Episode 40: Don't Fear The Next Chapter: Be Open To What Is Next With Byron Patrick
It is human nature to crave certainty in life, but why waste a life full of possibilities and opportunities just because we fear the unknown up ahead? Showing that the universe has many great plans for us, provided that we freely extend our arms to what it plans to give, Amy Vetter speaks with Byron Patrick, the VP of Growth & Success at Botkeeper. Byron is one who never feared the next chapter, and he shares with us his unique accounting path that has pivoted throughout his career—from public accounting to technology, to running his own business and now working as an executive in a high growth tech start-up. Throughout his rollercoaster journey, Byron has learned about our ability to influence and bring change, to continue growing, and to take on risks. Follow along in this great conversation as Byron inspires you to look forward to what's next instead of fear it, because, after all, it's the only way we can grow.
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Don't Fear The Next Chapter: Be Open To What Is Next With Byron Patrick
In this episode, I interviewed Byron Patrick, who is a CPA, CITP, CGMA, CCA, and MCSE. He started his career in 1999 as a public practicing CPA. He embraced his passion for technology and merged it with his experiences in public accounting and transitioned to the IT Director of a mid-sized CPA firm in 2004. In July 2008, Byron established Simplified Innovations to focus on servicing the needs of CPA firms, which he sold in 2016 and then joined Network Alliance to lead their business development and the CPA industry. In 2019, Byron joined Botkeeper and he is the VP of Growth & Success where he works with various teams to help bridge the knowledge gap between accounting and technology. During my interview with Byron, he shared his unique accounting path and how he pivoted throughout his career from being in public accounting to technology, running his own business, and now working as an executive in a high growth tech startup.
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I am with my friend Byron Patrick. Byron, do you want to give a little background on yourself?
I'm so excited to be here. I am the VP of Growth & Success at Botkeeper. I am a CPA. I’ve been in the industry for a number of years. You say friends because you and I go way back in this industry prior to some roller coasters through the industry.
This is all about your life journey and how you got to be where you are. Let's start at the beginning. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An Air Force pilot.
How come?
I wanted to fly. I love the idea, the freedom of flying and adrenaline.
Too many times watching Top Gun.
I will say that my VHS tape of Top Gun got worn out. We were supposed to get part two, but it's been derailed.
What did you end up doing with it at all when you were younger?
I was looking into the Air Force Academy and there's this event that happens every year at the US Naval Academy, which I grew up right near at the Naval Academy and it was called Boys State. They had Girls State somewhere else but this was Boys State. It was an opportunity for people interested in going to a Military Academy to spend a week in a little bit of what it is and also talking about government and leadership and all types of things. I signed up and I went. After a week of learning what it's to be in the Military Academy, I decided that was not in my future.
Why was that?
Following rules that you don't agree with was highlighted as not a strength of mine. I decided it was time to make a change.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Crofton, Maryland, which is about ten minutes outside of Annapolis, Maryland. It’s a small town with good life and people.
What did your parents do?
My father owned a construction company and my mom worked in the medical profession at various doctor's offices.
Did you get any exposure to what they were doing?
A lot of times I tell people I grew up with a hammer in my hand working with my dad. I’ve also seen elements of him running a business which was interesting.
He had his own construction company.
He owned the company. Looking back, I wish I had spent more time learning about him running the company that I did just about him building amazing stuff. He did build-outs for offices and shopping centers. He had a lot of cool projects like in malls and shopping centers where he did some unique stuff. I have a lot of respect for his graft and the way he did things and his eye for precision.
When you say you wish you had spent more time on the business side, what do you mean by that?
Growing up, I don't think I paid much attention to how he ran the business and what it took to run the business. He got up early, he was up at the crack of dawn, he worked hard all day, he came back, and it was rinse and repeat. I never saw what went into winning contracts and the follow up and even the accounting and everything that went into maintaining it. He did a lot of that work. It wasn't until I was older that I started to pay attention to that stuff. I wish I had paid attention when I was younger.
Have you ever gone to him to ask questions about that side of the business?
