What happens when a data-savvy problem solver trades corporate comfort for founder chaos? You get GoFig—a company built to help other companies stop guessing and start growing. In this episode of Hello Chaos, Jennifer Sutton sits down with Nathan Freystaetter, founder of GoFig, to unpack the real, raw journey of leaving a stable job to dive headfirst into entrepreneurship. From his early days hacking e-commerce as a teenager to building dashboards that make Fortune 500s jealous, Nathan shares the aha moments, oh sht* decisions, and everything in between. This conversation is a masterclass in how data, when paired with brand clarity and a willingness to face friction, becomes your greatest growth weapon. Whether you're drowning in dashboards or still flying blind, Nathan’s journey will challenge you to Go Fig it out—and finally turn insight into action.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Data is your untapped goldmine if you know how to ask “So what?”
Most companies sit on a mountain of data but fail to turn it into direction. Nathan shares how to stop chasing vanity metrics and start extracting actionable insights that fuel real growth.
2️⃣ Your biggest friction isn’t the market. It’s your mindset and messy processes.
From people protecting bad data to outdated systems sabotaging sales, founders must uncover internal bottlenecks before chasing external success.
3️⃣ Sales is a skill. Stop winging it and start training like a founder athlete.
Nathan opens up about being a data-native founder learning how to sell. His vulnerability and book list is a wake-up call. Selling your vision is just as vital as building it.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Hello Chaos
02:30 Nathan's Entrepreneurial Journey
09:59 The Birth of GoFig
14:35 Navigating Sales Challenges
20:14 The Importance of Data in Business
26:28 Data-Driven Growth Strategies
27:54 People and Process Challenges
28:51 Branding and Marketing Frameworks
31:02 The Gap in Mid-Sized Enterprises
32:22 KPI Awareness and Action Plans
34:27 Therapeutic Data Insights
34:53 Light Bulb Moments in Business
36:40 The Joy of Creating Value
37:34 Scaling and Replicating Success
39:37 Building Company Culture
41:09 Data Ownership and Control
42:43 Agility in Data Solutions
43:57 Mentorship and Community Support
45:32 Navigating the Startup Ecosystem
47:58 The Importance of Community and Support
50:33 Aha Moments and Misconceptions in Entrepreneurship
54:16 Taking Risks and Embracing Uncertainty
59:50 Personal Growth and Self-Reflection
01:04:45 Advice for Aspiring Founders
🔗 Learn more about Nathan & Go Fig
Website: https://gofig.ai/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanfreystaetter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gofigai/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoFigAI
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:00.174)
Welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Each week I have the privilege to speak with founders across the spectrum, founders from different industries at various stages, from startups to mature businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our listeners get to hear the real, the raw, the unvarnished stories and viewpoints.
getting incredible insights on what it takes to start and scale a business, to become a better founder, better CEO, or just a better business leader in the community. I'm excited to have on the show today, Nathan Freystaetter, founder of GoFig, who is a good friend and in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the upstate of South Carolina. So welcome, Nathan, welcome to the show, welcome to the chaos.
Nathan Freystaetter (00:56.264)
Thank you so much, Jennifer. I'm so excited to be here. I think we just talked that we've known each other for almost a year now.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02.606)
I know and it felt like I was like we because I sponsor the it's called the railroad at the platform. It's the Greer which is a city in the upstate of South Carolina. It's their boot camp their accelerator for startups right for founders and you were a participant. Bright Marketing is the is one of the companies that I own. We sponsor that and as part of.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:21.608)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:31.182)
our sponsorship, we give all the winners of the boot camp who get selected by different CEOs and different leaders in our community. choose out of like, it's usually like eight to 10 people that participate in the boot camp and you guys do your pitch, your final pitch, and then these leaders get to choose like who won. And as part of that, I give
I call it a mini brand therapy. We've got a full brand therapy that we give to all of our clients when they kind of come on board. It's part of our, just our, you know, package. But I give every, every, the winners a little, a little mini, a little mini brand therapy. So it was great to meet you then and really hear what GoFig is all about and, and your journey.
But also we found that we have some alignment and so Bright and GoFig are now starting to figure out how do we collaborate and work together to serve our clients better by using your technology. before we go down that path, Nathan, tell us your journey and your, yeah, your founder journey. How in the world did, what inspired you to start GoFig? How did that come about?
Nathan Freystaetter (02:47.121)
you
Nathan Freystaetter (02:56.734)
I always wanted to be a founder. I started my first company when I was 15. I started an e-commerce business as a kid, just kind of creating things that were part of a board game set and creating additional pieces that I could then sell to collectors online for this game. It was called Heroescape for the game nerds out there.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:02.188)
Whoa, I did not know that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:24.142)
I was gonna say, it like a Dungeons and Dragons type of thing or?
Nathan Freystaetter (03:27.102)
I took the figurines from Dungeons and Dragons and modified them and put them into the Heroescape gaming system. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:30.06)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:35.086)
world is that in the same universe as the the heroescape of the what is it the war the warcraft or what no that's a whole different whole different thing well so this was at 15 you did an and you said an e-commerce business with this that did you build out the website you sound like my son now of like he was a
Nathan Freystaetter (03:44.418)
No, it's whole totally different, totally different.
Nathan Freystaetter (03:54.888)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (04:00.318)
you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:02.082)
So I don't know if I told you the story of my son. So he's graduating actually in a couple of months from Indiana University, my alma mater, go Hoosiers, information systems at the informatics school. But he always knew he was gonna be in computers. In middle school he started rebuilding the computers for the school system and then in high school actually built their cyber security infrastructure.
Nathan Freystaetter (04:08.978)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (04:14.814)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (04:18.216)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:31.768)
for the school rebuild. But at nine years old, whatever, he built a website but needed hosting and that's how we were like, what? I had a charge on the credit card from Vista Print and it was website hosting and I'm like, why is this on my? And they're like, it's for Calloway's Comic Books dot com. And I'm like, what?
Nathan Freystaetter (04:31.976)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:00.994)
Callaway, what are you doing? He's nine and he goes, well, I build a website and I needed a place to host it. A commercial came on the TV and it said, do you need a place to host your website? And he goes, and then I got in there and they needed a credit card and I knew you had a credit card in your office drawer and I just used it. I don't know what the problem was. was, you know, it was like very methodical of how he kind of thought of things. But yes, that was.
Nathan Freystaetter (05:12.262)
Hahaha
Nathan Freystaetter (05:28.83)
brilliant.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:30.734)
So that was my son. you remind me of like 15, you're doing an e-commerce site of gaming figurines. you always want, yeah, you found a niche.
Nathan Freystaetter (05:36.062)
That's brilliant. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you find a niche, you find a niche and people want to buy something. And for me, I was making $250 a week doing online sales as a 15 year old. And for me, that was just amazing. And, then I'll kind of like once, once I saw that happen, it was really hard to ever go back to, you know, a minimum wage job in college and just kind of doing something like that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:47.981)
What?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:52.322)
That is incredible.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:58.627)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:06.53)
Right. So you did you do all that through then college and then kept kind of gigs on the side even when you went into the workforce or.
