at those early stages. If you want to have a scalable business, this isn't just

accounting, but if you want to have a scalable business, I think it takes a lot of

effort in the beginning to be able to reap the rewards later.

I just turned 27 and we now have 15 employees after the acquisitions. It was very

different. There was people that were older than me who were 15 years more

experience, but that were answering to me as the owner. To your comment earlier,

work-life balance was a term that was not really used in my home life for those few

years. How did you decide to go ahead and acquire some gyms? I mean, you already

have a six pack and how did it work a matter? What? You know, my wife was looking to do

something.

I'm John Bly, 39 years old and I'm the founder of LBA Haynes Strand. We're a CPA

firm and I'm located in Charlotte, North Carolina. We've got three offices here in North Carolina.

The other two offices are in Mount Erie, which is just north of Winston-Salem and we've got an

office in Greensboro. And how long have you been in accountant since 2002, since graduating from

graduate school? So first job out of college was in accounting. You decided you want to study accounting

in college? Yeah, actually I decided as a little kid. I had a paper route as a little kid and had to

collect, you know, you had to do the weekly collection, monthly collection, you had to pay the paper

company in those days and it was on you to collect. And so that debits and credits and investing

and things got me into it at a very young age. And you worked in accounting firm right when you

graduated and are you from the North Carolina area? I'm originally from Albany, New York and I worked

for Pricewaterhouse Cooper's large big four accounting firm straight out of grad school up in the

Austin area and had them transfer me down to Charlotte, North Carolina. How's your story a little

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