As you know, I owned my own company for a number of years and that was definitely where we spent a lot of time talking about the business. He had a business partner. I had a business partner. The challenges of business partners and things.
You went to Military Academy and you’re like, “No, that's not it.” How did you make your next decision?
I had an Accounting class in high school. We had this awesome accounting professor who made accounting fun. We spent two weeks playing monopoly, kept the books while we were playing monopoly, and then loaded it into a doll space version of Peachtree.
Fear The Next Chapter: People are much more tolerant of their desire to be perfect all the time if you set expectations properly.
It is a creative way to teach it.
It's brilliant. It makes so much sense.
We don't hear accounting and fun in the same sentence when someone takes a class.
Not so much and he did it. In fact, there are a lot of people I know from high school that went on to accounting careers. Mr. Krawlicky, I’ve very much given him a lot of credit for that. We even did a week-long field trip to Disney World and learned about how Disney runs. We got to go backstage to talk to business managers at Disney. He brought it alive. At that point, I was like, “This speaks to me. I like this accounting.”
Where did you go to college?
I went to Salisbury State University, which is a small college on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. For anybody who knows Perdue chicken, it is the Frank Perdue School of Business. I met Frank quite a few times.
Did you do co-ops or internships while you're in school?
I did some internships. That was an interesting experience. The main internship that I did was in Ocean City, Maryland which was 30 minutes away from the resort town. I worked for a company that owned a lot of hotels and restaurants. There’s a lot of accounting going on there. I got to see a lot of aspects of the County. I also got to do the cash run every day of all the locations which was a little insane because I have a lot of money in the back of a car at the beach.
It’s money that is not accounted for.
Looking back, it terrifies me. At that time, I didn't even think about it. That was insightful.
Did that convince you to go to what route with it?
It convinced me to plan to stay in public accounting. I saw everything that was going on the private side, and I also got to work with the outside accountants and see how they came in and assisted with things. I was like, “That's me.” I don't want to be in a single place working with one company.
Where did you start out?
I started out at a small accounting firm in Annapolis, Maryland, which was a lot of people might know the name Carter Heim. At that time, he was the Chairman of the Maryland Association of CPAs.
Is that how you got started with that?
I showed up. Within the first six weeks that I was there, Carter was like, “We have a task force going on at this MACPA thing, you're coming.” That set a lot of things in motion.
It's an important thing from the standpoint of a young accountant getting involved with associations because you don't see it as much as you see the people in leadership that have been around for a while. What was good for you as a younger accountant?
Carter being chair was always been very forward-thinking and he was looking at the structure of the CPA Society. He thought, “We need to evolve the Society.” They created two task forces. One was the Under 35 Task Force and the other was the Over 35 Task Force. It gave both task forces a set of instructions and they said, “Design your organization.” No rules, no limits on what exists, design it, and follow this process, which was known as the Grove Strategic Planning Process. We got trained in the strategic planning process and then we went to work. It was awesome because the Under 35 Task Force, which I was a part of, did an amazing job of creating what turned into the strategic plan for the next five years for the Maryland Associates of CPAs.
What were some of the ideas that you guys came up with?
You'll love this one. I graduated in 1999, so 2000 was when it was going on and the website was a brochure. It was like to create an interactive website and also reduce the number of committees to use taskforces instead. At that time, we have close to 40 standing committees, which were the same fifteen people that showed up for coffee and donuts. It was to create task forces that have short-term commitments and specific objectives. Those were two of the big ones.
That's an important one because you get more voices in that way and viewpoints because as what you said, whatever association it is, they tend to be the most involved all the time. It doesn't mean that's bringing forward progress and getting different voices in that. That's a smart idea.
We did a lot of stuff. I was a CPA candidate at that time. In fact, I was the last class in Maryland that qualified at 120 credit hours.
I had the same thing in Ohio and then I moved to Florida, they wouldn't grandfather it, and I had to go back to college.
