Unlocking Business Owner Wealth With Jason Early

Jason Early is the Founder and CEO of RISR, a wealthtech platform that helps financial advisors support business owners with business valuation, succession, exit planning, and risk clarity. With extensive experience in financial services, he has dedicated his career to building innovative tools and solutions for advisors and the clients they serve. RISR was recognized by Investment News as Best New Technology, and Jason was named to the publication’s 40 Under 40. Before founding RISR, he held advisory leadership roles and served as President of a wealth technology firm specializing in private company valuation services.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:03] Jason Early discusses how RISR helps financial advisors better serve business owners

• [5:27] The biggest problem advisors face when valuing a business

• [6:37] Why plug-in business valuations fail business owners

• [9:29] Understanding current value versus required value for retirement goals

• [13:26] Jason explains why business owners should plan for an exit years in advance

• [15:25] Designing products that strengthen advisor–business owner relationships

• [20:25] The growing role of tax planning in wealth management

• [23:13] How business owners are beginning to use AI for financial insight

• [29:38] Mentors and experiences that shaped Jason’s leadership style
  

In this episode…

Business owners often have most of their wealth tied up in their company — but many don’t know what their business is really worth or how it fits into their retirement, estate, and legacy plans. Advisors frequently treat the business like a plug-in number, which can lead to misguided planning and missed opportunities. How can advisors bring real clarity, reduce risk, and help business owners plan for a successful exit?

Jason Early, a wealthtech founder and longtime financial services leader, explains that effective advice starts with true business clarity: establishing the current value of the business and the value it needs to reach to support goals like retirement and philanthropy. He recommends guiding owners to identify and mitigate both equity risk and operational risk. Jason also emphasizes planning early, operating the business as if it’s always ready to sell, and building a succession or exit plan since most businesses don’t successfully transact.

In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Jason Early, Founder and CEO of RISR, about helping advisors deliver better outcomes for business owners. Jason shares insights on business valuation clarity, risk reduction, and exit planning. He also discusses tax planning trends, how AI is changing software building, and the mentors who shaped his leadership.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Quik!

• Richard Walker on LinkedIn

• Jason Early on LinkedIn

• RISR

• "How Being High-Tech Leads To Being High-Touch With Customers" on The Customer Wins

• "Transforming Advisor Engagement Through AI With Spenser Segal" on The Customer Wins

• "[Emerging Tech] Simplifying Operations in Wealth Tech With Max Klein" on The Customer Wins

• Hoopis Performance Network

• Harry Hoopis on LinkedIn

• Joey Davenport on LinkedIn

Quotable Moments:

• “Our belief is that business owners need better advice and that the advisors that serve them need better tools and technology.”

• “But perhaps the more impactful or more eye-opening number is that 89% of people worth $30 million or more are business owners.”

• “Advisors treat this asset like a plug-in number, and that's unjust and insane in our view.”

• “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.”

• “70, 80, 90% of our code is, you know, first pass is done with AI.”

  
  

Action Steps:

1. Establish a clear baseline business valuation: Knowing the true current value of the business prevents “plug-in” estimates and creates a realistic foundation for retirement, estate, and legacy decisions.

2. Define the “required value” needed to meet life goals: Comparing current value to the value needed for retirement and lifestyle goals reveals the gap and helps owners and advisors prioritize what must change.

3. Identify and reduce owner dependency risk: If the business depends too heavily on the owner, it becomes harder to transfer, sell, or scale, so reducing dependency increases transferable value and improves options.

4. Address equity risk with properly funded buy-sell agreements: Unfunded agreements can jeopardize equity if something unexpected happens, and funding them protects wealth and ensures continuity.

5. Build an early succession and exit plan—before it’s urgent: Waiting until the owner is ready to exit often reduces value and limits choices, while early planning improves diligence readiness and transition outcomes.

   
   

Sponsor for this episode...

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02 

Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.

Richard Walker: 00:16 

Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how they're focused on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Philipp Hecker of Bento Engine, Spenser Segal of ActiFi and Max Klein of LEA. Today I'm speaking with Jason Early, the founder of RISR, and today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your valuable time manually reviewing the forms. Instead, get Quik! using Quik!.