Nathan Freystaetter (06:11.303)
I
Nathan Freystaetter (06:17.692)
Yeah, so I never, I always had this, this drive to start a side hustle, to make it a business and be a founder, but I never really had the mentorship or the community to really make it happen. I think there's a lot of ambiguity of what it takes to actually start a company. A lot of little things and it's very broad and there's a lot of insecurities too of
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:38.508)
Yes, yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (06:46.174)
Can I really create a product that somebody wants? And not just anyone, but a big company who can pay a lot of money for it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:48.344)
Sub my wants. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:55.34)
Right. Or a lot of people will pay for that. What's the value in that? yeah, to scale it. Because it's easy to do a gig, right? Semi. But then to scale it to where you have employees and you've got like, you know, of mass. So.
Nathan Freystaetter (07:04.136)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:22.062)
So how did you, so you kept this in the back, you're like, okay, I like this, this is fun, making 250 a week, selling gaming parts, pieces, pieces, parts. What did you go to school for?
Nathan Freystaetter (07:32.414)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (07:37.65)
I studied finance.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:39.182)
We're okay.
Nathan Freystaetter (07:40.966)
And so because I never really had this mentorship, I didn't have the confidence to go without college, right? And just start off the bat. I wanted to get experience. And part of that was understanding the business world. And so finance was this natural place to, one, kind of dig deeper into my special skill set in...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:55.042)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (08:08.914)
that I really enjoyed math as a kid. It was my favorite subject and everything was very methodical and made sense to me. And I found that my brain really worked really well in finance. So I went down.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:17.644)
Yeah, because it's facts. It's black and white. There's no gr- It's- Right. Yes, right.
Nathan Freystaetter (08:22.494)
It's facts, it's numbers, it's problem solving with numbers is what it is. And there's a very defined objective in finance. It's tangible, it's real. We just want to make money. We want to increase the bottom line. That's the goal of finance. Which is very clear and I could see it. I could see it and I can go after it.
So there's this big ambiguity. I really wanted to be a founder, but lots of ambiguity here. Didn't really know how to start. Then there's this like this, this path of go to school, study finance, get a job. It's all very clear, clear laid out. and, so that's what I did. and, I've been, in my, first role was at capital one out of college.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:01.688)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (09:16.638)
But my role was not a financial role. It was more of an analytics role. And so that's when I started learning a lot of the data skillset, a lot of the technical skillset to combine that problem solving that I learned in college and combining it with the ability to get the information you need to then solve that problem.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:21.42)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:28.43)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:39.458)
Right, yeah. can't compute, you can't fight facts with data. That's how, you know, I think that's where we align too and with clients that we work with, we're problem solving and trying to uncover not just taking the data, but then what's the insights behind that data that can help you problem solve. And knowing what data is important and what data isn't. And I think that's kind of a, I think that's where
where companies about struggle to scale. But so what then sparked then GoFig and you've got to explain the GoFig part because I think it's a great name when there's such good nuances there of why you chose that. But what inspired for you to actually start GoFig and leave corporate America?
Nathan Freystaetter (10:11.934)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (10:40.774)
I'm... It's a loaded question, Jennifer. It really is a loaded question.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:43.374)
I know. You can break it down. I asked you like a thousand questions in ten seconds.
Nathan Freystaetter (10:50.91)
Um, I was never fully satisfied. You know, I loved problem solving. I loved what I was doing. I loved, you know, seeing the value I was creating in the last 10 years. I've estimated that the value that I've added in my role alone was over a hundred million dollars in each of those roles and projects that I had over the years. Um, and that's always been like a motivator for me, but I always had this nagging feeling of I'm not really doing.
what I want and I wanted to be able to help not just the fortune 500s that I was in but but but the smaller companies the smaller enterprises that are out there that are for better or worse like they have a great product but they're not able to scale they're not able to go past a certain hump and they're kind of stuck and these
A lot of these people are brilliant minds, they're the designers, they're creators, they built an amazing product. But what's missing is combining that, adding a little bit more strategy and combining that with the facts to identify, where are the things that are holding you back? What is holding you back? Yeah, where's the friction?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:11.192)
What's the friction? Yeah, that's what we call it all the time. Where's the friction? Absolutely, and we, you know, I work with founders. I'm a part of the, also, I mean, the Greer incubator, you know, coach and all that, but also work with the minority business accelerator in the upstate and across the state. But I've also been in these programs and Goldman Sachs program, but just 30 years of working with
Businesses very large the fortune 500s, but also like you like but you see such a that's why I started bright was you there was such a gap of knowledge to smaller enterprises of how do I accelerate and grow and A lot of it is because they don't know How do I identify the friction? Because they're either you don't aren't even
unable to uncover the right insights or they see the data but they don't even know how to interpret it and to go further to ask those critical questions. And I think this is why I think we were like, we align brains because that's what our objective is. It's like, find the friction. How do we, and then problem solve from there.
Nathan Freystaetter (13:17.726)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (13:34.61)
Yeah. And a lot of data and dashboarding products are a little bit of a trap because they give you the data that's nice to have, but they don't help you go from that information to what do do about that? What's the so what? And that was always a big part of my career was figuring out what is the so what? What do we do with this information? How do we get from here to driving value and realizing that value?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:49.26)
Right. Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:02.914)
Right, right.
Nathan Freystaetter (14:04.636)
And so Go Fig in the name itself, I wanted to put that so what in there. Like we are, we're not just a data product. We're figuring out a problem. We are figuring out a solution. We're working together. It's a collaborative kind of exercise to take in the information from your industry, your business, your, your data and, and combining it with the goals and objectives so that we can connect the dots there and help you get to.
the set of actions you need to take to remove that friction, to capture that opportunity, and to get out, to go into that positive direction up into the right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:39.714)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:46.158)
That's right. And that's kind of what we, think, and you see this too, of I think two things that hold founders, or at least, you know, like early startups to then more, that's those smaller enterprises, mid-size enterprises. It's uncovering the data, the right data, and then going further of like asking why is that? because that's hard.
Or it's finances and the fact that you came from finances. I mean, that's kind of what we hear. I don't understand how to read my pen. I don't know how to, you know, I get it from our, but I don't know how to interpret it. And the fact that you have, you come from both of those backgrounds is kind of, so as a founder, do you find that it's easier for you to move in the path? Like, what's been your friction then?
of helping you scale.
Nathan Freystaetter (15:47.166)
It's sales. Sales is tough. Sales is really tough. And coming from a technical and numbers background, it's hard. It's hard to have. I don't have that natural skill set of, I think I connect with people really well. I'm interpersonal. We go to lot of events and people seem to like me and trust me. the pushing a product has been a challenge. And that's something that I'm currently, I've just bought.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:48.344)
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:01.838)
All
Nathan Freystaetter (16:17.114)
six different books that are on the table back there that I'm devouring and practicing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:21.742)
Which ones did you buy? I'm now curious.
