Personal Finance 101

Market overview

Financial tech has hit a peak with a value of $870 Billion. This includes financial advisory platforms, banking applications, peer to peer lending sites, etc.We will focus on companies that are based on websites.

MAIN COMPANIES: Udemy ($173M) , Acorns($700M ),

EMERGING CHANGES: Large banks beginning to play in the market and create applications of their own

Competitor Trend

• Focus on one facet of personal finance (i.e. saving tips, personal investments)
• Charge a flat fee or subscription.
• Access to personal banking information/ investments
• Slowly including larger banks as fintech because a popular outlet

UDEMY

• Offers courses such as “The four principles of personal finance”
• PROS: Short course that gave pretty good overview of how to budget
• CONS: Does not include information on how to invest and costs $20
• GOAL: Mimic the ideas they have involving shorter courses, eliminate fees, and make the coursework have modules to cover a wider span of topics

ACORNS

• Offers information on how to budget given your bank and investment history and strategy
• PROS: Offers suggestions on how to invest in markets in categories(i.e. Conservative or Risky)
• CONS: Expensive and also requires a lot of personal banking and investment information that may not apply to everyone
• GOAL: Utilize the idea of giving investment strategies instead of only money saving tips

EDX

• Offers to teach skills on how to “Manage your money more effectively by learning practical solutions to key investment, credit, insurance and retirement questions”
• PROS: free, comes with a certificate ($49 USD), is taught by an economics professor
• CONS: time intensive (3–4 hours per week for 5 weeks)
• GOAL: Utilize the idea of having a professional/professor provide guidance, but shorten the length and intensity of the course

Our Site

• Achieve a similar style platform to others but offer free coursework in a variety of subjects
• Offer a professional yet approachable platform
• Allow consumers to keep their personal information private

Team members: Ari Greer, Miriam Goldgeil, Luke Rajkovic, George Pomar, Brian Hu, Diogo Viveiros