You'll be able to generate completed forms and get back clean, context rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of 1000 submissions. Visit quickforms.com to get started. All right. Jason Early is the founder and CEO of RISR and has spent his entire career in financial services, solving problems for financial advisors.

 RISR has been named by Investment News, Best New Technology and Jason as one of their 40 under 40. Dude, congratulations. That's awesome. He started his career with an advisory firm in Philadelphia, where he spent seven years as a managing director. From there, he joined an e-learning and consulting firm, and prior to founding RISR, he was the president of a leading wealthtech firm that pioneered private company valuation services.

 Jason, welcome to The Customer Wins.

Jason Early: 01:41 

Rich, thanks for having me, man. I'm pumped to be here.

Richard Walker: 01:44 

Oh, we're going to have a great conversation. For those who haven't heard my podcast, I love to talk to business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they build and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. So, Jason, I want to understand your business a lot better. How does your company help people?

Jason Early: 02:03 

What a great question. And one that we think an awful lot about, to be honest. I mean, we have an entire team of people that wake up every single day thinking about how to solve problems for our customers and create better outcomes for our customers and ultimately, their customers. So, you know, we are in the wealthtech space, like a lot of your guests. And our belief is that business owners need better advice and that the advisors that serve them need better tools and technology.

And so to that end, our customer is the financial advisor, and their customer is the business owner. And so we help advisors by bringing, you know, far more clarity to their clients' most important asset, their business. And as a result, we're, you know, in the fortunate position where our clients create far better outcomes for their business owner clients who are in desperate need of their advice today. When you think about some of the demographics, right? If you were to walk up and down Main Street in any small town USA, you'd get a real good feel for who's powering that economy.

 And it's small businesses, and the demographics are such that all of those business owners are transitioning and transacting, and that asset is far more important to the owner of that business than they're holding in in, you know, pick your favorite stock. And so they really need to be thoughtful about how to transition that asset. And so their advisors need better tools and technology. And so that's how we help people. We help advisors, you know, gain clarity into that asset and provide better advice to business owners.

Richard Walker: 03:46 

Jason, as you're mentioning all this, something occurred to me I've never thought to ask before. I used to be an advisor. And you always think, oh, I want to go after high net worth people, people with a lot of money, etc. What percentage of the people that are high net worth or that are being, you know, that advisors are trying to attract are actually business owners, do you know?

Jason Early: 04:04 

Yeah. So we got a couple of stats that we think we use to kind of support this, because you're exactly right. Right. At the end of the day, advisors want to serve wealthy people, and wealthy people own businesses. I think it's something to the effect of 65 or 66% of millionaires own businesses.

But the perhaps more impactful or more eye-opening number is 89% of people worth $30 million or more are business owners. And so again, to your point, the wealthiest people own businesses, right? And that's not counterintuitive to people, but what we do here all the time and what we love to push against is advisors will say things like, well, forget the business owner. All the wealth is tied up in the business. And that's simply not true.

 Right. Perhaps on a percentage basis it is. But at the end of the day, again, to your point, wealthy people own businesses. They have assets outside of that holding. And then again, they make, you know, so our point is always business owners make incredible clients while they operate.

 And then there's a cherry on top at the end, you know, if, if in fact they do get liquidity from that asset.

Richard Walker: 05:16 

So what is it that you think advisors lack because advisors are business owners too, aren't they? So what is it that they're lacking that they can help their customers better with what RISR is doing for them?

Jason Early: 05:27 

Well it's clear. So you know, advisors are put in a difficult position. Again you know without RISR tools like it, advisors have to treat the business like every other asset on the balance sheet. And so it might sound, you know, discovery might sound something like this rich which is all right. You know, you and I are meeting and you own a business and, and I start asking you questions.

And it's our belief that, you know, the best advisors ask the best questions. But you know what's in the form and 41K? What's in the brokerage account? What's your house worth? What's your business worth?

 And again, they're treating that asset like every other asset on the balance sheet.