Nathan Freystaetter (16:25.662)
Spin selling and challenger sales were both highly recommended and they each came with a workbook. So those and then there's another one by Keenan that I forget the title of, but he had a very explicit conference that I watched on YouTube that was I think very motivating. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:29.804)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:49.038)
Very good, all right. So you're on that journey. And maybe we can help too, since we're working together on Bright, to further, since we just gave you a little taste of your brand. Because that's what we find with a lot of companies. The friction becomes, okay, I've got this data, but I don't know what to do with it. Or they're looking at the wrong data. Because a lot of marketers, especially internal folks, they'll throw up, we call vanity metrics, that mean nothing.
Nathan Freystaetter (17:08.968)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (17:17.5)
Yes. Yeah. They're distractions. It's worse than nothing. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:19.29)
and but they're really proud of them, right? It's worse than nothing. Or even just trying to uncover like, you know, let's say that your data tells you that you have 60 % of your buyers are female. You need to be asking, so what? What's the insight there? And so we come in with helping companies just like, you know, you would uncover it's 60 % female. We're gonna come in and go, why is that?
Nathan Freystaetter (17:37.063)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:49.262)
What's the motivating factor? And we find that, oh, women feel really safe buying this product. They feel really connected to this brand. It makes them feel empowered. Ooh, well that is gonna drive now maybe messaging. Or that might drive not just messaging to make sure that we are amplifying sales within that female target, but now where we place
Nathan Freystaetter (17:49.352)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (17:54.866)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (18:04.254)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:18.574)
and where we spend time, money, and resources to connect more with women. You're telling a story, and that's where a lot of companies get, I think, lost in the, okay, I've got data, I don't know what to do with it, or to go, like, your channel, of sales. Well, that's a brand message. It's also a marketing.
Nathan Freystaetter (18:26.694)
Yeah, you're telling a story. You're putting the pieces together.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:47.286)
I call it marketing operations, building the engine that generates sales. It's also then, where do you then spend and focus and prioritize the where? Where do you inform, inspire, and educate, whether it's on social platforms, whether it's in advertising, whether it's in trade shows and events, whether it's in email marketing, whatever those tactics are. But a lot of it starts in uncovering kind of that.
the why and the what. That does hold a lot of companies back, but data is the biggest piece of that. It really is.
Nathan Freystaetter (19:28.958)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And the more, and the more I'm adding to that point, the more data you can capture, the clearer story you can tell. Right. So, so for example, like it's not just 60 % female, it might be, they're coming on their mobile apps during a certain time of day and, they have, they have kids. and it turns out they're coming because, they had a certain problem.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:39.402)
that's right, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:49.484)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:00.062)
after, I don't know, drop-offs after school. And so now you have this whole story of...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:02.081)
Right, now we have this whole story, or you find that, ooh, we're getting a lot of activity, they love this type of content. We're motivating and we're moving people around this content theme, but we're not getting people to act. And so it's like, okay, do we need to, messaging changes to get people.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:12.84)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:22.472)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:30.258)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:31.576)
to go from I'm aware of you, to consider you, to then prefer you, and how do we change those messages as we push people through those elements? And not every tactic can do all of those. And because we know messages have to change, well, the tactics and the platforms to do that also changes. data informs so much.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:38.216)
to move.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:49.64)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (20:53.438)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:01.898)
But it's, and I don't know if this is, you and I have talked about this in other conversations. My sphere of influence in the type of companies that we've worked with, I think you did a, maybe I'm reading into it, a ha ha for you when I was like, don't assume that, Capital One had the ginormous company, but I was like, don't assume that a,
Nathan Freystaetter (21:02.27)
.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:29.294)
$50 million company or a $250 million company or a $500 million company has the data that they need. Or are looking at the correct data, because that's the people we work with and we're coming in and we're building some of those infrastructures and uncovering some of those and going, don't you have this data? No, I don't have it. Not at a scalable.
or someone is holding it and it hasn't been uncovered yet. And I don't know if that was, you and I were like, you're like, no, I should be working with these type of, I'm like, don't assume that that's.
Nathan Freystaetter (22:04.616)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (22:15.218)
When I hear that, my whole body starts to get really tight. Like, my gosh, there's a treasure trove of information. And I just want to go into it and see what is there? What can we do? And it's mind blowing that there's this concept that data is a new oil. there are companies, it blows my mind that there are companies of that size that are sitting on these oil wells that they aren't tapping into at all. And they don't know it. They don't even know it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:24.322)
Right, right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:40.546)
No, no, I mean we were, and either they don't know it or I would say the wrong people know it, the right people don't. So, and that's where we, you know, we see that a lot of times.
We come in and we're having conversations with the C-level executive. We're asking tough questions. Tell me about your brand. Why do people do business with you? Why don't they do business with you? And like said, these are $250 million company. These are half billion dollar companies. These are people with thousands of employees and staff. And they can't even answer the question. The people running the company of
Nathan Freystaetter (23:25.714)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:35.438)
I have no idea why we are losing sales. Like I've never asked the question, why don't people do business with us? Or, oh well we're just, you know, we're happy with a 5 % growth. And I'm like, but your category is growing at a 25%. And I'll get a little like, how do you know that? I'm like, how do you not know that?
Or there's opportunity to go, you're leaving yourself vulnerable for a newcomer to come in this space because you guys haven't even evaluated why customers like you and why don't they? what's your, and then just basic sales. You would be shocked at just basic sales data.
of, I call it what's the slippage, right? So you go, what's your close rate? Sales conversion to close rate, well then what's the slippage there because there's always gonna be some slippage? And then what's the retention? different industries have different, like if you're an e-commerce sales,
It might just be a one time thing, you're trying to get, know, whether subscription service or, you know, are they returning as, you know, return customers? That would be ideal. If it's in B2B, you can really kind of map. But it's amazing how even just those, what I call basic sales data isn't known. And sometimes it is when you ask those questions, as the agency, we become the enemy.
and and we become a threat and so ours like our sales process we have to like it becomes part of therapy and that's why I call brand therapy because we become counselors and therapists because we got to deal with the people equation of You know, let's break down the we're not a threat. We're not Because we're providing solution That literally could just
Nathan Freystaetter (25:48.453)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:00.142)
create so much freedoms within those, the senior executives, and especially the people that are, you know, wearing the stress of how, you know, I wanna get to that next level, or I wanna make sure my shareholders are, or my board of directors, you know, that I need them off my back. But a lot of it is the data isn't uncovered, it's sitting in, or they're doing it hand calculation.
Nathan Freystaetter (26:11.09)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (26:22.184)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:29.802)
It's not a visible dashboard for someone to look at on a more global basis because you still have to deal with people that go, ooh, I'm self-reporting my own data because that's what happens. You go into the, and it's this, you know, some executive is self-reporting. Well, our close rate's 80%. And then you got somebody else going, our retention rates.
