Women & Wealth: Breaking into the Finance World with AJ Ayers
Back to another episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise podcast. I'm your host, Heidi Henderson, and today's episode is one I've been looking forward to, just because of the tools and the strategies that we're going to talk about, but because of the energy and the drive of Allie Jean Ayers, or AJ. She is the co founder of both Brooklyn FI and Gemify, and one of the leading voices in equity compensation planning today. So AJ is a certified financial planner, enrolled agent, and certified equity professional who helped dozens of clients turn life changing stock events into long term financial independence. AJ realized in her late twenties how significant the need is for adequate financial advice and for planning.
Heidi:That sparked a passion, one that led her to launch a financial education podcast, go back to school to become a financial planner, and eventually co found two companies focused on financial empowerment. Today, AJ helps tech professionals, creatives, and advisors make smarter decisions around equity events through Gemify, a SaaS platform built to support clients and CPAs alike with real time guidance, tax optimization, and confidence. We're not just talking numbers we're also diving into the personal values that drive AJ's work and what she attributes her success to. AJ, welcome to the show. Are you okay if I call you AJ or do you prefer Allie Jane?
AJ:AJ is great. Thank you, Heidi. Thanks for having me.
Heidi:Perfect. Well, thank you again. I love doing these interviews and learning about people's journey and how they've achieved their success, how they've gone through the entrepreneurial journey of starting out and then building a career and landing at where you're currently at and and just that evolution over time. So your journey kinda started or went into financial planning. It was rooted in something really personal.
Heidi:So can you share I I think you had a moment in your early twenties, if I recall, where you really realized that your peers were succeeding professionally and maybe were struggling with money. How did that light a fire and what led you to BKFI and to Gemify?
AJ:Yeah, it's a bit of a long story. You know, a lot of people I meet at conferences in the industry say, you know, I'm a career changer. I was in banking before and now I'm an accountant or, you know, I was in sales and I'm an accountant. I had a pretty significant career change. I was a music journalist In my early twenties, I worked in book publishing and I edited volumes about, you know, the Beatles and Kanye West and kind of these like academic tomes about music, which led to a job at a kind of hybrid music, you know, music magazine and tech company called Bandcamp.
AJ:So that's where I was. And yeah, I was writing about music. That was my job until I think I was like 27 maybe.
Heidi:Wow.
AJ:And while at that tech company, that was the first time that I was making a livable wage in New York City, which you don't really get when you work in book publishing and started looking around for financial advice and looked at my bank account and said, wow, I've got money left over. Should I invest it? And, you know, I really truly had no exposure to personal finance or money at all. I was an English major. You know, I had to call my dad when I got my first paycheck and have him explain what taxes are to me.
AJ:That was an embarrassing moment. That was a hard lesson to learn. And now I basically need to do that for a living is explain how taxes work to people. Exactly. Rude awakenings.
AJ:We run into that.
Heidi:Like, I'll have, you know, and like I have this client in New York and she called me and she's like, I have this business. It's going great, but like, this is the first year I've made really good money. And then I saw my tax bill and I don't understand.
AJ:Yeah. It's wild and it's, you know, yeah, it's, we all have rude tax awakenings. Mine happened at 22 when I was making $28,000 a year as an editorial assistant, when I had carefully budgeted for my apartment and then was like, why is my paycheck 30% less than I thought it was going to be? Anyway, you know, so I started making nice livable wage and started looking around for advice. Didn't really find anyone who could explain it to me in a way that I understood.
AJ:You know, I'm a, I was a creative person and people were talking about the stock market and investing and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. So, you know, it was like, get what you're saying and I'm a smart person. I'm a journalist, but I don't understand what you're actually talking about. Like, need such basic education. You know, I feel like I needed to go back to kindergarten almost, you know, for personal finance.
AJ:I don't think I'm alone in that. I think most people kind of feel that way. It's hard in our industry. And you know, now almost ten years later, I have a lot of knowledge and I consider myself an expert in complex tax situations regarding equity compensation and real estate and what have you. But at that moment it felt it was very, it's embarrassing, you know, it's embarrassing to admit, like I've gotten to almost age 30 and I don't understand what the stock market is.
AJ:I have a four zero one ks because someone told me it was a good idea, you know, back when I got my first job, but I have no idea what I'm invested in. So, you know, I started a podcast, you know, as, as a good little millennial, I thought that was the next best, next best action. Started a podcast and was just interviewing anyone who would really talk to me. Interviewed, the only person in my life at that point who I knew, who knew anything about money was my uncle who's an investment banker. So called up my uncle and I said, you know, uncle, what, what's a stock?
AJ:Explain this to me and recorded it. And just kind of fell in love with personal finance. I ended up meeting my now business partner, Shane Mason, who was working in a, at a mid sized accounting firm at the time and really wanted to get into personal finance. And the two of us met really hit it off. And we just had this thesis that there were, like you said, there were young people in Brooklyn, New York, making money, doing cool things and not getting good advice, partially because they just didn't know where to get it.
AJ:And also partially because they didn't necessarily trust the advice that was available. You know, my generation, we came out of the 02/2008, we graduated college during the two thousand and eight financial crisis. Trust. I don't want my parents' stockbroker who lost all their money to manage, you know, my hard earned money. I want to, I want people who sound like me and understand my priorities and understand that I'm an independent contractor and is my photography equipment deductible and things like that.
