Advisor Help with Social Stock App on the App Store Before We Accept VC Funding
Whats good everyone. I currently am in the process of building a social stock app called Iris which allows you to follow the trades/portfolios of friends in real time, engage in stock group chats & message boards with all stock data right then & there, compare % returns via demographic leaderboards, & much more. Pretty much taking the social to the markets.
The thought is we will make this app a way to democratize knowledge in the hopes of creating stronger, more informed retail investors. I am trying to gather as many opinions as possible as I build the app and am looking for advisors that may want to join the team.
As of now we have 450 active users with extremely strong user engagement & user growth. We are being constantly talked to by VC tech firms who want to invest once we hit the user growth number needed. We have large partnerships ready to go so we are not worried about hitting the number and can get the funding pretty much when we believe we are reading.
Other competitors in the space currently are valued around 20-25M with about 10K users to date (we believe).
I am 24 and our other founder is 25. We do not have any banking background and with this being a fin tech app, we see the value of bringing on people who may be interested in the growth & trajectory of the app.
If any one is interested feel free to comment and I can relay some more details over to you! (Also looking for a part time CFO with equity pay available)
Thanks!
Very interested to learn more. Think there's budding opportunities here.
Please PM me
Thanks
Great ! PM'ing you now.
Sorry, I don't see a PM. Maybe my settings are awry?
In response to a further comment you made, integrating with RH is great.
Did you receive the PM?
Feel free to PM me. I don't have a lot to lose right now so, why not? sounds interesting
Will do! The space has lots of leg room too so will be interested in any thoughts about it.
Did you receive the PM?
Do you actually have a term sheet offer from a VC? Unless you do, I would advise caution and take everything VCs tell you with a grain of salt. VCs want to see every potential opportunity but will only invest in a handful of companies each year. They are also masters at stringing founders along and making founders think they are interested so the founders will continue to eagerly volunteer more information. The VC could be genuinely interested, but more likely they just want to learn more about your industry or worse they are doing diligence on a competitor. Of course, they will never directly say "no" because they want to keep the option open to invest later in case you guys take off and end up becoming a hot deal. In short, unless you have an actual term sheet offer in hand, you do not have investment interest.
I am curious to know when did you launch?
How did you acquire these initial 450 users?
What's the MoM growth in MAUs?
Who are your competitors in the space and what do you do better than them?
Understood and we get this on our end. We are not even really actively engaging in a series A round, but honestly is just exciting to see so many interested. Whether they are genuine or not, we will have to see. We are finalizing our F&F round by the end of the month which will give us plenty of runway for the next 6 months or so which hopefully will give us ample time to grow and prove the valuation we hope to get. The app launched on the app & google play store back in July or so. The product has always been the main focus though as we have not spent any significant marketing dollars yet (maybe $100 or so of ad tests). Over the last 30 days, we have seen a 200%+ user growth number mainly through interacting with the investing community via a number of different social platforms. We only started focusing on the business development in mid September so the numbers all are fairly new timeline wise.
We currently only integrate with Robinhood as well meaning once we bring on the other brokerages, we except this user growth % to only increase. Currently there is only one other direct "competitor" in the space where they have been on the app store for 3 years and have growth to 10K users. Not much public info about them but in the competitive analysis we see their strategy as a top down approach compared to our bottom up approach user wise. Other than this, the social investment space really is untapped as everyone resorts to chaotic discord forums, facebook pages, & 3rd party group texts/chats to discuss stocks with friends.
Organic, word-of-mouth growth is the way to go, so it sounds like you have the right approach.
I have some other stuff which I will PM you.
I love the sound of your idea and would be interested in having a call sometime to learn more. Potentially interested in getting involved if there's something meaningful I can offer. Please PM me with some more details!
Great! I just sent you a PM.
Hi! I'm still a college student so not sure if you'd only be interested in working professionals but it sounds like a really cool idea and I'd love to learn more. Is the company you're competing with called 'public' by any chance?
Hey we actually are working directly with a number of college students so I 100% would want to discuss the opportunities we have by you. Shoot me an email @ [email protected] and we can chat.
PM'd you.
I love the idea I’ll for sure give it a download. Just out of curiosity what is your background?
Great! Feel free to follow me on the app @Chris Josephs . Also my background is a very entrepreneurial one. I worked in NYC for a year as a typical analyst role while working on a couple side businesses. Quit my job to do the business full time where it blew up this year. Got involved in Iris in August and have been full time with them since!
I'm not really in a position to offer good input so I'll leave that to other people, but do want to say that this is a pretty neat idea that especially in the COVID day-trading age, I could definitely see something like this gaining quite some popularity.
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