Today we’d like to introduce you to Gunnar Harris.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
After earning my Accounting degree from West Virginia University, I began my management career within a large corporation. A promotion opportunity brought me to Colorado, where I quickly discovered a passion for the outdoors, exploration, and a more intentional lifestyle.
Eventually, I made a difficult but defining decision: I stepped away from my traditional career to build a life that aligned with my values — autonomy, challenge, and meaningful achievement. I launched a remote bookkeeping and accounting business that allowed me to work from anywhere while pursuing exploration and personal growth.
Alongside that work, I created a “Life Goals List”, a long-term personal project designed to push me toward intentional, meaningful goals while documenting the journey.
Over time, this path naturally evolved into higher-level financial leadership. Today, I work as a Fractional CFO for outdoor, travel, and sporting goods manufacturers, leveraging my natural, strategic long-range thinking to support companies in industries that complement my intentional, adventure-driven lifestyle.
I blend deep management accounting experience with a lifelong connection to the outdoors, travel, sports, and adventure. I work directly with owners to deliver strategic financial leadership — improving clarity, profitability, and decision-making.
As a fractional, part-time partner, I provide the high-level strategic insight of a traditional CFO without the cost of hiring full-time executive staff. This gives small to medium-sized product companies access to disciplined financial strategy, forecasting, and operational guidance tailored to their stage of growth and goals.
For me, it’s the perfect intersection of my strengths — business, finance, strategy, big-picture thinking, and goal setting — combined with industries I understand and genuinely care about.
Some Services Include:
• Financial Strategy & Forecasting
• CapEx Investing Analysis
• Cash Flow Planning
• Cost Structure / Cost Accounting
• KPI Dashboards
• Budgeting & Variance Analysis
• System Setup (ERP, inventory workflow guidance, etc.)
Since deciding to plan for a more intentional life, I’ve been able to accomplish some incredible things, some examples include:
• Created a YouTube channel helping small business owners with their finances, currently over 300,000 views
• Traveled to all 50 states
• Co-Founded a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym located in Windsor, Colorado
• Backpacked 100 miles through Scotland, walked across the country of Liechtenstein, and hiked down, across, back across, and back up the Grand Canyon
• Built & lived in a CamperVan full-time with my dog for 2 years, traveled all around the U.S. while working remotely in my business
• Climbed to the highest point in the world (Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador), also summits such as: Mount Fuji, Mount Whitney, South Sister, Mount Adams, Mount Cayambe, etc.
• Explored many international cities: Tokyo, Paris, Zurich, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Oslo, Reykjavik, Quito, Guatemala City, Medellin, Mexico City, Glasgow, and more. I’ve trained Jiu-Jitsu in most of them.
Right now, as I write this, I am sitting in Tim Wendelboe’s coffee shop in Oslo, Norway. I just drank the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life! However, of all the places I’ve been so far during my life, I confidently know that Northern Colorado is the place for me.
When I’m not running one of my businesses I enjoy many activities: weightlifting hiking, running, trail running, training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, specialty coffee, playing video games (Solo RPGs, Chess, RTS, Management games), studying philosophy, reading, watching TV series & movies, listening to music, watching UFC, hanging out with friends and family, traveling, mountaineering, backpacking, and international trekking.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the hardest things for me has been to turn down money when a client is not the right fit. Big picture, I know that doing this is best for both parties, but it is an incredibly hard thing to do. Especially during the beginning of my entrepreneurship journey, when I was not making enough money and paying rent with a credit card. But, even now, it is still a challenging thing for me to do and something that needs to be constantly monitored. In a way, it would seem easier once you start making money and increase your value offered where people are in line asking for your services. However, with this comes many opportunities. This, in one way, is great. But this also makes it very difficult not to say yes to everything until you find yourself spread too thin. You then start providing a lesser quality of services and are no longer supporting your original mission in starting your business.
There’s been a few strategies I’ve used to help navigate this. More than anything, staying intentional takes courage and strategy. Courage to make trade-off decisions, cultivate an abundance mindset, confidence in your ability to provide high-level value, and that over time, the right people will find you. Strategy to always keep the big picture and your original goals at the forefront of your daily decisions. Or, to put it another way, as Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the End in Mind”. I would just add to challenge you to not just begin with the end in mind, but keep the end in mind every day, every minute. It’s one thing to sit down and think about why you want a business, what you want it to look like, how you want it to serve you and your lifestyle (a very important thing to do). It’s another thing entirely when you’re in the trenches to tell a potential client no because they are not a good fit for your overall vision of what you want your business to look like.
I’m a believer in cultivating these skills and mindsets through intentional experiences. I actively seeked out to gain a more abundant mindset and maintain a bigger-picture, strategically framed daily decision framework. I also constantly put myself in situations where courage is needed. I plan and prepare, but if you put yourself in situations where you’re traveling, living in a Campervan, bootstrapping businesses, mountaineering, there are inevitably going to times outside your comfort zone. I’ve found though, that the more exposure I have to these situations, and the more I figure them out, the more my confidence grows and my comfort zone expands. I’m not saying you need to go and climb Mount Everest (maybe you do), but intentionally expanding your comfort zone and increasing your courage and confidence can pay huge dividends over time in both your personal and professional life.
