enough that new graduates add very little value to most jobs in finance This was always the case, but the rationale for hiring young talent before AI was two-fold 1. They soak up grunt work around the office, including tedious number entry into Excel, logo aligning, calendar invites, and administrative tasks on a deal 2. Train up the next generation of talent who can go on to become senior leaders in the future The first one has been pretty much already solved by AI to a large degree. Even if not fully replaceable today, the state of progress tells me that almost all finance grunt work will be handled by AI in the next 5-10 years. Probably even sooner The second one still creates incentive for companies to hire young graduates, but at a much slower pace than before. > AI leads to higher productivity across senior management and mid-level employees, freeing up their time to focus on bigger picture > Need fewer senior management and mid-level employees in the future due to this productivity boost, which pushes down the need for young graduates even further > Even if you dont completely shut down the analyst program, the number of analysts you need on the job certainly shrinks down by 20-30% at least, likely in the next 3-5 years > New analysts coming in are lower quality due to being reliant on AI during their college years and requiring AI to do any sort of critical thinking. This in turn hurts their ability to get promoted down the line All of these factors combined likely lead to a very difficult hiring environment for students studying finance in college today. The best piece of advice I can really give is to embrace the tools as fast as you can and try to keep your critical thinking and imagination skills intact while doing so. This is going to be much tougher than it sounds, especially as AI progresses in the next 5 years

Generally either an ability to drive great returns or raise money.....

Have you kicked off annual planning yet? Before you model a $, pull these five things: 1. your current headcount roster, 2. your open headcount roster, 3. the September P&L, 4. historical sales rep attainment, and 5. the last twelve months of costs. Everything downstream is built on these, so it's worth getting them rock solid before you start. Here’s a detailed guide you can lean on this annual planning season, taking you from start to finish: mostlymetrics.com/p/don-t-st…

6 ways to sell your accounting firm Including the PE, VC and AI roll-up paths: 1// Platform Investment Buyer: Private equity Target Firm: $75M–$400M/yr revenue These are the headline-makers. Juicy multiples, the 7-11x EBITDA. At this size you're the anchor firm a PE fund builds around, and bolts other firms onto you. You're the backbone, and have the most say in how your deal (and future firm deals) come together. 2// Add-On (Tuck-In) Acquisition Buyer: Private equity Target firm: $2M–$50M revenue You're selling into an existing platform someone else already built. As a result the deal is turnkey, giving you little room to negotiate. What you lose: your brand, your back office, your say in software. What you keep: your client relationships, and for a time, your team. 3// AI Roll-Up Buyer: Venture capital Target firm: 10–100 people, sub-$10M revenue. This one's venture capital, not PE. The (correct) thesis is a 12-person firm will change how it works, a 200-person firm won't. It's still early for these, and the AI-as-a-source-of-leverage thesis still hasn't proven out. It's perhaps the most lucrative option on the table for small firms today, but still tbd if the math ends up mathing. 4// Minority Recapitalization Buyer: Private equity Target firm: $50M+ revenue, top 50–100. The field is thin here. The Armanino deal is the most-cited example because there are so few examples of this. You sell under 50%, give away some equity but keep control. It's rare because buyers' models depend on control, so they price minority deals worse or won't do them at all. Worth knowing this deal type exists if someone tells you the only option is to hand over control. 5// External Sale or Merger Buyer: Another firm Target firm: $150k-$5M Another firm or individual buyer comes in, generally taking full control. Either seller financed or SBA-financed through a lender like Live Oak Bank. Priced at roughly 0.9x–1.3x annual revenue. Can't be compared directly to a 9x EBITDA PE number, as it's a manufactured number that involves carving out a huge amount of partner compensation. 6// Internal Succession and ESOP Buyer: Your team Target firm: Internal succession can happen at any size. ESOPs need roughly $1M+ EBITDA and 20+ staff The holy grail exit and most positive outcome for staff and clients. Notoriously hard to put together because you're effectively paying your team to pay you out. 🤔 How Would I Sell My Firm? The biggest change I've seen over the last 3-5 years is private-party sales between very similar firms. You know the person. They run their firm the same way you do. It de-risks the entire transaction and justifies a greater multiple. It all begins with your network, and I see them happening on a near-monthly basis inside my private network of 1,000 accounting firms (Realize). The best fit + best multiple will always be found in a like-minded firm.