What it showed for me is that I could have an influence on things like this even being young and not as experienced, I could have the voice. I was in the room with these powerful, influential leaders in our industry. I got to meet a bunch of people from the AICPA at that time. All of a sudden, there was this organization that was accessible and I could be in the room with the same people. At that point, I was hooked. No matter what I do with my career, Maryland, and potentially the National Association is going to be involved.
Those are two important points to talk about in your story. Influence and the fact that when you're making that transition of from going to college to your first job and you're like, “This is it. This is what I’m doing.” I speak to a lot of college students and I hear it a lot where it's like, “This isn't what I thought it was going to be,” where you feel the world looks very small at that point. One way, you can broaden your exposure to how many things that are available to you in your expertise of knowing accounting but it doesn't mean that there's only one path. The second being when you start out as well, influence is looked at by title instead of what the skill of influence is. It sounds like you got taught the skill of influence without needing to be a partner in a firm or have some major title to bring change.
I hadn't looked at it that way. To your first point, the great irony of my decision to follow accounting. I was like, “Let's choose this Accounting degree because if there's a clear trajectory I'm going to be an accountant.” There is not, “You get a degree and then what's next?” The crazy irony it being my career like anything but follow that path. The Accounting degree of people misinterprets what it prepares you for.
You start out in the safety of it and then you decide to pivot. We'd love to know about your pivots. How did you go from doing public accounting to technology and stuff that you did later?
Fear The Next Chapter: Watch out for fake friends. There are plenty of people who take advantage of opportunities in relationships.
A lot of it also goes back to my time with Carter in Annapolis because again, being a very forward thinker, tech-savvy type of firm, we installed a Citrix environment in 2000 and 2001. It was a small office. We had done a merger with another small firm. Being the young guy in the office who knew how to right-click, I got nominated as like, “Pay attention to what the engineers are doing here. You get to install QuickBooks after they leave, so make sure you know what you're doing.” Throughout my time, I realized that more and more of my time was getting spent fixing computers, helping out the team, installing software, doing updates, and less of my time fell into the billable time category. I'm on a dirt road and I'm like, “I was taking this nice paved road for accounting, and now all of a sudden I've geared off.” Ultimately, I decided to leave Carter's firm and go to a larger regional firm. I was like, “I'm going to be an auditor. I'm going to put my head down. That's what I'm going to do.”
I got there and I clearly was gravitating back into technology. There are a lot of crazy stories there over the next twelve months after I went there in 2003 but twelve months to the day, they approached me and said, “You could be an okay accountant but we think you could be a great leader for our technology.” At first, I was flustered by it but then I thought about it. I was like, “This is the best of both worlds. I get to live in the industry which I’ve very much embraced this early in my career, but I get to follow this thing that keeps calling my name with technology.” At that point, I made the jump and I went through Microsoft training and everything like that. The next thing you know, I'm running the IT department for a $15 million firm which was awesome. That was my transition.
What I find interesting and I don't know if you've thought about it but with your dad being in construction and you building things, you did that on the technology side.
There are a lot of parallels. It's funny because it goes back to like I’ve been thinking about as a kid. I would get my toys for birthdays or holidays or whatever. I'd play with them for a week and then I'd take them apart to figure out how they worked. It was definitely prepping me for that.
Why did you decide to go out on your own and start your own business?
We did some amazing things at that firm. There were five offices all around the country. We centralized the entire network. We made the firm very efficient. We use built on a Citrix environment and doing it right. I’ve heard so many bad stories about Citrix. My engineer at that time, we were looking at what we did and we were like, “We've accomplished great things for one firm. Why don't we do this for a lot of firms and enable firms with technology?” We spent a year brainstorming and trying to plan it out and figure it out then we had an opportunity and got an introduction to a local firm that seemed they might fit. We started talking to them and things aligned. It's interesting because I will never forget, I was at CPA. It wasn't engaged at that time. It was the Techplus in June 2008. We got approved for our line of credit that was going to enable us to buy the servers we needed for this first client. June 2008 was when it jumped out, left the paycheck, got a big fat loan from the bank, and then a month later, the economy and flushed down the toilet and we survived.
You still service that firm when you left, didn't you?
