Time To Get Wizest App | Axel Thibon

Axel started Wizest by bringing together the co-founding team around a clear vision and mission: building a solution that makes investing more approachable, collaborative and transparent. After an early career in France and Spain as an industrial engineer working mainly in the automotive industry, Axel came to the US to get his MBA from MIT. He then started his finance journey, serving as the head of strategy and transformation for two banks, leading areas like strategic and commercial planning, product development, marketing, operational efficiency, compliance, digital transformation and M&A. During this time managed an online bank, VirtualBank, and, before starting Wizest, launched another online bank one from scratch, TotalDirectBank.

Transcript

Josh Bolton: 0:01

Welcome to the Josh Bolton show. interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton. Welcome. Welcome, everybody. Today we have asked the T bone. This is awesome, dude, he was just giving me a little bit of backstory of what he does. And man, we are in for a good ride today. action packed and everything. Axl, take it away.

Unknown: 0:28

Now, thank you for hosting me today. And so it's, it's pleasure to speak with with you and your audience. And yes, happy to, to chit chat and have a conversation about what I do who I am. And we can go from there.

Josh Bolton: 0:42

Yes, we will. So tell us a little about yourself and your backstory kind of thing.

Unknown: 0:47

Yeah. Perfect. So yes, like, I am speaking to you like today from like, Cleveland, Ohio. But you hear my accent is not a Midwest accent. I'm from from France originally. And like, even if we're going to end up speaking about investing and finance and technology. I am by training a mechanical engineer. So nothing to do with, with with with finance. But that's what leads to me to finance today. Because like, when I started working in the, in the car industry, knowing nothing about finance, I wanted to start investing for myself to build wealth for my future to be able to be to buy a house on point or to still start thinking about my retirement. But like when I was going to try to find a solution, like I tried, I tried first with like, tools like Robin Hood, or ETrade. But like, when I was going through there, it's when it's easy to access. It's fantastic. But then it's like, what do I do? What do I buy? What do I sell? I'm gonna screw up. And right. So I was like, let's go back to my bank to ask like if they can help me. And when I went there, they told me that yeah, we can help you. But do you already have like 100 or 200k? To qualify for to get a financial advisor? No, not yet. Okay, so come back in five years. And so and so then I went to the only solution that was left, which is like, the new tools that are appearing now like Robo tools like acorns, Betterment Wealthfront, which is great. If you want to put your money in a place, and then forget about it, because it's a it's almost like a black box, you have to trust the algorithm, you don't know what is happening inside. And you have a limited choice. And so it's very difficult to control what is what is happening. So can be frustrating for a lot of people. And so that's why like, I decided, you know why, at some point, I need to find a way to solve to solve that. And I think that's the reason why like, after a few years working in the car industry, I switched to banking, I went to the EU, I came to the US did my MBA at MIT, and switched to the finance to banking, working in a few banks for a few years, being the head of strategy for for these institutions. And even like, start from scratch a little online bank, just before doing Weiser. So and I think that being able to build a little bit from scratch, gave me the confidence that I was able to build a solution to address like the investing issue that we mentioned before. And that's where I am now now. It's like launching what my my startup like my Fintech startup, named wisest, which is about like, making investing approachable and easy for everyone. And so that's the, that's, that's my journey so far.

Josh Bolton: 3:28

That's wonderful. Especially, like you touched on the engineering. The everyone I've talked to you on here who's done something very similar, and it's very successful. They all started off in engineers, and they're like, wait a minute, I'm an engineer, I could just reverse engineer that, and make it work. And then, listening, I was like, I was just chuckling in my head. I'm like, yep, if anyone can figure out an engineer will figure it out.

Unknown: 3:54

No, it's, it's true that the idea that it's like that, it's like this mind of like being curious to be able to find solutions to problems. And, and yes, like, I found my problem was like, trying to help people investing. And that's what I'm trying to do now.

Josh Bolton: 4:09

That's wonderful. So what are some of the strategies that you learned in this, like, up to the point of your FinTech for investing to make it more approachable for the Average Joe?

