Before World Investor Week comes to a close, Neon Money Club is here to clear the air.
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The invite-only money club has launched a campaign that makes it known that it was not built for investors. In fact, it wants to break members free from the traditional norms of what an investor looks like.
As AfroTech previously told you, Neon Money Club — co-founded by Luke Bailey and Jackie Liao — provides ways for people to begin their investment journey starting first with the areas they already love such as streetwear and sneakers, among others.
Since the platform’s inception, the goal has always been to remove the intimidation factor within the community, which begins by exposing them to successful investors who look like them.
“The first important thing is that unlike a lot of apps, we don’t call people on our platform ‘users’ — we call them ‘members.’ I think the main point we want to get across is that you can do this investing thing,” Bailey told AfroTech in an email interview. “And that there is a place where you can do it as yourself, without judgment or intimidating lingo. You don’t have to look like people from Wall Street or Silicon Valley. And you can start with what you know. We’re here to change who people think of when they think of investors and flip the narrative the same way that Hip-Hop flipped high fashion.”
Throughout World Investor Week, that sentiment was aimed to ring even louder as Neon Money Club highlights members from their community through their “Not An Investor” campaign.
“World Investor Week is when regulators from around the world — including the US Securities and Exchange Commission — team up to raise awareness on topics related to investing. It happens every year during the first week of October. It’s not something that’s well known to or formatted for the masses. Neon Money Club is all about enabling the masses to grow their knowledge and money, but we believe that it’s easier to start in a place where you see people like you doing the same,” Bailey said.
The campaign includes members from the community such as Abir Liben, Principal at Primary Venture Partners and former Principal at Serena Ventures, Felicia LaTour of Mindful Fee, and Alvin Allure — a tech founder who works with original content at YouTube — among others.
“Much love to the @neonmoneyclub family and their mission to lower the barrier to entry for our communities to invest. Let’s change the perception of what an investor looks like and create more reference points to learn from. Thanks for the dialogue,” Allure wrote on IG. “I always heard people say that to be great you need to stay in one lane. I want to change that. Life is about reference points. The more touch points you have from different environments create unique experiences and opportunities for personal growth. I’m a creative that continues to challenge the utility of tech to support those who love to learn new ways to express their lived experience, and their reference points, for others to interact with. Investing is about more than money. It’s about your time, energy, and people. Any investment you make must align with your values.”
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As the campaign heads toward its close, Bailey hopes users will feel empowered in the investment arena that he says “wasn’t made for everybody to play.”
That all changes now with platforms like Neon Money Club, which are shifting the narrative on who should participate.
“The top things we hear when asking people why they don’t invest is that they think they don’t have enough money to get started or that it’s difficult. A lot of that is because of how this game was built. It wasn’t made for everybody to play. But once you see that there isn’t a big barrier to getting started and that you belong here too, as you are, then it levels the field so that you can participate. It’s like Marion Wright Edelman says, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ We want you to see it,” Bailey said.