We’ve been impressed with Gunnar Harris, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I currently own two businesses, and just started a new venture branded as me, but ran under my accounting business LLC. I started this LLC, Essentially Intentional, LLC about 7 years ago. Under this LLC, I provide QuickBooks Online Monthly Bookkeeping services for small businesses, specializing in e-commerce. I have a few subcontractors hired to handle the bulk of the bookkeeping and then I perform the final reconcilations and things to ensure accuracy. Also, under this LLC, I started performing Fractional Controller services. With this service, I’m basically the accounting manager for businesses up to a 20-million dollar a year range, with in-person staff handling the majority of the daily accounting and bookkeeping operations. I started networking and hiring clients solely in the Northern Colorado area. However, after moving into my CamperVan with my dog and traveling the United States full-time, I needed to switch strategies. I created a YouTube channel and posted training content on there. There are now over 300,000 total views on this channel. This medium has also allowed me to find clients from all over the country, many of them I went and visited while in the van!
I am also the co-founder of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym in Windsor, Colorado.
Finally, my most recent venture is becoming a Fractional CFO for outdoor, travel, and sporting goods manufacturers, leveraging my natural, strategic long-range thinking to support companies in industries that complement my intentional, adventure-driven lifestyle.
I blend deep management accounting experience with a lifelong connection to the outdoors, travel, sports, and adventure. I work directly with owners to deliver strategic financial leadership — improving clarity, profitability, and decision-making.
As a fractional, part-time partner, I provide the high-level strategic insight of a traditional CFO without the cost of hiring full-time executive staff. This gives small to medium-sized product companies access to disciplined financial strategy, forecasting, and operational guidance tailored to their stage of growth and goals.
For me, it’s the perfect intersection of my strengths — business, finance, strategy, big-picture thinking, and goal setting — combined with industries I understand and genuinely care about.
Some Services Include:
• Financial Strategy & Forecasting
• CapEx Investing Analysis
• Cash Flow Planning
• Cost Structure / Cost Accounting
• KPI Dashboards
• Budgeting & Variance Analysis
• System Setup (ERP, inventory workflow guidance, etc.)
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I don’t read any blogs consistently or listen to many podcasts. I don’t consume much media outside of music throughout the day. I really try to limit consumption in and maximize production out. I try to keep media consumed more long-form. Most of the media I consume is in the form of books (Kindle and Audiobooks), video games, TV series, and movies. I’ll get to books in a second, but I’d first like to talk about my philosophy on apps.
When it comes to apps and software, I’ve learned this with working with many different small businesses, I use what I like to call “minimum complexity needed” when making app and software decisions. It;’s fun to learn and use new tools, and it makes us feel productive. Sometimes, there are legitimate needs that need more advanced tools (apps and software), but more often than not, the best tools are the ones you’re actually going to use.
When it comes to personal things, I stick with the Apple ecosystem (Apple Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Freeform stack). When planning a travel trip for example, I’ll create a Reminders list for the trip for tasks to do leading up to the trip, I’ll use Notes app to make quick notes and copy and paste info, and then I’ll use Freeform as the final document I’ll use during the trip that has all my info and intinerary organized. The most important thing though is that these apps are always accessible on all my devices, updated automatically and I only use the features needed and try not to overcomplicate things.
When it comes to business, it’s hard to be outside the Google ecosystem. So, for all my businesses, I stick with those: (Gmail, Drive, Chrome, etc). This turns out to work very nicely because it creates a clean split between personal and business. I use Safari for personal, Chrome for business. iCloud for personal documents, Google Drive for business, etc. I use some other business apps like Trello because I needed a little more features (which also add more complexity, but in this case is worth it), than the Apple Reminders app. Also, again, the personal/business split with this is great. Trello is bookmarked on my computer and laptop’s Chrome browsers and Apple Reminders is on my phone, same with Gmail. This makes it difficult to check my business email and to do lists on my phone while I have some free time (which is a good thing).
I started remote work before COVID made it more popular. I remember teaching new clients on how to use Zoom (and what Zoom is). I love technology that increases autonomy and remote work possibilities, one of these being Zoom and another example being Starlink. The ability while living in my van to have access anywhere in the country to high-speed internet is an incredible thing.
I could go on and on about books. I will force myself to just mention one: Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. This book was gifted to me before I started this journey, and reading it shifted my mindset to being more intentional. Before reading this book I would say I was just “going through the motions”. Not since then, I lived and will continue to live an intentional, purposeful life. Maybe many books in this genre during that stage of my life would have kicked me into the correct gear, but regardless, this is the one that happened to fall into my lap at the right stage of my life. I already mentioned one of the principles in this book” Begin with the End in Mind”, chapter was a big one for me. It forced me to think about the big-picture trajectory of what kind of life I wanted to live.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gunnarharris.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunnarharris/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@essentiallyintentional