Nathan Freystaetter (26:30.099)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (26:38.408)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (26:46.481)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:59.308)
You know, 50%. But then the finance guy, the CFO's going, but that doesn't make sense. But sometimes it could be six months, it could be three years before that's caught up to him. You know what I mean?
Nathan Freystaetter (27:16.37)
Because you're saying because they're self reporting, they're not getting the right numbers. That's not accurate.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:18.636)
Yeah, they're self-rate, it's not visible to, and it's not necessarily accurate, it's not coming from, you know, because I was like, we get under the hood and we're like, your close rate's like 8%. It is not 60%. You know, you got an 8 % close rate, dude. I'm like, that's not good. And then it becomes, well, why, you know, and then why is that?
Nathan Freystaetter (27:22.588)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (27:26.366)
So the numbers will add up.
Nathan Freystaetter (27:34.236)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (27:43.612)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:48.308)
It's okay. How do we and how do we get to that? You know that growth if we just change that by 10 % or if you go into like just digital of your you have you know 50 % card abandonment. why is that our experience sucks if we just tighten that and we click, you know just Increase that or decrease that abandonment by 15 % we could make goal. I mean, it's just but people don't look at data
Nathan Freystaetter (27:56.242)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (28:15.24)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:18.262)
like that or don't go deep and and I don't know so I know we got on a tangent there but you're it is
Nathan Freystaetter (28:18.568)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (28:29.086)
It's a discipline, right? It's a discipline to be able to build those reports and keep your teams accountable on those numbers. It's a lot easier to say, hey, I'm hitting 80 % close rates instead of showing I'm doing it only as 8%. Is that what you meant earlier? I wanted to ask that there were some, the bad, the wrong people knew the information. The people who don't want accountability are not sharing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:42.35)
8%.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:48.782)
Yes, yes, it is correct, correct, it's correct. Because then it becomes, I don't wanna lose my job, right? I don't wanna look like I don't know what I'm doing. I've had this position for five years, 10 years, sometimes we see 20 years in a position and they're doing things the way and they,
Nathan Freystaetter (29:01.0)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (29:05.554)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (29:11.442)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:17.654)
And now it's like, okay, how do we bring some technology in?
Nathan Freystaetter (29:21.18)
Yeah. So these companies, it's really a peep comes into a people problem.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:25.322)
it's a people and process. People and process for breaking into that, right? And then when you, the problem solving becomes, it's usually a, okay, we have a process problem, or we've got a branding problem, or we've got a people problem, or people don't know how to sell, they don't know the scripts.
Nathan Freystaetter (29:27.848)
people in process, people in process. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (29:42.427)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (29:47.922)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:53.708)
We've got a, maybe it's a people and process problem of we don't really have a customer service role that's helping with retention. So we've got a retention problem. So how do we maybe hire or do we shift people's roles or do we put a process in place that then helps to remind people why they're doing business with us? So it becomes.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:00.572)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:07.272)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:20.222)
Mm-hmm. All right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:23.672)
You know, when we look at the branding, marketing, and advertising kind of framework, marketing is really developing and conveying the brand message, but across the seven piece, right? It's how is it conveyed on the website, but how is it conveyed to people, but all the people, whether it's in channel or if it's internally.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:36.69)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:47.432)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (30:52.402)
Yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:52.93)
Do we have the right processes to empower people? And the right processes to manage to our KPIs? And do we have the right physical presence? mean, are we in the right place? Do people have access to us the way that they need to have access to it? I mean, so are we telling our story, our product, and our service value story in the way that it needs to be told?
Nathan Freystaetter (30:55.901)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (31:01.971)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (31:19.43)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:20.718)
I mean, so you look at all those, that's the marketing operations, that's the engine. But data helps you uncover those things, right? The brand is just telling that story, yeah. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (31:25.331)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (31:29.436)
Right. Yeah. And I love, I love that you're looking at, I love that you're looking at all this. It goes beyond marketing and you're more of a holistic consult, consultative partner on let's help improve the outcomes and marketing is one piece, but it's really comes down to how does everything work together?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:39.31)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:45.418)
It all comes down to, that's right. And that's how big agencies, or I would say big global companies, like the Capital One probably had not just an agency that was managing their brand and managing the advertising, it was already based on all this, but they had a whole team. That's all they did was manage the perceptions and the attitudes of how Capital One was, you know, their,
Nathan Freystaetter (32:05.65)
Yes. Yes.
with you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:14.542)
brand reputation both internally as well as externally and they had teams, hundreds, they were spending probably millions, millions of dollars on that engine, the brand engine, the marketing engine and the advertising engine. But you go into like a smaller enterprise or even a mid-size enterprise, they haven't been taught that nor have they had the ability to
Nathan Freystaetter (32:16.755)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (32:20.445)
Mm-hmm.
this.
Nathan Freystaetter (32:29.267)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:44.352)
afford, you know, or if they think, I'm going to get a big agency to help us. Well, that big agency is used to having the brand already done or the engine already in place. And so a lot of agencies, if they're really big, aren't able to walk and help build that structure. smaller companies like some of those bigger agencies won't even talk, won't even answer the phone for a small company. Like if you don't have two million dollars.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:03.784)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:12.413)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:14.114)
to spend, ain't talking to you. And that's where I came out of the big agency and was like, ooh, there is such a gap in these smaller enterprises, these mid-sized companies, because they need it. Man, they could accelerate. If we know the data that we need to uncover, we can find it, and then we can help build that structure, build those engines, help them accelerate and grow.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:16.082)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:23.186)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:28.894)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (33:34.957)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:44.474)
And and I know this can be an aha for you Nathan because I because I sit with different Agency owners across the country we get together not you know every once in a while and we have kind of our little round tables of What you know, what's the biggest thing or we get asked questions a lot and and You would be surprised at how many again, I'm not talking about startups right like
Nathan Freystaetter (33:51.326)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:12.396)
you know, we're coming in doing business plans and stuff. I'm talking about like 250 million dollar companies and we'll walk in and say, what's your KPI? Like what's the business goals? And they'll have these very big, you know, their financial goals. And I was like, okay, so what's the action plan to get there?
And then what's the KPIs that are the indicators to make sure that you are tracking towards that big financial goal? The outcomes, basics. You would be surprised. Like I see it all the time. Those are the questions we ask and we help put those action plans together. And I'm so, and you know, then I have to question myself to go, God, is it just the companies we're working with? Is that why they're, but when I get with 50 other agency owners,
Nathan Freystaetter (34:43.742)
Yeah, basic stuff, Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (34:51.805)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:05.038)
and about my size, kind of, and do what we do, similar, and that's kind of a common thread. It is, it's really eye-opening of, so the need for companies like us and like yours to kind of together is, I mean, it's literally, it could be so impactful.