Richard Walker: 06:07 

Can I tell you something funny about that? I met with an advisor years ago like 15 years ago and, you know, had my company for 23 years now. And we were going through that same questionnaire. Right. And then he's like, what's the value of business?

I'm like, I don't know. He's like, I'm going to put $1 million down. I'm like, okay, it's probably worth more than that in the long run, but whatever. So now I have a net worth statement. Over $1 million like this makes zero sense to me.

 I don't have a net worth over $1 million. I don't have tangible, tangible money. Like, what does this mean to me as an owner?

Jason Early: 06:37 

Yeah, I think it's. Look, this is the problem that we set out to solve. Advisors treat this asset like a plug in number, and that's unjust and insane in our view. I mean, you know, to your point, I started my career with an incredible firm here in Philadelphia. You know, a large area. Tons of planning work and hundreds of millions of dollars a year in insurance premium.

They did planning almost exclusively with business owners. So I started my career with a, you know, a front row seat into how the best in the advice business give advice to business owners. And it was scary as hell, meaning they'd walk into a room and they'd say, all right, Rich, you know, what's the business worth? Just like this? And you'd say, God, I don't know, 30, 40 million bucks.

 And we'd be like, all right, cool. We'll use 35 for the plan. And that's insane, right? So when you think about this asset and what it means to the owner of the business, not only is it, you know, their blood, sweat, tears, they've poured everything into this asset. It's got, you know, huge emotional ties far, far greater than any other holding that they have.

 But it dramatically impacts their financial plan, their retirement plan, their estate plan, their legacy plan. All of the you know, it has huge implications across all of that. And advisors are, you know, using back of the napkin math to, to put a plug in number. It makes no sense. And so again, for a long, long time, one advisor has kind of gotten away with it and a lot of advisors have ignored the business owner.

 But that isn't the case anymore. All of financial services is starting to surround the business owner because, you know, this demographic tidal wave is happening. And so every advisor on the planet wants to be the one that, you know, captures and manages the asset when a business owner exits. But what they're realizing is I better be there now providing advice. And so there's a real migration towards the business owner to give advice.

 And, advisors are lacking the tools and technology to do so.

Richard Walker: 08:44 

So what I'm hearing, tell me if I'm wrong about this. What I'm hearing is Reiser is helping bring definable meaning to that asset, the business for the client that owns it. Because here's another perspective on it. When I was an advisor, I talked to my clients. Okay, you have net worth in your house, but unless you intend to sell your house at retirement, it's not going to help you in retirement.

So it's the same thing with a business. Like, do you intend to sell your business or not? Do you expect to get cash flow indefinitely from it? Because cash flow. I mean, that's what we're after in retirement.

 At the end of the day, I think. So I'm curious, like, how are you helping advisors have those conversations around what the asset means to you in the long run? Do you have to sell it? And I'm wondering if you even know, like is there a majority of people who want to sell their business? Is that part of their retirement?

Jason Early: 09:29 

Yeah. So we've got a lot of proprietary data around some of that stuff, and I'll talk about it. But in its simplest form. Right. It's to the earlier point, it's about clarity.

And so we want to help advisors better understand the asset. And so we think that that begins and ends with the value of the business. Meaning you have to understand the value of the business. Today as a kind of linchpin. But we do think there's a more important number.

 And you alluded to it, which is great. Your business is worth $10 million today. But based on everything you told me about retirement, income, legacy, philanthropic, all this other stuff that you want to accomplish, the business needs to be worth 15 or 20 million. Meaning here's the you know, here's how the business fits into your overall health plan. And so we think that's critically important.

 The next piece that we think is really important is risk. Meaning all of these businesses have operational risk but they also have equity risk meaning all of these private privately held businesses. Most of them have a buy-sell agreement or an operating agreement, but very few of them are funded, meaning they haven't protected the equity value that they've built up in this business. God forbid something happens to them. And I grew up in the, you know, the life insurance business.

 And an old mentor of mine used to say, if you don't say, God forbid, at least three times a day, are you really in the life insurance business? But so but that's a reality for most of these businesses. They have unfunded buy-sell agreements. And so the equity is at risk. But again the operational risk is equally as important.

