Venture Everywhere Podcast: Colin Horsford with Jenny Fielding
Jenny Fielding, Managing Partner at Everywhere Ventures chats with Colin Horsford, co-founder and CEO of Muse on episode 83: The Tax Muse.
In episode 83 of Venture Everywhere, Jenny Fielding, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Everywhere Ventures, chats with Colin Horsford, co-founder of Muse — an AI-powered platform helping people boost their take-home pay and make smarter tax decisions year-round. Colin shares how Muse began as a tool to review tax returns and evolved into a proactive optimization engine that surfaces deductions, unlocks tax alpha, and supports financial wellness. Colin also discusses how the company is scaling by partnering with payroll providers, maintaining a lean team of builders, and expanding its flagship tools like CheckBoost and Compass to serve a growing network of B2B2C partners.
In this episode, you will hear:
Shifting from seasonal tax prep to continuous, year-round financial optimization.
Designing AI tools that empower (not replace) accountants and financial pros.
Using graph theory and neural networks to uncover smarter tax strategies.
Scaling through payroll and fintech partnerships to boost take-home pay.
Running lean with an in-house team and a disciplined execution.
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:04 VO: Everywhere Podcast Network.
00:00:14 Jenny Fielding: Hi, and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. Hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:34 Jenny: Welcome to Venture Everywhere. And today, I'm super excited to talk to our guest, Colin Horsford, who's the co-founder of Muse, a company that is leveraging AI in the tax and accounting space, which is obviously a hot topic. So we have a lot to unpack and talk about today. So welcome, Colin.
00:00:53 Colin: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
00:00:56 Jenny: Awesome. So why don't we start a little bit from the beginning? You have a great background for this company, which is a CPA. So start by telling me what your burning desire to become an accountant early on, and what were some of the insights that you garnered when you were practicing.
00:01:15 Colin: Interesting story. When I was in high school, my friend said he had a summer job, and he was working at a bank and doing accounting. If you were to join the Academy of Finance at the time, you can get a job over the summer. I like numbers, and I was 15 years old, and I was like, why not?
00:01:29 Colin: So then I got my first job on Wall Street at 15 years old at CIBC World Markets. I started working on Wall Street ever since then. Started taking accounting courses way back in the late ‘90s, early 2000s, I really liked it.
00:01:42 Colin: I liked the certainty and how discreet accounting is. It's either right or wrong, just everything when it comes to math. It's very discreet, and I love that. Also, a lot of individuals, they really don't understand their books and their finances, most companies fail because of bad cash management. I thought this is something I can do.
00:01:58 Colin: I want to be a crusader and help companies not fail by helping them find ways to save money, making sure that their books are correct. Decided to go into accounting, went through accounting in college. After that, I started doing accounting at Ernst & Young, started working at Goldman Sachs and other accounting companies.
00:02:16 Colin: I realized that, wow, a lot of people do need this help. Not only just need it, but also you can literally change a business by the way they manage their books because a lot of people are just missing out on insights on their finances, they wouldn't make certain decisions had they known better or been better prepared.
00:02:31 Jenny: Wall Street at 15? That's insane.
00:02:33 Colin: It is. Thank you.
00:02:34 Jenny: I love that. It's interesting that you say that. So what was very funny about me not having been a super numbers person was I went to law school, and I ended up in this corporate tax class. I pushed myself to take it because I thought I should learn a little bit about this. It was actually one of my favorite classes. I got an A. I surprised myself.
00:02:54 Jenny: But it was actually much more strategic than I thought it was going to be. I literally thought it was going to be an accounting class. I never really liked that part of it. But what was so cool about this class was there were just all these interesting pieces that you had to put together to make good informed decisions. There was something very intellectual and strategic about it versus just numbers. Tell me about how you unlocked that part of your interest as well.
00:03:25 Colin: Very similar to you. I already took a class, and it was called corporate tax accounting. I remember the professor, he was talking about tax alpha. Now I'm from Wall Street. I understand alpha is any gains you can get on an investment. And so a lot of people forge out about tax alpha. Two people can make the same investment, but you can treat it differently from a tax and accounting perspective and take home more money.
