Bloom, a commission-free stock investment tool for teenage investors, reached 1 million downloads after launching in February 2022. Founded by Allan Maman and Sam Yang, the startup offers a brokerage account and teaches those aged 13 and up how to build wealth through interactive lessons on investment, stocks, and finance. So far, users have completed over 10 million lessons, Maman told TechCrunch. If Maman's name sounds familiar, it's because he's credited with creating an improved version of the spinner, making these devices go viral. Yang, who took Bloom through Y Combinator in the winter batch of 2021, previously built an AI-based photo app with over 250,000 users.
"My co-founder and I made some money from jobs, and we realized that when we tried to invest it, there wasn’t a platform to learn how to invest," Maman told TechCrunch. "Existing platforms want to give you free stocks or free trades, but they don’t really teach you the fundamentals of investing." That’s when Maman and Yang decided to create their own investment app for teens. Bloom has an Instagram-like structure providing educational material and quizzes to reinforce learning. The app incentivizes learning through a reward mechanism. For example, if the user scores well on quizzes, they earn points, which are the app’s currency, to spend within the app.
Bloom costs $15 per month or $120 per year, and there are no account balance minimums. In addition to reaching the milestone of 1 million downloads, Maman said the company achieved seven-figure annual recurring revenue last year.
💡Insight for Entrepreneurs: This news highlights the importance of identifying specific market niches and meeting their unique needs. In this case, the founders of Bloom noticed the absence of a platform teaching teenagers how to invest, despite increasing interest among young people in wealth generation and investment. They not only created an investment tool but also combined it with interactive lessons to educate their users. For entrepreneurs, this serves as a reminder that understanding and addressing the unmet needs of your target audience is crucial when developing a new business or product. It also shows how gamification can be an effective strategy to engage users and motivate them to use an app or service