 You know they have an owner dependency. And you talked about this. Most businesses don't have transfers. They haven't created transferable value because the business depends on them. And so they have got to reduce the owner's dependency.

 They've got to reduce customer concentration risk and all of those things. But then most importantly is this point that you started with, which is, you know, do they have a succession and exit plan and 75% of businesses don't. And so what does that mean? Every business owner exits their business someday, someway. Right.

 And the reality is most don't sell. So only 23% of businesses that go to sell actually sell or transact. So what does that mean if most businesses aren't selling to private equity and getting the headlines in the newspaper, what's happening? Well, they're transitioning to the next generation. They're transitioning to employees.

 Or again, God forbid they're just shutting the doors and moving on. And that can be an okay thing, by the way, because again, if you go back to to the earlier part of the platform, if they're, you know, if the current value of of the business is, you know, greater than, than the, you know, the goal value or the dream value or, you know, exceeds their, their wealth plan, that's a wonderful thing. Meaning they have pulled enough money out of the business over time. They've used the cash flows of that business to fund their retirement. They've got incredible optionality.

 And so that's a great thing. But again, in our view, far too often the outcome for the owner doesn't align to stated goals and objectives. And so our platform helps, you know, the advisor and the business owner prioritize, you know, things like whether it's cash optimization and exit, whether it's legacy, whether it's continuity of the business, it helps them stack those in order and tailor a plan that meets those goals and objectives.

Richard Walker: 12:55 

Yeah. And you're also giving people a head start if you're having an advisor work with a business owner in their 30s. 40s 50s well, before they want to sell or retire or transition, you're probably giving them a lot of capability to plan ahead and think ahead versus so many people. I mean, this is true of advisory firms too, right? They get into their mid to late 50s, they're at the peak and they start actually losing value in their business because they're not thinking about how to sell or transition.

And then suddenly like, hey, I want to retire. What should I do? And you want to maximize value for them, right?

Jason Early: 13:26 

Yeah. Look, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. And so the reality is, you know, the best businesses operate like, they're like. They're always like they're ready to sell.

Meaning if somebody knocked on your door today and said, you know, Rich, I want to give you 10 million bucks for your business, is that a good number or is that a bad number? Does it meet your goals? Does it not meet your goals? If they said, I want to offer you 10 million bucks, but I want to do 30 days of diligence on your business. Are you ready to do diligence?

 Like, can you open up the books? Can you, you know, let them under the hood? And are they going to like what they see? Most business owners, the reality is they don't know if that's a good or a bad offer, because they don't have a good understanding of the value of the business. They aren't ready for diligence, meaning they don't have tight house housekeeping around, you know, operational procedures and, you know, bookkeeping and all of these kinds of relatively table stakes things.

 And so, again, it's our view that the best businesses are operating as if they're always ready to sell. And so that comes with planning and intention. And most don't stop to think about that.

Richard Walker: 14:42 

Hey, for the record, 10 million is way too low for quick. So just anybody listening, just no way to.

Jason Early: 14:50 

From what I know I agree wholeheartedly.

Richard Walker: 14:55 

I want to switch gears a little bit here, because outside the show, you and I have talked, and there's a belief or philosophy or ethos about you and your company that I want to tap into here. You've told me your customer is the advisor, but you're getting this tremendous impact to the end consumer of that advice. Tell me about how you think about that, like designing your product and service so that more than just your core customer wins.

Jason Early: 15:25 

Everything we do is to deepen the relationship between advisor and business owner. And so everything we build is for the advisor. We believe deeply in advice, and we were very intentional about this. Meaning there are all sorts of ways to attack this problem. We chose to attack the problem from the lens of financial advice, because we believe that the financial advisor plays an absolutely critical role in helping these businesses plan and transition and transact effectively.

And so none of it works, in our view, without the financial advisor. And so to that end, everything that we do is, is, is for the advisor. But to your point, we get this added benefit that the work that the advisor then does makes a tremendous impact on their communities. And so the business owners that desperately need their advice are getting these far greater outcomes because they are working with an advisor that's leveraging our technology. And so we're seeing, you know, an understanding of the value of business.