We offered to. That firm decided that they were going to keep it in-house. I spent a lot of time talking about that.
How did you start marketing to accounting firms or get known that you were doing this? Was that through your networking with MACPA?
My involvement with MACPA at that point became critical. That's when it started creating some content speaking at conferences and very much locally in Maryland but also getting a little bit more involved with AICPA as well.
You started going on the path of becoming chair of the MACPA.
I did. In fact, 2013 was the year I became chair. You go through the executive positions and it was right around two years after I started my company when the opportunity opened up to do that. That was cool coming full circle after starting my career with who was the active chair of MACPA to then.
Becoming it. That's very cool and young.
I got beat by three months of the youngest chair for the state.
You grew your practice and have made a transition in the last couple of years to move out of it. What was that like to make that decision?
It was tough. I was very proud of what we built and the impact we were having for firms all over the country. We had hit a point where my business partner and I was clear that we had different visions for where things were going to go. We had an opportunity to be acquired. I was ready to go through that acquisition and have an impact at a larger scale. He was not ready for that. At that point, I had to make the decision of what to do next. He acquired my portion of the ownership and then I began to transition. That was in 2016. It was a number of years that we were together. It weighed on me. Looking back, I don't think it was the wrong decision by any means, but I certainly wish it had not come to that.
When I sold my business, it was a little bit of depression for a couple of weeks after because it's your right arm or child or something that you've developed and built, and you're handing it to let someone else take care of it. I gave myself a couple of weeks and I'm like, “Go run.” It's not a bad thing to have done it. It was something I'd wanted to move on and make the pivot in the corporate world like you have. It's a hard thing because it's your identity. It's more than a job.
It took some transition time. I'm sure the company I went to after there which was in the same space. I was still annoyed for the first six months. I was that person who’s always talking about, “Now their kids are full-grown and sharing every single story about.” I had to shed that, but it was my left arm. I knew it so well. That was a very difficult transition.
It's one of those things that doesn't always show on the surface because that's something that happens behind the scenes. It's a surprising thing for many people. It's something you want but then while it's happening, it feels weird.
As do a lot of major changes.
How did you make the transition into what you're doing now?
Being a member of the accounting industry, I’ve always been looking out to what's next, what is going to come, and what do I think is going to tweak the way we know accounting now and the way we know the industry. There have been a lot of opportunities through the years with various vendors within the industry. I was keeping my eye out for something that I thought reflected my desire to have an impact on the industry. It wasn't about joining up something else. It’s never going to change the game, it's going to be another player. This opportunity with Botkeeper showed up. It's Jody Padar who introduced me to the team out at QB Connect in 2018. We started talking to them and learning about what was built, what the vision is, and where it's going to go. It seemed to make sense. It seemed to be something that I believed was going to have that dent in the world of accounting. In March 2019, I made that transition which is amazing.
It feels like a lifetime and not in a bad way. People always say that like, “It feels like so much longer. I never know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.” For us, 2019 has been incredible. I was part of a startup in starting my own company but it was a bootstrap startup. It was slow like you get one. I had never been part of a hyper-growth environment, VC money, and these things. It's the amount of change that we've had even my role. I started out as a member of the presales team, became the director of the presales team. I'm now the VP of Growth & Success which means I have three different teams that I'm running. My role has evolved significantly and the organization continues to evolve. It's been well run.
What kind of learnings did you have along the way that might've changed your thoughts around how to run a business or how to lead people based on once you've had the experience versus what you thought it was going to be?
I'm sure there's a lot. One of the aspects of that question is it never ends. One of the things that I’ve recognized working with Botkeeper and our President Chris Mahl has been an incredible influence on me because he's been involved with a lot of amazing companies going back to working with Benioff at Salesforce in their early days there. I think about what I’ve learned from him in the last couple of months. If I had this experience when I started my company, there would have been a lot of differences. No matter how much experience you have, you certainly don't have it all under your belt. That's for sure.