00:03:46 Colin: For example, if you sell a stock 360 days in, you'll get short term capital gains treatment as opposed to if you would do it in 6 or 7 days, you can get long term capital gain treatment, and you'll pay a lot less in taxes. That's just unlocking tax alpha. Other things where you can take home more money even though you made the same amount of proceeds, you can take home more. I was like, that's really cool.
00:04:09 Colin: At the same time, they're talking about all these large companies who weren't paying a lot in taxes. I thought, wow. They're doing it legally. We're all looking at the same IRS code. It's how you interpret it, how you apply it. As long as you're doing it legally, there are ways to actually increase your take home pay, and that's exactly what we're trying to do with Muse.
00:04:26 Jenny: Let's jump into Muse. What was some of the key insights when you're working as a CPA that you really took with you and inform the product? Because I remember early days when you're really formulating the product and your customer persona changed. So what were some of those insights that inform Muse?
00:04:43 Colin: My co-founder, his name is Busayo. We've known each other for eighteen or nineteen years. Started off at Ernst and Young together. We both ran separate CPA practices before starting Muse as I was working on something with one of the companies I was working with, I realized a lot of people are missing out on tax deductions and credits. And he also knows the same thing, so he was building a tax planning platform while I was building a tool that will help you find deductions and credits.
00:05:06 Colin: Chance conversation, and we decide, let's work together because a lot of people are missing on deductions and credits. Just like I mentioned, they're missing on tax alpha. They're making inefficient tax decisions. We thought, let's use AI to distill the tax code, review people's tax returns, and see what we can find for them when it comes to tax deductions and credits.
00:05:25 Colin: Over time, we're realizing that if we only focus on the tax return, there's a lot of seasonality behind that. There's a sixteen week period where everyone's trying to get their tax returns in. After that, as long as they get their tax refund, they're not thinking about taxes. It's like going to the dentist. You only do it because you have to, you grit and bear it as you're going through it.
00:05:45 Colin: I thought it would be better if you can think about taxes throughout the year. So we've changed our product to look at transactions throughout the year and continuously make suggestions and tax insights for individuals so that you're not looking back during tax season, but you're constantly looking at your finances throughout the year and also prospectively as well.
00:06:04 Jenny: I love that. So you guys were literally at the lunch table when you realized that you were working on different sides of the same coin?
00:06:11 Colin: Yep. I was at his apartment. We're just chatting. I was like, what are you working on? Because he built out the world's first tax chatbot about eight years ago. I helped him with that. I was like, I'm working on something similar. We're attacking the same problem from different ends, let's just work together, and here we are.
00:06:26 Jenny: That's awesome. I do feel you guys were pretty early in the AI for tax space, and now we've seen a bunch of players come whether they're competitive or partners. It's definitely gotten more crowded. So tell us a little bit more about where you play in that and some of your advantage you feel like.
00:06:46 Colin: Just to be clear, we don't do the tax returns, so we're not a tax return rep shop. A lot of competitors or a lot of others in the space tend to focus on a tax return. Us, personally, we've done thousands of returns. We see that there's a lot of value beyond the tax return.
00:07:00 Colin: Again, the seasonality of taxes, once people get their tax returns, we realize that they're not thinking about taxes. It's also a heavily commoditized space. Again, I'm not going against anyone's company. That's just our viewpoint. A lot of times, people are looking beyond the tax return.
00:07:14 Colin: What they really care about is how much can you save me? What benefits can I get from just executing my tax return? So I think that's where we are or where we play in the space.
00:07:23 Colin: We also aren't necessarily going after B2C. We're more B2B2C. We work with companies. Today, we're constantly seeing companies reach out to us. We're looking to improve people's financial wellness, and one area that's untapped is taxes.
