Beyond the Bottom Line

Beyond the Bottom Line is a podcast for founders and business owners who want practical insight they can actually use as they grow. Hosted by Miguel Alexander Centeno, founder and CEO of Centurion Firm, the show features in-depth conversations with industry experts, clients, and business owners about how they think through tax, cash flow, operations, and the decisions that come with running a real business. We focus on how things really work when you’re scaling, what challenges tend to come up, and how other founders, experts, and operators have dealt with them. If you’re building or growing a business (often somewhere between $500K and $25M+ in revenue), this show is designed to help you make smarter financial and operational decisions and keep more of what you earn.

Beyond the Bottom Line is a business podcast hosted by Miguel Alexander Centeno, with 32 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Miguel Alexander Centeno hosts Beyond the Bottom Line, a business show with 32 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #27

  The $100 Website That Led to a Fintech Company: Inside Aloha with Rodrigo Romero

  Aug 18, 202634 minS1

  What happens when a self-taught 14-year-old hacker from the Dominican Republic grows up to rebuild the payments infrastructure for an entire industry? On this episode of Beyond the Bottom Line , Miguel sits down with Rodrigo Romero, founder and CEO of Aloha, a Miami-based fintech company building the banking and payments infrastructure powering the future of travel across the Americas. Rodrigo's path started far from fintech, building his first $100 websites in Yahoo Chat rooms, landing a $2,000 client at 14 without knowing how to build what he'd just sold, and eventually co-founding Aloha with Jorge Dupri after Jorge's own boutique hotels kept losing bookings to cross-border payment friction. What began as a software play quickly became something bigger: a platform solving the real problem underneath it, moving money seamlessly across countries and currencies for travel and hospitality businesses. In this conversation, Rodrigo breaks down why travel is one of the least "tech-touched" industries around, how Aloha protects both merchants and travelers from fraud and chargebacks, and why compliance can never be an afterthought in fintech. He also gets candid about the hardest pivot of his company's life, when the software layer they built to bootstrap the business started outgrowing the payments business it was meant to support and how he uses AI agents (not chatbots) to run reconciliation, investor outreach, and even serve as a sparring partner for his own blind spots. In this episode: How a Packard Bell computer and a printed HTML manual sparked a fintech career Why "just get a customer" beats perfecting your product The real problem Aloha solves: payments, not just software How Argentina's currency tax changes are reshaping cross-border travel spending Using closed-loop AI agents instead of prompt-and-wait AI Why onboarding is a non-negotiable leadership principle What to look for in a co-founder (hint: not someone just like you) About Our Guest Rodrigo Romero is the founder and CEO of Aloha, a Miami-based fintech company building the payments and banking infrastructure powering the future of travel across the Americas. Alongside co-founder Jorge Dupri, he founded Aloha to help travel and hospitality businesses simplify cross-border payments, access local banking services, and move money seamlessly across countries and currencies. Learn more about Aloha, or connect with Rodrigo on LinkedIn . Connect with Miguel Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn or reach out at media@centurionfirm.com .

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  Episode #26

  Minisode: The Joint Venture That Became a Merger: A Tax Firm Partnership Story

  Aug 11, 202612 minS1

  Building a Business Partnership: Miguel & Daniela's Origin Story What does it actually take to merge two firms into one? On this episode of Under the Hood , Miguel sits down with his business partner, Daniela Menache, to talk about the real story behind how their partnership came together — nerves, negotiations, and all. Before they were partners, Daniela was running a full-service firm on her own, personally reviewing 500 tax returns a year while searching for a tax manager she never quite found. She was at a breaking point: find a partner, sell part of the business, or walk away from clients she loved. That search for balance is where this story begins. Miguel and Daniela take listeners through their "JV phase", the trial run before the full merger and get honest about what didn't go as planned. They dig into the messy, practical side of combining two firms: choosing which systems to keep and which to kill, aligning two different company cultures, cleaning up client contracts (and yes, canceling a lot of unused subscriptions), and discovering that reducing their client count actually grew their bottom line. This episode is a candid look at what complementary skill sets really look like in practice, why having a partner means you can actually take a vacation, and how they're now thinking about the future of their industry in the age of AI. In this episode: Why Daniela knew it was time to find a partner What the "JV" phase taught them before they fully merged firms How they aligned two different company cultures The surprising upside of cleaning up client contracts What they look for in a tax manager today How AI is shaping the future of their service model Memorable quote: "Having a partner means you can actually take a vacation." — Daniela Menache

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  Episode #25

  I Sold 10 Companies. Here's the One Thing That Kills Every Deal.