Nathan Freystaetter (35:33.758)
Yeah, I think your journey sounds very similar in the sense that we're coming from this big, the big corporate world and we're making these like enterprise grade resources available to the mid-size enterprises, the smaller enterprises.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:36.6)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:40.174)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:47.212)
Right, it's, and I know you're going, I'm in sales. It's what we try to do and I'm sure we're getting the, do I need you? Is it a sign of vulnerability if I bring you in? Because sometimes it is. It's a CEO or a C level, like somebody that is truly,
Nathan Freystaetter (36:06.344)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:16.568)
passionate about, you know, hitting those goals, has to be somewhat humble to bring teams like us in to help.
Nathan Freystaetter (36:25.906)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (36:31.047)
they would want to have the therapy. In those words.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:33.986)
Yes, they need the brand, they're therapy, data therapy. go there, process therapy. But it helps, like all like the stress. We see, and we see kind of like, I have answers for the first time. I mean, I know, I think I've, one of our clients, I think I've told you, like he asked, like we ask a question and he's like, we can do that? Like sometimes they just don't even know what's possible.
Nathan Freystaetter (36:38.824)
Data therapy, process therapy, yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (36:47.421)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (37:02.067)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:03.374)
And I know you're new in the journey, but have you had any of those stories of where you're just seeing like light bulbs go off?
Nathan Freystaetter (37:15.87)
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I was talking with a real estate company that's been around for 60 years, two generation company, and they had a previous CFO that was producing all the reports on a high level, but not sharing the granular details of where the money is coming in from, where the money is going. And they have hundreds of agents, real estate agents that they don't even have insights on how their performance is.
And we had collected some preliminary data, signed an NDA and built some dashboards for them. And when I shared this with the leadership team, they all started looking at each other and brainstorming. First of this is amazing. We can actually see what's happening. they just turned towards each other and just started rattling off. What else can we do? What other information do we need?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:59.171)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (38:11.592)
For them, was just like, it was this exciting moment of seeing them realize what they were missing this whole time. And like when they saw that they could have this capability. And it's exciting, right? It creates this atmosphere of, we're gonna solve it. We're going to figure something out here. We're going to create value. We're gonna make life better for the leadership.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:20.718)
It's therapy, Nathan, it's therapy.
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (38:36.606)
for the agents and ultimately for the customers. It's a win, win, win. And for me, that's the kind of business I want to operate is where wherever I go, whenever I sell, whenever I work with someone, there's always a win, win, win for me, for the company leadership, for the employees and for the customers.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:53.932)
Yeah, so that's is that what's rewarding about starting Go Fig? Has that been the most rewarding part since you've started the journey?
Nathan Freystaetter (39:02.174)
That is what drives me, period. It drives me, period. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:06.578)
okay. It's that, I was talking to another founder the other night for dinner and we were talking about that's kind of, we share that ethos about each other. I think that's probably why you and I connect too of like, how can I pour into somebody else's cup, whatever. You know, whether it's the company we work for or our, you know, our
our employees or the companies that were and their clients and their constituents and their stakeholders. It's, you know, it's that how do we pay that forward? Whose cup am I pouring into? But yeah, the win, the win, the win, the win. It brings so much joy.
Nathan Freystaetter (39:43.368)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (39:51.538)
of that.
Yeah, it does. It really does.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:57.102)
So you're starting out and like you're gaining some traction, right? It's just how do you amplify your offering, right? That's really where you are.
Nathan Freystaetter (40:04.678)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (40:12.304)
It's getting to the point of scaling a little bit, right? Because we got a few pilots in, and now it's how do we make that replicable to more and more potential clients? And I think a big part of that too is what I'm working on now is creating a repeatable sales process. And so I've built a process to get code leads, to nurture them, and to convert them to
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:33.187)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (40:42.142)
customer. And that's an iterative process. I'm learning a lot because this is all new to me. But I'm doing a lot of trialing, a lot of testing, lot of just figuring things out.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:51.758)
That's Yeah, and then look at the data. That's what, yeah, that's the advertising. That's that part of you gotta keep looking at it. Because again, it could be the medium. that shouldn't be maybe an email me. That should be a social media DM or something or maybe a phone call or...
Nathan Freystaetter (40:56.559)
And then look at the data too. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:21.1)
or it may be the message, know, gotta get the right message at the right time to the right people and experiment testing. It's, yeah, I joke when people go, I've got this, I've got a tried and true formula for, and I just apply it to every industry and I'm like, yeah, no, you don't. it, no, like that doesn't exist. I've been doing it for 30 years. I can assure you, there is no formula. It is very specific to every company.
Nathan Freystaetter (41:26.078)
people.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:50.606)
There might be some general things of what works and what doesn't, but there is no media plan that is a copy pasta. That does not work. So as you're starting to get, so scaling, you're going through the, okay, I gotta duplicate the product.
Nathan Freystaetter (42:07.474)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:18.306)
the service offering and the value and now you're scaling it form. What about approaching it from a brand and because you've got such a good handle on what GoFig is, how you want to be.
Are you translating them like as you recruit people onto your team? Have you thought through any of those things or are you like, I'm just doing this little, I'm focusing on this thing now.
Nathan Freystaetter (42:51.912)
like a company culture.
Nathan Freystaetter (42:57.278)
I think it has to be a little bit of slice up the business into different chunks and then deep dive into it. For a lot of last year, my brain was on the product, how to get to a product that meets the needs in a way that is accessible to business users, right? Because data can be technical and we wanted to simplify that. And we have an MVP, we built an MVP and we've continued to iterate that. And that's where our team of three engineers right now is.
on that and they've kind of taken that from me. So now my brain space is on the, know, earlier this year was on the website and marketing and positioning, kind of taking feedback from our earlier pilots, from our customers, getting their input, realizing there are certain things that's, we're making them hesitant of our product. And the,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:42.083)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:52.76)
Hmm, like what was that?
Nathan Freystaetter (43:56.242)
The biggest thing that people were concerned about was being stuck on a platform where you would not have full control of your data, but your data would be kind of in our silo. And the customers wanted to have full ownership of their data. And so we did make a pivot to now we're building the data infrastructure in the Google Cloud ecosystem. And now...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:09.997)
Okay.
Nathan Freystaetter (44:25.018)
you as our clients would have full control of their data.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:29.39)
So you can download or export however you need it. Okay.
Nathan Freystaetter (44:33.682)
Yes, and you can integrate it with other tools the way you need it and your teams can use their tools that they prefer. But we are the analytics layer that sits on top of that infrastructure. So now that your business users, the frontline employees, the senior leadership that doesn't want to go into a technical tool set can come into GoFig and get the information they need that way. that's...
That is what I've been hearing more and more. And so we made that pivot. We made the changes to the website to improve the messaging. And now we're targeting more companies like them, like those two successful pilots, and repeating that process and incorporating that into our sales messaging of, you know, hey, do you need these? Like, are you in need of
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:23.918)
Gotcha, gotcha.
Nathan Freystaetter (45:30.962)
building out an infrastructure that works for you, while also making it accessible to the leaders, non-technical users.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:34.018)
Right, so very.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:40.718)
Right, so a more adaptable, agile tool that really doesn't exist on the market right now.