AJ:So that's, that's really how I got started. And so we started Brooklyn FI, which is an RIA, a registered investment advisor. Shane's background is really in tax. So we really started from tax. I got my EA.
AJ:You know, learned a ton about tax. Was basically an apprentice in Shane's small tax shop for a season or two before we launched the firm. And the hypothesis was true. There were young people making a lot of money who needed good tax and financial advice. Brooklyn if I was born in 2018.
AJ:We just celebrated our seventh anniversary. Wow. Congratulations. You know, we're now, we are now a $5,000,000 revenue business. We manage $400,000,000 in assets under management.
AJ:You know, grew really fast. Like the hypothesis was, was right. You know, there's been some ups and downs, of course. We really focus on. Liquidity.
AJ:So a lot of folks who have stock options and restricted stock at public and private companies. That's really our focus. So grew a lot when there were tons of IPOs. Haven't been a ton of tech IPOs over the past couple of years. So our business has been adjusting to that.
Heidi:Yeah. Well, it's it's amazing because to your point, and you I I think you hit the nail right on the head that there is such a lack of financial education. Even even in going through college, someone can have a college degree. We deal with business owners every day who are lost not only with understanding what to do with their finances but how to plan proactively, and then where that collaboration comes between tax planning and understanding how to set themselves up and their business entities for proper tax structuring as well as tax incentives, but then linking that over. And most people, myself included, I'm guilty even though I'm in the tax consulting space, of having, like, these silos where, okay, I've got a wealth manager over here, but then I have my CPA, and then I need a you know, my attorney who can structure an LLC, but then he's not talking to my wealth manager, and then my wealth manager has never talked to my CPA.
Heidi:And there's, you know, this complete disconnect of how that all goes. So I think it's so phenomenal how you guys have both pieces of this, where you have a little bit of that tax expertise. You've gone through that education of being an EA and understanding that a bit more, and then really helping people coach in that space. I know you've also begun to build, or you have built or launched another platform called Gemify. So talk a little bit about what that is and how that evolved out of this Brooklynify.
AJ:Yeah. So like I said, our focus was on equity compensation. So folks with stock options and ownership in a company, mostly employees, some founders, some C suite, just, you know, you're kind of rank and file employee. If you're employee 13 at a company that ends up going public, you are probably going to become a millionaire, right? That's just kind of the way equity works these days.
AJ:We were growing so quickly that it was tough to find talent who had this equity compensation is really deep technical niche. And it was really hard to find someone who had even seen incentive stock options before. So we ended up building this whole training program to train advisors quickly. And, you know, over the years we had developed these really complex spreadsheets that tracked, you know, an individual's grants and their exercise history and what they had sold and the cost basis. At a certain point, you know, we were working with such a high caliber of client.
AJ:We said, I can't show a client this messy spreadsheet. You know, I got to figure out it. So we started looking for a piece of software, didn't see anything in the market. And we thought, you know, let's build it ourselves. Let's build a piece of software that can house our clients' equity can help us help them make better decisions that have true tax calculations behind them.
AJ:What is the consequence of this action that I take? Most people do nothing with their equity because they're afraid of the tax consequences. I forget the number, but it's something, it's something like hundreds of millions of dollars of equity compensation that has value. These are public companies just goes unused and unsold because people just don't know what to do with it. Some people don't even know they have it.
AJ:And these are, these are CEOs of companies that just, it's just so complicated. It's kind of like the last thing on their mind. So that's why we built Gemify. We built it for ourselves. We built it so we could train advisors faster so we can make advisors more efficient.
AJ:Building a exercise and sell strategy for a client with a million dollars of data dog stock. That's a great example. That could take you nine or ten hours if they're coming to you and they've been at the company for five years. That's a lot of history to sort through and there's information coming from different sources. So with Gemify, we decided we wanted to take that, nine is maybe an exaggeration, but three to four hour process and get it down to a couple of minutes.
AJ:So with Gemify, you can import all of the history, import their grant information, and then you can do live scenario planning comparisons with your team. There's also great functions for accountants who are going to need all the nitty gritty information. Like was the client living in California when they got their grant? And did they move out of California to, I don't know, Florida or Texas or Nebraska during COVID when they had a big sale of long term capital gains? You know, we need to have all that information.
AJ:So we really built it for this niche for financial advisors with accountants in mind. You know, we have six CPAs on staff who use Gemify every day to support the tax documents. When you work in this space, the information you're getting, you have to verify it. We have seen you two's issued from fortune 500 companies that are wrong. And we're looking and we're going like, well, we have the receipts over here.
AJ:You know, there's that meme that's like receipts, receipts. Yep. So we've been able to save clients, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to say, there's a mistake on this. You're, you're getting double taxed on this because I've been tracking your history this whole time. This is, I have a different number.
AJ:Let's check that out. And then the company goes, oh yeah, oops. You know, you're right. I'm going to reissue this W-two.
Heidi:Yeah. It's nice when you're, when you're serving an audit function as well.
AJ:Yeah, exactly. And like, you know, hopefully it's an error in the client's favor. Unfortunately, sometimes it's not. Which is always an interesting situation.
Heidi:Well, it's amazing because we're in the incentive space. We're in such a different spot, but we have clients who will take advantage of let's just call it a cost segregation study, and they recognize all of this windfall of tax benefits. The next question is always, what else am I missing? What else can I do? By the way, I have this big taxable event, or I have something that's happened, or I've had a buyout, or I've got an equity scenario, and they are completely lost, and they don't know where to go.
Heidi:They don't know who to talk to. And it does get very complex in terms of the strategic tax planning on how to handle that and how to make decisions based on that. And oftentimes, they're making certain decisions, not thinking about the tax implications. And then, unfortunately, too often, I will tell listeners, please, if you have this situation, work on it before the end of the year. Don't wait until March and say, here's all my paperwork.
Heidi:Now let me know what I need to do, because it's likely too late.
AJ:Yes. Yes.
Heidi:But yeah, we see it constantly. So what you're building is so cool to just have a tool to simplify and create value for accountants or for wealth planners who are really looking at those. Before we dig into that a little bit more, I kinda wanna dig a little more into, like, who who you are in terms of your traits and values that you think are the most responsible for your evolution into this space. Because there are certain there are certain traits that are unique in in even thinking about the problem solving. And I'm always fascinated by the psychology of what drives you and made you think, Hey, you know, I started off here.
Heidi:Now I'm in wealth planning. Now I have an EA and I'm working on some tax stuff. But hey, let's build software. Let's talk a I
AJ:mean, you know, I think I'm, I'm pretty ambitious, you know, and I almost also very like obsessive. So I think, you know, it was when I got a job working at Bandcamp, it was okay. Now I have to be an expert in every single small independent record label. And so I did that for two years and I studied that and I knew a lot about that and I could write easily about it. And then when I got into personal finance, you know, that's a pretty deep well of knowledge.
AJ:I still haven't found the bottom yet, but you know, working on it, got my EA, got my CFP, got a bunch of other name designations, which mean nothing to anyone except to the people who have them. But I think it's, it's solving problems for, you know, money is such an interesting problem because it's everyone's problem. Everyone has issues with money. And from where I'm sitting, no, I lived it. I was a clueless creative who was successful for the first time in there.
AJ:You know, I did all the right things. I got the dream. I had the dream job, but I just couldn't figure out money and it was scary and money is a source of stress. It destroys marriages. It destroys families when someone passes away and siblings fight over inheritances.
AJ:Like there are so many parts, money touches every part of our, part of our lives. So I kind of thought, Hey, I'm unique in that. You know, I'm good at talking to people about money. I'm good at empathizing with people. I write a lot about money.
AJ:We can talk about that too. So I think, you know, with building Brooklyn FI, it was, I have to do this. These are people who are not going to get served. And I think I have some good ideas, you know, me, along with my business partner of like, Hey, let's take this super complicated technical thing of equity compensation and let's make it look pretty in software so that more advisors who don't have six years of expertise can spend a couple of weeks learning this software and be able to do this kind of advice. You mentioned in your specific, like your industry and doing cost seg analysis in real estate, like, don't know how to do that.
AJ:I would, you know, I'd refer them to you with Gemify. The idea is that this is something you can add onto your practice and you don't need to hire an outside expert because we've kind of simplified and really like gamified giving advice about equity because we have all this institutional knowledge. Hey, here's the Brooklyn FI way. Here's how you advise a client, how to de concentrate their position in a tax efficient way. Click these three buttons, watch this video.
AJ:Now you can give them a really nice deliverable. If you sign up for our software, that's kind of the idea.
Heidi:That's amazing. That's amazing. So for end users, if we're looking at a CPA accountant or a wealth manager and you're creating this software, how exactly do they use that from the advisor side? I guess you said maybe you can sign up, subscription based. Talk a little bit about that and how they would implement that into their practice.
AJ:Yeah, exactly. It's, it's a subscription. So if you use any kind of planning tools, you know, in the financial planning space, some of the tools are e money or write capital on the tax planning side, we have, you know, like Holistic plan. And those are great tools and those are probably tools that are already in your toolbox. And this is something to add onto that when you have these types of clients that need more.
AJ:So it's a subscription service. You sign up, you can import the client's data. We've got a CSV export. We've actually got a PDF reader. And by the end of this year, it'll be really sexy and you can just drag and drop your clients, you know, share data.
AJ:So that will be zero data input. We'd love that. Everyone needs data entry. So that hopefully will eliminate so many headaches. And then essentially you're, you're building different scenarios.
AJ:So you're basically putting in the data, you're talking to the client, or maybe you're just telling the client what to do. And you're saying, Hey, we've to exit this position in a couple of years, but Hey, maybe you're an executive at this publicly traded company. So it's not a good look for you to exit a % of your position or you don't want to, and you want to keep 60% of it. So really the software kind of understands the constraints. And then we, the algorithm we built basically is a tax driver.
AJ:So it's like, okay, what's the most tax efficient way to do this? So the idea is that with a little training advisors can be able to give this advice. This isn't built now, but hopefully we're going to have scripts where someone can say, Hey, it's time to diversify your position. Here's the three top reasons why it's a good idea. Yes.
AJ:I know you think you're going to be the next Amazon, but statistics show us that your company's growth is probably going to be flat. So let's extract some value now, especially because this is the next year for you to do it.
Heidi:Got it. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Can you give me a case study or two?
Heidi:Give me an example of a client that you helped so an advisor can kind of understand how they might be able to help. So in that scenario, what were you able to run through the model, and what ultimately were the results that were helpful for that client?
AJ:Yeah, that's a great question. I think just let's pick a simple one. I always, I have a bad habit. You ask like what character traits? My habit is like, what's the most complicated?