00:07:36 Colin: Back in the days, a lot of time, tax was a taboo word. Legal will shut it down immediately. We don't want to touch taxes, we're like, we don't give them tax advice. We're also not executing the tax return, so we're not taking any legal position there. We're not a fiduciary of the tax return. We're just giving them insights and showing them where they can save. We have an appetite for that, that's what we've been able to do to get access to some of the companies we work with now.
00:07:59 Jenny: It's so interesting. So I went to law school and obviously have a lot of legal friends. As AI legal tech companies started popping up, I started sending them to all my legal friends. The early years, they didn't even want to look at them. It felt very scary for them. They didn't want to face the reality.
00:08:19 Jenny: In the last twelve months, they're calling me and saying, hey. What do you have? Now they want to be fast adopters. So I imagine the accounting, tax, financial space is similar in that maybe they were in denial for a little bit, but now they have a voracious appetite.
00:08:35 Jenny: You really can't think of better areas than legal doctrine and tax codes. People don't need to be sorting through that type of text. Let the bots do that. Let's let the machines do that where we can use the higher level thinking. So it is a little bit of man and machine combo, I think.
00:08:54 Jenny: When we met you, what I really liked about your proposition was we work with tax prep organizations, and we help them do their job better and faster. That really resonated with me as an accelerant, as someone who is at the bottom of the totem pole at a law firm who is going through all the text, I didn't really need to be doing that.
00:09:14 Colin: Exactly. It's one of those things where you do the same thing every day. Eventually, you're going to make a mistake. You get tired of doing it. You're also faced with a lot of legalese. Sometimes I read the tax code. I'm like, I need someone to interpret this for you.
00:09:26 Colin: Also, you can use graph theory and the study of the neural networks and really understand what the connections are. Because just like legal, you look at legal precedents. Let me apply a legal precedent here. If you have someone who makes $100,000 living in New York with a spouse and two kids, chances are the tax situations will be pretty similar if they make the same amount and have the same tax profile.
00:09:47 Jenny: Interesting. So talk a little bit about the early years of Muse as you are figuring out your MVP to where you are now and just how the onslaught of all the AI innovation and tools has accelerated what you guys are doing.
00:10:03 Colin: When we first started out, we were squarely focused on just reviewing tax returns. We were going to the tax rep companies and saying, we can actually do your return review a lot faster. They were having people come in, they were literally having someone sit there and review the return. Chances are that person doesn't know as much as the previous person, or if they know the same amount, they're going to make the same mistakes.
00:10:22 Colin: But if you can review that return and compare it to thousands or even millions of other returns, you're more efficient, and, also, you'll get a better result there. So that's what we were doing in the beginning.
00:10:31 Colin: And then July, August came. We don't really have any returns to review. So how do we make this something that's being done throughout the year or a year round activity? We're like, we need to look at all the transactions.
00:10:41 Colin: I always say, we're like a stochastic CPA. Stochastic just means every instance. So every instance, we reoptimize your finances. So every single transaction, we run it through and say, is there a tax savings opportunity here? Is there some type of tax insight I can give this individual?
00:10:56 Colin: So that every time you make a purchase, we can look at your transactions and look at your tax profile to give you insight so that when you do go to your accountant, your CPA at the end of the year, you're more well-versed and also you're armed with more deductions and credits because we have been optimizing your life throughout the year. That's exactly what customers are looking for.
00:11:13 Jenny: It's cool because our tax preparer who specializes in funds, the messaging a couple years ago was they were very proud that they did all the work themselves. Now we use a very progressive run by young people tax group. I think now they come out and they're like, we're using the latest AI tools, and the mind shift has shifted from something that you were getting away with.
00:11:38 Jenny: We all knew lawyers were using it to now something that they're toting as making them best in class. So I feel like that was a very quick mind shift and maybe education of the public as well.
00:11:50 Colin: Absolutely. Because as an accountant, very similar to a lawyer, you have to go. You always have to consult the books, and you have to read through it. What does this statute say and it points to another statute, and you have to read all of that.
00:11:59 Colin: If AI can distill all that and give him the answer or at least guide me to the right statute and interpret that for me, I can apply it a lot better. But also on the other side, people are asking questions.
