Yea fair. Big challenge I have is direct promotion on reddit is a challenge, even casual/sneaky promotion is often immediately shot down, especially in our niche (personal finance/investing).
Interesting! Thanks for this. I'm worried that my space (personal finance) may be especially difficult since people are curious but extremely skeptical - there's a huge trust barrier.
Fair, especially because in most of the scenarios where I've seen people go through the app it's because I've brought them on there myself in some capacity vs them just finding it organically.
Yea that makes sense. Just frustrating/confusing as whenever prospective/current users mention the use of ChatGPT, they almost always cage their answers by saying something like "I know I need to double-check what it says" or whatever.
I figured since we were recommended ETFs that are managed by names people recognize, that's where the transference of trust would come in for us.
That's a great question, as complex goals are often conflicting.
Right now, each goal uses a qualitative scale to establish an initial risk budget.
In the future, we will ask users to rank all goals (like a weighted priority list). This ranking allows our dynamic allocation engine to solve the optimization problem:
Prioritization: The ranking determines the importance of each goal in the final outcome calculation.
Continuous Recalibration: The engine doesn't use a fixed risk cap. Instead, it continuously adjusts the risk allocated to each goal based on its performance and time horizon.
Risk to Maximize Probability: Goals that are far from being achieved may temporarily take more risk to increase the chance of success, while goals that are ahead of schedule will de-risk immediately to protect gains.
This ensures the total portfolio risk stays optimal while maximizing the probability of achieving your goals in priority order.
Great question, and we're still working on improving the process there. At the core what we do is break down all tasks into small achievable steps - with a reward system encouraging users along the way to continue taking action.
What we're also integrating is an "opportunity cost calculator" showing users how delaying or avoiding the action we're recommending would impact the achievement of their goal.
Call it a "carrot and stick" system.
This feedback loop, coupled with small achieveable steps, has performed well so far in keeping users on task and on track for their goals.
Totally fair point. We think that beginner investors already have a ton of resources at their disposal. There are a lot of platforms aimed at making it as easy as possible to start investing for the first time. We're focused on people who are already investing and who want to just have more clarity as to where they stand financially and whether their goals are actually on track.
The no-custody aspect is really a starting place. We wanted to eliminate the usual friction that investment platforms impose in asking people to transfer their assets before receiving service. We think this is one of the biggest points of friction in financial services, and one which drives up CACs across the industry.
Functionally, what happens with our platform now is that we show you exactly what to invest in with specific ETFs to buy and keep you on track with regular rebalancing instructions. You then make those trades wherever you're already investing. Trades sync to our platform through an API connection (Plaid/SnapTrade) so you can see your progress towards your goal.
Our aim is to add a custody solution as well, letting users trade on the platform, but we always want to offer the non-custody solution as an entry point for users, making it super easy to get started and gradually earn user trust.
Good question! We think the beginner side of the market is very well catered to. Robo advisors like Wealthfront and Betterment make it dead-easy to start with the basic objective of "growing money". And then there are platforms like Robinhood, good for straight-up gambling. So if you're JUST starting out and don't already have an investing platform, there are plenty of choices.
Our ideal user is someone a bit farther along. They already have a financial base - often $50,000+ invested, usually across several institutions. And that's the key.
Asking people who are already investing to uproot and send their money to another financial platform is a massive point of friction. This causes sky-high customer acquisition costs. We want to both avoid these costs and minimize friction users experience.
This is why a non-custodial model works so well for our market. We work with what they already have.
The story of Sarah is exactly why we're building this. She came to us with a overwhelmed trying to figure out how to plan for her future. Now she's locked in with a clear plan.
So proud of how far we've come since that first roast, but we still have a long way to go (of course). Excited to get more feedback from the HN community.
I'm building a consumer fintech platform - a space with a high trust barrier. We've been doing a ton of content to build trust and presence through short form video (TikTok/Insta), as well as a personal finance newsletter we run 3x/week (in URL). We also have several personal finance related calculators on our website.
All of these elements we've hoped would act as lead magnets, but success has been mixed.
We've grown to 3,000+ subscribers for the newsletter and have a decent open rate (~30%), but converting readers to users has been difficult. A couple dozen readers have converted.
To people out there building consumer platforms, what has worked really well for lead magnets these days? Anyone in consumer fintech particularly - your perspective would be much appreciated! Thanks!