Looking at my time with my company Simplified, I don't think I took enough risk in what I did and it was a lot of I wanted to get it right the first time and every time. People's tolerance for some desire to be perfect all the time. People are much more tolerant if you set expectations properly and have conversations as you're setting those expectations. It's been very much an evolution in my maturity as a member of these groups and learning about what happened.
Those are both important points. We never know at all. Every new experience is a learning experience whether that's people, technology, business or whatever it is. That's an important one about not taking enough risks and having to be perfect. People will give you more room if you admit where you do have opportunities where you need to learn more.
Fear The Next Chapter: As long as you maintain the values that you have built for yourself, then there's only going to be good things when you move to the next chapter.
It's so true.
I like to ask a couple of closing rapid-fire questions. You first pick a category and that is family and friends, money, spiritual, or health.
I've been nervous about this because you do this on all your shows. I’m like. “Which category?” I couldn't make a decision leading up so I'm like, “It's going to be a game-time decision.” Let's do family and friends.
What things or actions that you don't have that you want?
I don't get together with all of my friends enough especially right now.
What things or actions that you do have that you want?
Close friends. People you can depend on.
What things or actions you don't have that you don't want?
Fake friends.
It's true though. You have to watch out for that.
There are plenty of people who want to take advantage of opportunities and relationships.
Last one, what things or actions that you do have that you don't want?
It is similar to the first one. I have a lot of my good friends who reach out regularly and I'm bad at getting back to them so I don't want that bad habit of getting back to them.
Are there any takeaways that you want people to walk away from this conversation, or your life story with?
I would say to realize there are more chapters. For me, as I've had these difficult decisions to make from leaving Carter's firm, starting my own business, to selling my own business. You can get caught into what's next. This has been such a big aspect. You can't even imagine your life in that next chapter. I would say, don't fear what's in that next chapter. As long as you maintain what those values that you built for yourself that you put into the prior chapter, there's going to be good things. Don't be paralyzed by the fear of the unknown and what's next.
Thank you so much for being on and there are lots of great things for people to take away.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.
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For our mindful moments with my interview with Byron. In the beginning of this interview, we talked about his beginnings of working with his father and his construction company starting out very young. One of the things that he looks back at as he's spent more time learning the craft of construction versus the business side and how all of that worked. That's perspective over time of those things that we pay attention to because they're flashier and so forth. When we look back about what were the nuts and bolts that kept that business together and the sales side. Knowing that that had to happen in order to get the kinds of contracts that his father got was learning later when he ended up having a business of his own of going back and asking his father a lot of questions that he had never asked during that time.
Those are the things when we start new roles and new jobs are to look around at the people we know maybe it's our family members or people we network with and figure out who has been there before that we can ask questions to. We do not have to be perfect all the time and think that we should know. It's important to do that research and use our resources to help us along the way as we make changes. He also talked about his start in accounting because he had wanted to be an Air Force Pilot and when he realized that that wasn't something he wanted to do, he started in accounting. I loved the story of how his high school accounting teacher got him excited by keeping the books through a Monopoly game. It's important that when we are helping people understand the concepts and educating even our clients on certain things, it’s how do we make it fun rather than people not wanting to have the conversation because they don't understand.
We're not high school teachers so we don't necessarily have the opportunity to do something creative like he was talking about, but where can we think out of the box to help people understand our clients, understand their numbers in different ways that would be relatable to them. That's what that high school teacher did. It was to take something that was relatable to his students and bring it alive so that they understood it and could apply it. That's what advisory is. The other big pivot in his life was working for a CPA firm when he started out in Annapolis. That partner in that firm was a key person in Byron’s life that got him involved with the MACPA but he learned so much from this partner about how he ran the business as well. The big learning was when the MACPA had these task forces of professionals under 35 and over 35 of how to design your organization for the future.
This was an important exercise and learning for anyone reading when you're going through innovation that you don't try to control what that answer is going to be that you allow people to fly on their own. Come up with all of their ideas and figure out what could be the best next thing that they would relate to. When you're talking to a generation or people that you didn't grow up that way, it's important to allow them to communicate what they're looking for, not trying to fit it into the box that you already have. That was a key thing in their strategic planning that moved the Maryland society far because they were willing to take in ideas that were not the way that they had always done things. The other big lesson there was that a lot of times when I talk to younger professionals, they think they don't have a voice.
