Freetrade - Fintech Q&A! 🤝

[doddsie (Adam)]

@anonymoususer

Why did you guys decide to only go down the route of iOS in the beginning? I understand that you did a poll to see what was more popular for your immediate user base, but android holds more of the market.

The poll showed us that a bigger portion of our target audience were on iOS. It doesn’t hurt that iOS users typically have a little bit more money to invest too.

@anonymoususer

Are you getting US/JP/HK stocks at any point? I didn’t see many I were interested in on iOS and I would prefer to keep all my eggs in a single basket, in this instance.

We’re just getting started with our current selection of stocks. US stocks are launching at the start of the next year and we won’t be stopping there.

[anon99402360]

Already at 0 baby!

[doddsie (Adam)]

@anon16867057

Will you be giving the crowd the chance to invest again at the next round - or will it be only VC Funding?

@anon16867057

Will you be offering nationality declarations soon so we can start investing in some of the defence and airline stocks from the LSE?

@anon16867057

With Android coming soon - will existing IOS users be able to swap to Android instantly at launch without the need to be in a waiting list/queue when it is launched?

Yep.

@anon16867057

Congratulations on getting 10k Onboarded users - what do you predict the user based to be over the next 12 months? I suspect you may have a trendline/research of some description you can base a reasonable estimate from?

We’re not quite at 10k yet, plan to get there in the next couple weeks.

@anon16867057

With the launch of the ISA it seems you can only have either a GIA or an ISA and not both? (I maybe wrong here though - so please correct me if I am) Will this change in the future - so you can offer both accounts simultaneously to your customers?

Right now it’s one or the other, but you’ll be able to have multiple account types soon. In the future, this will include other types of ISAs and SIPPs.

@anon16867057

With Bux seeming to be on your heels with commission free Stock market access for European customers - do you feel some competition in this area is a good thing. And is it a concern to you that some other companies may muscle in on your growth over the next 18 months.

I think if we see fee compression across the industry it would be a good thing, and we’re happy to be leading the charge.

@anon16867057

I know there was talk of a subsidiary being set up in the past for somewhere in Europe. Is this still on the table?

We’re waiting to see what happens with Brexit / reg passport before revealing our plans.

@anon16867057

Have you and Monzo been in talks for a Freetrade pot integration yet? Do you have any future information you could possibly talk about regarding this?

Nothing to share on this right now, but we are keen to make it easier for customers of Monzo to integrate with Freetrade.

@anon16867057

Will you look at integrating with EMMA at any point in the near future? Or do you have any other money management app that you may prefer to integrate with?

That would be cool, too!

[don_quixote]

@doddsie

We’re launching the Android app early next year but we just launched the waitlist app for Android &…you download that here .

Could you give us a hint of a date

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Bradley

Given Monzo’s goal of being a financial hub, do you see yourself working with them to offer your service via the Monzo app for example?

We believe that we share similar values with Monzo & they have a great brand so it would be good to work together. We just have to figure out how that would work.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Peter_G

Could you let us know your current thoughts and what an integration might look like? Alternatively, are you thinking about an API so that folk like Monzo and Emma can display Freetrade account data with the minimum of input from you?

For sure we’ll open our API for things like that, but no firm timelines to share yet.

[don_quixote]

What do you think is the biggest threat to your business in 2019?

[doddsie (Adam)]

@kennygrant

Which things frustrate you most about the current investment ecosystem?

£12 commissions!

@kennygrant

Which areas of investment do you think will change in the next 10 years or so?

I think basic fees to invest will largely disappear, which we are already seeing in the States in all areas, eg zero commissions to trade, free robo advice, zero fee ETFs, etc. Investment companies will have to build better products to justify charges and the consumer will be the beneficiary.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Rat_au_van

After the success of Monzo’s in app crowdfunding, is that something Freetrade will consider?

Yes, yes and yes. We’ll one up them and you’ll be able to see your Freetrade shares as part of your total investment portfolio.

[don_quixote]

How would you value them within the platform? Or would they just be fixed? Would you wait till after you realsed on android

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Vladislav

Is managing a team of almost 30 becoming significantly more difficult than when it was about 10? What are the key management challanges and how are you coping if there are any?

