Stephen Torres

Growth. Today we run our first structured training class for our three newest teammates! We’ve grown Ellerra from two-founders with an idea, to a team of 11, profitability, and poised for growth.

We love that our clients are literally shaping the world, having and impact, and make things better for humans. Looking forward to all the new clients we are going to help with their business and personal accounting & finance needs. 🤓

Movie day with mom! 🎥🍿

First time in The Hamptons 🤩

Moving or Expanding? Recently someone asked, “how’s the move to Boston going?” I thought to myself, “I didn’t move here, I am simply expanding to the area.”

In our lives, there are times where we move and other times where we expand.

To move implies relocating. We are typically leaving behind places, neighborhoods, or thinking. When we move, we tend to let go of the past environment as we set up shop in a new place. Our focus gravitates towards establishing a new community within our new contextual culture and environment.

To expand implies growing. We keep our current milieu and further its reach into new places, neighborhoods, or thinking. Expansion is an exercise in building. We keep an established base, and fortify it with broader territory and resources.

There times when we should, and must, move. There are other times when we should, and must, expand.

So a question you may want to ask yourself, “are you moving or expanding?

Right now I am in expansion mode. Hello Boston!

Ready to mentor some ambitious founders at the Sevan Startup Summit 2025 this week!

Many say it, few live it... for those that do truly live it, customer obsession is a winning strategy. What it means to be truly customer obsessed is that everything you see and experience is projected through the lens of your customer. You are so intensely focused on your customers, and getting more of them, that everything else becomes secondary. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs in history have this disposition.

Are you more or less customer obsessed than your competitors? How do you know? You can tell by what founders spend their time on. Founders that pay lip service to customer obsession spend a lot of their time on things that do not contribute to either product refinement (i.e. customers interviews, product development, recruiting, etc.) or customer acquisition (i.e. sales, marketing, business development, etc.). Whereas customer obsessed entrepreneurs spend the vast majority of their time in both of those areas.

Are you truly customer-obsessed? Let us know in the comments.

At Ellerra, we love helping customer-obsessed entrepreneurs thrive by arming them with the financial intelligence to grow their business.

Founders drive the business. Whether you are building an AI startup, a new service chain, or a local community focused business... if you focus on these two things, you will have a better chance than most at success.

To Unlock Business Growth: Focus on these Two Priorities Customers obsession in these two areas is key to unlocking growth.

Calling all Stanford University and StartX founders and entrepreneurs in D.C., New York City, and Boston... We are having Happy Hour & Headshot events next week and would love to see you there!

RSVP here:
June 2nd, Washington DC: https://lu.ma/kolt1lag
June 3rd, New York City: https://lu.ma/v8sttrm3
June 5th, Boston: https://lu.ma/v8sttrm3

Watching the sunset at the beach, so relaxing 😎

Excited for a week of sunsets in Hawaii 🏝️