Building AI-Powered Finance Infrastructure for the Mid-Market with Nathan Freystaetter of Go Fig 5-27-26

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Becker Business

Episode: Building AI-Powered Finance Infrastructure for the Mid-Market with Nathan Fristetter of Go Fig
Date: May 27, 2026
Host: Scott Becker
Guest: Nathan Fristetter, Founder of Go Fig

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Episode Overview

This episode features a dynamic conversation between Scott Becker and Nathan Fristetter, founder of Go Fig, a company dedicated to building financial data infrastructure and AI-driven automation for mid-market finance teams. The discussion centers around empowering mid-sized companies—especially in real estate and property management—to automate financial operations, leverage AI analytics, and fundamentally reshape how smaller organizations approach growth, efficiency, and innovation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin and Vision of Go Fig

[01:53–02:52]

• Background: Nathan shares his experience as a data scientist at Capital One and Square, and how he recognized mid-market CFOs' lack of centralized, AI-ready data systems.
• Go Fig’s Mission: To take companies “from brittle Excel world” to robust, systemized, and AI-supported operations.
• Core Offering:
  • Clean and unify company data
  • Build an infrastructure layer
  • Layer AI analysts on top to systematize and automate manual tasks

“Most mid-market companies never invested in having a centralized data layer... when we’re going into this AI world, they’re not prepared to start building agentic automations... So, we come in, clean up their data, build a system underneath, and then layer in AI analysts on top.”
— Nathan Fristetter [01:56]

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2. Focus Shift: From Reporting to Automation

[03:08–04:05]

• Initial Focus: Building dashboards and reports.
• Current Shift: Recognizing the need for automating actual finance tasks, not just surfacing data.
• AI Tools in Play:
  • Mention of Claude for Excel and OpenClaw as transformative tools for automating “burdensome, high-manual” finance processes (e.g., month-end closing, reporting).

“...People are busy... they can't just go into a dashboard and dig in. What they really need is jobs to be done for them. What's really exciting is seeing tools like Claude for Excel and OpenClaw... completely automate high-manual tasks.”
— Nathan Fristetter [03:31]

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3. Go Fig’s Customer Base & Industry Impact

[04:14–05:33]

• Primary Industries: Real estate and property management.
• Customer Struggles:
  • Disparate systems, lack of deep analytics
  • Reliance on canned PDF reports, minimal ability for insight
• Go Fig’s Value: Deep integration with existing industry software, enabling actionable answers to high-stakes questions such as incentive optimization amid shrinking commission rates and margin pressures.
• Industry Context: First time in years that real estate brokerages are seeing net profit decline; Go Fig is providing new tools to adapt.

“We found a groove with real estate companies... A lot of the tools that have been built are not sophisticated. They’re limited to canned reports and can’t go deeper. We come in and work closely with CFOs to answer questions like, ‘How can we help refactor our incentive structure?’”
— Nathan Fristetter [04:24]

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4. The Acceleration of AI Adoption in the Mid-Market

[05:42–07:10]

• 2026 Trend: Non-technical professionals are now rapidly adopting accessible AI tools like Claude.
• Comparisons: Contrasts AI’s swift proven value with Bitcoin’s ongoing uncertainty.
• What’s Next: Predicts continued acceleration, with mid-market CFOs evolving from hands-on Excel users to leaders of automated system design.

“In three years we’re seeing [AI] is not hallucinating anymore, it’s actually doing a lot of really valuable work... CFOs will evolve from people who love Excel to being able to hand off those systems to engineers and free up their time for higher impact work.”
— Nathan Fristetter [06:00]

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5. Real Use Cases: Automating Sales, Marketing & Operations

[07:29–09:04]

• Internal Example (Go Fig):
  • A 4-person company with no sales team built an automated sales/marketing flywheel using OpenClaw.
  • Integrations include social content generation, CRM updates, tailored email outreach, and call transcript analytics.
• Market Validation:
  • Other small companies requested similar solutions after seeing Go Fig’s results; already landed two new contracts.

