Featured Startup Pitch: dough has built a mobile financial trading platform with an eye on Millenials

By Kristi Ross, dough co-founder and co-CEO

ELEVATOR PITCH

dough is a free interactive mobile app for do-it-yourself investors of all ages and stages of trading experience. dough is the first educational trading app that provides a repeatable, logical, mechanical approach to investing, while making investing visual, intuitive and entertaining all at the same time.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

dough is an interactive mobile platform for do-it-yourself investors. dough is the first trading app to make investing visual, intuitive, and entertaining, as well as educational, all at the same time. With a particular focus on Millennials and Gen Y, dough appeals to all ages and stages of trading experience.

Using dough, new traders can learn by watching entertaining videos on trading strategies, follow live trades from real people as they happen, and trade directly from their device. In the ‘doughjo,’ new traders can learn the basics of options trading and the importance of money management. With interactive videos and quizzes, users can test their knowledge and learn at their own pace.

After learning the basics, users can make trades on dough’s unique, highly visual trade interface. Users can visualize strategies through the drag-and-drop simplicity, and see the probability of profit on trades before they ever place the trade. In addition, users can see the probability of success on their overall portfolio. Our users can also follow traders of all experience levels and see their trades real-time to get insight into trade strategies.

We believe dough is the next generation of financial technology. Hands-on learning is one of the most powerful tools in education, and we provide that with dough—all while making finance fun and entertaining. Watch. Follow. Do.

dough-Screen Shot

FOUNDERS’ STORY

Before launching dough, we launched the fastest growing online financial network, called tastytrade. tastytrade uses a logical, mechanical approach to investing through education and entertainment—we term ‘edutainment’—to teach investment strategies and provide investable content. The programming is designed to appeal to various investment levels, from beginner to professional, all with the mission of increasing financial literacy around investing.

While we were working together on tastytrade, Tom Sosnoff, the co-CEO of dough, and I realized we wanted to provide a platform that made do-it-yourself investing more appealing for a new generation of traders, particularly Millennials. We chose to launch dough not only as a website, but also through a mobile app.

The dough technology and foundational message is truly innovative for the financial services industry. We make complex concepts simple through a visual display that highlights the information customers should pay attention to, like probability of profit and return on capital, before ever placing the trade. We clear the noise and help customers focus on what’s important. dough makes it easy to learn, watch, and do—all from one visually beautiful platform.

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

To promote dough, we are not only reaching out to Millennials and the new generation of investors, but also tapping into the Gen Y and X who want to get started. Using social media, investable content, videos, and webinars, dough has shared the benefits of a visual trading platform with new users.

We’re launching a college ambassador program and hosting events at local colleges to show Millennials the value of understanding probability of success and return on capital, particularly by learning about trading options on an educational, visual platform.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

According to a number of studies, the average age of a brokerage customer is getting older. It has gone from 52 to 56 in the past few years alone. We believe there is a huge market opportunity for learning to be a do-it-yourself investor at any age, but we feel that making trading more accessible to Millennials and Gen Y is an exceptional untapped market with amazing potential. We are providing a new approach to investing that makes sense to the younger generation. It is a logical, mechanical approach to investing that is repeatable, and best of all it is highly visual and accessible from anywhere, mobile first.

http://youtu.be/DSl3yIvOsxw

HOW WE DIFFERENTIATE FROM THE COMPETITION

dough differentiates itself from other trading platforms by focusing on the user experience. With a simplistic and beautiful design, dough makes the impact of a particular investment clearer and more intuitive.

Additionally, other trading platforms focus solely on the action of making trades. We provide our users with entertaining, educational investable content from tastytrade’s shows and our featured traders. On dough, our users can develop investment skills that they can apply to the market, whether it is going up, down, or sideways, and improve their probability of making successful trades.

BUSINESS MODEL

All of our program content and technology is free to the end user. We have arrangements with firms for exclusive lead generation, advertising and sponsorships. Any lead generation is fully integrated into our content because we believe in it and it applies directly to what we do. So, ultimately looking at the business model alone, we could be considered a high-end content marketing firm.

CURRENT NEEDS

As dough scales rapidly, we are looking for new on-air talent for tastytrade (which airs on the app through doughTV as well as at tastytrade.com), and highly-talented technology hires who can help us continue to deliver an exceptional user experience through new features and to help build our list of new, innovative ideas to complement our current offering.

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HEADQUARTERS: Chicago