Doesn't everyone keep harping about the fact that we ought to start our journey in personal finance and investing as early as possible? Perhaps in our infancy? :) Then, why is it that every second start-up in the fintech space is geared towards solving the wealth puzzle for the folks who are still playing catch up while knocking at the door of 40?
Well, good for them and indeed, good for you - It presents you with an opportunity to attack this space and create awareness within the demographic of age 15 through 24, so that they do not have to rue about the lost decade any longer. In fact, while you are at it, why not go a step further and partake in the implementation journey while helping them lay the foundation stone of their quest for wealth creation.
Now, chances are that you are torn between the idea of content creation (which seems to be the new bubble after the dot com boom and burst in the late 90s' through early 2000s' - In case, you have no idea what I am talking about, this book, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis - https://amzn.to/3zZ74ntIf is a fantastic read) and creating solutions that would simplify the process of investing and managing money with or without supervision and hand-holding. Yes?
Well, we'd rather have you focus on both with a small twist. Instead of creating new content, why not focus on curating high quality content from various relevant sources like YouTube and Personal Finance Blogs (to name a couple) while bucketing them appropriately for seamless consumption at scale.
This would solve two distinct challenges for both you and the creator: Availability of High Quality, Hyper Relevant and Curated Content for your users from Day-1 from some of the best content creators on this planet and the Creators get quality distribution at scale for free.
Here are a few disruptive personal finance and investing related applications that went on to successfully grab the attention of Gen Z (Clearly, given the distractions that this generation is subjected to, being able to capture their attention is no mean feat). The idea is to help them take well informed decisions with their money from a very young age, even when the amount that they are perhaps grappling with at this juncture is not always meaningful:
1. Zerodha: Arguably the largest stock broking platform in India that prides itself in cracking the code for 'Scaling through Word of Mouth' in their journey of becoming a Profitable Indian Unicorn. An amazing case study to perhaps deconstruct the model of acquiring customers sustainably and profitably without burning through a boatload of cash. You may learn more about their journey through this gripping presentation by Think School, where they talk about 'The Zerodha Story':
2. Small Case - A Portfolio Management Service for Retail Investors serving over 3.5 Million Customers. They were being considered for a potential acquisition by an Indian Unicorn in the Fintech Space, Cred: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=smallcase&c=apps&hl=en_IN&gl=US
3. Mint - A Budget and Bill Tracking App with an install base of north of 10 million. As reported by TechCrunch, they were acquired by Intuit in 2009 for a consideration of US$ 170 Million. You may want to learn more about their story as narrated by their Founder through this short video here:
4. INDmoney: Allows you to invest in American Businesses (in the listed space) from India with Zero Brokerage and Zero Commissions along with the ability to track your portfolio and net worth - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.indwealth&hl=en_IN&gl=US. You may want to learn more about the product through this short video here:
p.s. We here at OBI, are in no away advocating any of the examples called out above and are not being compensated by them in any shape or form.
Comments