With the massive retirement of boomers in the industry, the accounting professional population is dwindling. To compound that, the slow to evolve profession, industry stigma, and stereotypes of accountants don't inspire new accountants to join (or stay in) the profession. FloQast, a company made by accountants, for accountants, to make their jobs easier and enable them to focus on more engaging work, set out on a mission to start transforming the industry at the source, by creating an entertaining and engaging comedy show featuring accountants, the one demographic that has never had a TV show made about their job.
CEO of FloQast, and PBC executive producer, Mike Whitmire, after spending over 6 years working in accounting, knew he wanted to make a show poking fun at the experiences accountants have, while also shedding light onto the possibilities in the industry through media. The key vision was to show how the main character, an accountant, goes through her standard career trajectory, and then sees herself exploring new exciting roles and opportunities within the accounting profession that most people have no idea about, all while going through an assortment of workplace comedy scenarios.
There are shows about doctors, lawyers, firefighters, cops, musicians, artists, and bankers... so it was about time someone made a mainstream appeal show about accountants, both to inspire the next generation to go into the profession, and also transform the narrative around what it means to be an accountant.
Since staring FloQast in 2013, Mike Whitmire, CEO and Co-Founder, always kept the idea of a TV show about accountants in the back of his mind. Finally, with the growth of the company, and after years of writing down different funny moments and crazy work scenarios in a spreadsheet, he decided it was time to commit to creating it. The goal has been to elevate the accounting profession, by showing accountants in a comedic way that doesn't just nag on the stereotypes of boring number crunchers, and instead showcases the opportunities within the profession, and the relateableness of accountants lives [albeit, a dramatized version since it is entertainment after all!]
There was initially substantial pushback from the company's Board of Directors, and rightly so, as FloQast is a fintech software company, not a production house or in the show business. Mike forged forward, however, leaning on his experience in being aggressively innovative, which is what has been able to grow FloQast into the unicorn start-up that it is today. The Board reluctantly agreed to allow him to allocate resources to pursue this ambition in 2021. In order to execute this type of project, he assembled a uniquely qualified team to create FloQast Studios and build a content entity within the broader FloQast corporation. This was accomplished by tasking experienced writer and project developer Josh Sims to head the studio and PBC initiative, pulling on his Hollywood trained background and comedic writing skills. Having worked at FloQast, he was able to combine his creative abilities with his institutional knowledge to ensure the project balanced the brand goals along with the entertainment quality the project needed to be successful. From there, the studio brought on Drew Carrick, known in the accounting world as The Rapping CPA, as producer to come aboard providing technical advisement through his experience in video creation of accounting content, along with his traditional accounting and finance industry expertise. Finally they brought on Josh Glassman as Director of Production, with over a decade of experience working on an assortment of independent and feature films, to round out the studio team.
The next step to execute a project at this scale was to team up with a quality and experienced production company, of which Cinemand stood above the rest with their LA roots and experience in the show's style of comedy. Together, they transformed notes of accounting scenarios into full on comedy scripts, packed with both mainstream and accounting specific jokes. Through the quality of the writing and connections of the team, they were able to bring onboard stars like Danny Trejo and Kate Flannery, as well as internet sensations like Nick Colletti and Christian A. Pierce.
While the production schedule was ambitious, the whole team, including cast and crew, executed on this first of it's kind comedy series, which has been well recieved by the accounting community and set the stage for how companies can use content in innovative ways to share a message to their demographic.
First and foremost, after the success of season 1, the company Board of Directors approved of a season 2, which attested to the quality of the content, and provided affirmation that the notion of using innovative content to build a brand and shift an industry is being adopted by the business world. Over the course of the two seasons, FloQast has grown by a few hundred employees, many of whom found out about FloQast, or were inspired to apply, due to the success of PBC, which was primarily targeted at accountants. The feedback from accounting professionals has been overwhelmingly positive.
Additionally, the company's valuation has continued to grow and market share expand, indicating the efforts of the show have helped in the marketing and branding efforts of the company. The company has also closed several deals with customers who either discovered FloQast through PBC, or were inspired to finally procure the software after seeing the show. In a multitude of ways, the show has not only aided in positive brand awareness, but on a macro level showcases the ability of the company to be innovative, and execute on 'never-done-before' ideas - this in it of itself attests to the company culture and quality of the actual product itself.
With over a million views on the series content between episodes and trailers; and several million impressions, we've been encouraged to continue putting the accounting profession into the world of multimedia through a variety of innovative, engaging, and entertaining content.
