April is Innovation Awareness Month in South Carolina. Founder Nathan Freystaetter was interviewed by Fox News Carolina correspondent Myra Ruiz this morning in downtown Greenville South Carolina to share his experience building Go Fig in South Carolina:
“[To me, innovation means] being in that deep mental space where you’re really trying to think through a problem and finding a better way to do things. It’s about not being satisfied with the status quo. It’s about constantly questioning what we’re doing and why we’re doing this so that you’re really spending time on what’s most important.”
Why innovation matters in finance
Most finance teams don’t have an innovation problem, they have an attention problem. Analysts spend most of their week stitching together exports from QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot, and a dozen spreadsheets to answer one board question. By the time the answer arrives, the question has already changed.
What we’re trying to do at Go Fig is free that attention: AI financial analysts pull, reconcile, and segment the data so the human analyst can spend their time on what actually drives the business. The innovation isn’t the AI itself. It’s the decision to point it at the boring work.
Greenville as a place to build
South Carolina doesn’t get cited often in tech-ecosystem conversations, but the infrastructure here is better than most people realize. Greenville has a growing density of finance and operations talent from companies like Michelin, BMW, and a mature professional services sector. For a finance-focused startup, that’s the right pond to be fishing in.
The support from programs like SCRA, the Hill Institute at Furman, and regional economic development groups is real, not just ceremonial. Innovation Awareness Month is a chance to make that ecosystem visible to the rest of the country.
What’s next
The conversation around AI in finance has shifted from “can it do anything useful” to “what should it be doing and who is accountable for the output.” That’s the conversation Go Fig is built for, with a senior-analyst-led engagement model where the AI is a tool, not a substitute for judgment.
