John Buckley, Business Insider Australia

li>The team behind Tradervidz wants to educate the flood of first-time investors who have entered the market through the pandemic. Since launching in February, the platform has won over close to 1,000 new members, and made more than $700,000 in profit. Looking to next year, the team wants to build on partnerships with Superhero and Digital Surge, and become a household name in financial education. A flood of first-time investors flocked to share markets and crypto exchanges around the world over the course of the pandemic. Now, a pandemic project founded by four former traders in Melbourne wants to educate them — legally. Tradervidz pitches itself as a “one-stop-shop” for investors new and old, and a more professional answer to the Australian market’s swelling cohort of unlicensed financial advisors. Launched by Mathisha Vidyaratne, Richard Valioukhov, Zac Povolny, and Anthony Trainor in February, the platform centralises and verifies a variety of investing resources to mitigate the risks associated with trawling through random subreddits for stock tips, and signing up to dodgy Discord channels shilling questionable advice. In practice, Tradervidz is an aggregate investor interface that offers a wide range of dashboards, a newsfeed that pulls articles from sources like Cointelegraph and CoinDesk, investment starter packs and — of course — a Discord community. What separates Tradervidz from the rest, though, is that the platform has an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) — making it the adult in a room full of possible swindlers, and the only product of its kind. Even still, the group has to be careful not to give personalised advice, said Vidyaratne, who serves as one of two head analysts at the platform. “In terms of giving advice as we generally do, we can’t give advice that’s personal,” Vidyaratne said. “So anything we do we say, you know, ‘X, Y, Z — this is why you may want to invest in X, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should.” Investment and financial education has become a major pain point for regulators. In September, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said that it had started work on a review of “selected” finance influencers on TikTok and other platforms. Just last week, Australia’s second financial influencer (or “finfluencer”) conference underscored just how problematic the proliferation of unlicensed financial advice has become in Australia, by hosting a panel of experts who spent the better part of two hours calling for regulation, and excluding influencers altogether. Come Monday, the corporate regulator had collared its first notable offender: Tyson “ASX Wolf” Scholz, who was found to be charging punters $1,000 a head for access to a members-only chat that discussed stocks, while marketing his offering on other platforms. Platforms like the one offered by Sholz have been met with serious demand from would-be and veteran investors around the world. It’s no surprise then that Tradervidz has a Discord server of its own, which users can access as part of the platform’s subscription package. But it isn’t cheap: an annual subscription comes in at $1,440 billed annually, or $119.95 a month. Valioukhov told Business Insider Australia that the value is definitely there. On its Discord server, users can get access to any number of offerings that reach further than the memes and other cultural debris that has become expected of other servers like it. “We have a TVI accountant, who helps our community when it comes to tax time, and then we also have a psychology, or ‘mindset’, coach,” Valioukhov said. “So when it’s the market’s dipping, like it is today, people can listen to him, and watch his videos, and he provides that sort of comfort to our community,” he said. “We’re just trying to provide that all-round package, so members feel like they’re part of something meaningful.” Since its launch in February, the platform has won over 987 subscribers, and generated more than $700,000 in profit, all thanks to word of mouth, and a couple of celebrities. Among them are a crop of AFL players — where crypto fever is running high — including Collingwood FC captain Scott Pendlebury, and the Western Bulldogs’ Easton Wood. Until earlier this month, the platform hadn’t spent a cent on advertising. All things considered, the platform has built a noteworthy corporate pedigree, winning the approval of retail share trading platform Superhero, where financial literacy has become a hot topic of late, and Digital Surge, the cheapest crypto exchange available to Australians. The Tradervidz team say they have landed an affiliate deal with Superhero, which sees them earn a commission on every new member that signs up via their interface. When asked whether they had plans to build out integrations that would feed automated portfolio data into a Tradervidz user’s dashboard, the team said it would likely target crypto first, and build on their relationship with Digital Surge. Polovny said it’s on “the roadmap”, but for now the platform wants to be a market leader in education. Until users get access to some degree of platform cross-pollination, they can track their portfolio through the platform manually. “So you just input your coins and stocks, and it tracks your whole portfolio, which is a core feature of the website,” Polovny said. “We also have a watchlists feature, which runs on AI and borrows from a similar function available at TradingView, which is a platform used by technical analysts.” Heading into next year, the group said they’re mindful of how congested the space could become, and are eyeing household name status in the world of investment education. “Now, we definitely don’t rest on our laurels. Pretty quick, as in any industry, if you sit back and relax you can fall behind pretty quick, and we know that there’s going to be new entrants in the market,” Trainor said. “In saying that, we’ve got a lot of growth plans for next year: We want to start our own podcast, more free education and advice to Australians,” he said. “We’re also looking to update our product. So obviously crypto moves a million miles an hour, so we’ll release a crypto-centred course. Probably in the first quarter of next year.” This article first appeared on Business Insider Australia, Australia’s most popular business news website. Read the original article. Follow Business Insider on Facebook or Twitter.

John Buckley, Business Insider Australia

Stories by John Buckley, Business Insider Australia

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