“We built out OpenClaw to connect to all our systems... It generates tailored messages, updates my CRM, creates blog content. Instead of hiring a whole sales and marketing team, I built the go-to-market flywheel using OpenClaw.”
— Nathan Fristetter [07:45]

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6. Advice for Emerging Entrepreneurs

[09:19–11:06]

• Smaller Companies, More Entrepreneurs: Predicts a sea change due to AI: “Companies will become smaller; more founders, more boutique firms” will emerge.
• Adoption Imperative:
  • Fear not the impending changes.
  • Start adopting AI early, even while still at a larger company.
  • Traditional MBA playbooks may not work in the near future.

“Don’t be afraid of this change... Start adopting AI now and lean into it before you have to. The playbooks you learned in an MBA program that worked for 100 years might not work in the next five.”
— Nathan Fristetter [10:35]

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7. Unlocking High-Value Work with AI

[11:25–12:10]

• Automation’s Impact:
  • AI automates the “drudgery” and frees humans for value-driving activities (relationship building, strategic thinking).
  • “80% of the work is not value adding,” so AI lets teams focus on the critical 20%.

“What the system has really allowed us to do is automate the drudgery of running a business and free up time to do high-value, impactful work – which is what we’re supposed to be doing anyway, isn’t it, Scott?”
— Nathan Fristetter [11:54]

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8. Getting Started with AI: Practical Tips

[12:22–14:14]

• Start Small:
  • Nathan’s entry point: Connected OpenClaw to Gmail just to filter spam; simple integration, instant benefit.
  • Encourage others to look for tiny tasks as a gateway to larger automations.
• Peer Learning:
  • Find local or online groups, share experiments, and learn from shared experiences.

“Start small with something—when I first installed OpenClaw I just wanted it to filter my spam. One integration, it worked. For anyone not knowing where to start with AI, just think of the smallest thing that annoys you.”
— Nathan Fristetter [12:29]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Coming Surge of Small Firms:
  “Companies are going to continue to be smaller and smaller... There are going to be a lot of small companies that will be able to be quite successful with five to ten employees.”
  — Nathan Fristetter [09:50]

• On the Real Value of Work:
  “80% of the work that we do is not value adding... The real value is the human conversations and touchpoints.”
  — Nathan Fristetter [11:27]

• On Learning by Doing:
  “Just start small, test, grow into it, and then you find bigger and bigger use cases.”
  — Nathan Fristetter [13:25]

• Theme of Accessibility:
  “AI is three years in and is already delivering real, reliable value... Unlike Bitcoin, AI is not just theoretical.”
  — Nathan Fristetter [06:00]

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Important Timestamps

• 01:53 — Nathan’s background and Go Fig’s origin story.
• 03:08 — Shift from dashboards to automation via AI.
• 04:14 — Vertical focus: real estate and property management.
• 05:42 — 2026 AI adoption trends and what excites Nathan.
• 07:29 — OpenClaw’s impact on Go Fig’s own operations.
• 09:19 — Advice on embracing change and AI for new entrepreneurs.
• 12:22 — Practical guidance on starting with AI automations.
• 13:43 — The value of guides and peer learning in AI adoption.

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Conclusion

Nathan Fristetter and Go Fig exemplify how mid-market companies can seize the unprecedented opportunities of accessible, practical AI to automate operations, navigate economic shifts, and remain competitive. The discussion emphasizes starting small, experimenting, and connecting with peers—all while being unafraid to rewrite the century-old playbook for running a successful business in the AI age.

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Transcript

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[Scott Becker]

This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant entrepreneur and advisor. We're joined today by Nathan Fristetter. Nathan's the founder of Go Fig. He's going to tell us about the origin story, how he got started, where he's focused and a lot more. Nathan, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Take a moment and tell us about yourself and the founding of Go Fig.

[Nathan Fristetter]

Scott, it's great to be here. Nice to see you again. My name is Nathan. I'm the founder of Go Fig. I spent the last year 10 years of my career as a data scientist in Fortune 500 financial services companies like Capital One and Square. And what we've started in the last one year is building a financial data infrastructure and AI analyst for mid market CFOs. Most mid market companies really never invested in having a centralized data layer and so now when we're going into this AI world, they're not prepared to really start building out the agentic automations that a lot of enterprises are able to do right now and so their finance teams are still living in this brittle Excel world. We come in, we clean up their data, we build a system underneath their data and then layer in the AI analysts on top of that to make, make, make things systemized and take off the manual grind.

