Ep. 6: Richard Starkey - The Importance of Accounting in Entrepreneurship

Contact Richard
Starkey:https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardstarkeyyves/


CronosNow: http://cronosnow.com/our-why/


Richard Starkey's suggested reading list:


Tim Goodenough: https://timgoodenough.com/

Tim Ferriss: https://tim.blog/.

Ray Dalio: https://www.principles.com/

Adam Grant: https://www.adamgrant.net/

Carol Dwek: https://mindsetonline.com/abouttheauthor/






FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


Music: (00:00)



Adam: (00:03)


Welcome back to Count Me In and thanks for joining the
conversation about all things affecting the accounting and
finance world. I'm Adam Larson and I'm joined by my cohost, Mitch
Roshong and today we have a very interesting episode to share
with you for this week's conversation. Mitch, you had the
opportunity to speak with the managing partner of CronosNow
Richard Starkey. 


 


Mitch: (00:21)


Yes, I did. Richard Starkey is what he refers to as a serial
entrepreneur since his teenage years. His passion for business
and education came across very clearly and we were able to talk
about how important accounting and finance skills are to starting
and running a business. He is also a great proponent for lifelong
learning and share some valuable insight into how professionals
can learn and develop through their careers. I enjoyed the
conversation and learned a great deal from Richard and I hope you
do too.


 


Mitch: (00:54)


So Richard, please tell us a little bit about your background and
how you ended up as the managing partner at Kronos Now. 


 


Richard: (01:01)


I started being an entrepreneur quite early in life. In my late
teens, I started up a small kind of publication and I was
actually riding horses for as a professional show jumper and
realized I needed to make some money. So you know, started a
couple of small businesses, nothing too sophisticated. And as I
kind of got on in in my career I realized I needed a strong kind
of finance background. So I studied accounting part time while
working and running some small businesses and I did my accounting
degree. And during that process I wandered off and became an
operations manager for a large logistics firm, got into corporate
finance and then really felt the shortfall of my technical
finance knowledge. So then continued with the rest of my
accountancy qualification or part time in my late twenties,
actually. And once I kind of finished the qualification, I went
back and did my internship and articles in my late twenties. I
landed up in academics teaching financial reporting as my, you
know, as my real teaching subject. And from that I grew into this
quite a bit of an expert in financial reporting and later in
corporate finance and a deal structuring for mergers and
acquisitions, not a deal maker, more a, you know, a technical
accounting and tax structuring kind of guy. And through that
period I really just ran with academics, you know, sometimes more
academics, less consulting, sometimes more consulting and less
academics. But through that process a couple of years ago we did
an education corporate finance deal where we brought and
structured a couple of education businesses around the world. And
by accident, you know, one of those deals didn't go so well and I
landed up kind of holding the reins, temporary CEO for what was
supposed to be for, for an interim period and landed at actually
loving it and moved from technical accounting finance guy into
CEO of an education business for good three and a half, four
years and had to learn all the skills around strategy, building a
larger systems and marketing. And in that process I had some
wins, some losses, but I really fell in love with the idea of
automating and developing processes from the front end marketing
all the way to the back end accounting and last year off to some,
you know, personal health issues in our family. We sold the
business to take some time out and during the end of last year I
realized I enjoyed the entrepreneurial space, not as as an
entrepreneur but in helping entrepreneurs and that's where Kronos
Now was born. And Kronos Now services and looks after my own
entrepreneurial and my wife entrepreneurial activities from a
systems accounting and finance perspective. But also we act as an
accounting firm that we like to do, say there's more than
accounting. And it's been a good, you know, first year and we're
learning and helping small to medium entrepreneurs are doing
initially their accounting in the most automated and efficient
way possible, but then building that out into the rest of their
systems and, and processes. 


 


Mitch: (04:28)


Well, that's great. Thank you for sharing that story. For someone
who, you know, doesn't come from a necessarily traditional
accounting background but you certainly put in the time with your
studies and they chartered accountant. How do you believe that
piece of your background has helped you in these executive roles
that you assumed and then started. 


 


Richard: (04:50)


Such a good question. The reality is my accounting finance and
specifically the auditing side has helped me understand the, the
rules of the business games specifically around business process
and risk. It has been a challenge getting out of just the process
and a risk mindset when you start moving into the CEO and
entrepreneurial state that understanding how businesses can build
off of a good process is everything. That's the foundation,
right? And quite honestly the auditing training has been exempt,
just exceptional in supply me that skill sets. 


 


Mitch: (05:31)


Well, as you came from academia, right? And you kind of combined
all of this accounting background and learned kind of on the go.
How would you recommend, or how do you kind of see the needs of
accounting, education and accounting preparation changing based
on, you know, where today's business world is, as you previously
mentioned, automation. 


 


Richard: (05:54)


Oh, accounting and systems or computers and AI. I think, you
know, the level of understanding of computer systems and even
programming for accountants is going to need to increase
drastically over the next five to 10 years. And that's the one
skillset I miss all the time. I've always got to rely on a
program that even to do basic integrations and, and system
checking. 


 


Mitch: (06:18)


Now my next question is kind of what's next, right? I mean, you
are in academia, you talk about educating students, educating
entrepreneurs, assisting accountants today. You know, once you
have that education, you have your qualifications. how do you
progress through your career? What are the next steps? 


 


Richard: (06:39)


I've mentored quite a few of my students as well as my previous
financial managers, et cetera, on this kind of journey. And I see
two broad forks in the road at some point, you know, I went
through both of them so they don't have to be, you know, one
choice forever. It can actually be, you make one choice now and
five or 10 years locked on the line, you make a ...