00:12:09 Colin: If you can give them an answer, we have tools that you can ask a question. We have chatbots. You can get an answer, and our chatbot will point you to exactly where you pulled it from the IRS tax code.
00:12:18 Colin: Normally, people will call their CPA or tax preparer and say, hey. I'm looking to do this. The other day, I used our own chatbot. I looked up the self-employment rates. You can either Google it or you can call your CPA and say, hey, what are the self employment rates? And then usually, CPA will say it depends or let me get back to you.
00:12:35 Colin: So now you actually have that answer. You didn't even have to leave your seat. You don't have to call anyone. You don't have to wait for a response, and you also have the links to exactly where it is in the IRS tax code as well. So GenAI has become more of a household name now so other individuals are more open to using those type of tools.
00:12:51 Jenny: That's awesome. So tell us a little bit more about the Muse chatbot and how your customers are benefiting from that.
00:12:57 Colin: The chatbot is also part of what we call CheckBoost. So you can ask questions. You can ask tax related or even investment related questions. We'll give you insights in very plain English explaining what the tax consequences of certain transactions are.
00:13:09 Colin: But we have two tools right now. One is called Checkboost, and the other one is called Compass. Checkboost is our flagship product right now. It's really on fire and taking off, where we work with payroll providers and others where individuals can actually boost their take home pay by up to $200.
00:13:24 Colin: Because what's happening, a lot of people are overpaying their taxes to the tune of $466,000,000,000 annually. Everyone thinks that number is high. It was $366,000,000,000 the year before. So an increase of $100,000,000,000 of overpayments to the IRS.
00:13:37 Colin: We're saying people aren't calculating their taxes properly. We can do that. We can also compare their situations to others in a similar situation and recommend their decision that they need to make or the right forms that they have to fill out in order to boost their take home pay. So by virtue of doing that, we can increase their take home pay, and they can avoid having to do things like loan sharks, microloans, and what have you.
00:13:57 Colin: The other tool which I've alluded to earlier is called Compass, where it's our continuous optimization engine, where we can look at all your finances and continuously give you different insights throughout the year so you can optimize your life and make sure you're capturing every tax credit and tax deduction that's available to you.
00:14:14 Jenny: You talked about one of the challenges originally, when you were getting started of the seasonality. Talk about what are some of the other challenges that you've come across or you've had to deal with running this business.
00:14:26 Colin: There's a seasonality. I had mentioned earlier, sometimes you'll talk to a company, and once you say tax, they get scared off.
00:14:33 Colin: What's funny is in 2022 when we were mentioning tax, they're like, no. We don't want anything to do with it. Legal will shut it down. A year or two later, they're like, hey. Are you guys still around? Are you still doing that stuff? We have an appetite for it.
00:14:44 Colin: Some of the largest organizations in this country have reached out to us like, hey. We have an appetite for that. We actually have an initiative internally where we're looking to increase our exposure to tax platforms.
00:14:54 Colin: So that was one situation that was a bit of a challenge. It is somewhat of a challenge now because you have to make sure that you're not giving hard advice and you make it very clear what you are doing from a tax perspective. Because some companies, like, we want the tax information. We don't necessarily want to file the tax return. That's one thing.
00:15:10 Colin: Outside of that, it's really just moving as quickly as we can because a lot of companies have been reaching out to us and want to implement our software. CheckBoost has taken off. So we really just trying to hit it with speed right now and get more users on our platform.
00:15:24 Jenny: That's awesome. So tell us a little bit more about the big picture for Muse and the future of the business.
00:15:31 Colin: We want to get that $466,000,000,000 down to a more reasonable number. The last time I checked, 78% of individuals in this country live paycheck to paycheck, people are struggling every day to make ends meet. They're giving their money away to the IRS and waiting for a tax refund at the end of the year.
00:15:47 Colin: That's inefficient. Let's get everyone to pay the right amount of taxes, but also increase their take home pay so that they can pay down debt and invest. We want to make sure that we really affect every single taxpayer and make sure that they're making the right tax payments and maximizing their paychecks.
