Six friends, a wild idea to democratise investing and a pineapple. Sharesies, a micro-investing app was born in in 2017 and has gone on to disrupt the finance sector. The fin tech started in NZ (where over 10% of the country now uses the app), was launched in Australia in 2021 and globally is used to invest over $3bn across the Australian, New Zealand and American markets.
With a mission to create financial empowerment for everyone, Sharesies is making investing more accessible and has achieved B Corp status from day dot.
In the latest instalment of our Brands Changing the World series, Brooke Roberts is Sharesies' 3EO explains the dos and dont's when building a brand. A senior marketer with 20 years’ experience, she shares the CEO title with two of Sharesies founders; husband Leighton Roberts and friend Sonya Williams.
Key insights:
1. Which Sharesies milestone are you most proud of?
It’s funny, I’m always thinking of the milestones to come and what’s around the corner. We’ve got some exciting launches in the pipeline, and we’ll be celebrating 10 years in a couple of years’ time. But the milestone I’m really proud of is just getting started. There were six of us who founded Sharesies, we had a strong vision but to execute it and make it come to life is something I’m really chuffed about.
2. What has worked best to raise Sharesies brand awareness, cut-through and conversion and what hasn’t?
What’s really worked well for us to scale and grow brand awareness is providing an experience people genuinely love. When we started Sharesies we talked about creating a Minimum Loveable Product (instead of Minimum Viable Product).
One of our values is Chase Remarkable. And people do talk to their friends, family or colleagues about our app, so word of mouth is really a strong way for us to grow and build trust, especially in the financial sector.
We consciously didn’t put any marketing dollars behind us when we started, we wanted to know we had a really strong product. Once we were getting such great feedback, we knew we could expand it with marketing investment and build momentum.
PR is one of our most successful channels. That mass exposure, sharing our story and vision, building a genuine connection human in community. The ‘unscalable’ stuff actually really does scale, like attending events and pitching Sharesies in real life. Talking about how we exist for financial empowerment builds credibility and trust. So things that feel slow and hard have created a great foundation for us to scale.
3. What’s a brand you most admire and why?
I get inspiration from so many different places. Patagonia as a fellow B Corp for their intention behind why they setup and the brand's connection to that purpose.
Apple in its earlier days, relentlessly focused on providing revolutionary innovative experiences, their obsession with intuitive UX broke new ground. Their brand is imaginative and beautifully executed.
And… I love the Sharesies brand! Seeing the care, thought and intellect our team and Brand Director put into our brand, seeing it come to life and people play with our app. I’m in admiration of what the team has created by bringing their beautiful ideas to life.
4. What’s been one of Sharesies' biggest fails?
When we were setting up in Australia a lot of people gave us the advice, ‘you can’t do it like NZ’. We were going against our intuition a lot. We ended up launching in a way that wasn’t right, we did a big bang marketing campaign. In hindsight I would have done it in reverse, focussed on building the community by creating remarkable moments.
5. If budget was no issue which brand ambassador would you choose for Sharesies dead or alive, and why?
I asked ChatGPT for giggles and it said Dolly Parton! Because “she’s an absolute icon, smart, generous and makes people feel empowered, and how fun would our campaigns would be!?”
I was actually thinking of Warren Buffet. He’s genuinely regarded as an investing guru in so many circles. He holds our principles of long-term investing. If he did a campaign with us that would be revolutionary.
6. The 3EO the sceptics, what’s the greatest benefit?
Shared consciousness. You can make way better well-rounded decisions by having different perspectives in the mix. Being a CEO can be lonely. We adopted the model four years ago and we’ve got this ability to ‘Be in it together’, another one of our values. It just works for us especially as all three of us are parents now.
We share the PR load. When I was the sole CEO people would just want me in the room. I thought ‘why?’, the rest of the team are awesome. It was just old perceptions of hierarchy.
7. Has gaining B-Corp certification paid off for Sharesies and how?
It’s a kind of insurance... if anything happened to us as founders, our intent of financial empowerment for everyone has been ingrained into our constitution from day one.
I tried to apply for B Corp pre revenue! They wouldn’t let me. We’re not doing this for customers. It’s fundamental to the type of business we wanted to create. A force for good and that we can measure, and it will continue beyond us. It's opened doors and changed perceptions to show we’re fundamentally different in the way we operate. We partner with companies to provide staff share schemes across Aus and NZ, they’re picking us as a company that’s doing good.
8. For any cynical CEO’s or boards, why invest in the ‘intangible’ of brand?
I would say, how is your business even performing?! Brand is such an integral part of any business. You’re always going to have a brand. And if you invest in your brand, it’s like reputation, it builds trust and long-term value, to stay around well beyond your years.
It’s in everything, how you deal with a supplier, how you do a campaign, how you talk to your customers, how you write an email.
9. What are the most important ways you help your team bring your brand strategy to life?
It starts with hiring people that connect with our purpose. That’s so important.
Sharing clearly where we see Sharesies heading. And then collaborating with the team to bring that to life and connect with our audience. The best idea wins, no matter where it comes from, that’s a really important part of how we work. The personality behind our brand; generosity, connection, human to human. That’s how we make sure our brand really shines through.
10. For all the other working parents out there, what’s your one tip to survive the juggle?
It doesn’t matter the level of your role, it’s really hard, I want to be in two places at once. I love what I do here, and I love being with my kids, my youngest is starting school soon, I’m really feeling that.
I don’t get it right the whole time, when I’m with them I really try to be present. These devices make that hard. I’m not trying to strive to be perfect, but I really want to be wherever I am. I think ultimately that will give me comfort later in life.
Two months after I quit my job and started Sharesies I was pregnant. So Sharesies was kind of built with that ingrained… I call it a work life blur instead of work life balance. There were some things I did when I had young kids that people wondered about and then when they had kids came back to me and said, ‘now I understand!’.
https://sharesies.com.au/