AJ:I mean, that's the problem with Gemify is like, we built it for like the most complex scenarios, but like most people have RSUs. Most people have restricted stock units. So I would say the most simple basic use case is your client comes on board. They say, last year I had a thousand dollar tax bill. And that really was disruptive because we were going to, we were going do renovation on our house.
AJ:I just got this job at Amazon and all of a sudden we got hit with this tax bill. It was a huge fight between my wife and I. I don't know what to do. It's now September and I'm worried it's going to happen again. And my accountant was no help at all.
AJ:So in Gemify, what you could do is you could, you would import their paycheck. So we would know what they'd paid year to date. We would import their history of those RSUs vesting, what they've sold. And we would basically come up with a state of affairs right now. And then this year, year to date, oops.
AJ:Yeah. They did have a bunch. And by the way, the Amazon stock has gone up. So now there's even more of a gain. And this year to date, they've generated $140,000 extra income, which is going to result in an extra.
AJ:Let's say now it's a $40,000 surprise tax bill, but it's September. So now we know that. And now we can basically come up with a plan with a client to say, Oh, but you've been at Amazon for a little while. So let's just sell some of those RSUs from last year. We can sell some of those.
AJ:And I'm going to pick exactly which ones to sell, which have the highest cost basis. So I'm not going to generate any additional tax, but I'm going get some cash for you to pay that tax bill. So the net event is going to be that you pay less tax and you have no surprise tax bill. You're going to pay your taxes before the end of the year. So when your tax bill comes, I'm actually going to get, quote unquote, get you a thousand dollar refund.
AJ:So we've eliminated all that stress. We've been tax efficient about the exit. And that's kind of the best way. That's like the most simple use case, but we do that all day long. That's so much of the value we provide is eliminating surprises for our clients.
Heidi:Yeah. Well, and that's exactly what we get contacted about as well. As we run into those situations, they're like, what do we do now? Unfortunately, a lot of times it's after the fact. It's in the next tax year.
Heidi:We're like, please, next time, call us first. Call sooner. But again, it's not really specifically within our wheelhouse. So how do you respond to a client if we have listeners, because I know we will, who are like, yeah. Yeah.
Heidi:Yeah. Yeah. That's me. But wait. My CPA isn't using this platform.
Heidi:So, well, then what? Can they work with you guys? Do you have people who they can contact to work in Gemify, or do you have a network of people that are using it? How would you recommend that people kind of connect into that if they feel like their advisor doesn't have these tools yet?
AJ:That's a good question. I mean, equity compensation is pretty specific. So I would say if equity compensation is a big part of your income or net worth, you probably do need to be working with an expert who knows this niche pretty well, unfortunately. And I don't, I never ever want to bash CPAs ever because you know, I work with them very closely. You know, I'm not a CPA just because I didn't take accounting and legend.
AJ:I don't want to sit through the four exams, but I know a lot about that. At this point, there's really no value in my life for passing audit. Sorry, everyone. That just would not be a value add for anybody.
Heidi:Yeah. I hear you.
AJ:Anyway, but you know, we correct mistakes made all the time by big four and Anderson, you know, like there are equity compensation is really complicated. So if you have stock options, like, I'm sorry to say, but the answer to your question is work with an expert who holds themselves out and says, I do work with equity compensation. That is my expertise. I've been through this before. And there are both financial advisors and CPAs that do that at Brooklynify.
AJ:That is our niche. That's basically all we do. 70% of our clients have equity. So, you know, that's a service we offered. Gemify is in its early stages of rolling out.
AJ:It'll be widely available as soon as next quarter, for people to sign up, but you know, that's, that's why we built it is to say, okay, yes, your CPA doesn't do this. No, they're not going to go learn this entire new niche, but with this software, they can basically be able to give you the advice that you need.
Heidi:Cool.
AJ:And I say this to folks all the time, even that ended up that don't end up hiring us. Most things are not your CPA's fault.
Heidi:Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a little bit of a communication issue and a little bit about timing.
AJ:Totally. Like, you know, and I have my friends who are a lot of creatives. They'll say to me all the time, like my CPA is the worst. They never reach out to me. You know, can I, can I hire you?
AJ:And I'm like, how much you, you know, how much you paying them? Okay. Well, that seems fair. When was the last time you reached out to them? They're like, well, what do you mean?
AJ:They should reach
Heidi:out to me. I'm like, Oh,
AJ:like it is a two way street. So my advice for everyone is, you know, thinking of starting to think about this in August and going, Hey, what happened this year? I really believe it's worth whether it's additional hourly time for your CPA or maybe an ongoing relationship is getting that relationship in place. So it's not transactional. I think that's one of the big, biggest, you know, kind of mistakes that the accounting industry has made is that I see you once a year to get your taxes done at this very specific time.
AJ:And like you said, it's too late. So I like to think, I like to tell my clients or just anyone I talk to that to me, the tax year is over in September, like after Q3, like the beginning of Q3, like that's kind of when a lot of the years happen. Sure. And we have more time to make decisions, but like, that's really the time where you should have a good view of what happened. Long way of saying, if you have equity compensation, get an expert or just get, or get a second opinion.
AJ:If you've got a complicated financial life, you probably need different people, you know?
Heidi:Right. Sometimes you have to elevate. Yeah. You have to look at the area of expertise that really pinpoints into the area of practice you're in and the scenarios that you're dealing with personally.