Unknown: 4:20

Yeah, so So what I what I saw is like, first that tech, in the last few years, like there was a lot of evolution in the market, and a lot of new tools and a lot of in the use of technology. That is fantastic. Because like 20 years ago, Robin Hood was not existing. And so it was very limited to be able to do to access and can do trading. And everyone can do it, which is fantastic. But like, again, like we give everyone a car with the not a lot of people knows how to drive. And so now it's like now that we have access to it, how we can make it easy for people to operate, not just to have access to it. So that's, that's, that's what that's what I'm trying to do is, let's, let's solve the second issue and issue after being able to access it in a more convenient way. Now let's learn how we can help to operate and to do it and to invest really. And so that's why I think that that the, the robo aspect is is great for like some some some aspects and, and using the machine and, and algorithm that are like, very right right about Ravel, but but I think that money is still for most of people and very emotional. And so it's an emotional topic. And so we like to have like, human contact, to chat about topics to have confirmations, and validations. And so and so that's why with wisest, we brought back the human into the, into the, into the into the process, and be like and use that technology to make to package everything and make it accessible to everyone.

Josh Bolton: 5:59

So the initial part of my question was, what did you learn in your journey to for investing strategies that led you to wise us?

Unknown: 6:07

Yeah, yes, thanks. Sorry about that. I was like, it's all good.

Josh Bolton: 6:11

It's all good.

Unknown: 6:13

So So, so what I learned is like, at first, like, about investing and investing strategies, that is, and one of the reasons why that I am doing that is like, very limited, bring me a part of the society, I will say is accessing is accessing investing. I'm seeing that like, if you look at the statistics today, like, I learned that like, only 25 to 30% of like investors are women, for example. And so we knew that there is something here that is not working. And same same thing with minorities, like there isn't there is not a lot of people that are investing there. So there is a lot of things that can be do that can be done to help and there is a huge opportunity. And then in terms of investing, I saw that also like people are like, when they are not guided, they may have like the over they may overreact to what is happening in the markets and take bad decisions. And so the idea is to provide them support. So they don't overreact and and don't take bad decisions. Because if not, you see the market dropping, oh, I'd have to sell and you sell low, and then the market is going back up and then you buy high and all bad. So so that's that's what that's what also we want to avoid and try to help people to navigate through these uncertainties.

Josh Bolton: 7:31

Should you have different like, investment strategies like the contrarian trend trading stuff like that?

Unknown: 7:37

Yeah. So what we have in the in the platform and the way it works, I think it's a good time now to jump into that is like when people come in, they don't see stocks, ETFs mutual funds, what they see they see people and the people that the like, you see, like when you go into Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, everybody is used to analyze people. And these people that we have in the platform are like financial experts. So financial advisors, portfolio managers in the real life. And they are sharing their profile personal profile, as well as some portfolio and strategies with the users. And then as you as the users after like some some questions to help to do matching process, people can see a list of like, of experts and say I choose like 123, and build the team, almost like you build your fantasy football team, but you build your team of experts, that is going to work for you on your behalf. And so when you when you choose a team, and you say hey, I want like to maybe have like $10,000, let's say and I want to put like 30% of my money on Jim, and 30% in Mary and 40% in in Jeffrey, and the platform wise is gonna is going to replicate on your behalf the portfolio of Jim different Mary, and automatically, and then you as a user will only manage your team. So your portfolio is going to be these three names. And you will manage that instead of having to go and manage like the mutual fund XYZ that is super scary and abstract for a novice investor. And yeah, like the thing that is great also of having this human layer, let's say is that like, each time Jim, Jeff or Mary, do a change in our portfolio, they have to explain it and say Why say hey guys that are following us. Like I'm following my portfolio. This this week, I want to do this change because of this and this reason. And then like the next week, if they don't really change they can say hey, by the way, this week the market dropped like 5% Don't worry, it's because of this and this like aspect in the macro economy. So so they can explain and and and make people not overreact to what is happening out there. So so this way, they help people to keep I would say you're calm and consistent with the plan they had in their mind about investing.

Josh Bolton: 9:54

Interesting, okay, I like I can get behind that like we know good strategy. Let's see Like Jim is more like sills puts on s&p 500. Generally speaking, that's going to work kind of thing. And Mary is more like a Trend Trader. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I would like that then be like you get a hybrid of everything. But now this is just me that came up. And probably a lot of people are thinking about this, how what would be the expense fee that we would have to pay you to get to this isn't a monthly rate, it's,

Unknown: 10:23

yeah, and so it's 1%, we decided, again, to go with something that is not scary, and easy for people, which is like, Let's go like the Netflix model, let's take to access wises, it's like a 10 or 20 bucks monthly subscription. And then with that, there is everything is included. So you don't have a there is no hidden fees or additional fees. And then you can access to, to all the Jeffries and Mary's and Jones that are in the platform like sharing their their expertise and their portfolios. And and that's it. And so like, so that's a very, very simple model.