  Aug 4, 202643 minS1

  If your business can't run without you for a month, it's not a business yet, it's a job. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Christine "Chrissy" McDannell, serial entrepreneur, author, and founder of Magnolia Firm, a boutique M&A brokerage known for handling digital business exits from start to finish. Chrissy has personally built and exited 10 startups and now helps founders navigate valuation, positioning, due diligence, and close. For any founder who's ever wondered what their business is actually worth, or whether anyone would even want to buy it, this conversation is a masterclass in thinking like a buyer before you ever plan to sell. Chrissy breaks down her "7 R's" framework for what makes a business acquirable (remote-based, relocatable, recurring revenue, retention of clients and team, removal of the owner, revenue growth, and repeatable processes), and why the single hardest habit for most owners to break is being the best salesperson in the room. The conversation also gets refreshingly specific: how add-backs and personal expenses actually get treated in a sale, why cash transactions can quietly cost you multiples of their face value, what a personal guarantee really protects, and why so many small business owners walk away from six or seven figures simply because they assume nobody would want to buy what they've built. Chrissy also shares how she's navigating AI's impact on her own industry and the founders she works with, including the AI Implementation Club she runs in Austin to help business owners stop talking about AI and start building with it. Other insights from this episode include: The "7 R's" framework Chrissy uses to evaluate whether a business is truly sellable Why removing yourself as the top salesperson is the last (and hardest) step before an exit How personal expenses and "gray area" add-backs actually get treated during due diligence Why cash-based transactions can cost sellers multiples of their face value at exit The role (and limits) of seller financing and personal guarantees in a deal What buyers are really looking for in remote, recurring-revenue digital businesses Why so many founders undervalue their business or give it away instead of selling it How AI is reshaping which businesses are sellable, and what founders should do about it The emotional reality of exiting: what happens financially and mentally the moment the deal closes About Our Guest Christine McDannell is a serial entrepreneur, author, and speaker, and the founder of Magnolia Firm, a boutique M&A brokerage specializing in digital business exits. She has built and exited 10 startups over her two-decade career and is the author of Get Acquired: Seven Steps to Your Most Lucrative Exit . She also leads the AI Implementation Club in Austin, a weekly in-person build session for founders. Learn more about Magnolia Firm at magnoliafirm.com, or the AI Implementation Club at AIIC.club. Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn or media@centurionfirm.com

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  Episode #24

  Minisode: Common or Embarassing Questions

  Jul 28, 202611 minS1

  We get asked a lot of questions at Centurion Firm questions like, "If I can't pay my taxes, do I even need to file?" or "Isn't transferring money to myself the same as payroll?" Most clients feel a little embarrassed to ask these questions out loud, so in this minisode, Miguel's partner, Daniela Menache, decided to answer them anyway. There are no stupid questions, just real ones people are quietly Googling (or asking AI) instead of asking us directly. We go through the ones we hear most: filing when you can't pay, whether the IRS actually knows your income, the real difference between an LLC and an S corp, why duplicate transactions show up in QuickBooks, and whether your business credit card really covers everything you buy with it. If you've ever nodded along in a meeting with your accountant while quietly wondering what a balance sheet actually is, this one's for you.

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  Episode #23

  The Real Story Behind Leaving PwC to Build Centurion Firm

  Jul 21, 202630 minS1

  What if the "raise" that was supposed to keep you happy was actually the moment you realized you needed to leave? In this episode, Miguel Alexander Centeno joins Alex Roman, host of Humans in Accounting, for a wide-ranging conversation about the real path from Big Four tax to founding Centurion Firm. It's a rare chance to hear Miguel on the other side of the mic, answering the kinds of questions he usually asks his own guests. For any founder or business owner who has ever wondered whether the leap from a stable paycheck to building something of their own is worth it, this conversation is a grounded, honest look at what that decision actually costs and what it can return. Miguel walks through the inflection point that pushed him out of public accounting (an 8% raise offer after growing an engagement into the millions), the reality of his first year in business (a $56K gross, and not even hitting his own salary target), and the mistake that nearly burned him out early: saying yes to every client regardless of fit. The conversation also digs into how Miguel and his team found their footing by identifying the right niches: Airbnb hosts and digital marketers in the early days, and how that same instinct for finding "who you're uniquely positioned to serve" still shapes Centurion Firm's work today, including their focus on the R&D tax credit. Miguel and Alex also get into where AI fits into the future of accounting, why Miguel sees it as a tool rather than a threat, and the advice he'd give someone considering the leap in 2026. Other insights from this episode include: The moment Miguel realized incremental raises weren't going to get him where he wanted to go Why "who wants to pay me for this" was Miguel's version of testing product-market fit The real numbers behind his first year in business, and why he didn't hit his own goal The client-mix mistake most new firm owners make, and how to avoid burning out on the wrong clients How Miguel identified Airbnb hosts and digital marketers as his first profitable niches, and why The role outbound sales played in scaling the firm, and bringing on Ashton as the first hire focused on it Miguel's take on AI's role in accounting, and why he sees it as an opportunity rather than a replacement The advice Miguel would give someone thinking about leaving a Big Four firm to start their own practice today About Our Guest Miguel Alexander Centeno is the Managing Partner of Centurion Firm and host of Beyond the Bottom Line. After beginning his career in Big Four tax at PwC, he left in 2017 to build a strategy-first tax advisory practice for founders, startups, and growing businesses. Learn more about Humans in Accounting and Alex Roman's podcast. Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn or media@centurionfirm.com

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