Nathan Freystaetter (45:55.206)
So Jennifer, can't hear you anymore. I don't know what to do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:56.626)
did you hear? I said, with those changes, you've really kind of built something that's more agile and more adaptable than other tools that are on the marketplace that kind of, I mean, you get flooded with like the data rails and all that, but they're way more rigid. They've got good sales messaging, but then when you use them, they don't really live up to what the promise is.
Nathan Freystaetter (46:16.008)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (46:25.454)
And I hear this all the time. Like one of our pilots, they're using data box right now and data boxes, similar to data rails where it's out of the box, but they don't have the full customizability. And everything that they put in there stays there. You can't bring it out. so they're having this frustration of, I hire someone to invest in building something inside this platform?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:30.316)
Yeah, we've used it, yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:37.56)
Nope, nope.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:43.586)
Nope, yep.
Nathan Freystaetter (46:54.046)
But then I'm stuck on this platform that doesn't grow with me. And it costs money.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:57.048)
And it costs money. And it cost a lot of money. mean, especially for what you get, it cost a lot of money. And then you have to add team time, whether you hire that person or like, you know, we would build those for clients. And it's like, this is, you know, there's gotta be a better way for stuff. yeah. So do you feel like, I know you kinda coming in as a founder, you went.
Nathan Freystaetter (47:03.507)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (47:06.952)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:26.19)
to and did the boot camp. Was that a good thing? Was that valuable for you to help you leapfrog? As you said, it's coming as a founder. It's not really clear of how to start a company. Did that help you with that? Okay.
Nathan Freystaetter (47:45.586)
Yeah, it totally did. It totally did Jennifer. in fact, I've actually done, you know, we started this call talking about my journey early on. And I mentioned that I didn't have this community and mentorship. And what has been different this time around is that I've tapped into the mentorship opportunities in the upstate of South Carolina. And there are so many, right? The bootcamp of the platform of career.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:11.758)
There's so many, yeah, yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (48:14.758)
was instrumental, they focused specifically on the customer, finding ideal customer, interviewing people and getting that initial feedback. That was really helpful. That's where I my first big pivot where initially I thought I was providing data for restaurants and bars. And when I talked with them through that bootcamp that they helped me get connections with, we realized
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:33.56)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (48:44.218)
They were just not in a place where that was helpful for them. Where, then we had a separate conversation with a bigger software development company. And that was like an immediate need right off the first conversation that we saw five different opportunities that we can help them with. that like, you know, back to back juxtaposition of those conversations really struck a chord and
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:48.91)
Great.
Nathan Freystaetter (49:12.83)
Who should I be targeting? Who is my deal? And having those mentors kind of guide me through that process of figuring that out was really helpful. these are all these like, this is maybe not a micro decision, it's a bigger decision, but in starting a company, there's so many micro decisions that you have to just make a decision and then move on. Yeah, exactly. And without that mentorship,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:15.191)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:34.392)
Great. And test it, validate it. Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (49:41.662)
I would be making the same mistakes that everyone else has made. But with the mentorship, we can kind of skip a few steps and get there faster. In addition to that, I've been working with the platform. Furman University has their own bootcamp. I went through that program and did a pitch with them. GVL starts. They gave me a big giant check for the pitch competition there too.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:47.427)
That's right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:58.54)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:02.39)
Okay, so the GVL starts, that, yes, yep, yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:10.094)
That's right.
Nathan Freystaetter (50:11.374)
I went through SCRA, the South Carolina Research Authority, which has given me a grant to help kickstart building the team. And they've also given resources, got me connected with investors and helped me formulate my initial sales strategy. And now I'm also now with NextGen, which is another advisory for startups in Greenville and
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:14.99)
Yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:22.562)
Nice.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:33.474)
Very good. That's right.
Nathan Freystaetter (50:39.134)
They do a lot of events and we do a lot of networking. We meet other founders and advisors and like this just like this. It's so it's amazing. It's amazing. And it's been such. Such an amazing support system for me from the emotional side from the like. You know self care side and. Also just like.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:46.56)
ecosystem is... Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:59.662)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (51:08.442)
on the accountability side of I'm committed, people are rooting for me and they're supportive of me and we're going to keep working towards what we said we were gonna do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:11.459)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:23.5)
Yeah, well, a lot of it is and and that's kind of that's why I also started OrangeWIP was the to get the the voices out there of of and make it more comfortable to enter into the ecosystem and enter into a community wherever you are, not just the upstate, but like we work with founders all over the country. And the biggest thing that holds a lot of.
founders either from getting out of their garage to like actually start something or to help them scale and keep them from not closing and shuttering within the first three years, which is, know, the stats are high of people can't make it past like, if you make it past one year, great, you make it past three, like, whew, you make it past five.
Nathan Freystaetter (52:19.518)
you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:20.078)
And then the milestone to 10, mean, it just gets better and better. But what keeps people there is not just access to capital, it's access to resources. And resources means information, access to mentors and coaches and boot camps and accelerators. But a lot of times, there's a lot of founders that sit on the sideline.
of these ecosystems because either they don't see themselves there or because of our own like intimidation of fear. All of that happens. And it's just like just enter, just get in, get into the circle. Because I think and I've said this on the show before and I've talked, know, other founders.
Nathan Freystaetter (52:54.971)
Thank
Nathan Freystaetter (53:06.536)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:15.468)
What I find is a similar, a consistent trait. Founders, we've got a lot of grit and gumption. That's like, we have a little bit more drive than I think the normal business leader out there. But I think we're more generous with our time. Like if...
I don't know about you, but anybody that calls me or reach out to me, I do coffees and cocktails and lunches and we go to events and stuff. If somebody needs to chat about something, I think we're here. I've been able to do the same thing of, hey, you're in my industry or you're in my sphere or you're, I like what you're doing. I, 10 minutes, I just wanna ask you a question.
Nathan Freystaetter (54:10.654)
.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:10.894)
I have found just we're more generous that way. So it's almost like this. I want to send a message of if you're out there of a founder or if you're a struggling enterprise of don't be afraid to reach out get in the ecosystem because you will find that it's extremely welcoming.
Nathan Freystaetter (54:15.613)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (54:34.109)
Yeah. And I think the support system helps you, prevents you from losing that motivation that is the main driver for companies going out of business in the first three years. It's not the capital, it's the motivation that makes the decision. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:43.501)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:50.924)
Yeah, because it gets, it's hard. It's a lot harder. So I know we're, but I'm probably gonna go a little over our window. If that's okay, Nathan. I know we would. What has been, or I would say, I mean, you're coming into this and what's been the biggest kind of like myth or misperception?
Nathan Freystaetter (55:03.132)
I knew we would.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:20.398)
of starting this business and getting it to scale that you were like, ooh, no one told me this. Have you entered any of that yet?