You have a voice but it's a skill of how you influence when you don't have a title, when you're not a partner, when you're not a CFO, or when you're not a vice president. How do you create influence? Part of creating influence is building relationships and also making sure that people feel that they are a part of the process. You do not have to have a title in order to do that. That's a skill of influence so that everyone feels they came to an outcome together and you were helping them to get there. Another critical time for him was when he moved into another accounting firm and they came to him and said, “We think your strongest suit is technology.” Even though that wasn't what he intended, they pivoted him. A lot of times, I see an organization that you've got great talent but they're in the wrong spots and it's easier sometimes to move someone out versus finding what is the best place for them to go?
Where are they going to benefit the organization the best? You may not have that role open or an opportunity for them but it's important that you re-look at each person and also talk to them about their strengths as well to see where you can transition people so that they can become their next best self. Part of when we make these pivots and changes in our career is being open to the opportunity that we don't have to be perfect and we don't have to know how to do everything that we have to be open to the learning. One of the things he talked about as he opened his own business and so forth was that whole learning process and knowing that you had to have the right resources, the right connections, but also the right learning in order to be successful.
He ended up selling that firm and moving on to becoming this Vice President at Botkeeper which was his next best thing. It's another great pivot in his profession that there are so many ways that you can be involved, that it doesn't necessarily have to be linear. It doesn't necessarily mean that just because you see that other people go a certain route that that's your route. There is no judgment on anyone's career path but it's the experiences that we take along the way and being open and curious to the things that excite us the most so that we keep growing those areas because other opportunities open up as we move into those areas that we have to have given ourselves that opening to even be there. If we close ourselves off to opportunities because we think we're not ready, we don't know something, or we've never done it before, then we are going to take a linear path and not be as happy.
What Byron has demonstrated is that there's never a time that you're an expert. You're constantly learning and building on the experience that you have and it's important to continue to take risks in your career so that you grow from it. You also are making sure that you set the right expectations along the way so that if you are taking risks with a client, with staff people, everyone is educated on the risks that you're taking. You can put guardrails around those risks of where would be the stopgaps when you've gone too far but making sure that you're always open to that next chapter and not fearing the unknown.
Important Links:
@Byron_CPA – Twitter
About Byron Patrick
Byron K Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA, CCA, MCSE started his career in 1999 as a public practicing CPA. He eventually embraced his passion for technology and merged it with his experiences in public accounting and transitioned to the IT Director of a mid-sized CPA firm in 2004. Later, in July of 2008, Byron established Simplified Innovations Inc to focus on servicing the needs of CPA Firms, which he sold in 2016. He then joined Network Alliance to lead their business development in the CPA industry. In 2019, Byron joined Botkeeper and is current the VP of Growth & Success, where he works with various teams to help bridge the knowledge gap between accounting and technology.
Byron is known nationally as an industry technology leader. Additionally, Byron is a regular speaker at State and National conferences regarding various topics relating to technology in the accounting industry. He has contributed to many industry publications over the years including the co-writer of the Journal of Accountancy Tech Q&A section.
Byron has been an active member of the Maryland Association of CPA’s since the beginning of his career. He is one of the founding members and past Chair of the MACPA’s New/Young Professionals Network (NYPN). Byron was the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the MACPA in 2013. In addition, Byron is a member of the innovation taskforce and has participated in a number of other initiatives over the years. Byron credits much of his professional success to the support and mentorship from the MACPA.
Byron has also been actively involved on a national level with the AICPA. He earned the Certified Information Technology Professional credential in 2006 and is currently a member of AICPA Council, PCPS Executive Committee and was previously a member of the Information Management and Technology Assurance Executive Committee, the Future of Peer Review task force and the CPA Ambassador program.
Contact Info:
Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA, CCA, MCSE
443.850.7918
Twitter: Byron_cpa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/byronpatrick/
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