Work smart. Have fun. Make money. It’s really that simple, according to COCPA member Zeb Smith, CPA, and it’s a concept that appears to be working. 

Smith, who began his accounting career as an auditor, went on to launch and transform his own firm, becoming a model for innovation. In the winter 2025 issue of NewsAccount, now available online, Smith shares his simple approach to living his “why” – which has landed him on CPA.com’s list of innovative practitioners three years in a row.

Hanging Out His Shingle

Having spent the first years of his career in Denver and then Durango, Smith was ready to get back to nature and a smaller town. In 2016, at age 27, he opened Zebulon, LLC, a local bookkeeping and tax service in Durango, and has since returned to his hometown of Gunnison. But even when working for himself, Smith felt like something was missing. “I wanted to help people in an advisory role,” he says. 

Many of Smith’s early clients were outdoor outfitters – rafting, snowmobiling, and ATV guides. Being an outdoor enthusiast himself, the work resonated with him, and he spoke their language. “They were receptive to my advice and achieved great results,” he says. It was the perfect springboard to finding his niche. 

The Transformation

In 2019, Smith began transforming his firm to work solely for outdoor adventure outfitter clients to help them work smart, have fun, and make money. The concept – and the firm – took off. Smith began segmenting his audience, looking at who was producing desired outcomes and revenue, as well as which clients really resonated with him. He used “pumpkin planning,” a business strategy that focuses on growth by nurturing a core strength, similar to how a farmer grows one giant pumpkin from a vine. 

This involves identifying your business's "sweet spot" — the intersection of what you do best, what your best clients value, and what sets you apart — and then systematically growing that niche by trimming "bad pumpkins" (less profitable customers and inefficient processes) and focusing all resources on the great pumpkin.

“It was about finding those target clients and then asking what would be most helpful for them,” Smith explains. “We asked about their challenges.”

The Lightbulb Moment

A key turning point in the firm’s evolution came when Smith asked clients about their membership in America Outdoors, a national trade association for the outfitting and outdoor recreation industry. What drove them to join? Clients said they wanted to network, interact with peers, and glean advice from speakers like Smith himself, who had been traveling and speaking at trade shows.

“I started thinking, ‘Why don’t I just create that same environment, but we’ll offer those opportunities to our clients every other week,’” he says. “We know the niche industry and the challenges they face.”

Smith knew he could address many of the critical issues that outdoor outfitters face. Profitability was an obvious area, but he also felt he could provide support for the “people” factor – helping clients engage and retain employees while also building leaders and managers. 

Innovation in Action

Smith’s firm has matured into a subscription-based retainer system, consisting of long-term, multi-year client partnerships. Clients are drawn to Zebulon’s innovative programs, including:

• Professional services: A “no-scope” approach to service offerings, in which the team helps its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) clients with everything from pricing consults to analyzing spend, one-on-one business coaching, QuickBooks support, and whatever a client needs.
• The Eddy: The outfitting industry’s only non-competitive leadership peer group, regularly bringing together growth-minded clients to share financial and sales data in confidence and teach a proprietary curriculum designed for seasonal businesses. 
• The Central Data Hub: The compilation of clients’ financial and sales data from myriad systems and platforms. The hub extracts trends from previously incompatible data sets, and the financial insights that it generates are crucial business tools for Zebulon’s FP&A and Eddy clients that run seasonal, weather-dependent companies.

At the Heart of Innovation

At the heart of innovation, Smith says, is slowing down and listening. “And then you’re not just addressing the mechanical issues, but the underlying issues,” he notes. Ultimately, he says there’s nothing standard about his operation. “The whole thing has been innovative. It’s about understanding your core values, audience, and people, and then building the offers and the systems around it.”

As Smith puts it, “As professionals, if we’re not doing all we can to help our clients work smarter, grow their bottom line, and have more fun running their businesses, then we’re doing it all wrong.” 

It's a mindset that’s so simple, it works.

Read more about Zebulon, LLC’s unique strategies in the winter 2026 issue of NewsAccount. 

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