Josh Bolton: 10:59

So is it just one flat fee? Or is it like 10 bucks, just like the starter package? 20 bucks is like the, we will fully automate everything you can think

Unknown: 11:08

so yes, with 10 bucks, you can, you can basically follow one expert. And with 20 bucks, you can follow as many experts as you want. So you can basically like split a little bit of your morning, like, I want to follow up for experts that 25% of my money in 25% of my money for different experts. So you can do that. So we so that's the basic one is 10. And then with 20 bucks, you can do you can do, you can do teams. Okay,

Josh Bolton: 11:33

so then, my, my next question, from what I've learned, do I need to be an accredited investor for this? Or is this an 18 year old without 2200 bucks can do it kind of thing?

Unknown: 11:44

Exactly. You can do it with like 50 bucks. So there is no minimum to start using the platform. The only thing is like, obviously, to be able to follows certain portfolios that are there in the platform, maybe we suggest like, hey, we suggest for this one a minimum of like$1 or $250 for this one. So depending on the portfolio, because if you want to have something that is working from a trading perspective, you need to have at least five bucks of each product. So the trades can happen in the in the back end. And so that's like, why we suggest minimums, but like it's only suggested minimum, so you can you can start with with 10 bucks or 20 bucks if you want.

Josh Bolton: 12:24

And is there an automatic withdrawal? So like you automatically if I say I want you to pull $50 and put it into my pot. And Omar, will that happen?

Unknown: 12:33

Yes. So the way it works like when you when you when you open your account, you will connect your bank account in your bank account with with ISIS account with because wises is going to be a brokerage account, like like, like your Robin Hood account, and you will transfer money from your checking or savings in the same way whenever you wish.

Josh Bolton: 12:52

Okay, so I could say within your your app, say, hey, every week on Friday for my payday pull $100. And can I also tell it to automatically invest into my three traitors to the same time? Yes,

Unknown: 13:07

yeah. So that's a great question. And so today, as we're just launching, we don't have like the automated like, I would say, recurrent like funding, but it's something that we want to add like very soon. And it's great that you mentioned like, for example, 50 bucks in every payroll, because like one of our like, angle of approach was wisest is to build partnerships with companies to offer wise just as a benefit to complement the 401 K's so people can can have it through their company and maybe subsidized by the company. So they don't even have to pay the 10 or 20 bucks. And they can do that like every month like take like 50 bucks or 100 bucks of my payroll and put everybody's invoices and by the way we just signed a few months ago first partnerships. And then the first partner that he's going to offer that to the employees is like the NBA team of Cleveland, the club, the Cavs, they ask who we partner with them and they are going to offer wises to all their employees.

Josh Bolton: 14:05

That's awesome. So then they're paying the $240 a year.

Unknown: 14:10

Yeah, they're going to subsidize wages for the employees and it's gonna be free for the employee.

Josh Bolton: 14:15

That's awesome. That's also good for you too. Okay, the cool then that's I like that because i i use TD Ameritrade I have my Roth account with them. And I'd like it I just say alright, every payday pull 30 bucks out and then they don't have an automatic buying system. That's where I was like, Oh, do you have that source? Like you automatically get the three $30 And you're like Okay, now we'll just distribute it equally amongst all my trades. Yeah, when you when you do get that like you got me then

Unknown: 14:47

yeah, that's that's in the in the in the in the roadmap among other like, I would say like features because they as I said, we are going live now. We think the basic functionalities and like we're exciting too excited. To get like the users on board and the clients on board, so so they can tell us what they want us first to tell them to add, we That's how we're going to prioritize like, so. So super excited about that.

Josh Bolton: 15:11

That's awesome. So then how long have I'm assuming you didn't code everything you had a team under you? How long did this project take for you to build up?