[Scott Becker]

And how much of your focus today is on is that different than when you started the company? And how much of the focus today is on that trying to utilize more and more artificial intelligence and technology tools to automate what people are doing?

[Nathan Fristetter]

Yeah, so for the first six months when we started the company, the idea was simply to give people access to their data looking at reports and dashboards, and there's a lot of value to that. But what we've really seen over and over again is that people are busy and they can't just go into a dashboard and dig in to get information. And what they really need is they need jobs to be done for them. And what has been really exciting in the first quarter this year is seeing tools come out that have been able to do that reliably. I'm talking about Claude for Excel, I'm talking about OpenClaw. These are tools that have come in and with the right connections in place, can completely automate very burdensome high manual tasks that are related to the month end processes, accounting workflows and sending out reports to leadership.

[Scott Becker]

Thank you. And how is it going? Who's the core client, the ideal customer today that you're working with and how's it going so far?

[Nathan Fristetter]

Yeah, so we found a groove right now with real estate companies and property management companies. These are companies that have, I mean, they're all independently owned, even if they're franchised, and they all have their own systems in place. And a lot of the tools that have been built for these companies are not very sophisticated. So they are working in systems that generate PDF reports and they're kind of limited to the structure of those canned reports and they can't really go deeper. And so we've come in, we've integrated with the software companies that are used widely in these two industries and worked closely with the CFOs to really dig deeper to answer questions like how can we help refactor our incentive structure for our real estate agents? Because there's this pressure right now where commission rates are dropping from the standard 3%, there's a lot of pressure from customers to drive down that 3% and that's eroding real estate brokerage's margins. And so for the first time ever in the last five years, they're seeing their net profit go down and that's a scary moment for real estate companies and really they have no way of doing this today in the systems they have. So we found a lot of success there.

[Scott Becker]

Fascinating. And take a second, what are you most excited about as you head into the second half of this year? Where are you most focused and most excited?

[Nathan Fristetter]

So I think there's this accelerating Trend. I think 2026 we're seeing non tech people start adopting AI in Claude. There's been a lot of news articles with, with Anthropic and you know, the legal battle they've had with Department of Defense and the US Government that has, has gone viral and tools like the Excel plugin for using Claude has, has been so accessible that people, people have switched over to, to Claude and really seeing the value that it can add compared to say like Bitcoin where we've had Bitcoin for the last 10 years and we still don't know if it's valuable or not. But AI, we're three years in and we're seeing this is not hallucinating anymore, it's actually doing quite a bit of really valuable work and that's going to continue, accelerate over the next 12 months. And what I'm excited to see specifically in the finance space is know the CFOs who are operating in these smaller and mid market companies. How are they going to continue to evolve from people who like having control over their Excel systems to being able to hand off those systems to engineers to build, build the systems that are automated and really free up their time to do more high impact work.

[Scott Becker]

What do you see? What's the pace of evolution that you're seeing? You mentioned this great comparison to Bitcoin where people are really not sure what exactly means, what it is, stuff like that. Here people are seeing real use cases. What are you seeing so far? Where are you seeing the real escalation, the real use cases and so forth.

[Nathan Fristetter]

So here's the biggest use case and I'll give an example of myself. So go fig. We are a four person company. We're small, right by the definition of a small business and we don't really have a dedicated sales team but we've built out and this is something that I'm really proud of as well. We built out Open Claw to connect to all of our systems, our socials, my emails. It gets transcripts of every phone call that I have with prospects and clients and it saves a database of all of these different touch points and there's automated tasks that run based on certain triggers that I set. So conversations that I have will send, will create material for my social channels and my blog. It'll generate really tailored messages and emails and outreach and it'll update my CRM automatically with all the conversations that I have. And so instead of having to hire this full blown out sales and marketing team to do my go to market for me, I built the entire marketing flywheel using OpenClaw. And I've talked about this with a couple of friends who also operate in smaller companies, mid market companies and they've been so fascinated when I showed them what we've done for ourselves that they wanted us to build this for them. And so we've already got two contracts just in the last two weeks, Scott, on building out our own open call system for them.

[Scott Becker]

That's amazing. Well, congratulations. And so you founded this business. Any advice you would give to emerging entrepreneurs, emerging leaders, what an amazing journey you've been on. Any advice for emerging founders, emerging leaders?