00:16:01 Colin: We want everyone to make the right tax decisions and well-informed decisions and be armed with the information that they need to make tax efficient transactions.
00:16:10 Jenny: What's one idea that experts in your field say, but you disagree with?
00:16:16 Colin: A lot of times people will say that everyone's afraid of taxes. I think it's not necessarily that they're afraid of taxes. It's just that people generally don't like what they don't understand.
00:16:25 Colin: Our aim is to democratize and make sure that everyone can understand in simple English what the tax code is saying. Once they understand, okay, I'm willing to make certain decisions that'll benefit me in the long run.
00:16:36 Jenny: That makes sense. Any key moments or people that have helped you on your path? We love, in this podcast especially, talking about products, but the people behind the products are always equally as interesting.
00:16:49 Colin: When it comes from a product and a business standpoint, there are several individuals along our path that really helped us just work with certain investors. They helped us raise money. You are one of them. Also, you made some great intros for us.
00:17:02 Colin: There are others like Zeal. They have made some really great introductions for us. They invested in us a couple years ago. Beyond that, just going through Techstars, we met with a lot of people who they looked at our tech and said, here are where issues may pop up, and here are the things you need to do.
00:17:17 Colin: They were very helpful and said, look. I don't even need anything from you. I'm just willing to help you and make the right connections, review your code, and put you in contact with the right people. And that was a major boost for the company.
00:17:28 Jenny: That's great. As a founder, especially a CEO, you're wearing many hats. I'm sure you know. Every day, something new. But if we had to distill down to what's the Colin superpower, what do you think people would say?
00:17:41 Colin: Determination. It's a blessing and a curse in a sense where when I set my mind to something, I am going to do it.
00:17:46 Colin: I played basketball in college. I played it all my life. Kobe Bryant or a couple others have said, when I do something, I don't want to do it until I get it right. I want to do it until I can't get it wrong.
00:17:55 Colin: Whenever I find an issue, I don't want to just solve the issue. I want to make sure that I maximize the response and the solution for this issue, and that's how I get through things.
00:18:05 Colin: I was talking to someone yesterday. I'll stay up till 4:00 in the morning trying to solve a coding problem on how to render something on the screen, and I love doing it. I'm not getting up until I do it unless I need to use a bathroom or eat. I'll stay up all night until I get it right, and I can't get it wrong.
00:18:19 Jenny: How does that culture permeate through your team? One thing that I found as a CEO and definitely running a fund is you seem to care more than everyone else. So how do you inspire the team to care as much as you staying up all night?
00:18:35 Colin: Again, not everyone's going to stay up till 3:00 in the morning, but there's a solution. You haven't arrived at that solution yet, but every single iteration, every single chance you give it, you're just getting closer to that solution. Sometimes you may need to walk away at 5:00 in the afternoon, and you may wake up to get a glass of water at 2:00 in the morning, and it'll hit you.
00:18:52 Colin: A lot of times when I'm taking my morning walks or running on the treadmill at the gym, the answer hits me. So I always tell them, the answer is there. It may not necessarily be the way you're thinking about it.
00:19:02 Colin: I was at a conference the other day, and someone said, you cannot create a solution with the same mindset that created the problem. So you have to think beyond or think outside of the box. When you're able to do that, you can arrive at the solution a lot better.
0019:15 Jenny: One thing I've been really impressed with you all is how lean you've kept the team. Especially in this environment where people are really doing a lot with a little, that's always been your mentality. So how do you keep the team so lean and yet have enough resources? I know that you have to in the age of AI when we think that the billion dollar company is going to be built by one person coming up. So what's been your philosophy there?
00:19:47 Colin: We're CPAs, so, naturally, we are cheaper. We tend to be cheap. We justify every single expense. If it doesn't make 100% sense or we can find a cheaper solution that's just as good, we will take that route.
00:19:58 Colin: What has also been helpful, we've been founders. I've built apps before so I can code. I taught myself how to code a while ago. So I built version 1.0, I do a lot of the tech now or at least I manage a lot of the tech now. So it helped us there. Whereas opposed to some others where if you don't have a technical fund, you're forced to have a larger tech team.
