Hi, I’m Allen.

My Web3 Journey started January 2022 when I launched Professional Curiosity Newsletter, and now I’m a startup consultant for Web3 projects.

I launched The Restatement to help CPAs & CISA find their next career move, because yall don’t understand how needed you all are in the market.

Below is a lengthy preview of what you public accountants need to know about entering this space.

The Rundown

• What’s going on in the Web3 Market?
  • A dumb amount of money, with over $5b in venture capital funds announced last week alone.
  • Lots of engineers building solutions that aren’t solving problems
  • Not many people building businesses and processes that help a business grow

• What is a typical environment of a Web3 company?
  • Incredibly unstructured, but well funded
  • All 100% Remote, Digitally Native Workforce
  • Engineer and Community Growth focused team
  • Contractors Everywhere
  • Anonymous Contributors Everywhere

• What are the typical problems of a Web3 company?
  • All software development, marketing, and community engagement is handled at the founder level
  • Business Operations including Accounting, Finance, and Payroll is usually forgotten, or done manually
    • How do you pay international contractors
    • Can you pay in Crypto
    • Can you learn Gusto and help implement it correctly?
    • Who owns what?
    • Is it taxable, or not?
    • How do we make a Statement of Crypto-Flow?
    • What’s the valuation of the business?
    • What data does engineering need to pull to make financial sense of it all?

• What advantages do Big 4 CPAs & CISAs have in Web3?
  • Information Produced by the Entity - aka Completeness & Accuracy, is beaten into you. There’s a great reason - all financial data you read on the internet in Web3 is most likely unsupported or unvalidated; it’s your duty to clean that up. Check the reporting parameters, tie the numbers, and make reasonable numbers!
  • Revenue Analytics - “We make a lot of money doing X” but it turns out they actually made a lot of money because of “Y”.
  • Fund Accounting - “Accounts” in Web3 are “Wallet Addresses”, each with its own set of transactions, balances, and interest gaining activity. Treat each wallet address as a fund accountant would, and you’ll be fine.
  • Non-Engineering, Business Grade Documentation - No one wrote anything about how the business should be working. But you make those all the time in your UBTs (Understand the Business Templates), WTs (Walkthrough), and Project Insights (Financial Data flow diagrams with risks mapped on to it).
  • Process & Automation Design for Internal Ops - No joke, you can ping any controller, VP, and CFO of any Web3 company and ask “so how much of the financial, payroll, and accounting process is manual” and I can guarantee you they will say “everything, can you help?”
  • Vendor & Third Party Screening and Contract Management - There’s a lot of contractor agreements. Conforming those contractor agreements so that payroll expense can be predictable is such an understated value add - but necessary for startups to determine their burn rate.
  • Taxes - If you do your own taxes, congrats you’re qualified to help.
  • Financial Statements - Bookkeepers can record activity, but CPAs can create useful GAAP Financials that make sense for valuation models & growth models.
  • Privileged Access - Who has access to withdraw crypto funds from any of the 200 crypto wallets the startup has? Why the hell do they have access? Can they not?

• What can be expected about Web3 compensation?
  • You can elect crypto, or USD payments
  • Its usually stupidly high
  • There could be RSU (Stock), but most likely you’ll be incentive with Crypto-based compensation that would be provided in replacement of Stock.
  • You can do full-time, part-time, or contractor base. You’ll most likely be a contractor at first in a “try it before you buy it” model.

• How will this improve my career?
  • Just having Web3 experience on your resume will future proof you. Instantly.
  • You also get startup experience.
  • About 20% of the job is defined; 80% you craft on the job (and learn on the job)
  • It’s 100% Remote
  • Summary: You get Startup + Web3 + Remote + Pioneering Accounting Standards that have yet to be made = you are set.