AJ:And clients will come to us and say, or a prospect will come to me and say, you know, I've got, I've got six rental properties and I really want help determining a strategy for that. And I say, awesome, not me. I'm not good at that. You know, I wish I could help you, but I'm not going to do a good job. So here's a couple of people that I think are good, but it's just not me.
Heidi:They're like, Oh, but I really want to work
AJ:with you. I'm like, You don't want to work with you. I literally don't know anything about that.
Heidi:Well, I appreciate that. I think there are not enough people that do that, that recognize and say, Look, this is my specialty. This is my area of expertise. This is what we're really great at. And then we have people that are really great at other things, and that's really who should be focused on that.
Heidi:For Gemify, do you foresee this being a platform that you'll have or allow direct taxpayers to ever use and
AJ:put information? That's definitely on the roadmap, but I would say for now we're really focusing on advisors and accountants. Again, more information can be dangerous. And right now it definitely requires that sort of institutional knowledge of how tax brackets work and how tax years work and how the rollover credits like the AMT credit work. So eventually, the long term roadmap is to make this available to the general public.
AJ:There are a ton of smart people working in tech, like software engineers who would benefit from a product like this, who don't necessarily, you know, want a long term advisory relationship. You know, a lot of times people are making these decisions at 11:55 at night when the deadline is 11:59 and they decide if they want to exercise. Like I get it. A lot of these decisions may happen at the last minute when it's like too late to reach out to someone. Yeah.
AJ:Yeah. Eventually I'd love to see this available to the public.
Heidi:Yeah, that's very cool. But for advisors who are going to use it, how are you going to charge for? I mean, is this already open for subscription or this is launching shortly? Okay.
AJ:It's open now. We have a, we have a closed beta. So we have a few folks right now. I think we have a few spots left. I don't know when this will air exactly, where it's sort of a, you get early access.
AJ:It's still a little bit buggy. You're going to pay a significantly reduced price, but yes, the idea is that as probably as early as July or August of this year, it's going to be fully functional. Anyone can go to gemify.co and sign up, do a demo and start uploading information and adding clients. And as far as pricing, we want to make it flexible enough. We, Brooklyn FI only focuses on equity compensation.
AJ:You know, we've got three fifty cases that go in there. So if Brooklyn FI were, which we do use MFI, that would be an enterprise solution, but we recognize that some people are only going to have a few clients or cases. So we're going to work on a pricing structure that's really flexible enough for someone to say, Hey, I really want this tool, but it doesn't make sense for me to pay $10,000 a year for these one or two or three clients. So TBD on that, but it's, we want people to use it. That is the goal.
AJ:We want to have a lot of users. We want to get a lot of feedback and, you know, my business partner, Shane and I were love building things that people need. So like when we were building the RIA, literally would change our business model weekly after listening to like industry podcasts. Like we'd hear, you know, an industry leader say, oh, you know what, we charge this way and we'd be like, God, we, know, we got to change this, our whole service thing. So I anticipate that as more people start to use the platform, someone is our, a lot of our best ideas and a lot of our product road back is going to come from feedback.
AJ:Love it. If you're listening to this and you sign up, like please give us feedback. We want to hear from you. We want to say, please build this or this is what I need. Or I have a client with this situation.
AJ:I'd love to be able to tell you if we can help you, you know, that's, and that's the thing it's with software and even with, you know, your niche, it's like, you can't help everyone. And at
Heidi:the end
AJ:of the day there's going to be cases that aren't going to work in Gemify.
Heidi:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, that's great. I love the approach and your thought process with it because that's exactly what I was thinking.
Heidi:Is this really just going to be for firms who are dealing with us on a weekly or biweekly basis and all throughout the year this is a big part of their business? Or is it something they can just use if they have a client or two and just need it in specific cases? Will you have like education built in there as well to kind of help and coach and give some guidance and advice for advisors who maybe this again is not something that they specialize in all the time?
AJ:Yes, exactly. And that's the part that I'm really passionate about is the education piece, which is part of equity compensation is what's the story here? You know, Hey, you, I know you think your company is going to the moon, but it probably won't. So I need you to sell quickly. And here's why.
AJ:So yes, there's going to be videos. There's going to be a whole help module to say, Hey, here's how to talk to your clients about selling your RSUs. Hey, here's a trading plan. Here's how we think about this. This is our Gemify methodology.
AJ:You can literally read this script to your client or record this video walkthrough. And the algorithm is linked up with the methodology. We want to be tax efficient. That's important. But we also don't want to hold a stock for too long just to save 5% in taxes.
AJ:Yeah. So, yeah. Right. Yeah. We Go ahead.
AJ:A lot of that comes back to the
Heidi:We're jumping in.
AJ:Go ahead, Heidi.
Heidi:I was gonna say, we always say, don't let the tail wag the dog. So we never want the tax decision to impact big financial decisions. The decision is the financial decision of what's smart financially. But that secondary discussion about the tax implications is a major factor that should be contributing towards where that decision and timing of a decision that a taxpayer makes. So we love that.
AJ:Yeah. And I think a lot of our jobs as financial advisors is to prevent people from making a mistake, making a silly mistake or a mistake based on lack of education. And the way that I'd like to think about equity compensation is let's create a scenario of least regret. So we see this a lot where a client is, and we see this more often with the current state of the economy. Like the client is at an exciting tech startup and they love it.
