Robinhood co-founders want everyone in the stock market

[IronLionZion]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/robinhood-baiju-bhatt-vlad-tenev-fresh-money/index.html?iid=hp-grid-dom

Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. Or so the folk tale goes.

Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev had that idea in mind when they decided to launch their investing app, Robinhood. The app allows anyone to buy and sell stocks without fees. No more paying a broker or being charged for each trade.

"There's a lot of wealth being created on Wall Street and it was coming to the top 1%," Vlad told CNNMoney. "The name Robinhood is very aspirational to us because it's a little bit rebellious. We understand that not everything is right with the financial industry. It's been unfair. It's not been treating people really well."

The idea of lowering the entry cost to trading on the stock market seems to be working.

Robinhood recently got $110 million in Series C funding. It's valued at about $1.3 billion and its user base is made up mostly of young Americans.

You don't have to be wealthy to invest. This is an interesting idea that's worth looking into. The fact that these 2 guys are children of immigrants is also why certain people don't want dangerous ideas like these to take root in America and want to greatly reduce even legal immigration.

But even the large well established mutual fund companies like Vanguard have minimums as low as $1500 to start investing with them.

[ret5hd]

1. If you aren't the "customer" (paying), you are the product.

I read the article and watched the video, but no mention of how their business makes money.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

2. You're right, it doesn't explain. But if it's an app,

isn't the obvious answer that they bombard you with ads for financial products and try to use the ad revenue to pay the admin and investing costs? And don't forget, just because it's a business, doesn't mean it actually makers money (or ever will).

[IronLionZion]

3. Some info on how they make money

they have very low overhead and make very little if any money to start with. They don't seem to have a plan to turn a profit any time soon but are exploring options for the future in margin trading and interest on cash deposits.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/020515/how-robinhood-makes-money.asp

[HeartachesNhangovers]

4. Thank you!