Events
A few times a year I get a group of owners on a ferry. The rest of the time the conversation happens live, on the record.
Next event
Dinner with people who get it.
Running a business is lonely, and the people who understand it are busy running theirs. So a few times a year I get a small group of owners on a ferry.
Seating is deliberately limited. Applications are handled on CPA4IT.ca.
Included
Five to a table, reshuffled every course, one question each time. Watch the room redistribute.
25 guests · 5 tables · 5 a table · nobody seated together twice
Over drinks
What are you actually building?
Three minutes each, uninterrupted. The only time all night you talk about yourself.
Over four courses you share a table with 16 of the other 24 people in the room — and never the same person twice.
Playing through the evening — pick a course to take over.
The evening opens with a keynote, and after that nobody presents anything. The rest of the night is four courses and four tables.
Keynote
Author, Blindsided!
One of North America's foremost thinkers on AI, disruption and innovation — and a working keynote speaker at more than sixty events a year. He is the reason this evening has a stage at all.
Founding sponsor
Cloud Business Services · Bookkeepers' Bootcamp
An award-winning Canadian bookkeeper who built a practice and then built the training programme she wished she'd had. Bookkeepers' Bootcamp is a thirteen-week course for bookkeepers across North America who want a bolder, more ethical practice of their own.
Students
If you're a CPA or CPB student, you don't pay. A number of seats at every Lake Effect are held back for people who are still qualifying — because the conversation is more useful to you than to anyone else in the room, and because you shouldn't have to be established to get into it.
Who qualifies
CPA and CPB students, currently enrolled
How
Apply the normal way and say you're a student — we'll take it from there.
Live sessions
Tax, structure and the business model underneath it all — run live on LinkedIn so the questions come from the room rather than a script. No slides you could have read yourself.
Audio level for a live session
Session log4 recent
September 2026
Business Models That Build Wealth
If you stopped working for ninety days, what would still generate revenue? For most independent consultants the answer is nothing.
August 2026
Mid-Year Tax Optimization
Moving from tax reporting to tax planning while there are still months left to act on it.
August 2026
Build Your Wealth Plan
A step-by-step roadmap for business owners on the avenues that complement business earnings.
July 2026
Tax Implications of Creating a Holding Company
Whether a holdco is right for you, and what it means corporately and personally.
FridAI Live · Every Friday
Every Friday I go live on Facebook to talk through what I’m testing, what’s working, what’s overhyped and what firm owners should actually pay attention to. Practical experiments, ideas and lessons from inside a real accounting firm — including the ones that failed.