Before Orumé Hays founded her own firm, she was rejected by her employer. Hays was working as a temp accountant with the possibility of being hired in a permanent position, but after a long period of uncertainty over whether she would be hired, she finally got her answer: no.
"One of the reasons the CFO said that they were hesitant about bringing me on board full time was something to do with my communications. I think part of it was because of the fact that I had an accent."
Hays's accent is from Nigeria, but she admits she is not a strong communicator as she sometimes stutters and was not as confident then as she is today.
"After that was when I said to myself, I never want to have my future in the hands of somebody else and I'm going to just go out there and hang up my shingle. That's what I did," she said.
Hays founded her firm, Hays CPA, in 2016. She now serves small and midsized businesses across many industries — from restaurants and e-commerce, to legal services and trust companies — offering a variety of services including outsourced CFO services, tax preparation, client advisory, bookkeeping, accounting and tax.
She has a team of two full-time employees, four contract workers, a couple of interns and a few more contractors offshore. She has an office in Staten Island and had a WeWork in Manhattan prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hays also teaches at her alma mater, the College of Staten Island; many of her interns are her former students.
But Hays describes herself as a "reluctant entrepreneur." Out of college, she was a bookkeeper and earned her CPA license in 2007, two years after finishing her bachelor's degree. She worked in industry for about 10 years in a variety of roles at numerous companies across architecture, construction, and media.
"Most accountants are really behind-the-scenes people. We're at our desk doing our job, writing checks, paying bills, preparing taxes, preparing financials. I was just really comfortable doing that, and moreover, I used to be this really shy person," Hays said. "Growing up you'd always find my head buried in a book, either a textbook or a novel."
Growing up, Hays's mother was an unlikely role model for what it meant to be a business entrepreneur: Despite not graduating high school, she became a successful international trader.
"She had a lot of business acumen. I would observe her and look at what she did, but I never thought that one day I could completely be running my own business. It was not on my radar at all," Hays said. "I became a reluctant entrepreneur. I was a reluctant business owner, but once that door opened for me I embraced it and I walked right in."
She gave herself two years. If her business wasn't successful by then, she told herself she had to go back as an employee: "As an accountant, we know that most new businesses fail within five years. So I said, I did not want that to happen to me. I was going to do all I could within my power to make sure that my firm would be successful."
Hays diligently studied in preparation for running her firm. Living in Staten Island, where she is still located, she took advantage of the free classes and resources offered in New York City, like the Small Business Library in Manhattan.
But getting her firm off the ground was harder than expected. For one, finding clients was a challenge.
"I wasn't sure that the clients would come and I wouldn't have the business to keep me going," she said. "When I started, I was so worried if I would be able to make this happen. Where would the clients come from?"
She tried her hand at different marketing techniques, including a billboard advertisement. It was less than successful, to say the least.
"The only clients I got from that billboard — and I ran the billboards for over a year before I canceled my contract — was the billboard owner and the employee that set up the billboards," she explained with a laugh. "So that was a waste of money, but luckily I cut my losses after a year."
The clients came eventually, of course. Her first few came from previous work and others from a nearby firm in Staten Island that was switching to serving business clients exclusively. But the ones that kept her business afloat for those first two critical years were international clients who she had worked with at her previous employers. They hired her as an outsourced CFO on retainer, providing her with a consistent income.
Figuring out pricing wasn't easy either. Her fees started at "rock bottom, dirt cheap," she said — she just needed people to hire her. But the problem that arises "when you start billing your fees at a ridiculously low price, it becomes really difficult for you to scale up to market level."
'Just do it'
Today, Hays' reputation precedes her. She has been recognized on Forbes' Top 200 CPAs, the American Institute of CPAs and CPA Practice Advisor's 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting, and more. She is also a vice president of the National Association of Black Accountants as well as chair of the Private Companies Practice Section at the AICPA.
Looking forward, Hays wants to become a thought leader in the ESG space and incorporate ESG reporting into her services. She also wants to acquire a firm, but "that's a little bit more challenging because right now, based on my research, the CPA firms for sale are old-school CPA firms, which is not the kind of firm I want to purchase. I want a more forward-leaning firm," she said.
Hays stresses the importance of having enough savings to withstand the pressures of founding a firm: "I always say to folks, 'Make sure you have enough finances saved up that it's not going to affect your 'lifestyle.'"
Of course, starting a firm requires some personal sacrifices. Hays used to travel often, but since opening her firm, she's had to take fewer trips for personal enjoyment and more for business.
"It's a 24/7 operation, but there's a difference for me between working a 10-hour shift for yourself versus working a 10-hour shift for somebody else."
But with rapidly developing technology and the implementation of artificial intelligence into accounting processes, Hays thinks the days of long, crazy work hours are over. She encourages other accountants who are considering founding a firm to go for it.
"Start today, if it's even at the back of your mind, start today. There is no need to delay," Hays said. "Sometimes we think that we are not entrepreneurs, we will not be able to do it, we like the comfort of having a nine-to-five job and a paycheck, we don't want to be responsible for going out there and doing sales."
"We tend to talk ourselves out of situations, but believe in yourself," she advised. "Give yourself a timeline and go out there and just do it. Jump into it and you'll be surprised where entrepreneurship will take you."
This story is part of new series on how accounting entrepreneurs launched their practices. Look for more
