Dub: The copy trading application that adolescents speak

Social media has changed everything from news consumption to shopping. now, Describe It is believed that he can do the same to invest through a market driven by the influencer where users can follow the deals of senior investors who have some taps. Think about it as Tiktok meet Wall Street.

He founded Stephen Wang, 23, leaked at Harvard University, began investing in the second grade with the blessing of his parents. The application allows users to follow the strategies of merchants and hedge boxes and even those who simulate prominent politicians. Instead of making individual commercial decisions, DUB users can copy full portfolios.

The concept has struck a chord. DUB has already exceeded 800,000 download and grew up 17 million dollars In the financing of seeds – with a new tour of business. Less pronounced is whether DUB can avoid defects of previous start -up companies in Fintech.

Inspired by Gamestop

Retail investment has developed significantly over the past two decades. The days of trading commissions of $ 7 have been detonated and Clunky interfaces were nearly a decade by the first mobile platforms such as Robinhood that called on people to trade free of charge. At the same time, social media is reshaping how people, especially Gen Z, are financial decisions.

As a student at Harvard University during the epidemic-the person who was trading from his bedroom “because you could not do anything at school”-Wang came to believe these two directions, investment of retail and decisions driven by the influencer, the collision course. Between Gamestop, Elon Musk’s ability to “move Dogoin and Bitcoin markets with each tweet”, and people’s willingness to “really follow ideas and individuals to a completely new level”, Wang decided to leak in 2021 and start building DUB.

Wang says, the average user on the platform ranges between 30 and 35 years, although the New York -based DUB finds its way in front of a younger audience. In recent weeks, this 15 -year -old has asked more than once about “investment like Nanacy Pelosi” after he was disposed of in DUB ads on Instagram.

Pelosi does not deliberate personally on Dub; It is just a merchant on the platform that reflects its open movements. However, the idea caught fire. “Nancy Pelosi has increased by 123 % on real capital, and our customers have made millions of dollars since this portfolio was launched on the platform,” says Wang.

Dub is not free. Wang was determined to generate revenues from the beginning, and DUB does that day through a 10 -month subscription form. Wang also says that some “higher” portfolios are on platform management fees and takes 5 % of these fees.

Meanwhile, the DUB range was partly expanded by organic growth. “The creators who are good in the app are motivated to bring their fans,” says Wang, whose fathers immigrated from China and who grew up in Detroit.

DUB is also invested strongly in the advertisement, and it is strongly inclined to definition ads in particular to acquire users, including on Instagram. “We were really lucky as I think the broader American population really believed that there are other people who have an advantage over them when it comes to the investment world,” says Wang.

Combat

The question now is whether DUB will follow a similar path like other fast -growing startups, many of which found themselves at the intersection of the organizers. Robinhood has been disrupted by making trading free, but it also faced organizational audit before subscription in 2021, eventually getting rid of the user users feature with it Digital sweets Every time they trade.

Dub says he is keen to avoid the same mistakes. The company spent more than two years working with Finra and SEC before its launch, ensuring that its model is the financial regulations. “We not only moved in the organization in Dub – we embraced itandWang says. (Like Robinhood, DUB is a fully licensed broker.)

Wang says, it is a great distinction, that DUB is designed to educate users, not only to encourage blind speculation. The platform displays risk degrees, modified returns by risk, and portfolio stability measures to help investors make enlightened decisions, he says.

It is suggested that it is safer for investors than Robinhood. “I have a lot of respect for what [CEO] Vilify [Tenev] I did to make trading for free. But at the end of the day, which makes it very easy to trade without directing experts, without teaching, in fact, just playing a gambling for the wider population. ”

To emphasize his point of view, Wang refers to the Robinhood decision – along with Coinbase and other exchanges – to allow Meme Coin Trump to customers before the opening of President Donald Trump. While it rose at the beginning, its price has decreased since then. “I think the incentives were essentially confused between these large platforms that are now public companies that need to earn money” and that their customers have “lost money” in general.

(It is worth noting: in separate, A modern conversation With TENEV from Robinhood about DUB, TENEV suggested to techcrunch that copy trading may become more important to organizers, and that DUB may not be yet “the tip of the glass” because of its relatively smaller size).

Either way, not everyone is sold to see DUB. The biggest blow against Such platformsCritics say that choosing weak stocks in the long run, with studies showing that the most effective managed money fails to overcome the S&P 500 index.

It is a criticism in which Wang is familiar – which he is rushing to respond. For one reason, he argues that many of these studies were “chosen”. (“I bet many of them under the auspices of negative investment indicators.”

Moreover, Wang says, there is a reason for the hedge boxes that are operating with activity such as Citadel. “If you look at what the super wealthy people can do, they give their money to Kenn Griffin from the castle, [because] They constantly put unrelated returns year after year.

If someone is more than “looking at the growth of the area of ​​hedge and the area of ​​asset management,” Wang will continue, “There is a reason that grows grows. That is because they earn money for their customers.”