Someone must have a last minute question to catch @nickfell out, has anyone asked about JISA’s yet?
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Thanks!
It goes without saying that crowdfunding’s been a big part of Freetrade’s story to date - we wouldn’t be where we are today without the support of our crowdfunders.
We’re planning another crowdfunding round soon. I don’t have any more specific updates beyond what we’ve shared before, but the community here will be the first to know.
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The community’s been a big part of Freetrade’s journey so far and will be an even bigger part of its future.
Over time, the community’s grown in size and the discussion has evolved to be about more than just Freetrade as a company to cover a whole variety of investing topics. We’re grateful to all of you for participating and to the members who’ve stepped up to take the lead in making it such a vibrant place to be.
To ensure the community continues to thrive, we’re investing in a senior Head of Community role on the marketing team. Among other things, they’ll be responsible for ensuring the discussions remain active and useful, gathering your product feedback to share with our teams and putting in place a regular program of events.
When the role gets posted, I’ll share it here in case you know anyone who’d be a great fit. Maybe one of you would like to apply? That would be a great story…
In terms of progress on key targets, I understand where the question’s coming from - I’d also love more ways to invest using Freetrade.
In general, Freetrade has taken the hard way in building our own proprietary technology instead of using third-party platforms. There’s a good reason for this though as it means we can offer low-cost investing AND become a sustainable business - we want to be around for many years to come. The trade-off is that we’ve not been able to add new products and assets to the platform as quickly as we would have liked.
We do hear you though and the team’s working hard to close the gap.
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Word of mouth referrals will always be an important part of how we grow Freetrade. However, we don’t want to be overly reliant on any one channel so are investing in a variety to learn what works. We also know that a mix of marketing channels will deliver the best results.
I agree there’s a big opportunity to build lifelong relationships with people. That starts with encouraging them to have more products with us; ISAs and SIPPs today and more in future. Great to hear you’re moving your ISA and SIPP over to Freetrade! The Family Plan is a very interesting idea…
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Thanks!
It’s striking how relatively few people in the UK and Europe invest, compared to the US for example.
The opportunity is to make investing a mainstream activity - a regular part of people’s everyday lives and conversations.
With that, I see our main competition not as other brokers but as the barriers in the way of people investing today.
Yes, there are functional barriers, such as high fees and clunky apps. But there are also significant psychological barriers, such as not knowing where to start when making your first investment.
Freetrade’s superpower is in breaking down these barriers.
Investing should be a simple and pleasurable experience, which is why we spend so much time crafting the app to be beautiful and easy-to-use.
People should know how much they’re paying to invest, which is why we make the pricing simple and transparent.
Learning about investing should be fun, which is why we write Honey to be both entertaining and informative.
If we continue to break down barriers like this, not only can we become the number 1 trading app but we can make the wealth-creating power of the stock market available to millions more people around the world.
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My pleasure!
We invest in a range of marketing channels to drive growth in the short- and medium-term.
Some of these channels we’ve been investing in for a while, such as the free share referral program, while others are newer for us, such as partnerships and broadcast advertising.
We try to understand the impact of each channel to optimise investment between them but we also know that the best results come from investing in a mix of channels at the same time.
To illustrate the point, someone might hear a radio ad, then read about Freetrade in the press, see an ad on Instagram and, ultimately sign up through a referral from a friend. In this example, each channel has played a role in making Freetrade feel more familiar and trustworthy to someone before they eventually create their account and start investing.
I can’t share specific numbers on CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) but can say that we’re acquiring new customers very efficiently. We expect this to continue as we increase our marketing investment by applying everything we’ve learned to date.
Re: positioning and messaging, I answered a similar question here:
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As you know, our mission is to get everyone investing. And we mean everyone, not just people in the UK. The team’s been heads-down on the Sweden launch. We’re making good progress on this and are excited to share more soon. Sweden’s a great market for Freetrade and will give us a platform to launch into more European markets.
In terms of how we’ll approach launching in new countries, we have a strong playbook from how we’ve built Freetrade in the UK. In particular, we think it’s important to build a community of passionate users early on from whom we can gather feedback (i.e. you all!).
We’ll also test different marketing channels to learn which are performing well before scaling with more investment - we can’t assume that everything we did in the UK will work in other markets.
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I answered a similar question re: competition here.
Re: crypto, we know a significant number of customers already invest or want to invest in crypto as part of their overall portfolio. We’re working on it but I can’t share anything more today I’m afraid.
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Genius. I think the main question is which stock you would trade from space?
Yes, the team’s done a fantastic job so far. More to come.
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Too many to pick a winner. The first that comes to mind is one executive complaining about a shortage of mature redwoods for him to plant in his garden…
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Hi @nickfell welcome to Freetrade.
What do you think you bring to freetrade that may have been missing.
What are your key targets you wish to hit for freetrades continued growth.
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I presume you mean Chilli Heatwave? They’re my favourite and I tend to prefer spicier foods. Having said that, they have Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in the US which are insanely hot - that’s where I draw the line.
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@nickfell Let’s imagine a repeat scenario of 2000, where there will be a massive and prolonged stock market crash and a lot of people have to take losses on their savings invested in equity.
How do you see FreeTrade faring in that case ? Please don’t say that even more people will trade to BTFD, as this is not what happened in 00s. People were so burned, they didn’t touch stocks for years.
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Afternoon @nickfell , welcome again to the community. I’ve just had an email regarding GIA from other providers now being able to be transferred to the freetrade GIA.
Can I ask, is this an in speccie transfer? and secondly, are there plans to be able to transfer in speccie from the freetrade GIA to the freetrade ISA.
Thanks again and welcome.
We’re projecting lots of users right now… :). More seriously, I can’t share specific projections but we have a lot of growth ahead of us, which is exciting.
In terms of how we’ll continue to grow in the UK, the main levers will be to make the product even more valuable by adding new products and features as well as optimising/increasing our marketing investment.
In general, launching Freetrade in more markets will deliver the fastest growth.
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Thank you! I appreciate that you’d want more detail but this is as much as I can share right now on the market rollouts.
Yes they’re in specie where possible. I started the process a few weeks ago but my other GIA provider is being really slow
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Thanks very much!
There’s so much to work with, which is why I joined: ambitious mission, great product, solid values, strong POV on branding (pink!) and a talented team.
Where I think I can help is by taking all these ingredients and helping to turn Freetrade into a truly iconic brand, not just in the UK but around the world. I’ve seen first-hand how this is done at the likes of Apple, Google, Burberry, Unilever and yes, even Facebook…sorry, Meta! Most importantly, I’ve seen how it can go wrong.
I have a clear mission here to take Freetrade to the next level and help realise the once-in-a-generation opportunity we have in front of us to become the iconic investing brand. That will definitely mean continuing to do what works well but also doing some new things - our recent investment in radio/outdoor/press ads is just the start.
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