AJ:And then they get laid off. And when you get laid off, when your employment ends, you have to make an equity decision. So you are now what you thought you had three years to chill out and have your equity vests until the IPO company is too young to IPO. Now you got to decide if you want to exercise these options. You got to come up with a hundred thousand dollars plus an unknown tax number that you got to call your CPA to figure out.
AJ:And by the way, you only have ninety days to do this. That ninety days goes by really fast. So, you know, the idea with Gemify is we can help you make those decisions quickly. And we don't, it doesn't have to be a hundred thousand dollar decision. You know, we can, we don't have to exercise everything that you have.
AJ:We could talk about 10 or 20% of it. So, you know, I think the biggest mistake I see clients making is just being too aggressive and not understanding the risk. Watching their friends go through these really successful IPOs and going, well, I'd be stupid not to. I'm going to take out a personal loan at 13%, borrow money to exercise my options. And just not understanding that there's a % risk involved and that these could be worthless.
AJ:And is there enough cushion in their financial life to be able to support that very likely outcome? So we've thought a lot about the education piece of just saying, you know, there is no way in the software to say this price will increase a % a year. You cannot do that in the software. We put in little bands, it'll increase a little bit or decrease a little bit because I don't, I think that's dangerous. I think a lot of, and I've seen these offer letters, companies will literally send a new employee, this offer letter that says, here's your salary.
AJ:Here's the value of your equity in three different scenarios. Scenario one, it a hundred Xs. Scenario two, and I thought it was like, what? The likelihood of this. So you basically you're saying you are, you are, there's a document that says, this is what will happen.
AJ:This is what your net worth will look like if we're the next Google, like, And you're showing that to a marketing associate who is probably not going to have the financial wherewithal to know that that's a projection. So that's, that's just kills me when I see those, I get so angry.
Heidi:Yeah. Well, it's great feedback. I mean, and it is a discussion that I don't hear happening a lot. So a little bit of a shift in discussion. I want to jump onto something you said, and it's hitting home with me because I was having a conversation with my assistant last night.
Heidi:She's still in school, and she's learning, and she's kind of debating on whether she should maybe tweak what her degree program is and what's going to be the most valuable today. And we ended up talking about AI. And, I mean, AI is like a constant discussion with Evolving. And one of the conversations we were having, as I said, you have different personality traits. And what I have seen in my career is that people that are willing to learn and evolve and grow and see changes as opportunity versus as risks or negatives ultimately are the people that I see achieve success because they are embracing every change, and they are jumping on board with it.
Heidi:And there's all this discussion about AI, and it's going to take away all of these jobs, and maybe people they're not gonna have jobs. What are people gonna do? But I look at it. I say, I don't necessarily see that it's going to replace jobs. I think that it's going to allow us to do what we've always done exponentially faster to be unbelievably more productive and successful in a shorter period of time.
Heidi:So I think it's almost like the sky's the limit. But my question to you, what I'd love to just have a, I guess, banter with you a little bit about is how do you stay up to speed with what's happening in the world every day with attacks and financial planning and this stuff like Gemify, but how all of this then links to AI and the evolution of how we evolve personally. How do we keep up? How do you personally keep up with what's happening? And I'd love to know what are the resources and tools you follow to stay abreast?
AJ:That's a great question. And I think like, I'm happy to list my media diet, but I think the best, the way that I do that is I hang out with smart people. You know, I surround myself with a community of people that I respect that are not necessarily in my bubble. You know, I feel like I have so many friends that only operate in this one small bubble and all of their
Heidi:friends
AJ:are ceramicists. I always go to ceramicists. Do have a lot of friends that are ceramicists. Whereas, you know, because I'm like a creative refuge, refugee in this, you know, personal finance and tax world. You know, I have, I'm in three different mastermind groups, which are groups of smart, smart other business owners.
AJ:So that's how I stay up to date with industry trends is, these are meetings that happen. Some are monthly, some are quarterly, some are just once a year in person. And that's really where there are other people in other parts of the country who are on the cutting edge and they're doing things and we're learning from each other. So I think that's, to me, the most important thing is surrounding yourself with different people. And I've, you know, I have friends who are working in music still.
AJ:And it's like, how do I find out about a cool band? Well, I asked my husband who runs a record label, you know, I don't have time right now to read pitch or listen to music podcasts or NPR. That's where I get that from him. In terms of like, yeah, the world is moving so quickly in terms of learning about information and with tax policy, we just got a new budgeting bill. So actually just recorded a podcast before this where we're trying to start to dissect that.
AJ:So, know, honestly, my, my team at Brooklyn F High, our financial advisors are super smart. Like my, instead of an RSS feed, I, we just have a channel where people post interesting news articles. So that's a great source for me. I think Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher are really smart. They have a podcast called Pivot, which is sort of like, it kind of started as like tech news.
AJ:She's a New York Times journalist. He's a marketing professor, but both of them just have a really smart and sharp response to the news. So they talk a lot about AI and kind of the culture of billionaires and a little bit of politics, but a lot of focus on tech and exciting companies and innovations. So, yeah, I mean, honestly, I mean, I'm sure you're super busy. That's the thing.
AJ:It's like, everyone's so busy. It's like, how do you find time? Like, I wish I could say, yeah, I read the whole, the near time cover to cover every morning. Like, absolutely not. No.