 We're seeing increases to the value of their business. We're seeing, you know, the equity value of these businesses get protected. We're seeing operational risks be mitigated. And then we're seeing successful transitions that again align to stated goals and objectives of that business. So back to the earlier comment.

 Walk up and down Main Street and you start to get a good feel for what's powering the economy in that community. And it's these small to medium sized businesses. And when they have great outcomes, the community is better for it. And so yeah, we look like we love that we build and have technology and products for the advisor. And we love that.

 It enables better advice and better outcomes for, for the businesses that they serve. And so yeah, we're lucky in that regard.

Richard Walker: 17:24 

Now I look, I share this because one of my own motivations, as I asked myself, should I remain a financial advisor or should I pursue the software quickly? And honestly, one of my main motivations was that if I'm an advisor, I can help 100-200 people's families. If I do software for advisors, I can help millions of families and I just felt like I can do more good that way. I'm curious from your standpoint, I mean, if you take all that into context from a product standpoint, do you actually talk to business owners to learn? Like what else do they need to put into your product then?

Do you include them in your discovery?

Jason Early: 18:00 

We do. We talk to business owners. But then you know, the next, you know, step, if you will, because there are a whole host of things that business owners care about. But for it to end up in our in our product, whether it's the UI, the UX, or it's in the client deliverables, you know, for it to end up in there, it also has to hit on, you know, first, the business owner has to care about it and be demanding it and wanting information and wanting resources on it. The second piece, you know, the second vector that it has to hit on is does the advisor confident and competent talking about it?

Does it lead the advisor down the path of conversations that they want to have? This is actually, you know, quite frankly, in our view, our biggest differentiator, right. Which is to say there's a lot of great companies in and around our space. I mean, if you know, you look at the explosion of company creation, just look at the tech map as an example. I mean, I don't know if that has happened two, three, five, ten over the last, you know, five or so years.

 But there has been a tremendous amount of companies sprouting up to solve problems on behalf of advisors, which is a wonderful thing. And because of the fact that, again, the business owner is getting so much attention, you're seeing a lot of companies operate in this space, and they're attacking it from all sorts of different lenses, which is, again, a beautiful thing. We think that we are the only ones that really attack the problem through the lens of financial advice, meaning, are we launching advisors into conversations that they want to be having with a business owner? Are we launching advisors into planning related conversations? Because again, if just the business owner cares about it, like there are things that the business owner cares about that the advisor doesn't want to talk about.

 And so we want to make sure that they hit on both of those vectors for it to end up in our experience. Otherwise what happens? The advisor just doesn't use it. They don't talk about it and the impact isn't there.

Richard Walker: 20:05 

Yeah. And the customer feels like they're not getting the right input, reactions, etc..

Jason Early: 20:11 

100%.

Richard Walker: 20:12 

I'm blanking on who I interviewed on this show to talk about taxes, but I mean, that's one of those discussions, right? Business owners are wrapped up in taxes as part of their wealth planning strategy. Do you guys do that? Do you guys handle any of the tax aspects?

Jason Early: 20:25 

There are elements of tax planning woven throughout our platform. We you know, to today. Perhaps by the time this airs, you know, we will have rolled out our tax planning module. And so there you know, there is more as it relates to tax planning coming into our experience. And so really about, you know, cash flows and and understanding, excuse me the cash flows of the business and how that impacts, you know, your taxes annually.

And then certainly as you start to think about the exit, right, there's tax considerations around that. And so we'll have some modeling in there around that. And you know this is again one of our core beliefs . We're watching it happen in real time, which is where these worlds are colliding. Right. You're seeing financial advice and tax planning.

 We're seeing Rias all over the country acquire tax planning practices and tax and CPA firms. Why the market's demanding it. Right. The customers are asking for it. I've I've long I don't know if it's controversial or not but I you know I've never believed much in kind of the fee compression or that there was pressure on fees that advisors are charging.

