Why mid-size firms, specifically

A reasonable question we get from firms, vendors, and our own board when we describe this practice: why mid-size specifically? Why not the whole accounting profession?

The short version is that the economics we just described — partners as the bottleneck, prep capacity as flexible — is a mid-size firm story. Smaller and larger firms have different economics, and a product that serves everyone tends to serve no one well.

Small firms

Solo practitioners and firms under roughly twenty people don’t have the partner-hour bottleneck in the same shape. The partner is also the preparer. The review bottleneck is real, but it’s not distinct from the rest of the work — it’s the same person doing all of it. They need tools, but they need different tools. A practice engagement like ours doesn’t fit.

Top 100 firms

The largest national firms have internal technology teams, existing relationships with Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer, and procurement processes that don’t treat us as a primary vendor. We’d either be a subcontractor or outbid on a feature-for-feature RFP. Neither is what we’re good at.

The middle

Twenty to one hundred fifty people is a sweet spot. Big enough that partner review is a real bottleneck — not a shared responsibility. Small enough that a managing partner can make a technology decision without a seven-layer approval process. Real budget, real need, real accountability on both sides.

Focus is how a small firm competes. Picking a lane and staying in it is how this practice stays specific and honest.

We may end up serving firms outside that range eventually. But we’re not going to let “aspirational TAM” slide us into sounding like everyone else. The practice is for mid-size Tax and Accounting firms first. The rest comes later, or not at all.