Robert Swigert, founder and CEO of Goodstead, tells us how, his app makes things easier for people financially planning in an ever-changing economy, one that is currently ill-equipped to help people save money for the future. Even with tackling a goal as complex as savings planning, Bubble's no-code, no-mess platform made creating Goodstead a breeze.
Tell us about your app and what it does.
Goodstead is a mobile-first roboadvisor that makes saving money for the future time/risk/fee/tax-efficient for the common worker.
Fewer people have access to retirement plans through their employer or union than ever before. People change jobs more frequently than ever before, and often aren’t offered retirement solutions. Goodstead looks to help regular people achieve financial independence by providing them with planning tools, financial education and investment management, all from the convenience of a mobile handset.
Our set-it-and-forget it feature set and low-fee, co-operative business structure make it possible for everyone to set up their own personalized, ESG-focused pension plan.
How does your app work?
New users are invited to begin planning for the road ahead by first learning about Goodstead’s differentiated approach to saving and investing, and then setting up an emergency savings, retirement savings, education savings, or down payment savings plan using our savings calculators and their personal income, expense, asset and liability information.
Every plan is automatically adjusted given the user’s ability to bear financial risk, investment horizon, and financial goals. The user can then set their degree of loss aversion on a per-plan basis so that an investment program appropriate to each specific goal and propriety of that goal relative to their set of financial goals.
In addition to setting up savings and investment plans, setting their loss-aversion settings, and learning more about investing in general, users can also monitor their portfolio performance using a variety of different key metrics, change contribution amounts and frequencies and set withdrawal amounts and frequencies.
Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered no-code tools like Bubble.
I began my career in trading and operations at Bridgewater Associates. I then transitioned to a product role in which I managed initiatives to increase efficiency, manage risk and enhance control for everything from trading to performance reporting.
After Bridgewater I launched my first independent venture, a boutique advisory that focused on early stage alternative investment and financial technology companies. We helped new companies start operations, raise money and institutionalize infrastructure.
After a couple of stints in life science investing and healthcare operating companies, I launched Goodstead to afford the common worker the opportunity to realize retirement security.
Why did you build your app on Bubble?
I was familiar with Bubble from pretty early on, since Josh Haas and I knew each other from Bridgewater and just after Bridgewater. I thought Bubble and no-code application development would the way of the future, but didn’t have a use case that would be a good fit for it.
Since Goodstead’s client-facing application requirements are pretty simple, and Bubble’s consumer-orientation well developed, it seemed like a no-brainer to develop the MVP web app using Bubble’s core technology and ability to integrate with APIs.
What have been your milestones or successes so far?
Progress has been swift, despite the ructions caused by the global pandemic and concomitant financial crisis. We’ve developed prototypes, data models, user flows, user stories, web presence, blog and regulatory filings. We must await approval from the appropriate regulatory authorities to launch in a series way, but we expect those to be forthcoming soon. We expect to be in private beta for mobile and web applications for the end of November, and releasing to production in January of 2021.
What are your future plans for your app?
While core functionality (financial plans, investment management, financial education) will receive the majority of focus over the next several release cycles, we’ll expand the feature set to provide holistic financial wealth evaluation and monitoring, and introduce other instruments to help our clients manage life’s risks and opportunities. Savings and investment returns will be under more pressure than ever before over the next decade, so we view providing solutions to address these market failures our top priority.
Learn more about Goodstead: Twitter| Facebook | LinkedIn
About Bubble
Bubble is a leader in the no-code movement. Bubble offers a powerful point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform that allows users to build fully customizable web applications and workflows, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more. Over 500,000 users are currently building and launching businesses on Bubble - many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raise $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs that are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.
Do you want your app featured by Bubble? Reach out to us and tell us about your app. In addition to this series, we sometimes select our best apps to showcase on our website.