[Nathan Fristetter]

So I would say honestly, and this is my standpoint coming from being deep and deep in AI, I think the rule book is going to, you know, to break, break down. The fundamentals don't really change. Right? But, but the way that companies are going to operate is going to change. And my big belief here, Scott, is that companies are going to be smaller. I mean we have these, you saw the Mark Zuckerberg just, just laid off another 8, 000 people this week. And I think, you know, companies are going to continue to be smaller and smaller and what we're going to see as a response is that there's going to be more founders, more entrepreneurs, more people starting these very bespoke and boutique companies that do the things that people specialize in, whether it's marketing or sales or engineering. And I think that's a net, net positive for our economy. I think there'll be some pain, but I think it'll be net positive for our economy. I think there are going to be a lot of small companies that will be able to be quite successful with five to 10 employees. And so the thing that I'd recommend to anyone, especially if you're still employed at a larger company, is don't be afraid of this change that is likely going to happen in the next 12 to 18 months. Just be prepared to start adopting AI now and lean into it before you have to. I think we're going to see very quickly that the benchmarks and the playbooks that you might learn in an MBA program that worked for the last hundred years Might not work in the next five years. And so start adopting and start evolving sooner than later.

[Scott Becker]

It's simple yet remarkable in this sort of where it's going. The ability for smaller firms with five to 20 people to do a remarkable amount of things and do them well if they're using tools. Right. Is really a remarkable change, isn't it?

[Nathan Fristetter]

Yeah, I think so. Right. And when you drill down into it, what you really see is that 80% of the work that we do is not value adding. There are things that have to be done just because they have to be done, like updating a CRM. It doesn't really add value directly. It's important to capture some information, but the real value is having the human conversations and touch points of other people. And I think what the system is really allowed to do is it automates all of those operational tasks. The drudgery of running a business, but free of the time to do more high value impact stuff that drive value to the company. And that's, that's what, that's, that's what we're supposed to be doing anyway, isn't it, Scott?

[Scott Becker]

No, literally. Fantastic. Yeah. Nathan, anything else you want to share with us today? It's amazing to watch your journey and what you're doing. I love it. Anything else you'd like to share with the audience today?

[Nathan Fristetter]

I think just kind of reiterating something that I've already said here is, is start small with something. Right. When I first installed openclaw, I just wanted to see what it can do and I connected it to my Gmail and I gave it a command to just filter out my spam every day, look at my email, filter off the spam because I'm tired of having to do that. Seeing all these messages come in my inbox and it's cluttering the things that I really need to respond to. And I saw that, like it worked flawlessly. And it's not that hard to do that simple task. It's one integration with my Gmail and that was it. So for anyone else who doesn't know where to start with AI, really just think of like the smallest thing filtering out spam and setting up a schedule on that.

[Scott Becker]

I love that. And just starting to learn to test, to grow into it and then you find bigger and bigger use cases and solutions. Right. Is that how you look at it?

[Nathan Fristetter]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And you'll start to see, I mean, how many times have you thought, oh, I actually need to hire an intern to do this because it's not worth my time to do it, but I'd like to do it. It's nice to have. That's a great example of something that AI can do for you with OpenClaw.

[Scott Becker]

And one of the beauties of what you're talking about is your ability to help companies small and mid size and larger get their hands around where they can find, use cases, get started and so forth is really a remarkable thing, really fantastic. I mean that's something people really need because all of us are sort of struggling with it. Many people are not experts in it. So you can find a guide to help you how to use the AI to work through these things in your, in your business system, whether it's in real estate, accounting, finance, whatever you're doing. Just a great solution, isn't it?

[Nathan Fristetter]

Yeah, that's right. And, and, and you know, there's a lot of people doing this stuff and there's groups you can find online that are even locally in your cities that are sharing ideas and building their own version of this. And quite frankly that's the best way to learn as well. Surround yourself with other people who are doing it and try it yourself and share learnings with each other and see what's working and what else you might need to start doing.

[Scott Becker]

Love it. Again, Nathan Frasetter, tremendous entrepreneur, thinker, incredibly useful solution for people. Great, Nathan, thank you so much for joining us again. Nathan's the founder of Go Fig. Tremendous. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today.

[Nathan Fristetter]

Thank you Scott, great to talk to you.

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