Fortunet

Today, few millennials are financially savvy - yet every day more and more become interested in applications like Robinhood and Acorns that offer the idea of investing in your own future. But, what is the one thing that we, as humans, cannot resist the temptation of when it comes to embracing new practices? Peer pressure and FOMO (the fear of missing out). Introducing FortuNet. FortuNet is to Robinhood as Venmo is to PayPal. The first social collaborative trading platform, in which students and young adults can band together with their roommates, friends, and co-workers to create small yet mighty joint funds. Each member can suggest investments, they can discuss them, vote on them, compare research, and make money or lose money together. We can make it even more engaging by creating a system in which members hold each other accountable, set timelines, get competitive with other groups, engage in forums, share tips with friends at their school, etc. Millennials have been recognizing the power and importance of micro-investing through the emergence of various tools and applications such as Robinhood or Acorns. Although these applications have lowered the barrier of entering the world of investments, they lack a social aspect that would encourage more millennials to become involved. Fortunet aims to use an individual’s social network to allow for a collaborative approach to investing, whether it be through creating “Group Portfolios” and publicizing a newsfeed of friends’ activity. Our target users are not professional investors that understand the markets and know how investments work, but rather the younger population that value social networks greatly, and have an interest in stepping into the world of trading. We would target the 73% of millennials who already prefer handling their financial services online, like through Google, Amazon, or Apple. Existing competitors would be other fintech apps like Robinhood or Acorn that focus on individual investing and bringing in the new generation of investors, however they lack the incorporation of social networks with investing. Our early adopters would be the millennials that are using Robinhood or Acorns, and we would attract them with the social features that define Fortunet, and this will encourage their friends and networks to join, ultimately causing a virability effect which will facilitate the scalability of Fortunet. Fortunet will take the form of a mobile app. The features that the minimal viable product will have are: integration of existing social networks, user public profile (i.e. GitHub), settings page, ability for the creation of group funds. The “Group Portfolios” would provide a chat space for active collaboration among team members, a suggested stocks page for the pitching of different companies and potential investments, and the ability to execute the trades. Additional features that Fortunate would have would be competitions among users to encourage more investing and collaboration, or a Discover Weekly page to give users recommendations to diversify their portfolios depending on their interests and previous investments. Our business model will follow a “free-mium” model.

Fortunet is a team made up of four Princeton University undergraduates with interests in technology, design, networks, finance, and entrepreneurship. Divya is a senior studying Computer Science with a passion in fin-tech and is fascinated by social networks. Juan is a senior studying Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with an interest in AI. Alexandra is a junior studying Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and is curious about technology, AI, and neuroscience. Audrey is a sophomore studying Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and is interested in the application of technology to finance.