New: Topics & Conversation Starters

Spark conversations about specific companies, news, or events.

We launched Messages earlier this year to give our members more ways to share ideas about investing and get more educated about the market together. Since introducing the feature in March, members have been taking to chat groups to discuss the companies they believe in, upcoming IPOs, category trends, and more.

Starting today, we’re rolling out some additional updates to give members even more ways to connect and learn from each other.

Add prompts to guide the conversation

We wanted to make it even easier for members to share ideas in their groups, and so we added Topics and Conversation Starters to help guide the discussion.

Whether it’s a specific stock or ETF, a scheduled event such as an earnings release, or news article, group members can now highlight relevant topics to discuss in the chat. Once set, we’ll automatically send important information about them to the group.

For example, if you’re in a group that focuses on remote work trends, you can add stocks like $ZM and $WORK, and introduce news articles to discuss together.

Customize your groups

You can now add a cover photo and icon to your groups to make them your own. There’s also room to add a short description so that new members coming into the group know what to expect.

Grow your group

Anyone can start a group and invite others to join the conversation. Grab a Zoom-like link in the chat settings to easily invite new people in.

You can start a new group by tapping the Messages icon and adding a few members to the chat. From there, name the group, add a cover photo and icon, and set some prompts to get the conversation started.

Looking for inspiration? Here are some chat groups already live in the community:

• The Future of Fitness — for talking about interactive fitness and apparel companies like Peloton, Apple, and Lululemon
• $ocial $tocks — a place to discuss social media companies, and how social media habits and behaviors impact business across all categories
• IPOs ETC — for talking about companies that have filed to go public, or that have recently entered the public markets
• Columbia Women’s Business Society — a community for CWBS members to find and connect with each other in Public

Offering more ways for our members to connect with other investors, share ideas, and learn together is central to our mission of making investing more educational and accessible. We’ll continue to expand on these features to people with more ways to share and learn in Public.

Public is built for you and we love hearing from our members. Send your questions, comments, or feedback to hello@public.com.

Examples are for illustrative purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results. This is not investment advice. See Public.com/disclosures.

All conversations that take place within direct messages and message groups are subject to our community guidelines and Terms of Service.