We’ve hired some amazing people who work alongside me, so counterintuitively I’d say it might be easier to manage now. It’s just different, and will change again and again as we scale up - that’s perhaps the most challenging part, reinventing the way we run the company continuously.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Peter_G

If you had to swap places with another European fintech CEO who would it be - and why?

Easy one, Tom. Monzo

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Jonny2

Seeing as it’s nearly the new year, will you guys be releasing a road map for the on coming year?

Yes! It will be released in Jan.

@Jonny2

Also, I sadly missed out on Crowdfunding you guys in the past. Will there be any chance of jumping on-board before the European Expansion?

Depends on Brexit on timelines, but definitely there will be future opportunities to invest.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@anon61047078

will you be keen to open another round of fund raising early next year before your customer and European expansion?!

See above

@anon61047078

Regarding the advisers, will you consider to have their CV/experience on their profile? And will these advisers be freelancers?

We don’t have immediate plans to add advisors to the platform, we’re too focused on rolling out our core proposition to the rest of Europe.

[andrewpclark (Andy)]

What advice would you give to the typical Monzo user about investing and why should they use Freetrade?

[doddsie (Adam)]

@Theodore

What’s your favourite stock/ETF ticker?

Tesla

@Theodore

Would you have preferred to launch earlier in the bull market cycle rather than amidst the heightened uncertainty the global stock market is faced with now?

There’s no bad time to start investing, we don’t try and time the market with our product launches either.

@Theodore

How many times does the average Freetrade user open the app per week? If sensitive info, then ignore this ?

Lots!

@Theodore

Is a crowdfunding round during Q1 2019 on your radar? If so, will existing investors have an exclusive window to invest?

Yes to more crowdfunding, and we’ll definitely give our community the opportunity before the general public.

@Theodore

Did you participate in this week’s crowdfund? How bullish on Monzo are you?

Yes, I did. I invested in their last couple rounds and will continue to follow on.

@Theodore

What are your thoughts on online forum communities as marketing tools?

Our community’s an integral part of Freetrade. We’re constantly reading the feedback from users in our community & we have a process to review & add ideas that’re suggested each week by our users to our roadmap.

We just had a really successful launch party for over 300 of our investors. You can check out the slides from our talk here.

Next year we’ll be doing more of those & continuing to develop the forum by connecting it to our public roadmap, for example.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@jackbailley

If you could choose one share on Freetrade to invest in which would it be and why?

From what is available on Freetrade right now… My biggest holding right now is iShares Physical Gold ETF.

I think its great that even if you aren’t super bullish on the equities market, there are still ways to diversify your portfolio and earn a return on your money.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@MS308

Why are customers being onboarded at such a slow rate? Believe the app has been released for over a month and there’s a big waiting list of users.

Right now we’re adding over 1,000 new users a week. But the app’s in high demand too so there’s more people being added to the waitlist every day.

@MS308

Are there any plans for freetrade to support a marketplace for crowdfunded shares?

Crowdcube’s doing a pretty good job of providing that service, we’ll leave that to them for now.

@MS308

What are your growth forecast for end of 2019 - and why do you think they can be achieved?

We’ll share our goals for 2019 in Jan.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@tbowditch

Is there any plans for an invite system where I can invite my friends to use Freetrade? If so, would there be any incentives for me?

We’re unveiling a very early version of this in our next newsletter, you’ll be able to gift your friends a spot at the top of the waitlist for Christmas.

[doddsie (Adam)]

@jamesdevonport

How do you plan to onboard more people who are new to share ownership?

Great question as we see our core market being exactly those people who’ve never invested before. There is a broader thinking about how we reach and get these people interested, but our CMO Viktor tells me your question might be specifically about activation (i.e. they get their accounts, and then what)? We understand some newbie investors have this experience that they set up their account and don’t know what to do next - which ETFs or stocks to buy? We are doing a lot of product and design work to make the discovery experience better, into something that hasn’t been done before.

@jamesdevonport

Do you have any plans for an IFTT integration - linking my Monzo purchases would be awesome!

I’m a big fan of Monzo’s IFTTT integration so we’d love to set this up, once our API’s ready.

@jamesdevonport

Do you have plans to add share price notifications to the app - or to allow price based rules for auto purchasing?

Both are great ideas you should see on the roadmap in Jan.