Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:10] Trevor McCandless recounts his unique childhood living on a sailboat and cruising the East Coast
- [7:36] How a desire for financial independence guided Trevor’s career path
- [15:41] The challenges and successes of the golf club rental business
- [17:49] The impact of the 2008 economic downturn on Trevor’s business
- [21:40] Lessons from running multiple businesses, including a licensed collegiate scarf brand
- [24:18] Strategic laziness defined: busting it now to relax later under a palm tree
- [25:54] The mental health toll of leading a CPA firm during the COVID-19 crisis
- [31:18] How Puerto Rico’s tax incentives influenced the family’s relocation decision
- [33:25] Why Trevor now embraces family business models and is writing a book on the topic
In this episode…
What if your tax strategy could be so effective that it allowed you to live on a tropical island while building a thriving business? Most people assume financial freedom and lifestyle flexibility are years away — if they’re possible at all. But what if the right planning, mindset, and tax approach could make that dream a reality?
Trevor McCandless, a CPA and tax strategist, shares how he transformed his childhood lessons, relentless curiosity, and financial savvy into a dynamic career that combines entrepreneurship with lifestyle design. Trevor highlights the value of strategic “laziness,” advocating for hard work early in life to enjoy greater freedom later. He emphasizes building financial resilience, avoiding unnecessary debt, and prioritizing clarity in family-business relationships. His journey — from selling pens in elementary school to launching multiple businesses and relocating to Puerto Rico for tax advantages — offers a blueprint for others looking to structure a life-first business model.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Trevor McCandless, Founder and Chief Entrepreneurial Officer at Fusion CPA, about how to minimize taxes, build lasting businesses, and design a meaningful life. Trevor also shares why he moved to Puerto Rico, how he handled burnout during COVID-19, and why he’s now championing family-run businesses in his upcoming book.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Trevor McCandless: LinkedIn | X
- Fusion CPA
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Quotable Moments:
- “I had this inner confidence that I was going to be successful, and I wanted to optimize taxes for me.”
- “Strategic laziness is about busting your butt early so you can chill under a palm tree later.”
- “If you don’t have nationwide distribution, you’re just selling to mom-and-pops; you’ll never scale.”
- “The business should be a vehicle for living your passions, not something that holds you back.”
- “Family business can work — if you approach it with clarity, vision, and strong communication.”
Action Steps:
- Consider a tax-optimized location: Evaluate places like Puerto Rico that offer tax incentives if your business model supports remote or export-based operations. Taking advantage of government grants can dramatically increase profitability.
- Start multiple ventures early: Use your 20s or high-energy phases of life to experiment with business ideas and learn through doing. The insights you gain can accelerate your long-term career path.
- Avoid overextending into multiple businesses: While experimentation is valuable, recognize when too many ventures dilute your effectiveness. Focus on where your effort yields the highest return.
- Introduce family into business wisely: As your company grows, consider how to involve your family without burning them out. Create retreats or vision sessions to align goals and foster communication.
- Develop resilience for change: Accounting and tax law evolve constantly, so build systems and a mindset that can adapt. Staying ahead ensures you continue providing clients with accurate, strategic advice.
Sponsor: Rise25
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John Corcoran: 00:00
Today. Have you ever wondered if it’s possible that you could save so much money on your taxes that you could move to a tropical island in the Caribbean? Well, you can. My guest today is Trevor McCandless. I’ll tell you more about him in a second, so stay tuned.
Intro: 00:14
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now, let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:31
Hey, John Corcoran, here I am, the host of the show, and you know, if you’ve listened before, every week we talk with smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of different companies. And if you look at the archives, we’ve got Netflix and Grubhub and Redfin, Gusto, Kinko’s. Lots of great episodes for you. So check those out in this episode. Brought to you by Rise25, our company where we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships.
How do we do that? We do that by helping you to run your podcast and content marketing. We have the easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast. We do three things: strategy, accountability, and full execution. And if you want to learn more about how it works and check out our new platform, Podcast Copilot, you can go to Rise25.com. Learn all about it.