Nathan Freystaetter (55:42.026)
I don't think that I have. I think I've been well resourced in kind of... But I think one thing that I will say that has been kind of this aha moment for me is that starting a business is both the easiest thing, but also the hardest thing at the same time. And...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:50.926)
You knew what you were getting into.
Nathan Freystaetter (56:11.294)
That's kind of conflicting. But what I mean by that is that there is a roadmap to start a business. There is a process. There are books, there are resources online, there are mentors, there's community, there are people that can support you along the way. a lot that needs to happen to start a business, but they're all mostly doable with what's available. But it's the hardest thing because
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:19.406)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Freystaetter (56:40.892)
It takes a lot of work. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of and most of it is not paid for the first 18 months. Right. And and you have to have that grit and and really the passion to keep you motivated, to keep you driving the vision that you're doing it for something bigger, not just for a paycheck or an exit or, you know, personal greed. It has to be something bigger beyond just yourself.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:01.164)
Right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:11.054)
It's gotta be whatever the reward, the impact that you wanna see. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (57:11.326)
Exactly. Yes, exactly. that keeps you driven. And that keeps you driven. And that keeps you working those late hours and doing this without pay until you figure it out. That's been how I've, that's the kind of thing that I've, as I put the puzzle pieces together, I've thought about my experience here.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:22.498)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:33.112)
Right.
And when people talk about the hard work, I always call it, it's brain sweat. You're thinking harder than you've ever probably had to think. And you need those outside mentors. I I even do. I have a business coach, but also when that comes to marketing and developing the brand story, I had to step away from it.
Nathan Freystaetter (57:49.05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (58:06.178)
because I'm too, like as the owner, like yes, I can be the judge and even with OrangeWIP, but I needed other people to help develop that because I was too close and wasn't able to see things. Just like when I go in and help other clients, I can see things they can't and challenge those, but it is like you are, you're thinking harder than, and sometimes that, and also you're,
Nathan Freystaetter (58:25.384)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (58:36.098)
You're also thinking about like, how is this going to impact people? Like some of the decisions that you're making could impact how people, you know, get paid. How do you, you know, get fed? And it's it's it is a lot of hard work, but it's it's brain sweat. Hurt burn. Have you what's been the biggest like truly?
Nathan Freystaetter (58:57.33)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:04.619)
Like, shit moment in your journey. Have you had one yet? Like a big, big, no, what have I done?
Nathan Freystaetter (59:13.438)
you
Nathan Freystaetter (59:21.79)
I just put in my two weeks notice at work. This Friday is my last day. So I'm officially leaving America. That's a, it's, it's no shit. It's definitely no shit because I'm, I'm, it's, it's, had I stayed, I've, I could have had the cashflow to support the company into perpetuity without any growth.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:26.382)
look at you. That's a, that should be an aha moment. Or you'd like, no, it's an shit.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:45.048)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (59:50.17)
And now there's this timeline of this doesn't work after a certain point. And the pressure's on that the sales need to come in to be able to support the business. And so it is an shit moment, but it's also, I think a kick in the, kick in the rear, which, which is needed to really make this to work. Because the last thing I want to do is spend three years with my head down building a product and realizing that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:01.006)
Yep. Yep.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:00:20.262)
I can't sell it because a competitor is already taking the market or because they don't want it. so kind of shifting the focus to what we have is an amazing product already and let's go out into the field and sell it. And that needs to happen. That needs to happen sooner and later.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:23.96)
Right. Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:41.422)
there you go. It's the risk. You gotta take the risk. You're jumping. You're jumping off the cliff. But it's also you find freedom in that too. Yeah. I'm excited for you. Yeah. We'll work together. We're gonna take on the world, Nathan. We're gonna get it.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:00:43.238)
It's the risk. have to take the risk. Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:00:55.154)
Yes.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:00:59.027)
Thank you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:11.04)
Okay, I've got to, because you said that like the biggest thing of like the mental, emotional side, the impact and having the community help you. What was the biggest kind of surprise when you self-reflected or where you needed that? I'm like, what was that aspect of it? Was it imposter syndrome or is it something just more of like, I needed, I need to still be pushed, motivating?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:01:39.262)
I'm not sure I understood that question.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:40.876)
You had said one of the best at getting into the community, the ecosystem, wasn't just necessarily the resources of information, but it was the emotional support that you received. We hear that from founders, as like that, the mental wellness aspect of it, we don't do a good job of recognizing.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:01:46.398)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02:10.914)
our mental health. And sometimes we, as we go through the journey, like it took me 10 years to then go, maybe I need to really self reflect and make me a better leader, a better person, because those were ah-has moments for my journey. And I hear that from founders a lot of like, that after they've gotten into it and they've these walls, these barriers, these issues, it becomes these moments of self reflection.
where you do need to have the support of a community to do it. What was your, when you mentioned that, what was your experience?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:02:53.598)
So I sought out that community and network and support system from the very beginning before I even started the company. And I think it's twofold. One, I really wanted to maximize my odds of success. And I that I didn't know what I didn't know. And I was only going to maximize my odds of success. had to go into
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:03:16.238)
So smart, yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:03:24.226)
network of people who have done it before and learn from them and get them on my team. So that was a big one. The second thing is community is important to me. For me, I think a big part of moving to Greenville is to what was to be a part of a thriving city. We intentionally bought downtown so that we could have our kids grow up.
in a place where they're surrounded by people that we know and take care of us. And so it was only natural for me to also want to be, as I'm starting a company, to be amongst other founders who are all working together and supporting each other. And there's another element here where as a founder, you realize the stakes that you have, that you're carrying on yourself, is something that most people aren't carrying. And in the corporate world, I think people are...
you know, a little more free and they don't really understand that life of a founder. They don't understand what it takes to be a founder. And it's hard to relate both for them and for me. And so I need to be with other people who are, who can relate and to kind of have that almost like, you know, friend type therapy where you're venting and talking about this is where I'm at. And they're
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:04:39.8)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:04:45.485)
Right.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:04:51.868)
Honestly, the end of the day, they're also my people, right? They're people who are doing the crazy thing of jumping off a cliff with me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:04:59.234)
That's right. That's right.
No, I totally agree. was, because I started Bright in 2013, but it took me to like get to even find the community in 2018. Didn't realize I needed it. And I walked into a room of, in a cohort and it was, I mean, we all started crying. Like literally there were half a dozen of us crying. They were going, where, why didn't I seek this out?
