140: Kurt Rathmann of ScaleFactor – Growing the Team 5x, Plus an Update on Marge!

Kurt Rathmann, founder of ScaleFactor in Austin, Texas, re-joined us for an update show on this episode of Life In Accounting, the Where Accountants Go podcast!

Still feels like a start-up

I asked this early on in the episode, because I honestly wasn’t sure if “start-up” was still an appropriate term.  However, while they are already in their 6th year of operation, Kurt agrees that the term still very much applies.  With their high-growth, focus on culture, and constant innovation, Kurt says that they definitely still have the start-up type of environment.

5x employee growth

When we originally interviewed Kurt, they had just hired their 40th employee, and that was only about 15 months ago.  When we recorded this update though, they had a total of 230 team members including their interns!  Plus, they now are officing in 3 locations with a shuttle that runs every 30 minutes between them in order to remove the barriers that exist due to not being all centrally located.  And this is all while their new 52,000 square foot facility is being built.  They truly have experienced explosive growth since our last interview.

Marge continues to grow up

One of the other highlights of this interview was that we discussed Marge in greater depth.  Marge is ScaleFactor’s Artificial Intelligence Controller.  She can handle basic tasks such as responding to requests for information like a tax ID number, but also can handle more involved calculations of items such as burn rate and income or expense questions.  And if that isn’t enough to catch your attention, Kurt says their team views Marge as just starting kindergarten.  She continues to learn more and more every day and they feel that they have only begun to touch the surface.

If you have any interest in technology in the accounting field, this update on the growth at ScaleFactor and the original episode with Kurt Rathmann will certainly be valuable for you.

Other episodes that may interest you include:  Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto

To listen in to our interview with Kurt Rathmann, please click on the player below: