- 1 day ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome, welcome. You've got a fascinating story. We're going to get to it in just a second, but I want
00:05you to explain, Dub, because even for somebody who talks about markets each and every day, I didn't know what
00:11it was before our producer, Anna, sent us all these notes about it.
00:17What are you offering and who are you offering it to?
00:20Yeah. So I'd really think of Dub as a social investing platform where instead of picking stocks, you pick these
00:25investment managers and you follow their trades. And it's really based on this idea that I think the social narrative
00:32and social investing has really come to the younger generation where people are no longer making their decisions of what
00:38to invest in based by looking at the numbers. It's really following the narrative and ideas that they see in
00:42the markets.
00:43Didn't people like or platforms like Robinhood and Public try to do social investing?
00:48Yeah. Public try to do social investing with a social fee to start. But I think the core value prop
00:54of Dub is that you get all the trades sort of automatically. So if I decide to follow one of
00:58these investing managers like Nancy Pelosi, whenever her trades happen-
01:01Well, not an investing manager, but-
01:03Yep. Or she's great at it. One could say that she's-
01:06A lawmaker.
01:06Phenomenal returns on the platform. You get those trades automatically in your account. It's almost like you can pick your
01:12own financial advisor or fund manager to take care of your money. And the idea is like, hey, most investing
01:17is really difficult.
01:18And most people never get good at it. So can we give a similar experience that the ultra-wealthy have
01:24of putting their money with the manager with someone with $100?
01:27So where are you getting the data? Is it all from 13Fs and from regulatory filings?
01:31Yeah. So all these portfolios that are tracking the politicians and these major funds are from the public filings. But
01:37we have sort of these- we've really crowdsourced these investment managers who are actually making those trades and doing
01:42that research themselves.
01:43But now we have about 200 or 300 of these managers that sort of you can follow across the board.
01:47So it's not just politicians and hedge funds. They have AI trades. They have quant trading strategies.
01:52We've really spanned the whole gamut of things that you'd want to invest in.
01:55But if you're following the trades of Bill Ackman, Warren Buffett, or Warren Buffett, where are you getting that information
02:00from?
02:01Those are coming from the 13Fs.
02:02Okay.
02:02Yeah.
02:03So talk to me a bit more about the business model. How are you all actually monetizing? If I were
02:08to use this platform, would I then pay a specific fee to get access? Or how does this work?
02:12Yeah. Today, it's a subscription-based model. So you pay $10 a month or sort of $80 a year to
02:17access the platform. And we felt like that was the best way to sort of go about it, where we
02:21aren't more like traditional brokerages that are monetizing sort of every single trade sort of that you make and charging
02:26you sort of commissions.
02:27And then for the best portfolios, the other side of the platform is we do pay are the managers. So
02:33if you're a great trader, we view Dub really as a talent marketplace where if you're good at investing, you
02:38can make a name for yourself.
02:40And really, the end vision for Dub is to eventually create the platform where the new star fund managers get
02:45surfaced. And they find a place to sort of build their career. And they don't need to go the traditional
02:50sort of boys' club of Wall Street path to really become the next superstar.
02:53So where'd the name come from? The three-letter name?
02:56Yeah, Dub. And music, Dub means to sort of translate and sort of copy music over. So we thought that
03:01would be a nice name. And it's nice, short, snappy, and memorable.
03:04You mentioned building a career. You built a career in an unconventional way. I think maybe it's known as like,
03:10you know, people like Mark Zuckerberg that did what you have done, drop out of Harvard. Talk a little bit
03:17about your own career path.
03:19Because I mentioned you have a really interesting story of growing up in Detroit and then going to Harvard only
03:24to leave a few months later.
03:25Yeah. So born and raised in Detroit, my parents were immigrants. We didn't have a lot of money growing up.
03:29So a big part of my childhood was thinking about just making money.
03:33So I started out, I was that kid that was selling all the Pokemon cards. And that's also how I
03:37got into investing. I wanted to make some extra cash on the side.
03:40So I started investing in second grade. My parents opened me a custodial account with a $100 loan. And since
03:45then, I've really seen the wave of how this new generation investor has sort of come online.
03:50And I've always wanted to build a business. So I actually left high school to do my first company. I
03:54sold that. That was in VR. Ended up deciding going back to college and going to Harvard.
03:59And that was when the meme stock craziness was happening. And I saw the perfect opportunity to like build a
04:05product that serviced everything that was happening, which is following social trends to invest.
04:09How did your family react when you told them you were dropping out of Harvard?
04:12I didn't even tell them. Yeah, I left.
04:14You just did it.
04:15Yeah, I really left.
04:15Okay, how did they react when you told them that you dropped out?
04:17You know, my mom was sort of a little iffy. I'm not as close to my dad. But I think
04:21ultimately they're proud. But, you know, as with immigrant parents, they don't really share that. But, you know, deep down
04:27there, I think they really see what we're doing. And I think it's a really exciting time where we're about
04:32to cross sort of 2 million downloads. And most of the customers on Dubb are actually sort of making money.
04:37And that's a key metric that we track. Unlike all these other platforms that are really just trying to monetize
04:42the volume, we really care about how do we build wealth and generational wealth.
04:46And to me, the only free lunch, but patience required is really investing in the markets. And we've seen that
04:52over the last century. Right. And I think that's really core to my mission, where I came from as an
04:57immigrant. And I think it's more important than ever in a world where there's financial nihilism, there's dumerism, especially within
05:03Gen Z. I see that with my friends. It's because AI is coming to take jobs, less people are going
05:08to college. It's a fearful world out there.
05:10And I think the one thing that I can do to contribute back was the thing that changed my life
05:14was investing. And if we can help the next generation invest better, invest well, and be excited to invest and
05:20bring the social components together, I think that is where the world is going to go. And it'll do some
05:25good for people.
05:26So you talk about the next generation, you yourself are Gen Z, right?
05:29Yeah.
05:29Okay. And is the product mainly targeted toward folks that are in the Gen Z, you know, in Gen Z?
05:36Or what do you tend to see when it comes to stats and users?
05:38Yeah. So our average age is actually 35. I mean, when we first started, we had a lot of older
05:43folks in the Midwest, in the South, not in sort of your coast, really gravitate towards the product because of
05:48how we really simplify the vesting process. You don't got to be an expert. You can just choose someone's investments
05:53to follow and they sort of do everything for you. So that was a great value prop. But over the
05:58last year, we've seen Gen Z growth 3X on the platform. So now, as of sort of this month, we've
06:04got our new customers, like 42% of them are Gen Z.
06:08I think this is part of the trend that you see with prediction markets, sports betting, the social investing and
06:13tying the sort of the way that you deploy your capital with social trends has really come to head. And
06:18we see that growing in our platform. We're really excited about that because I think Gen Z probably need the
06:22most help in terms of understanding how to invest better for the future.
06:26So was part of it also accessibility? I'm curious because you said that the price point is about $10 per
06:31month for the subscription. Was that a thought or how did you come to that number?
06:35Yeah, absolutely. We did a lot of testing as product people do. But what we realized that is like, hey,
06:40if you're going to spend like $10 and basically a cup of coffee in sort of New York City at
06:44this point, how do we make it still accessible and price it similarly to sort of what you'd spend on
06:50a day-to-day basis or on a Netflix subscription?
06:52So that was really part of it. I think we could price it sort of more, but access is really
06:57important to me. So we're really trying to find the optimal point of getting as many people onto the platform
07:02as possible.
07:03And I think one day we could explore even going completely free, which would be really exciting. But I think
07:08we're on a path towards that potentially.
07:10Talk to us a little bit about the numbers that you're seeing right now on the platform. How many users?
07:15Are you profitable? You've raised close to $50 million at this point. Do you have more funding rounds planned?
07:19Yeah. So we've got a lot planned. I can't say something yet, but I think the growth has been really
07:24exciting in the core platform. We've got about 2 million people who have downloaded the product. We've got hundreds of
07:29thousands of active sort of brokerage accounts now.
07:32We've did sort of a billion dollars plus in sort of trading volume that's scaling up sort of over the
07:36next couple months. I think it's a really exciting time in markets where participation, the IPOs, we see that sort
07:42of interest really skyrocketing across the general population.
07:45Is interest around acquiring your company there?
07:50We've definitely gotten a lot of M&A interest because they see social investing as such an important growing trend.
07:56What would stop like Robinhood from building this themselves?
08:00I think they're trying. Robinhood did publicly announce that they're trying to build a social version of Robinhood.
08:04I think every platform has already started copying us from Webull to MooMoo to Public.
08:08They see the demand that we've been able to create and are skyrocketing growth in the two years that we've
08:13launched.
08:14So I'm not afraid, though. I think ultimately Mark Zuckerberg was in a simpler place when he's competing against MySpace.
08:20I do believe the most agile team where we're living the experience is going to win.
08:25So do you think that you would sell to one of those companies or you'd stay independent?
08:28I will absolutely love to stay independent.
08:30I think we have a chance at building one of the biggest companies in human history.
08:35If we can rewrite the way that people deploy their capital, from picking stocks to picking individuals, I think we
08:41can build the greatest financial company there is.
08:43So would you be competing with Charles Schwab, for example?
08:46I think we already are.
08:48Yeah.
08:48And if you look at Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, where do they get most of their growth?
08:52They launch index funds, mutual funds, right?
08:54And in many ways, Dubb is replacing that traditional mutual fund index fund model by all those set fund managers
09:00who are either passively or sort of actively managing that.
09:03And we've just recreated that and repackaged it in a social way for the younger generation.
09:08And so where are you doing a lot of this marketing?
09:10Is most of it on social media?
09:12How are you getting the interest?
09:14Yeah.
09:14So we get a lot of organic and sort of viral growth, but we do spend money on sort of
09:19meta Facebook.
09:20Reddit is a big audience, too.
09:21We've really, they're a very skeptical crew, but when you really get in touch with them, it's really effective because
09:27that's where a lot of the investing activity is happening, too.
09:29And we do a lot of work on X as well.
09:31Most of the investing influencers that are now building these big sub stack, making tens of millions of dollars a
09:36year, have really come from one of those two platforms.
09:38And it's really where most people are getting their financial knowledge today.
09:42Even big hedge fund managers that I know that you guys probably know, too, that manage tens of billions of
09:46dollars, track X and Reddit for their information.
09:48And when a big post comes out, you can almost see the markets move.
09:52How old are you now?
09:53I'm 25.
09:54You're 25 and you've already built and sold a company.
09:57You dropped out of Harvard.
09:58You also worked at Apple.
09:59Worked at Apple.
10:00What did you do at Apple?
10:01I was the engineering product manager and I worked on the Apple Watch and some internal tools.
10:06Big fan of the Apple Watch.
10:07I was a Steve Jobs kid growing up.
10:09Yeah, I really appreciate just incredible taste in product.
10:12Big fan of the Apple Watch.
Comments