All right. My guest is Trevor McCandless. He’s the Founder and Chief Entrepreneurial Officer at Fusion CPA. Over 20 years of industry experience in accounting and financial services. He has a BA in accounting and a master’s in taxation. And he founded fusion CPA, which now employs about a dozen CPAs and specializes in tax compliance and planning. And fun fact Cool Story grew up partly in the Caribbean and decided that he, a few years ago, was going to move his family down there. So now he’s joining us from Puerto Rico, where he is raising his young kids. So we’re going to hear about how he went about that.
Trevor is such a pleasure to have you here today. But let’s start with that story about you growing up on a sailboat. So your dad was a boat builder and your family lived in part or maybe entirely aboard a sailboat, and eventually cruised down the US coastline, the East coast, and spent a lot of time in the Bahamas. That sounds like a pretty crazy childhood.
Trevor McCandless: 02:10
It was definitely unique. Kind of like the unique childhood I’m giving my kids right now. Living in Puerto Rico?
John Corcoran: 02:16
Yeah.
Trevor McCandless: 02:17
Yeah. He was. We grew. We were in Virginia. My dad was in the Navy, and when he exited the Navy, he saw that the quality of boats was that they didn’t have boat builders and the Virginia area didn’t have the quality of equipment that the Navy did.
And so he took some of the ideas that he had there and started a boat building business. And eventually, yeah, we boarded a steel, a big steel hulled sailboat, which was his specialty. So if you hit a reef, your boat’s not going to sink. So we sailed the east coast down to the Bahamas and lived in the Bahamas for a little while until my parents ran out of money. And they.
Oddly enough, they met in Puerto Rico a long time ago when they were in the Peace Corps. And so they’ve always kind of had the Caribbean and the southeast kind of in our. On our family vibe. But when they ran out of money, then they sailed to Jacksonville where they got some teaching jobs. And we lived in a Marina for a while.
John Corcoran: 03:24
Do you have any siblings?
Trevor McCandless: 03:25
Yeah, an older brother, four years older than me.
John Corcoran: 03:28
And how old were you, the two of you when you were going down the Bahamas?
Trevor McCandless: 03:31
That’s a good question, man. I do not know the exact age. I mean, I’ve got plenty of pictures, I think. I mean, when I was, when we were living at the Marina, I could ride my bike to elementary school. Okay, so, you know, we were still little kids, right?
John Corcoran: 03:48
Okay. But you remember this sailing down to the Bahamas. You were old enough to remember.
Trevor McCandless: 03:52
Snapshot snapshots, right? You know, definitely like memories of, you know, playing on the deck. But I was still a little tyke. I mean, there came a point where it’s like, okay, the kids are getting big enough. We need to actually own a house. You know, the sailboats are not going to cut it anymore.
John Corcoran: 04:10
Not going to cut it. Yeah. And so you grew up in Jacksonville and then you and elementary school started buying pens in bulk and staples and reselling them to classmates. How’d you get that idea?
Trevor McCandless: 04:23
Well, I had to pay for my baseball card. Hobby as.
John Corcoran: 04:27
One does. As one does. I can relate, right?
Trevor McCandless: 04:29
And how are we going to get that? You know, there wasn’t much of an allowance going on. So it was like, okay, how do I make some cheddar? And so yeah, you know, my and my, my mom and my dad, they went into education. Right. So they were both teachers and you know, they’d go to staples and I’d tag along and, you know, I could buy things in bulk or whatever the department store was there and, and resell it to kids in school. So it was kind of a natural progression, you know?
John Corcoran: 04:53
Yeah. Have you ever gotten busted by the teacher or the principal?
Trevor McCandless: 04:58
I think in middle school, there was a point of, like, I had to lay low on flipping Coke cans.
John Corcoran: 05:06
Coke cans, Coke cans, not cocaine.
Trevor McCandless: 05:09
Cans, lollipops, all the sugar stuff.
John Corcoran: 05:11
Yeah.
Trevor McCandless: 05:13
There was a point I had to lay low because it was kind of known, but, you know, not necessarily approved.