Unknown: 15:20

Yeah, so it was a quite a bigger undertaking. A Baba was like a COVID in the middle. But like, yes, it has been like a three year journey. Because it's not about just like coding and building. It's also about like, it's a financial institution, its financial business. So we need to make sure that what we do is compliant with the regulations that we also get our license with a regulator. So we are SEC regulated, we are working also with third parties, to help us with the custodial accounts and the trades, to happen to have everything happening in the backend in a way that is secured and insured also. So all that is like, it's, it's not as easy as like Signia, like a lemonade stand, or driveway. But now we are ready for Showtime. And, and so we just started like a couple of months ago, like the friends and family testing, to have like the first I would say fin rack. And now we're about to release the app in the App Store. So and it's already it's already there. So anyone can go and see our website, the App Store, and registering or at least like going to our waiting list. And we are there.

Josh Bolton: 16:30

Are you on the Apple Store?

Unknown: 16:32

Yes, we are in Apple's App Store and Google Play Store as well.

Josh Bolton: 16:36

Okay, I'm gonna look you up. As we speak, why is this? So then I have so then the next question for me comes up is do you have any plans to going public with this eventually.

Unknown: 16:51

So for now, it's not something that I'm thinking about, like I'm thinking about, like, it's because going public is like, I would say like a long term, I would say possibility, the idea was wisest is more like now to see like, what is going to be the best way to grow wisest, and to reach our audience and to help our audience. So that's why we are like doing these partnerships to offer whiteness as a benefit also to try to partner with like credit unions and small banks to offer wisest as a, as a co branded product for in between savings and wealth management services, as well as directly through the through the app that you that you are like playing with now. And so and so when we will have access that, then we will have like a better idea of like, what is going to be the best path for like, the growth and what, where this can lead us like if it's like a to an IPO fantastic. If not like it's like an acquisition by a larger and financial institution. Why not? But that's not my preoccupation. Now. Now, like, how can I help the people to get there, and how they can be happy with what we have developed? And and we go from there.

Josh Bolton: 18:01

So then, as I'm looking through your app, I'm actually downloaded so you can see what it's like. Do you offer fractional shares? Because like, yes, currently, currently, Amazon still like to grant even for me, that's like, that's hard to get.

Unknown: 18:14

Yes, yes, yes, yeah, we offer fractional shares. And we can go up to like, as I was mentioning before, like, you can buy five bucks off Amazon. We can we can work through that. So that's why I say like, yes, you can start with like 100 or $200 in the app, like it's okay.

Josh Bolton: 18:35

Do you offer offer like an annual payment? So if like, I paid you upfront 200 and said 240 Do you have an annual discount?

Unknown: 18:45

Yeah. So so as we are launching now, we are having like the I would say the first month is for free and then we are going to have like also like the next two or three months at half the price. So So for for the lounge, we have like special offers. But obviously like we're going to do what you said, like, if you pay your yearly subscription, right away, you're going to have like a discount. So yes.

Josh Bolton: 19:09

Okay, cool. Because I would rather pay that as, as I'm looking at it is like everything that Robin Hood's missing so and especially hearing you say it's insured and backed by the government and I I'll Vinci sign up for all that too. I just like I like paying upfront I'm like I like a discount take my 200 kind of thing.

Unknown: 19:29

Yes, yes. And when Yeah, and what we see is like also it could be like a way for like, I don't know, sometimes like parents or or grandparents to do it to offer that to the to the to the kids they say here you you are now like you become a teenager it's time to start like thinking about like managing your money and it's gonna be a way to do that to give that to them as well. So definitely like this like yearly payment is something that we are going to have soon.

Josh Bolton: 19:56

Yeah, I could see that we're like, even and it was apparent because a lot of like entrepreneurs, I've talked to you, but you just know mom pops. In general, they don't have the time to study the market kind of thing. And so it could just be one of those, like, I really liked the fact that you can do percentages and stocks for the amount that I really liked. So you could be like, Okay, I want 20% here. 20% there, 10% here. And then it just, like I said, when the automation finally kicks in, it just pulls the money, they could do it for the kids.

Unknown: 20:27

Yeah. And what is great also for like, anyone, not just the kid, but for anyone is like, as you're following and replicating, like, the portfolio of like, Mary and Jim, let's say. They also like every week like posting, doing some posts to explain what they do and to explain basics about finance and investing. So there is a whole educational also experience, which is great for anyone like to be able to have like a better understanding of what is happening this mysterious stock market.

Josh Bolton: 20:57

Yeah, yeah, the stock market, especially nowadays with meme stocks. It's interesting. It's really interesting.