 What I do believe is that the consumer or the market is asking for far more services from their advisor. And so that's why you see the advent of a lot of, you know, companies like us or some of these specialized planning softwares, be it in the estate planning market and the tax planning market, whatever it might be. So these advisors are bolting on service offerings, and tax planning is one of these areas that some advisors still resist and say, you got to talk to your CPA and others are diving in and saying, no, no, this is critical to how you, you know, think about your financial plan. And we got to have a seat at the table. And so, you know, yeah, we think that this is a really important part of our platform and something that we're, you know, really excited to roll out and start getting feedback on.

Richard Walker: 22:26 

I don't expect that I'm ever going to go back to becoming a financial advisor. But I know in my heart that if I did, tax would be a big part. I'd have to have either a tax person on my team, or I'd have to learn a lot more about it, because it's such a huge part of the planning of your cash flow and your valuations, etc.. I want to switch gears one more time here, because over the last two years, I've asked people, how are you using AI in your business? And I absolutely want to ask you that, Jason, but I want to ask you a slightly different question now.

I think the use of AI is becoming so prominent, especially across business owners. I want to know how you're seeing AI being used by business owners to answer the questions that Reiser and the advisory firms should be answering, and if that's creating conflict or issues or are you seeing anything like that?

Jason Early: 23:13 

I don't. Quite frankly, I don't know that I have a great answer in terms of how business owners writ large are using AI. What I would tell you is obviously it's incredibly powerful. And so, you know, to the extent you want to go and, you know, leverage some of these large language models, you know, to understand the value of your business, you've you very certainly could. I think overall, and what's important is being able to pull it all together in, in, in the right context.

Meaning what's the value. What is the value needed to be? How does it impact my overall financial plan? How does that impact my succession and exit plan? And so again, I think that there's a lot of context there that matters.

 But yeah, I mean, look. It is amazing the speed at which we're seeing some of these developments and watching the models leapfrog each other. You know, it's an incredible time. You know, I'm sure you see it too, to be building software.

Richard Walker: 24:14 

Look, I have a theory about this and this theory is partly my own filter perspective. But my theory is that smart people and business owners, I think, are generally very smart. People are using AI to try to understand problems and questions before they go to their advisor and get the final answer. So I think more and more, we're going to see people going into conversations with more education. And look, I can give you my own proof because I love cars.

When Edmunds.com came out and started showing you all the prices on cars, we went to a car shop with way more data and way more savvy about it than before. So I'm just thinking like there's always that thought of the robo advisor putting the advisor out of business. Well, that's proven to be false. I don't think AI is going to put them out of business. I think it's going to make the consumer more informed and ready to have a better conversation.

 And I don't know if you share that or not or have seen that kind of perspective. That's my theory.

Jason Early: 25:10 

Yeah. Look, I couldn't agree more. I don't, you know, advisors aren't. Going anywhere in our view, I think again, their opportunity to serve. I think your old mental model may be challenged in that.

You know, your point. You know, an advisor could serve 1 or 200 people. I think that with AI and with leverage and with some of this technology, that number might go from 200 to 500 or 1000. Who knows? So I think that the access to advice might expand, which is a beautiful thing.

 Yeah. Look, I, I tend to agree with you on that. I think Information has never been more at consumers' fingertips. And I think to the extent that allows for better conversations with advisors, I think that's a great thing. I think again, the best advisors ask the best questions.

 You know, the, you know, long gone are the days of individual stock picking and things like that. But, you know, a lot of the nuts and bolts of investment advice or risk management or all that, like that isn't the differentiator. You know, you and I like the questions and the connection and pulling out the hopes and dreams and and desires of the person sitting across the table and then implementing a plan is, is, is the real differentiator. Because again, like at least from a business perspective, right? You and I know you and I both might have you love cars.

 You and I, you know, both might have an auto dealership on opposite sides of the street, you know, similar brands. Same top line, same bottom line, same, you know, service, revenue, all. You know, the business may look exactly the same, but our financial plans may be incredibly different. You know, our lifestyles may be completely, completely different. Our needs, hopes, dreams, like all of that stuff is what drives the plan.

