How Public.com Built an Engaged and Diverse 1M+ Member Community in 18 Months

by Alissa Rogers, Copywriter, YML

Public.com is a fintech startup that’s part trading app, part social network aiming to break down the barrier to entry into the stock market for non-traditional investors. Since its launch in September 2019, Public.com has grown to more than one million members and a $1.2B valuation.

How did they do it? In the newest episode of the Y in the Valley podcast, Co-CEO Leif Abraham highlights five defining moves Public.com made during the company’s early stages.

1. Deciding How They Would Be Different

As the first company to enable real-time fractional investments, Public.com had all the pieces in place to be one of the top trading apps for people already in the investment space. However, they weren’t interested in simply infiltrating and attracting the existing trader culture — they wanted to create a more welcoming space for everyday consumers who didn’t have as much knowledge or experience in the world of investing.

They knew that if they wanted to change the culture of the stock market and position themselves as a mass consumer product then they needed to create a social, supportive community.

“At the end of the day, it’s not just about making an investment decision…it’s about seeing where the world is going.” — Leif Abraham

Their platform empowers people to not only make trades, but talk about them, too. This combination allows them to bring diverse voices and ideas together to help those who are intimidated by the markets feel more comfortable learning and building financial literacy.

Defining (and sticking to) this mission from the beginning has fast-tracked their ability to build the company and community they’ve always envisioned.

2. Committing Fully to Two Sides of Product Development

While building an investment app itself isn’t easy, building an investment app and a social network together is a whole other story. On their own, each would be considered complex projects for any product development team to manage and build. But from the beginning Public.com has been determined to do both, and even splits their product team into two divisions: social and investing.

While their first iteration of the app wasn’t far off from what customers see today, it focused heavily on the trading aspect and the ability to follow people and the trades they made. Over time, their social side of the product has shifted to focus more on content, opinions and insights from the community — one of the biggest reasons they have been able to successfully grow and engage so many new members in such a short time.

3. Going After the Right Audience, Right Away

Since they knew they weren’t trying to appeal to the existing trader culture, Public.com had an uphill battle to create a mass consumer product around stocks for people with little to no actual experience in stocks.

Leif knew their first users would help define the culture of the app’s community — something that would be incredibly difficult to change later on. Because of this, the first customers on the app needed to reflect the type of users they planned to build it for. When people logged on, they should see others with similar interests or lifestyles that reflected their own.

“In the end, you become who you acquire. Early on, it’s super important to be aware of who you acquire — to not just go out and acquire the easiest people who you can get to use it.” — Leif Abraham

To do this, they initially targeted people with high network density in creative and female leadership communities. By showing people with large followings who are active in the stock market that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be, their app became more approachable to consumers unsure of where to start. Once they had these social circles hooked, they were able to shift to more mainstream acquisition tactics to grow even faster.

This strategy worked to say the least: Public.com surpassed one million members in less than two years and the community is far from the stereotypical Wall Street person with around 45% women and 40% people of color. They’ve even attracted the attention and investments from celebrities like Will Smith and Tony Hawk.

4. Walking the Walk Internally

With a clear picture of the community they wanted to build, Leif and his co-CEO knew their own company needed to mirror it. Otherwise, they’d never be able to manage and grow an authentic community to the scale they envisioned.

“If you’re building for someone, especially a consumer brand, it’s important that you have an alignment between your team and the people you’re actually building something for.” — Leif Abraham

Since Public.com’s online community is full of diverse backgrounds and voices, they prioritize diversity and inclusion internally to ensure the company is an accurate representation. While it will always be an ongoing initiative for them, the company’s diversity is already almost a direct reflection of the app’s community.

5. Aligning to Avoid Anarchy

Since the company’s start in 2019, Public.com has achieved high output for a relatively small team (as seen in their rapid growth, feature releases and marketing initiatives). In order to maintain this reputation, the organization stays hyper-focused on efficiency and operations — starting with their guiding principles.

Right away, Leif and his co-CEO created an environment where people felt empowered to move quickly while still operating in a way that aligns with the company’s goals — a balance many startup companies have struggled to find. Having clear guiding principles as an organization helps people make decisions the way the company intends, but still gives them freedom to make their own decisions autonomously.

“High efficiency comes from having a very clear sense of autonomy and alignment. Autonomy without alignment is anarchy.” — Leif Abraham

For this to work, employees must see the guiding principles as more than motivational cat posters on the wall. Take, for example, Public.com’s first principle: Honesty kills bullshit.

Not just a catchy phrase, this principle is a mechanism of efficiency meant to keep ambiguity and gossip out of the way so the team can build better relationships faster.

By infusing principles like this into every new hire from the start, employees are given the license to speak honestly and stay in sync. This is what’s ultimately enabled the company to maintain both their culture and their level of output.

How exactly do Public’s employees stay aligned? Listen to the Y in the Valley episode featuring Leif to find out.

Y in the Valley is a podcast featuring Silicon Valley’s leading founders and thinkers, shining a light on how they build companies, products and culture in a wave of accelerated change — hosted by Ashish Toshniwal, CEO and co-founder of YML.