CTR:What exactly is WeSeed?
CR: WeSeed is the stock market for the rest of us. The whole point is that people continue to get caught by surprise when the economy does anything…and that’s scary. We want to help anyone and everyone educate themselves and really see the power that they have as consumers and customers. People know a lot more than they think they do about the market, and WeSeed wants to be there to fill in the gaps. It’s a totally safe place to experiment, to read blog posts from people who are in tons of different industries about what’s going on, to talk to other users just like yourself. You don’t need to spend money on a broker, if anything this latest chaos in the economy and all the scams we’ve seen like Bernie Madoff have proven that we all need to protect ourselves, rather than counting on other people to have our best interests at heart.
On the site, you can trade “WeShares” on our virtual stock market, learn about your preferences as an investor, watch videos that help connect every day events like pop culture to stocks. The big thing for us is that everyone knows way more than they think they do. If you’re a consumer, if you talk to your friends about what they buy, their experiences with a company, a particular store, a product, then you know something about the stock market! If a company produces faulty products, has bad customer service, and a poor reputation, the likelihood is that they won’t do so well, right? That’s our logic anyway, and we want to remind our users that they’re the ones with the power: they can take their business elsewhere, and their investments. One of the catchphrases around here is “Let’s start scaring Wall Street,” and we mean it. There’s no reason why the more than 100 million Americans who aren’t invested at all can’t use what they know and love to make them money. It’s time for us to start investing in ourselves and our passions, and WeSeed’s here to help.
CTR: Who is behind the concept and why was it formed? Is it privately funded?
CR: The three brains behind the operation are Jenny Just, Matt Hulsizer, and Jennifer Openshaw. Just and Hulsizer are managing partners and co-founders of PEAK6 Investments, L.P., based here in Chicago. Jennifer Openshaw is the founder of projects like the Women’s Financial Network and the Family Financial Network, author of the book The Millionaire Zone, and all around financial guru. WeSeed is privately funded.
CTR: What are WeSeed's goals?
CR:Like I said, the goal here really is to help people. So many people admit that they don’t really know what they’re doing with their IRA, 401(k), or what money they do invest is just given to someone else to manage. And so many appear to have been caught by surprise when the market started to get so chaotic, and we really just want to show them what they do already know but help them learn enough to protect themselves in a safe, fun way.
CTR: Do we need another site tracking the stock market?
CR: The thing that really sets WeSeed apart, so that it’s not just “another site tracking the stock market” is the way you can go about finding companies to research and invest your WeShares in. The stock market is huge, there are a lot of publically traded companies, and that’s downright intimidating if you don’t have any formal training or experience with it! But if you look at WeSeed, we’ve broken the stock market down into kind of bite-sized chunks that are a lot more manageable. For example, I’m a bit of an environmentalist, something of a health nut, and I love playing video games. On the site, there are “mini-markets” so you can look through companies that are involved in your profession or your passions. I gravitate towards the “green,” “wellness,” and “gamers” markets, and it’s a lot less scary that way. I’m looking at companies I use every day, or companies that I now want to use every day, and it puts the whole thing on a scale I can wrap my head around. What’s even better is that I can follow the portfolios (or as we put it portfoliYOUs) of my friends on WeSeed, track who’s doing well, and see what they’re doing differently than I am. My friend Chase is way more into fashion than I am, and some of his investments did better, so I went and investigated some of those companies, learned a little bit, and “bought” a few shares of my own after chatting with him about it. It’s totally laid back, and you’re talking to other WeSeed users that are just like you: they don’t know a lot about investing, but they know what they buy and what they love, and that way you can all learn together.
CTR: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions when it comes to understanding the stock market?
CR: I think that I’ve been kind of beating around the bush about the biggest stock market misconception: that you need to be an absolute professional with years of training and expertise to even understand the stock market. I’ll admit that there are some things that are still way beyond me, and I’m trying to learn more, but I feel like I can really get my head around my own 401(k), like I can look at the business pages or Google Finance without my eyes glazing over in fear, and that’s really important. A friend of mine joked a while back that his broker called him and said ‘Sorry, I had all your retirement funds in Circuit City.’ We laughed, but I’m sure somebody actually had to be on the bad end of that phone call, and hopefully WeSeed can help make sure that it doesn’t happen to our users.