John Corcoran: 05:19
Yeah, yeah. I interviewed one guest who started doing that and then eventually built, like in the front of their house, in their foyer area, I guess it would be like a candy shop, basically. And people would do this before the internet. People would come to the house, kids in the neighborhood would come knock on the door and like to buy candy. And it got so extensive and got so well known that the town eventually shut it down.
It was like, it’s like it was like it was basically operating a candy shop out of his house. But it’s crazy how, you know, the message we’re sending to our kids, because I’ve interviewed so many people where kids show some enterprise and they sell stuff to their classmates, and then eventually some teacher or some principal shuts it down. Yeah, I have real mixed feelings towards that. And on the one hand you can see how it could be disruptive. On the other hand, it’s like, you know, why are we penalizing these kids for showing some, you know, ingenuity?
Trevor McCandless: 06:12
Good point. Yeah, fortunately, I didn’t get officially shut down. But there was a point I feel like where it wasn’t, you know, probably late eighth grade or something like that, that it just wasn’t cool anymore, you know, to sell candy.
John Corcoran: 06:29
Oh, yeah. Exactly.
Trevor McCandless: 06:31
So there.
John Corcoran: 06:31
There Were some.
Trevor McCandless: 06:32
Point where it’s like, all right, you know, I’m gonna have to. Oh, and, you know, then you like, mow lawns, you know? Yeah. The next progression of let’s stop doing the sugar products, you know, let’s just kind of mow lawns and do that kind of stuff.
John Corcoran: 06:44
And so now with the lawn mowing, was it always you doing it or did you eventually hire your friends?
Trevor McCandless: 06:51
I wish I had gotten some teaching from somebody to figure out a staffing way of doing lawns. I would have made a mint, but no, it was just me. Like my mom would just drop me off at, you know, whoever’s job it was, whoever’s yard it was, and then pick me up like, you know, a half an hour an hour later.
John Corcoran: 07:10
Yeah, but your parents didn’t have a lot of money, so they definitely were yearning to make money for you.
Trevor McCandless: 07:17
Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, that was kind of. I think that was one of these things that was just self, you know, driven, you know, to kind of, you know, have some kind of, you know, cash in my pocket so I could do the things that I wanted to, you know, without having to hit up mom and dad all the time, which, you know, nobody ever wants to do that now.
John Corcoran: 07:36
What drew you? Because what drew you to studying, accounting, studying taxation? You eventually get your max and your masters in taxation. Yeah, but you straight from your bachelor’s degree was in accounting and taxation. What? What attracted you to that?
Trevor McCandless: 07:51
Well, I think it was a combination of things like my we, me and my brother both went to University of Florida and as he was graduating, he was a microbiology major. He couldn’t get a job and came back to live at home while he was still searching for a job. And I was like, well, I don’t want to be in that position, right? So it was kind of like, what other line of major would lend to the entrepreneurial ism? ET cetera.
And then my dad kind of suggested accounting, right. And he was like, listen, accountants always get jobs after college. And it was like, okay, let’s think about that more. And accounting is the foundation for business. And I love business.
I love entrepreneurialism. And so I kind of really dove head first into it and loved it, man. Like I remember in the dorm in college, I was like recruiting other people to come into accounting. It’s like, what are you thinking? Go and get your law degree. Let’s do accounting, baby. You know.
John Corcoran: 08:45
Yes, Yeah.
Trevor McCandless: 08:46
I was successful. And actually one of those dudes that was. He lived across the hall from me in the dorm. He went and worked for a big CPA firm. And then I want to say like seven years ago, he called me up. He’s like, I’m ready to start my own firm. And now he owns his own firm in Jacksonville. So it’s kind of cool. I am recruiting him into the profession in college now.
John Corcoran: 09:07
I have to say, I’ve met lots of accountants, lots of CPAs. It tends to attract people that are not as boisterous as you. You know, you have more personality. You’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt. You know, you’re coming into us from the Caribbean. You have, you know, I could tell that you have the gift of gab. You must have been a bit of a black sheep in the profession from early on. Did you ever feel that way?