AJ:I read the New York times and I travel. I also travel a lot. So that's kind of my like slow down time. I did just get an iPad, which I love, the apple news subscription where you can like, I can read vanity fair and then I can read golf digest and then I can read the New York times and I can like read whatever I want.
Heidi:Yeah, Yeah. It's exactly. It's like, there's so much information. And so I'm always fascinated, like how are other people staying up to speed on what's happening and what's coming like to your point? Yes.
Heidi:We got a new tax bill. Okay. Well, now I need to read this all night long and figure out what all of these pages of information are.
AJ:Yeah. I will say I'm a bit of a LinkedIn junkie. So like that, that community of smart people, they're not necessarily my friends. Maybe I just follow them on LinkedIn, but I would, I would include that in my circle of smart people I'm surrounding myself with. I find out a lot about new technology.
AJ:You know, I think we do this less now, but in the early days of building BKFI, I'd be like, Oh, there's a new client onboarding solution. Oh, there's another one. I heard about this one at a conference. So just this sort of like, what is the best new tech solution and should we be using it? Now there's a little bit more of a review process, a little harder to change technology when 30 people are using it as opposed to two.
AJ:Yeah, that's, I love new, I love new shiny toys, especially when they're tech.
Heidi:Yep. Yeah. Well, and that's uncommon. That's kind of why I wanted to ask the question because it's a great point. When you've got a larger firm, let's say it's a wealth management firm or it's a CPA firm and you have 50 employees, it's not that easy to pivot.
Heidi:No pun on the amazing podcast. I have listened to it and I love it. But it's not that easy to pivot and adopt new tools and to keep up with it, and it's coming so fast. It's like every day there's a new platform, a new tool, a new AI. It could be a full time job where you do nothing else but try to keep up to speed with these changes and the tools that we could potentially implement.
Heidi:So it's a little bit overwhelming. I love your comment about surrounding yourself with smart people. And, you know, I'm working on doing that myself. I recently moved to Las Vegas from Utah. So being a professional and an adult, it sometimes is hard to connect with other people in those in those spaces.
Heidi:And so some networking. Do you have any particular networking groups that you're a part of or associations that you love?
AJ:Let's see. I'm trying to think, I mean, the two masterminds that I'm in that are for financial planning, those came out of the XY Planning Network, which is a network of sort of like young CFPs basically. So that's a great network. My business partner is a lot more involved in the AICPA. I know that's a great resource for CPAs.
AJ:I've been to those conferences. Honestly, I love conferences. I get so much out of going to a conference and meeting people. And when I meet someone and they say they hate going to conferences because they don't get any, or it's like a waste of money. My reaction is, excuse me, you're an idiot.
AJ:If you can't find one, if you can't make one meaningful connection or find out about one cool piece of tech or learn about the way something's someone's doing something like that is where innovation is coming from. And again, that's communities of smart people smarter than you. Yep.
Heidi:That's funny. I love the events myself. I apologize for interrupting, but same thing. We go, we'll sponsor some events, we speak at events, but it is the connecting the network and the listening to some of the most profound speakers and experts in many different fields that is inspiring, honestly. So I love that.
AJ:Yeah. I think people find themselves trapped in these little bubbles. Shane and I get this comment all the time. It's like, wow, I can't believe you guys did that. That's so innovative.
AJ:It's like, we started a podcast and they're like, like literally everyone has a podcast. They're like, no, but like compliance. And it's like, right. Well, if you've only grown up in a broker dealer where there's a compliance department, that's bigger than the advisory department. And that's what, you know, that you, you think that you can't do a podcast.
AJ:And when you go independent, you can't start that. Get a bigger, you know, talk to other people and realize like, you know, the SEC is not going to shut you down. If you talk about stocks on a podcast, it's okay. It's totally okay to do that. A lot of people do it.
AJ:So just that idea that, you know, to your point, like we, you make your own limiting beliefs. If you think you can't do something and you've read somewhere and it's going to scare you like, yeah, you, sometimes you have to take risks. And I think that was part of the power of us starting being such a career changer and having no experience in this industry was like, well, why are they, why are they doing it that way? Like this way makes more sense for our clients. You know, I'm not doing anything wrong.
AJ:I'm putting my clients in low cost index funds and giving them good tax advice. You want, you can come after me and like, look at my process, here, I'm an open book. So it was always just like, if you're doing everything in the service of clients, like that's a good goal. That's like a good North star to always go towards versus like, oh, I can't do something because compliance is going to say no, or they're not going to like that. Or my biggest client is going to be offended if I swear in a, you know, in a blog post, even though that's how I talk, you know, it's like, you gotta be yourself.
AJ:Otherwise people are going to know you're a phony.
Heidi:You know, we talk a lot on here. I love talking actually about authenticity and being super real and just who you are as a person, which I think it's also a changing era that in the last ten, fifteen years has become far more acceptable to just be real and to pull in this whole personal side of who you are as an individual without living behind the wall of it as a suit in your office. And when COVID probably did that, it sort of broke the mold by throwing us into our home offices and showing that we can work while the, you know, the dog's barking and, you know, things are happening
AJ:around It's right? It's okay to, it's okay to interrupt a really important meeting and say, my couch is being delivered. Like, I'm sorry. And it used to be, you know, you get fired for that, which is like, that was stupid.
Heidi:Yes. Right? Right. Exactly.