00:20:17 Colin: Also, Busayo, he's a great tax mind, he's built a lot of products. He's amazing when it comes to anything product. So we've been able to save there.
00:20:25 Colin: We say constraints breed creativity. So when you have a constraint and you're forced to be creative, you tend to come up with different solutions. So we've also been using a lot of AI just in workflow management and helping us pump things out. So that's really how we've been able to stay lean. If we can't justify the expense fully, then we just won't take it on. Sometimes we're like, I want to spend a lot on legal, but I'd rather spend it now than spend it to walk it back.
00:20:51 Jenny: How many people on the team now?
00:20:52 Colin: Right now, we have 13.
00:20:53 Jenny: What's a piece of advice you'd give someone thinking about starting a startup company today?
00:21:00 Colin: Do understand that it's not like a corporate job. It's not a 9 to 5. In fact, you have two 9 to 5s. Meaning you have 9AM to 5PM. Then, you maybe you do everything else. You talk to your family, talk to your friends. And then from 9PM to 5AM, that's where you're really getting a lot of work done. You're figuring out the other business items. So you have to work two 9 to 5s, but they just happen to be in the same day.
00:21:22 Jenny: Oh, boy. Okay. Not a lot of sleep, on Colin’s end. Alright. This was a great interview. I love talking to you. I can hear about this all day. We're going to go into our speed round. These are just quick answers to some short questions. So what's a book, newsletter, or podcast that you're really enjoying now?
00:21:40 Colin: I'm a bit biased, but I would say The Venture Everywhere. I do listen to you and your podcast all the time.
00:21:46 Jenny: Oh my goodness. Colin, I was already a fan.
00:21:50 Colin: Hey, as an early subscriber, I already got your book.
00:21:53 Jenny: Thank you. Getting a little book plug. I love it. If you could live anywhere in the world for just one year, where would it be?
00:21:59 Colin: Greece. I haven't been, but it's nice. I love the food, and I love the Mediterranean, so maybe Greece.
00:22:05 Jenny: On everyone's list. Favorite productivity hack. You already told us one you don't sleep, but give us one that more of us can implement.
00:22:15 Colin: ChatGPT, all those companies. A lot of times, you can get a lot done by making certain prompts and or even just reviewing things, reviewing some of the emails you wrote. Sometimes I'll spend thirty minutes running an email to make sure I'm seeing all the right things. But I'll just run it through and make sure, oh, yeah. That is a better way to say that. That's a great productivity hack for me.
00:22:32 Jenny: Nice. How do you unwind when you're stressed?
00:22:35 Colin: I go to the gym. I like exercising. I like running. I've recently taken up running. I did a half tri a few years ago, and I stopped. So now I'm starting running again. I run about five miles every day, and I'm trying to hopefully do another tri some day.
00:22:49 Jenny: Nice. Still playing basketball?
00:22:52 Colin: Four or five times a week.
00:22:54 Jenny: Oh my gosh. You run five miles a day and play basketball?
00:22:57 Colin: Yeah. So I play basketball and then I go run.
00:23:00 Jenny: Okay. You're like superhuman. We can't all live up to the Colin everything. Now I feel lazy. Where can founders or others listening find you?
00:23:11 Colin: You can, of course, go to our website, musetax.com. We also have Instagram, muse_tax. On Twitter or X as well, musetax_. And then, of course, we're on LinkedIn as well. My co-founder and I are both on LinkedIn, Colin Horsford and Busayo Ogunsanya.
00:23:26 Jenny: Alright. This was so fun. Thanks for joining on the pod. We all have a little work to do to get as fit as you, apparently.
00:23:34 Colin: Thank you so much, Jen. I really appreciate it.
00:23:36 Jenny: Thanks so much, Colin.
00:23:39 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about everywhere. We're a first check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, everywhere.vc, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
Read more from Colin Horsford in Founders Everywhere.