How can the youth segment connect with one another in a digital community to embrace financial literacy?

Young Singaporeans today value convenience. They are digital natives accustomed to having information at their fingertips, and they expect all things to be fast and simple, including financial planning. Enter Seedly — a financial management app co-founded by Kenneth Lou and Chew Tee Ming.

Seedly targets the younger generation, particularly fresh graduates who are tech-savvy but under-served in the market. “The younger generation face the same financial challenges that their parents’ generation did,” said Kenneth. As millennials themselves, they understand how one’s spending habits could be better controlled through a convenient mobile app.

While Seedly was conceived as a pure personal finance management app, Kenneth thinks it has grown to be so much more. He sees Seedly as a community of more than 40,000 members coming together to help each other get smarter financially and co-create a content-rich blogosphere in the realm of personal finance.

A community-driven conversation about financial planning via Seedly.

Planting the seeds through experience

Kenneth prides himself on being receptive to trying different things and taking on new challenges. He was one of the contestants at the DBS API Hackathon 2017, where contestants were required to come up with application ideas in three days. “Even though I did not go home with a trophy, it was rewarding as I got to meet people who share similar values and we learned from each other. Moreover, the event was a fun three-day experience on a team bonding and product level as well.”

Prior to the Hackathon experience, the team from Seedly graduated from the then-DBS HotSpot Pre-Accelerator 2016* (now replaced by DBS Hotspot Startup Xchange), an intensive three-month programme aimed at cultivating entrepreneurship through experimentation, mentorship and funding. “We were lucky to have the opportunity to experience the HotSpot programme and the process allowed us to plant our roots in the DBS Innovation community. We have been involved in various events back at DBS Asia X (DAX) including sharing sessions by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, pitching sessions for the DBS API Hackathons and interaction with senior management to work on solutions together,” added Kenneth.

Nurturing millennials’ interest in personal finance

A 2017 survey report[1] revealed that 73% of respondents admitted to not having a planned monthly budget, while only 60% said they have a general sense of where their money goes each month. “I think there is a lot to improve in the space of teenagers’ finance, but it can be done in an accessible and digestible way. That is why we have been writing essays to help our members understand various topics through our blog,” Kenneth said.

He is confident that teenagers in Singapore are forward-thinking enough to figure out their financial needs. “They are self-serving and have a DIY approach towards their insurance and investments. A lot of questions on the blog are rather difficult to answer, but we solve it with collective effort and make finance easier for everyone.” Kenneth believes that “innovation is boosting financial literacy”, especially by making information unbiased and transparent.

Growing to the next level

“We see a bright spot of growth and feel that there is a lot to be done to make personal finance less personal but more communal,” Kenneth said. In the coming years, Kenneth will concentrate on creating the biggest personal finance community in the country and has plans to expand its footprint exponentially to neighbouring countries.

“Growth. It’s all about growth,” Kenneth replied when asked on what worries — and excites — him when it comes to Seedly’s future. “I have already seen how we are making a meaningful impact to the people who have had their important questions answered, for example on divorces and inheritance money. Over time, we aim to solve the hardest problems financially for all Singaporeans, or even provide unbiased expert opinions on financial products in the market,” he added.

“We aim to launch a community on the app to make it a more networked experience for all our users, that is not just siloed. What is equally vital is to always stay ahead of the curve to innovate and build intuitive tools.”

Advice for start-up hopefuls

‘Just Do It’ is not just a catchy tagline to Kenneth, it is his ethos. He advises young people to ‘just do it’ if they have a good idea. “They should focus on real problems and fundamentals, not do things just for the sake of doing things and always ask why things need to be done in a certain way… or not.”

He added that you never know how it will go — if you fail, just pick yourself up and go again.

This never-say-never attitude is what drives Kenneth, Seedly and his 12-people team to be one of the top personal finance platforms in Singapore.

Kenneth Lou is the co-founder of Seedly, a personal finance management app designed to help the younger generation with their financial planning. The article is brought to you as part of DAX A List — a series featuring alumni (former teams and projects) housed at DBS Asia X, the bank’s innovation centre.

*The DBS HotSpot Pre-Accelerator has been refreshed as Startup Xchange. The programme helps to connect business units with start-ups to bring solutions from ideation to implementation. For more enquiries, please contact startupxchange@dbs.com.

[1] Acorns, 2017 https://app.box.com/s/sikpbs94y84tdugqy3rvqu0s1mv74sr8