Pablo Martell

You could say the ultimate goal is to be in a position where you don’t need to write up a bio on an About page. The Wikipedia page has already been written. For example, who is asking the question: Who is Elon Musk? On the flip side, there are a ton of ultra accomplished people that the world has never heard of. I work with quite a few of them. People worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even Billions, and a simple google search doesn’t turn them up. Which by the way, is by design.

I tend to think there is value in being “known”. Or perhaps it’s just an ego thing. Either way, here’s some background on me:

Born and raised in South Florida. Grew up loving all things sports. I was an avid baseball player and got to play through college. I stumbled into accounting. Math was always my strongest subject. I became a CPA, started my career working for EY. I learned a lot, although my attitude toward working in public accounting was “this is dumb” and “I can’t wait to get out of here”. It’s probably worth mentioning that at this particular point in time I thought investing in real estate was THE path to ultimate wealth and freedom. I was an avid listener of The Bigger Pockets Podcast (back when it was good). So what’d I do?

Well my parents were nice enough to give me back my childhood bedroom with my twin bed so I could aggressively start saving up to start building my real estate empire. About a year into my time at EY I had enough saved up for a down payment on a duplex (this was 2017). Little did I know how great my timing was. The ZIRP era did wonders for me.

A few years later I had the opportunity to work for Goldman Sachs. Packed up my things in my mid twenties. I moved 2,500 miles across the country to Salt Lake City, Utah and I started working in “Finance”. I learned a ton at Goldman, but it still wasn’t enough. COVID sent us all to work from home at which point I started dabbling on the internet. I spun up a little side hustle (for context, this was 2020) where I was helping a few friends that ran small businesses with their books and taxes.

I was having fun. I enjoyed watching an entrepreneurs success and I was constantly thinking about what businesses I could spin up. My anxiety around starting a business was at all time high. My real estate empire was taking a lot longer than I was initialing anticipating. Around this time I started learning about the massive CPA shortage and getting a better understanding around the demand for good accountants. Not long after, Alpine Mar was registered to do business and I was learning to be a no-code web developer with square space. And then the worst best thing happened to me. Goldman Sachs wasn’t a fan of my entrepreneurial spirit. Fortunately, the severance package was decent.

There I was, 31 years old, second kid on the way, unemployed, with a cute little side hustle. Fortunately, high quality accountants were in high demand. I picked up a job in private equity, but not before letting them know that I also have a little side hustle. I didn’t want to get canned again, so I figured I’d get ahead of it. As luck would have it, they didn’t really care. In fact, I don’t think they really took it all that seriously. I spent the next 3 years (through April 2024) basically working two jobs. Two very demanding jobs. I worked as a senior director managing a fairly large accounting and finance department, while also building a full service CPA firm. I constantly reminded myself: “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it”.

So where are we today? (August, 2026): Alpine Mar is one of the fastest growing accounting and advisory firms in the country. We employ around 60 full time professionals. While we’ve had success growing the firm organically, we’ve also done a couple acquisitions.

For anyone reading this that’s as anxious as I was to get started, what I can tell you is the success that’s been achieved so far would not have been possible without the things I learned over the first 10 years of my career. Great things take time. Each and every day we’re compounding. So what’s next and what can you expect to read about?

Well I’d like to continue seeing Alpine Mar grow and lead the accounting industry as one of the top AI native firms. That’s been a core focus for the last year or so, and it’s been going great. While some of my anxiety has subsided, it’s still somewhat active. I’ve realized that starting new things and exercising creativity gives me the most energy, and brings me the most joy. At this particular moment in time Alpine Mar requires my full attention (which is not easy for me most days), but I can confidently say this is but 1 of many business ventures I’ll be involved with.

This publication will be used as a creative outlet, as well as a place for me to share some of my thoughts. Things that are going well, and things that are not.

I hope this publication brings value to you, and if you decide to subscribe, like, or comment on anything - then I guess I owe you a thank you for the dopamine hit.

Cheers,

Pablo

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are mine only. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors and should not under any circumstances be relied upon when making an investment decision.