The Founder’s Story

If you told me in 2021 that I’d end up building a social platform for accountants, I probably would’ve laughed.
Back then, I was working in a hospital, sitting on my break one day and realising, “What do I actually want to do with my life?”

I had three paths in front of me: Accounting, Mechanic, or Electrician. Those were the ones I had interests in and could see myself progress in.
Three completely different futures… and I had to choose one.

For some reason, something about accounting stuck with me. Maybe it was the structure, the challenge potentially,
or maybe it was the idea of mastering a skill that shapes how businesses run. Either way, I made a decision that
day that would change everything. Accounting it was, let’s do it, no backing out now Elliot. I recall sitting on that office chair and looking into how to get into accounting. Luckily there it was straight on a google search…classroom taught Level 2 and 3 AAT every Tuesday and Wednesday from 6pm – 9pm for a good 12 months.

I went for it.

I self-funded every course, AAT Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4. A very gruelling process watch funds come out of my bank account to pay for each course and exam but I know somewhere down the line it would pay off. Three years of studying, revising, making mistakes, wondering how this topic even makes sense, but slowly I started seeing the world of accounting start to make sense.

By the time I finished AAT, I knew the syllabus inside out. Not because I’m some genius but because I showed up
every single day for three years with the mindset: “I’m a man of my word, if I said I am going to do this, I am only letting myself down if I don’t”

In August 2024, everything clicked into place. I started my accounting career at SAS as a Junior Accountant.
It felt like the years of work had finally paid off.

But that’s when I noticed something important: the accounting world was missing something.

At the start of 2025, it hit me, for an industry filled with smart, driven people, we don’t really have a place
to talk to each other. A place to ask real questions, to share what we’re thinking, to express the side of accounting
that isn’t in the textbooks. So…where to begin? How do I even begin to create such a site? Maybe if I follow YouTube videos on how to create a site, it will click!! Nope. Maybe if I use a template for my site it will work!!! Nope again. None of it worked the way I wanted it to work. So I thought, well, let’s build it my own self, using my own code, my own vision of how I want the site to look and that’s where I got to researching how to code a website.

I had to learn how to code from scratch. No experience, no mentor, no roadmap.
Just hours of trial and error, breaking things, fixing them, and trying again. The alpha version of my website must have crashed too many times to count and at each moment it did, I generally thought, “What’s the point, I don’t know how to do this”. But, linking it back to my accounting studies, I have a good ethos on working toward something as mentioned earlier… “I’m a man of my word, if I said I am going to do this, I am only letting myself down if I don’t”

Every page on Greigster — your profile, the dashboard, the feed, the posts, comments, likes, notifications —
was built late at night, early mornings, on the weekends, or during whatever spare moments I could find. You name it, anytime I had spare time, I was straight onto my computer thinking how Greigster can look better for everyone to use!

As mentioned before, there were days where I genuinely wanted to throw my laptop out the window. But slowly, piece by piece, the website started coming alive. I built the platform I wished existed when I started accounting — a space
made by an accountant, for accountants.

Now comes the hard part: showing it to the world.

Building Greigster was tough. But getting people to believe in something new is a different battle.
Growing a community from zero takes consistency, resilience, and patience. One comment, one connection and one user at a time.

But that’s the journey I’m on now. And honestly? This is it. The consistency is where ideas are made. No matter if you put in 1% on one day, or 10% another day, that all cumulates into making Greigster what I believe it can become only with time and the accountants that come to use it.

Greigster exists because I believe accountants deserve more… more connection, more community, more conversation.
A place where we stop hiding behind job titles and start talking like real people.

If you’re reading this, you’re already part of that journey. Welcome to Greigster.
Let’s build something big together.