🕒 CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction and welcome

0:47 What Prosper CPAs does and who they serve

1:51 Launching with 10 people, 20 clients, and a lot of help from the St. Louis business community

3:35 Nobody has to fail so I can succeed

4:17 How the firm grew almost entirely through referrals

7:17 St. Louis is not as competitive as you think

9:41 Introverts at networking events: why Holly dreads it and does it anyway

14:02 Tax planning, M and A, outsourced accounting and what Prosper really does

15:05 Why April shouldn’t be a surprise

16:21 What good advisors do together

20:24 Three years in: what starting the firm actually looked like

21:34 The hypothesis that built Prosper: working around people’s lives

22:44 Square peg, round hole, and why she left the big firm

23:53 Why she named it Prosper and not Breuer

24:51 Built for the next generation: the second gen mission from day one

25:47 How staff develop across the whole firm before specializing

26:25 What flexible hours actually means at Prosper

27:54 The 25-hour person and why she is just as valuable

28:56 Being overstaffed on purpose

30:01 If you build it, they will come

31:53 You are not the mold: why Holly never wanted her team to conform

33:37 The performance review that tried to make her quiet down

35:29 Playing it close to the vest and knowing when to leave

36:19 Why she loves hearing laughter in the office

38:10 Mom guilt, feedback, and figuring out what to keep

39:51 Staying too long for the wrong reasons

41:47 Starting Prosper in a tough hiring market for CPAs

43:26 The vote that confirmed everyone was on the same page

43:54 What surprised her most as a founder: people want to know what you’re thinking

47:40 The onboarding challenge: 35 clients in three weeks

49:24 Holly’s story: single mom, two kids, starting over at 29

50:28 The Dear John letter left on the kitchen table

51:19 WIC, food stamps, and $269 a month

53:12 Her parents, her kids, and what hard work looked like growing up

54:43 Going back to school: selling the engagement ring to buy the books

55:24 Pulling over on the side of the road, crying

56:57 Falling in love with accounting when everything else was hard

58:31 The professor who stopped class so she wouldn’t miss it

1:01:16 Getting the internship after being denied

1:03:04 From intern to firm owner

1:05:24 Working with a business coach and learning to turn her own brain off

1:06:57 What she brings to clients and to her team

1:07:43 She missed things she doesn’t want her team to miss

1:09:25 Mom guilt: what she would tell other women

1:14:43 Who Prosper works with and how to find them

1:17:30 The new office at Maryville Center Drive

1:18:10 Where to find Holly and Prosper CPAs