 It's not the numbers at the end of the day. And so we think that, you know, that that's where the advice is, is so important.

Richard Walker: 27:17 

So where does AI fit into your world then.

Jason Early: 27:20 

Yeah, I mean I said earlier like what an incredible time to be building. I mean, the leverage, you know, the sheer amount of product that we've been able to build in the last 12 and 24 months is incredible. We're watching our engineers' jobs change dramatically in real time, meaning, you know, it wasn't that long ago where it was all kinds of hands on keyboard and writing code. And today. You know, our CTO could give you a better answer on this, but I'll get directionally close.

70, 80, 90% of our code is, you know, first pass is done with AI. And so they've gone from from hands on code, hands on keyboard to, you know, prompting and, and reviewing. And so the nature of that job is changing. The leverage that we get is incredible. And so it really helps us from a product development perspective.

 Everybody has that advantage, by the way. That's not unique to us. And so that's a wonderful thing. And then we're really able to leverage it in our product and in our platform in ways to, to help the advisor, which is to say, we've completely eliminated the data input burden that existed, meaning the advisor doesn't have to spend time. The owner doesn't have to spend time plugging in all this data.

 We're leveraging AI in our platform to read and pull data from tax documents and financial statements and things like that. So, you know, what once took a lot longer is done in seconds. And that's a beautiful thing..

Richard Walker: 28:45 

Yeah Man, I, I have personally seen software be written that would have taken an average developer 8 to 10 hours. I've seen it done in two minutes and it's unreal to see the outcomes like that. But look, we're getting close to the end here, so I'll have to get to my last question. But before I go there, what is the best way for people to find and connect with you?

Jason Early: 29:08 

Our website ww.com. We're on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. My emails to you know Jason@risr.com. So I'd love to hear from you.

And yeah appreciate you asking.

Richard Walker: 29:22 

Awesome. All right. So this is one of my favorite parts of my show. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today?

Jason Early: 29:38 

I've had an incredible good fortune of having some great mentors in my life and people that I've worked for over the years. And so this is a hard one. But the most it's an easy one in some respects to the most fun I've ever had in my career. So after, you know, I said I started my career at that firm here in Philadelphia. I spent 7 or 8 years there and, and knew ultimately that I wanted to do some, some different things.

And there's a company out of Chicago called Hoops Performance Network. And Harry Hoopis is the founder of that business. And Harry and his partner, Joey Davenport, built an e-learning platform and training platform for the financial services space. And they took, you know, knew I wanted to do some different things, had no idea what I wanted to do, and they took a bet on me. And so I joined them.

 You know, I don't know, this is going back 10 or 15 years at this point, but I spent three years with them. And it was not only the most fun I've ever had in my career, but the most I've ever learned about leadership. So both of these guys, Harry and Joey Davenport, are some of the best minds in leadership, in financial services. And so it was, you know, like 24 over seven going to school on leadership. And I learned an awful lot about how little I knew.

 And and so they both had a tremendous impact on my life. And I'm super grateful to have spent those three years with them and to continue to have them in my life today.

Richard Walker: 31:15 

That is Awesome. That is awesome. I'm sure your team appreciates the education that you got during that time.

Jason Early: 31:21 

If you know, yeah, I've got a long way to go and they are. I'm not so sure that I frustrate them far more than they appreciate it I bet. But yeah, we've got a great team here and, and we have an awful lot of fun.

Richard Walker: 31:41 

I mean as leaders we don't get it. All right. It's never the case. But. And you're not for it, right?

Jason Early: 31:47 

As we just talked about Joey, as Joey used to say, you're never a prophet in your own hometown either, so.

Jason Early: 31:52 

It's good to have others come in and deliver the message as well.

Richard Walker: 31:58 

Yep. All right. I want to give a big thank you to Jason Early, founder and CEO of RISR, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Jason's website at risr.com. And don't forget to check out quickforms.com where we make processing forms easy. I hope you enjoyed this discussion.

We'll click the like button, share this with someone, and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jason Early: 32:23 

Rich, you're the man. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for having us.

Outro: 32:27 

Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.