Trevor McCandless: 09:33
You know, to some degree, I think I’ve, I know a boatload of really awesome accountants with personalities. Maybe they get stuck in a bigger organization where they just don’t get as much of a voice or an opportunity to show their personality. There’s definitely that other side, right, of accountants, right? Like you see , there was a show last night that we were watching. They were just, you know, making fun of accountants. And my wife loves, loves when that happens.
John Corcoran: 10:01
Yeah. Well, I can relate to that because I, you know, have been a redhead since I was a kid. And when I was a kid, the redhead was always the nerd and the dweeb and every single depiction, you know, in the media, you know. So yeah. So it’s but it’s, you know, it’s funny, that’s just the way that they’re portrayed, you know, but sometimes these things become they, they kind of get drilled into us.
Trevor McCandless: 10:22
Well, sometimes it is very much reality as well. I mean, there are a boatload of accountants that have a personality set that is attractive, maybe introverted, more analytical, and they’re phenomenal accountants. I’ve got a couple of those individuals on my team and they have a place, you know, those individuals that really love getting into the weeds of tax law, you know, compliance and stuff, and I gotta have them. You know, I did that right for a while, and I was in the weeds. And now I’m able to for our organization, we’ve got about a dozen CPAs and 25 total people on the team.
But I’m able to get the position at the firm of leading strategy vision these days. I also do final sign off on tax returns, but that is best for our organization with my personality. So I’m not just in the weeds any, you know, like I was in those first couple of years.
John Corcoran: 11:13
Yeah. And you know, when you talk about, you know, going into being an entrepreneur, having the ability to, you know, be personable to do client relationships and also have that deep, substantive knowledge that can really be a superpower.
Trevor McCandless: 11:29
100%. I absolutely love it in today’s day and age, too. I mean, here’s the thing about tax, specifically accounting doesn’t evolve as much as tax does. But, you know, with every new Congress, with every new administration in the federal level and the state level, it changes all the time. Yeah.
But to answer your question of like, why did I also go into accounting? I had this inner confidence that I was going to be successful. And specifically in tax, I wanted to know if I’m successful, how do I optimize my tax world? You know, that’s just kind of yeah. You know, I’m a short term thinker, mid term thinker and long term thinker.
Right. And so there was that self-serving benefit in getting into accounting and tax as well is that I wanted to optimize it for me you know. And so I would ask questions at the first CPA firm I worked at, I was there for four years. I would ask questions that nobody else at my level was asking because I wanted to get deeper. I wanted to understand the numbers, why this company was profitable, why it was losing money, why real estate is a good sector, why e-commerce, E-commerce is a good sector, you know, understanding margins. I was just super freaking curious, you know what I mean? Like, I wanted to know this for me. Yeah. And then the tax side of things as well. And so that’s kind of always driving me in everything I do.
You know, whether it’s diving into family businesses and stuff, it’s because I want to know it for myself. Right. And many times with our clients, I kind of lead a little bit that I’ve already gone through, you know, the trials and tribulations of accounting, the tax, the finance, the family stuff. And I’m speaking from hands-on experience.
John Corcoran: 13:15
And entrepreneurship, too. So you started a corporate event nationwide golf club rental venture. Talk about that.
Trevor McCandless: 13:27
Man, I love that company. I was probably like 24, 25. I don’t know when I started, that was the first business I started. I was getting my master’s in tax at night at Georgia State Estate, working full time during the day at the CPA firm. And I’d read, you know, or was reading doing all this at the same time, you know, Tim Ferriss four hour workweek, you know.
John Corcoran: 13:48
So funny, so funny. You mentioned it. I just had it. I was just talking with someone about it earlier today.
Trevor McCandless: 13:54
It’s crazy. That thing is, it’s like. It’s like the book The E-myth. It’s one of these legendary books. But no way you got that too.
John Corcoran: 14:02
Right here. Right here. I mean, these are the most important books right there. They’re right here.
Trevor McCandless: 14:07
Scaling it up. Dude. The traction. There’s a there’s, you know, you got a shelf of just legendary books right there.
John Corcoran: 14:14
Right.
Trevor McCandless: 14:14
There you go.