Let's Play!

We are all natural investors. During our lives, we make a myriad of investment decisions with our time, our effort and occasionally our money. Going to the gym, learning a language, planting spring bulbs in the garden are all decisions about investing time today for some benefit in the future. Making financial investments is no different.  

We also intuitively understand risk-reward. Whenever I cross the road, I am calculating whether it is safe or not. Some of us will step out into moving traffic, others will wait until the road is completely clear.

So, we are naturally equipped to take charge of our own investments. And yet few of us choose to do so even though technology is increasingly empowering us to take charge of so many other parts of our lives.

In May invstr will be launching a new mobile app that will allow us all to make a change. invstr users will be able to play, learn and share their way to an independent and collaborative financial future. The first part of that journey is about playing.

One of the largest problems we face as a society is the dearth of financial understanding. This is a universal affliction that affects young and old, rich and poor, educated and un-educated. We can’t “teach” financial education. We all need to learn. And how better to learn than by playing and having fun?

The new invstr app features two games: a simple up/down Investment game and a Prediction game. In both games, as invstrs we decide whether to buy or sell a variety of financial instruments using notional capital. We can monitor our performance with real-time reporting of our profit (or loss) as the financial markets move up or down. When we play we also learn what proportion of our fellow invstrs are buying or selling and the community’s predictions. We can easily share our investment decisions or results and check how we compare against other invstrs on the Leaderboard. Finally, completed “missions” earn us badges on our Profile that help to attract Followers.  

Making it both simple and fun to invest is an essential first step in getting all of us interested in taking charge of our investments. Next time, we will look at how the new invstr app makes it easy for everyone to learn how to become a great investor.

To sign up to our early adopter program and participate in our pre launch BETA, please go to our BETA sign up page https://beta.invstr.com/