In the history of humanity, there has never been a more educated population with high accessibility to efficient capital markets than there is in the United States today. Yet, over the past few decades, we have witnessed an alarming disparity between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Most Americans are struggling financially whether it’s credit card debt, student loan default, or being unable to purchase a first home. This is especially true for young professionals who are making major financial decisions for the first time all while entering an economy in which real living expenses are considerably higher than they’ve been for the previous generations.
So, what’s the problem? Is it that young Americans have not been taught how to save money, invest, and make sound financial decisions? Certainly, that is part of the problem, but that’s not the whole story. We believe financial struggles are similar to many health struggles. Most Americans are overweight, but this is not because they don’t understand how to eat right and exercise. Keeping yourself in good shape takes a lot of discipline and daily consistent action. For that reason, many Americans have relied on coaches, group gym classes, and diet programs to provide accountability, support, and a source of reliable information.
Personal finance is no different. Certainly, there is a lack of financial literacy. However, if young professionals were simply seeking to improve their financial literacy, there is no shortage of online resources and books on the topic. We believe that what young professionals want in personal finance is the same as what they want in other areas of their life – an online solution that provides ease of use, convenience, accountability, and makes them feel good about themselves. Dime is just that.
Dime is not just financial education. Dime is an online platform and community that takes young professionals through our 5 Weeks to Freedom™ program. During the 5W2F™ program, students learn personal finance step-by-step all while building an automated system to track and manage their finances to automatically make progress toward their financial vision.
The 5W2F™ course is hosted on the Dime web application with the option to have a coach-guided or video-guided course experience. All financial resources are found on the user’s dashboard. These resources include investment calculators not found elsewhere on the internet, Learn More resources, Tracking Tools™, and progress tools, among other helpful resources. When students graduate from the 5WTF™ course they will have answered several key questions regarding their personal finances: “Where are you?”, “What are you currently doing?”, “Where do you want to be?”, and “What is our plan to get you where you want to be?”.
Dime will be monetized through several different channels. The first is the upfront cost of the program which varies depending on the customer and specific product: group/individual, student/professional, coach-guided/video-guided. Additionally, there is a small subscription fee for continued access to the financial resources that takes effect after two months. There are also options available for students to schedule regularly repeating check-in sessions and unlock additional lessons. These three sources of revenue alone are short of exciting. The real opportunity is in affiliate marketing and business development. There are preferred partners that are integrated into the 5WTF™ program, including robo-advisors and other financial companies. After establishing ourselves as thought leaders in personal finance, we can leverage and monetize these relationships at tremendous scale.