CTR: How many folks are working on the project? Is everyone in-house?
CR: Honestly, WeSeed is still growing, so I’m never sure exactly how many people are working on the project at any given time. The more users we have, the more people we need to help! Kind of connected to the next question, WeSeed does share a lot of its staff with the rest of the businesses at PEAK6, so that complicates matters further. Almost all of our efforts are in-house. There’s definitely some things we just don’t have the numbers for, of course.
CTR: What is your role at WeSeed?
CR: My role is officially the Social Networking Developer. Titles like that aren’t exactly descriptive, as I’m sure you know. I do reach out to bloggers, run our Twitter account, manage our Facebook and YouTube efforts, go to events near and sometimes far, do reputation management, and deal with all of the site feedback we have coming in. I’ve always thought of my job as kind of customer service on 40 cups of coffee a day. I’m here to help make our site as useful and fun as possible, to make all of our content accessible and easy to find. I could also just be a big filter to help the team make sense out of the needs of 10,000 people, but I think I like the first metaphor better.
CTR: How many users do you have (if you can release this?)
CR: We’re actually seeing a good bit of traffic, and a lot of people are saying that they really appreciate the site in part because of the economy. People want to learn, because they’re scared; but this is actually also a great time to learn, because no matter how chaotic the market and the economy are, the old adage of buying low is never going to fail you. As I said to a friend of mine who likes to buy movies “If you’ve got $50 to buy a few movies right now, why not spend half of that buying stock in Disney or General Electric (which owns NBC) and that $25 could pay you back in the long run?”
CTR: We are seeing WeSeed sponsoring events and advertising online. How important is this to your team? Will it continue?
CR: Advertising online and sponsoring events is important to us, not only for the practical applications (letting people know we exist), but also because even just talking to people in the online community helps us make the site even better. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve attended a Tweetup or a similar social event and told people where I work, only to have some great ideas and suggestions tossed out. That’s one of my favorite parts of events like that: people are so collaborative and creative and excited about the possibilities that the internet has, the potential for every website to do some real good. So yes, sponsorships, and even just attending events like this, is really important to the team, and I don’t see it stopping any time soon. We are planning on attending SXSW this year, and playing in the Social Media Club’s pool tournament on the 15th.
CTR: You are essentially a startup in Chicago. How has it been for you? What pros/cons have you experienced with being in Chicago?
CR: As for being in Chicago, I’m a Chicago native so of course I’m biased and will say it’s the perfect place to start a business. Some might argue that startups on the west coast or in New York (especially since we’re financially centered) may have an easier run of things, just because there are more resources available within a pretty small physical range. I don’t think that being in Chicago is at all a disadvantage, though. There’s a ton of talent and dedication in this city that is really untapped, which is always an asset. Like I mentioned before, going to Tweetups or Social Media Club events, meeting all the people I’ve met and getting such great input on the site, I honestly can’t see how we could be in a better place than Chicago to start this business. More and more attention is focusing on Chicago lately, with BlogHer and 20 Something Bloggers having conventions here this summer, SOB Con coming up in May. Chicago has always been a dynamic place for businesses, and I think as the magic of the internet really starts to infuse companies with new ideas and possibilities, those divisions between coasts and the whole “second city” thing will continue to fade into history. Chicago is a great physical community to be in, but we also have the power of a worldwide online one behind us.
CTR: What are your main goals for 2009?
CR: Our biggest goals are just to keep helping as many people as possible. We want to keep getting more and more users, attend (and hopefully sponsor) more and more events…I’d love to be able to say in a few months that I couldn’t keep up with the buzz around WeSeed.
Thanks to Caitlin and the WeSeed team for taking the time to chat with us. See you at SXSW!
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