AJ:I heard the other day from a marketing professional that LinkedIn basically just, it just abandoned company pages and that like, you know, people put all this money into, you know, your website, like Brooklyn FI's LinkedIn page is a ghost town. But you know, me, if I post something on LinkedIn and tag Brooklyn FI or my managing partner posts something like that's where people are engaging because they want to hear from people. They don't need a corporate update that says, you know, don't remember kids, max out your four zero one ks. Like that's boring. And that's kind of what, that's like what everyone's doing.
AJ:So the only way to be different is to be yourself.
Heidi:Yep. Yep. I love that. So on that note, advice. Give listeners an advice.
Heidi:And let's focus this one towards women, because here we are. What advice would you give to women or creatives or professionals or both who are really looking to kind of turn their purpose into business and to really just go for it?
AJ:Wow. What advice? I mean, I think the answer is just go for it. I think you might need someone to partner with. I think doing things alone is very scary.
AJ:I think having a partner, whether it's a business partner or even a supportive romantic partner, who's in it with you can be a way to get your butt out of the chair. I know so many smart creatives who have really good ideas for things, but they just don't have that business head, or they just don't have that mentality or that kick out the door to get the thing done. That's I feel like that's going to be my third career is kind of a business coach or accelerator, which is like, tell me your idea and I'll help you get it off the ground. So many people get stuck in. Like MBA ing everything.
AJ:Like they are like, oh, I need, I need a business plan and I, I need to get an office. Like you don't need an office to start a business. So my advice I would say is you might need help. You might need a partner to really actualize your vision. And my second piece of advice is don't spend money to start your business, start your business and prioritize revenue over everything.
AJ:It's this like obsession with like being perfect and making sure everything is above board and making sure everything lines up. You know, a lot of people will say, well, I need to take some time off before I start my business. I need to clear my head. Most successful businesses get started in the nights and weekends while you're at your current job or while you're doing something else. Or for a lot of women, it's like your kids are past the baby phase and they're starting to go to school.
AJ:Now you have a little bit more time back. You know, that's when businesses get started. So I think I have watched some business owners get started really kind of like focus. It's like they're, they're playing office. Like they set up the office.
AJ:They spend a lot of time. Oh, I need a logo. I need a website. Yeah. You need a website, but your website should say, here's my website.
AJ:Here's how to get in touch with me. And here's how to buy my product. And I can make it look pretty later. Like, I am kind of obsessed with this idea of revenue is all that matters. Like just get revenue and the path of least resistance, how you can get there as fast as whether you're starting a CPA business, great.
AJ:Go get clients. I don't care what software you use. You could spend fifteen years studying which CRM to use. It doesn't matter. Just use a piece of paper.
AJ:Then you'll graduate to a G sheet. Maybe you'll get Salesforce eventually, but yeah, just get it done either by partnering with someone or doing it yourself and not going into debt. Don't go into credit card debt to start a business is my best advice.
Heidi:Perfect. I love that. That is really, really good advice. And I love your focus on revenue, revenue before other things, because you're absolutely right. We focus so much on, especially like myself being more of the accounting minded, very analytical.
Heidi:It's like, I have to have all my ducks in a row and have everything outlined, and it needs to look perfect. And we have to put out that perfect, beautiful picture. But I think this is very much representative of what we were just talking about with the authenticity and the realness of having human beings behind products, which actually with the expanse of AI, I think I'm actually liking the shift that people more and more are gravitating even more towards the relationships in people connections and understanding who's behind a product or behind a service and valuing that more and more. So I love that feedback. I think you are spot on.
Heidi:With that, I am so grateful for your time. You so much for being a guest. Love what you're building. And with that, will you share any contact information you'd like to provide to listeners and then we'll make sure it's in
AJ:the show notes. Sounds great. Yeah, you can find my firm website, Brooklyn FI at brooklynfi.com. You can find Gemify, our equity compensation product at gemify.co. And I also write about money.
AJ:I have a Substack newsletter that's called Money Changes Everything. So if you just Google Changes Everything in Substack, you'll find me and I send a weekly newsletter about my thoughts and that revenue piece, I'm doing a big focus on business owners in June. If you're a business owner or aspiring business owner, you might want to subscribe to Money Changes Everything.
Heidi:Love it. Okay. We will link that absolutely in the show notes. I'm going to go subscribe as well. I didn't know that.
Heidi:So I can't wait. And hopefully when I'm in town, I can connect. If you're in Vegas, please reach out. Love to have dinner and connect. But thank you again so much for being a guest.
Heidi:Awesome.
AJ:Thank you so much for having me, Heidi. Take care.
Heidi:You too. Okay. Bye. Thank you again to AJ Ayers for joining us and sharing both her personal experience and her professional experience. From helping clients and CPAs navigate complex equity events with Gemify to building a financial firm with heart at BKFI, AJ is proving that jumping in and problem solving can create some big wins.
Heidi:What stood out the most to me today was AJ's reminder that you make your own limiting beliefs. I loved that phrase. And that being successful doesn't have to look perfect. Rather, sometimes you just need to do it, which it also seems to be a theme with many of my guests. If you are advising clients through stock options, buyouts, IPOs, or RSUs, Gemify is a tool that you'll want to explore.
Heidi:You can find all the links in the show notes to connect with AJ, try the platform, or partner with her team. Thanks again for tuning in to the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise podcast. As always, thank you to Engineered Tax Services for sponsoring the podcast. If this episode gave you insight or inspiration, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review. And until next time, stay healthy, stay wealthy, and stay wise!
