While watching this video, which talks about getting more people investing, I had the following thoughts (not quite in this order), and wanted to share them here:
There are two ways to grow market share:
- Capture market share off competitors, e.g. by offering ISA transfer bonuses (smart move, IE
) - Grow the market, by onboarding customers new to the market
That video, and the book it promotes, are content that does the latter – getting people who are unfamiliar with investing comfortable doing it. I’ve watched a lot of videos on subjects like this recently, but not read any books. Some of the videos have links to platforms like IE, so likely the content drives people to the platform. And of course the IE platform itself has content, in the form of blog posts and videos. However, all this content is daunting to beginners – either it’s long, or subject specific, or assumes a lot of prior knowledge, or all three.
I’ve recently found a nice content format to be simple animated slideshows, with a few words and images. For example, I’m using an app called Imprint, that condenses interesting non-fiction books down into a small number of slides, making it easy to absorb the key concepts of a book in just a few minutes. It introduces new ideas in a very accessible and undaunting way.
This could be a really great form of content for investment platforms like IE. I.e. have such a condensed animated version of the book (or similar content) in the IE app, that is offered to people even before creating an account. That way, people who are investing novices feel like they’re having their hand held during the first few steps. They can be introduced to concepts like the power of compounding, tax efficient wrappers, volatility and diversification in a quick, simple, digestable way.
Somebody once told me that people tell their friends about products they either love, hate, or use every day. If you can get investing beginners to love the app, by helping them get into investing when they were sure it wasn’t for them, they’re more likely to recommend it to their non-investing friends. And if you can get viral growth amongst that group of customers, well, it has to be 
time, right?