Unknown: 21:04

Name stock and the collapse of crypto and yeah, a lot of things going on now.

Josh Bolton: 21:10

It was so funny for me like this one guy at my current job. He is such a hardcore crypto enthusiast. And I told him I do this is all gonna fall apart because he's made he made like something like 200k. And I was like, that's great. But did you sell your crypto? He's like, no, like, so you don't have money then?

Unknown: 21:28

Yes. And it's funny because I think you until recently, like, everywhere, were telling us like, hey, why don't you offer crypto with visors? And we said, like, Hey, why is this he's here to help people to build wealth, in a sustainable and in for the long term. We're not here to play on the on the meme stock or like, or like speculative investment. And crypto is still the wild wild west.

Josh Bolton: 21:52

So there's no regulation at all.

Unknown: 21:55

So it's not regulated. We are going to be very cautious with that. Because I don't think like for people that are conservative, it's a good choice to invest that because they're gonna have heart attacks.

Josh Bolton: 22:07

You Yeah, the whips. I mean, it'll I've watched crypto because I like trading. So I just I look at the tickers for them. I was talking to one guy a couple weeks ago and crypto was 20,000. After the call, it dropped to 18,000 in under 60 minutes and like two grand just suddenly gone like that. I'm like, that's crazy. I would not be able to sleep at night would that?

Unknown: 22:31

Yeah, same. And I think our audience that we have like at least with wisest is not the type of people that like this level of risk is more people that that don't know where to start with investing, they know it's the right thing to do because it's going to give them in the long term more return than they used to saving accounts. But they don't know where to start. And so they're more like conservative profiles. And they don't want to have like this this crazy swings that are happening with crypto or meme stocks.

Josh Bolton: 23:00

Right? So I'm just curious do you on your platform Do you allow people to buy in the master limited partnership stocks?

Unknown: 23:08

No. So what will always like as I mentioned before, like it's only like being able to replicate what the portfolio from like certain experts so so so so far like the users the end users cannot like pick and choose the products themselves they are they are copying like a strategy directly

Josh Bolton: 23:28

he the only reason I asked about that because if you get an A master limited partnership stock if you buy it you become a key one and that's one of those it's not impossible but they're not consistent when they send out the key one so you might have to file for extensions gets a little stressful when

Unknown: 23:44

you're in for in for that for that reason we the problems that are offering offer like through the experts again only like the classical Stocks ETFs and mutual funds like the okay perfect the classical products that are in the stock market

Josh Bolton: 23:58

perfect Yeah, cuz I'm gonna say that's one of those I know it's only like I think 62 or 68 Asheville stocks or master limited partnerships. Yeah, if you buy those though even if you owned it for half of like a minute you get a k one wow kind of thing. So that's where I was like just making sure that you guys at least right now we're not offering

Unknown: 24:17

no we're not doing that we again, our objective is to make investing simple so we go with things that like are easy and and smooth for like the for the for our users.

Josh Bolton: 24:29

Wonderful. Is there anything else that I might have missed about whiteness that you want to go into?

Unknown: 24:36

I think we covered a lot I also just like the mention again that like that people can can go in and have a peek you through our website like advisors.com so w ice st like just as yummy. Yep. voices.com also like going into follow us in our social media channels like we have like the traditional ones like Insta like Facebook like Twitter, so they can follow what is happening there. And then like, again, like, sign up for our, for the waitlist, we as we are like launching we have like now over 4000 people in the waitlist. So we are super happy for that. So, so again like yeah, just like if people want to have more information, they can go there or send us an email. And we are here to help and answer and to and to see how we can make wages better. So

Josh Bolton: 25:27

wonderful. Where can everyone contact you though? Axel?

Unknown: 25:33

Yes. Like there is like a DNA the easiest way to to reach out to reach out to us. And to have like also like a quick answer is to send an email at like info@voices.com. So this is like an email box that we share between the different co founders. So this way like we can be prompted to answer to any request.

Josh Bolton: 25:56

Cool. So if you do send Axl at info info@wises.com Be sure to put in the subject. I want to talk to Axel. Exactly. Cool. absolute honor and a pleasure to have you on.

Unknown: 26:11

No thank you. Thank you for hosting me.

Josh Bolton: 26:14

Yeah, yeah, it was great.