Launching our Beta
Just a few months ago we set out with a goal: to give someone with $50 the same investment opportunities as someone with $50,000.
During this time, we’ve interviewed and surveyed over 5,000 people and found out that people want to invest, but it’s too hard.
Most people we spoke with, don’t know how to get started, don’t know how to invest, and need too much money upfront to start.
Sharesies changes this by lowering the buy-in, making it easy to decide what to invest in, and using language that people can understand.
And Yesterday we took the first step. We launched Sharesies to a small group of customers 🎉 . We’ll continue to roll this out to the people who have signed up. If that’s you, keep an eye out for your invite. And if you haven’t — do it.
What’s a beta product?
A beta version of a product is pretty much the first time anyone outside of Sharesies will get to use the product (apart from anyone lucky enough to be involved in user testing 😋).
A beta is a chance to gain customer input, before launching to the big wide world. It’s a chance to get actual feedback from people actually using our product and refine certain areas of the product before launching wider.
When we launch our beta it won’t be because it’s perfect… but because we need your input.
What’s included in the Sharesies beta?
Although it’s a beta version of the product, the investments are real. Beta customers will be able to buy, track and manage their investments straight away.
A new investor creates a Sharesies account and then becomes identity and address verified (a legal requirement before you can invest). From there, you setup a regular automatic payment of the amount you want to invest into your Sharesies Wallet.
Once money is in your Wallet, you’ll be able to select from a range of investments that are available on our platform. We’ll be launching with a range of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). These are a great way to start investing because instead of investing in one company you invest in a range of them, spreading your risk.
The minimum investment into each fund is $5.
We’ll be launching with a web app. This means it won’t be downloaded from an app store, but in a browser. You’ll be able to save it to your home screen though, so it can be quickly accessed like you would with an app. Launching with a web app means we can make changes quickly, without everyone needing to download the latest version when we do.
Investing the Sharesies way
Sharesies is not a get rich quick scheme — we encourage investing an amount you can afford, regularly… Building a portfolio one pay day at a time. And investing in things at a risk level you’re comfortable with.
“Buy, hold, whack it on an AP… Sorted!” — from our interview with money blogger Ryan Johnson.
For the first few years the discipline of regularly investing will outweigh any returns you receive. Which sounds like a long game… and it is. But the great thing about investing is that over time your money will work harder and harder for you.
Investments go up and down over time, we’ll help you understand why, and what you can do about it while you’re investing. And hopefully you can share stories with your friends about the big ups (and big downs) that you’ve experienced as an investor.
When will it be ready?
Financial services is a heavily regulated industry (for very good reason) and we’re just making sure we’ve got everything we need sorted before we launch.
Over the next few days we’ll be launching to 200 people initially, and then grow this to a closed group of 1000. Before launching Sharesies wider.
What’s next?
From there, we plan to continue to refine our product to make investing as easy as we can, and grow the range of investments we offer on our platform. We’ll shape our product around customer feedback and insights we get along the way.
We’ll then go to:
- making investing more social — introducing the ability to gift investments, start your own investment clubs, and peer benchmarking.
- the financial advisor in your pocket — Providing personalised advice directly to you, so you know the best way to invest your money.
We’re pretty excited about making investing accessible (and maybe even a little addictive) and hope you are too. Join us in the build of Sharesies and help make sure we are building the product you want to use.
Sharesies is making investing easy for everyone. We’re going to be launching our closed beta very soon -– if you’re keen to join the waitlist head to our website. And to stay up to date with what we’re up to, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