Finally, people that get the struggles, it's a safe space so I can ask questions and not feel like I'm gonna be taken advantage of for asking things I don't know what I don't know, but I didn't know where to ask those questions. And I wasn't alone in that. So yeah, I'm a huge proponent of
find that community and the entrepreneurial ecosystem is a community. And you will find, yeah, I have found my people, not just here, but connected with thousands of founders across the country. And because friends or family, don't get it and it's hard to, yeah, it's hard to, you can't even.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:06:08.979)
It is.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:06:25.598)
They'll get it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:06:31.53)
express sometimes like just even talk about it, you know, what has surprised you most? I've got just a couple more questions that will rip up. But what surprised you most about yourself in your journey? Like if you've been at what has been a personal aha moment for you?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:07:01.736)
When I had a really.
life-changing experience five years ago. Before I was starting GoFig, I started a waffle side hustle. I was going to local bars here in Greenville, setting up a stand and selling waffles to the clientele. And it was a win-win for the bar and for me. it was this amazing experience to be in the food industry and see the customers.
response to the product I was making like was such a I love food. I love food. I'm a huge foodie and I think like if if in another world I could I could have
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:38.638)
So are you a chef? Are you a chef? Are you a foodie?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:50.872)
Like, have no fears, you would be doing a restaurant.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:07:53.982)
Well, so I left my job and I had 300 followers. I had a big following. People were supportive of me. was in the newspaper, the GVL Today, and I was preparing to open up a shop. And in February of 2020, I quit my job and took the leap. In February of 2020, I took the leap to start a food company right before
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:14.126)
How?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:18.902)
and
Nathan Freystaetter (01:08:23.684)
pandemic started and it didn't take long for me to realize that this was not going to work out. And that was the first time that I really made that bet on myself to take the leap and it was I think it was one of those moments where you did something that you believe in in the world, came crashing down and said no, that's not the right time. But
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:28.93)
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:47.32)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:08:54.492)
I proved something to myself at that moment. That I can bet on myself.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:56.717)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:09:02.088)
And that I can do anything that I my heart and mind on. If there's a big enough problem that I believe in, I could do it. Doesn't matter if it's food, if it's data, if it's problem solving, if it's entering mid-size enterprises and solving very complex problems. I knew that I could do it. And that opened up the whole world of opportunities to me that nothing's going to stop me. Nothing's going to prevent me from doing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:09:27.874)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:09:31.304)
what I want to do, not even this global pandemic that changed the world.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:09:32.482)
Yeah.
That's right. my gosh. But it's like to see how everything kind of dot connects together of you were doing that passion foodie, but in the restaurant food space, which then opened your eyes of like the challenges probably around that community of data finances, how to like deal with those. How do they overcome the problem?
Now I see why you were, when you started GoFig, it was focused on that industry, that category, because those were your people.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:10:11.134)
Exactly. Yep. Those are my people. had a community that I've, before I built the product, we were doing customer interviews with them and they all wanted more information. And so we built a product with them in mind initially. And there's also like just a strong community in that world too.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:10:36.396)
Yeah. Hospitality space.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:10:39.366)
It's amazing. It really is. mean, it's a hard world. It's a really hard world that people are very supportive. And going back to why another reason why I chose the name Go Fig is because one of one of our one of our one of our like premier waffles that was a fan favorite was our fig and brie waffle. We call it the honey honey brie waffle. And there were dried figs cut up with brie and honey. And it was still my favorite thing to create.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:10:48.59)
was like, because it's pigs.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:11:09.342)
I fell in love with Figs and I wanted that to be part of the new name.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:11:13.038)
You and I relate on the fig level. Figs are my thing. My favorite island is Ocracoke in the Outer Banks, which is, they have a fig festival every June. But figs, they have probably dozens, dozens of varieties of figs growing all over the island. And I didn't realize there were that many varieties of different figs.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:11:39.504)
Yeah, I plan to go there for summer.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:11:41.432)
but I love them, they're so good. So Nathan, mean, you kind of said that, just take the leap, you were like, I can do anything. Like, no matter what this, I know I can bet on myself. Which is such a good, powerful statement for a lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs, even ones that have been, you know,
They're 20 years in their business. When I talk to them and they reflect back, that's an aha moment for them that I've heard time and time again of I took a bet on myself. Is that the advice you would give other founders or is there other piece of advice that you've been given that you were like, my God, this was the best piece of advice I've ever, and I apply this.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:12:39.038)
I think the advice I would give to founders is you won't know until you try something. The first time around may not succeed, but live out of fear that it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. Think about the long time, the long-term game and where you want your life to be at the end. Don't chase the dream of a quick win or easy money. Like that's never going to happen.
you know, think, think about where you want to be and start taking the steps towards that path. And it's not going to be an easy path. It's not, it's, it's, and there could be failures and it could be hardship. And that's, that's part of it, but it's, it's, it's something that with persistence and, you know, the strong enough passion towards that vision you have for yourself, you will get there.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:13:16.94)
Yeah.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:13:38.396)
And it's just a matter of time. And the sooner you start and sooner you jump and make the bet on yourself, the sooner you're going to get there.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:13:46.07)
and find your community, because we're here to support. Find the community, yeah. Because, yeah, people will put their arms around you, for sure. All right, last two questions. If you summed up your entrepreneurial journey in just one word, what would that word be and why?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:13:48.03)
And find your community too. Yes.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:13:55.55)
That's right.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:14:06.024)
community. Yeah, going back to everything here. That's, that's the reason for it all is, is, is we're entering into this AI world. And where more and more things are going to be automated. But one thing that will always be here is the human touch, the human relationships. And that's the human experience. That is the most important thing. And that's what we're building for and why we exist.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:14:25.742)
That's right. Human experience. Yep.
That's right.
And now looking at next chapter in your journey. What word sums up that journey?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:14:39.526)
Uncertainty. I have no idea what the next next year is gonna look like. But I'm, I'm diving deep in and gonna do constantly be learning and constantly trying things and constantly be
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:14:46.691)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:14:53.934)
You're going to do great. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know why I just know you're going to because because you're a data you uncover the data but you also know how to to find the insights in that data to problem solve. So you're going to you're going to succeed just because of that data always wins. In my opinion. All right. So if we OK so next year next March.
We regroup, what are we celebrating?
What milestone are we celebrating?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:15:34.942)
We're gonna buy an office. Or move into an office. Next March, the goal will be to have a team of five. That will happen. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:15:36.61)
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:15:41.346)
Go Fig. Go Fig gets shelter. I love it. We're gonna celebrate it. We're manifesting it. We're putting it out in the universe. It's gonna happen. All right. All right, Nathan. The last, very last question. Where do you want people to find more information about Go Fig?
Nathan Freystaetter (01:16:04.702)
I'd love to get connected if you're a founder and want to catch up and talk through these things. I'm always here to chat. If you are running a company and data is something that you want to get a better hold of and get more value from, I would love to chat there as well. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. Search for my name, Nathan Freystaetter. I'm the only one with that name.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:16:30.946)
that name.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:16:34.782)
You can sign up for my newsletter at gofig.ai. At the footer of website, there's a button to sign up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:16:43.01)
And it's a good one. It's a good one. Thank you, Nathan. I know we we always ran long, but I love our conversations. They're they're so fun. know I know everybody needs to hear these things. We we talk data and insights problem solving for companies. But for everyone listening or watching us, thank you for joining us. And this podcast is available on all your favorite
Nathan Freystaetter (01:16:46.75)
Thanks so much.
Nathan Freystaetter (01:16:53.106)
They're great. I'm so excited to work with each other.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:17:12.526)
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