Latest / Financial Survival Network / Kudosy is Revolutionizing Financial Education -- Tyler Nicholls #5802
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you
- 0:05just can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the
- 0:10Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survival Network dot com
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- 0:27and welcome. You are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your
- 0:32host, Carrie lets Well. Financial education, or lack thereof, is one
- 0:37of the greatest problems confronting the United States and the world for that matter,
- 0:43because the basic financial tools are generally not taught in school. You learn them
- 0:48by the seat of your pants, whether it's opening a bank account your parents
- 0:52take you to the bank for the first time. I mean, I guess
- 0:55now on the internet you could open up a PayPal account when you're But all
- 1:00these things you need to learn, and there's no great way of teaching them.
- 1:04You know, guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad or dad has made
- 1:10great strides and teaching you, but the actual practical learning is still up to
- 1:15you. But there's a new app called Kudosi. I've got the originator of
- 1:19it on with me now, Tyler Nichols. Tyler, you're established software developer.
- 1:26He came across this concept. You saw avoid in the market, and
- 1:30you said, you know what, there's an app for that. Actually there's
- 1:34not an app, but I'll create it. So you created an app to
- 1:37really teach all levels financial education. Just give us a little background on you
- 1:42and how you came up with the concept. Yeah, awesome, Thank you
- 1:46so much for having me. But yeah, that's exactly right. I was
- 1:49doing some research a number of years back and found that every year the United
- 1:53States is spending more and more money on financial education, and in fact,
- 1:57in twenty twenty three, it's projected we'll spend three point eight billion dollars on
- 2:01it across the economy. But what's interesting is we also do studies to determine
- 2:07the financial literacy rates of the country, and our financial literacy rates are actually
- 2:10going down. So it's incredibly ironic that we're trying to teach people how to
- 2:15spend money better, but yet we're not spending that money very effectively. We're
- 2:20we're not actually moving that needle, and so I wanted to help move that
- 2:24needle. I think that it's a big problem for the country in the world
- 2:29at large, to your point, and I also think like it's a big
- 2:31problem even for individuals. You look at the statistics and something like twenty to
- 2:37forty of all divorces occur because of financial issues, and it has the ability
- 2:43to tear apart families and all these sorts of things. So I wanted to
- 2:46create a solution here. I saw that there was a need and I wanted
- 2:49to come in. And as I was doing that, I saw a couple
- 2:53observations and tried to like fill that gap. So it's just like all other
- 2:58education in the United States were spending more and more money on it and getting
- 3:02less and less of a return. I'll tell you this, Okay, I'm
- 3:06going to relate this to personal thing with me. Twelve years ago, I
- 3:09wanted to learn podcasting. Wasn't listening to podcasts. There weren't a lot of
- 3:15people doing it then, And I did an internet search and I find this
- 3:19guy, the podcast answer Man answer Man, Cliff Ravenscraft. I sign up
- 3:23for his course. It was eight hundred bucks. I found an affiliate link.
- 3:28It was a thousand, but I found an affiliate link for eight hundreds,
- 3:30so I saved money. Right there, and it was an eight week
- 3:34course with basically getting on the what was then the equivalent of a Zoom call.
- 3:38We didn't really have zoom that much then and online there were like twelve
- 3:44of us and he went down the basics of it. And prior to that,
- 3:46I was doing my podcast and I was getting maybe thousand downloads a month,
- 3:51which I thought was incredible. Took the course and overnight I'm getting twenty
- 3:57fifty hundred thousand downloads a month, and that was like, they weren't teaching
- 4:02that stuff in college. Now they teach podcasting in college, believe it or
- 4:06not. So the point is that where the public education system fails, private
- 4:15private sector has jumped in with two feet and you can learn more from these
- 4:20online courses then you can learn it a semester in college. And so I
- 4:26think you're really on the right path here. So what age groups is this
- 4:30aimed at? Yeah, so really Kudosi is it's called Kudozi Family Wallet,
- 4:35and it's it's designed for the whole family. It especially helps families with young
- 4:41kids. So kids that are ages three to thirteen especially are really kind of
- 4:46a sweet spot for that app. So they can learn at a young age
- 4:49the correct principles that will help them the rest of their life. Yeah.
- 4:53So you know, like I one time, go back. I'm a little
- 4:58bit older than you, and I had an Apple two plus computer. I
- 5:02couldn't do much on it, but it had it had this game called Lemonade
- 5:06Stand, and I had my niece and nephew in my apartment, and basically
- 5:12you had to figure out how much to spend on your stand, how much
- 5:15to spend on ingredients, what to charge, and then when you screwed up,
- 5:18it went bank and you went bankrupt, and the whole Lemonade Stand like
- 5:24blew up. And I didn't realize it then, but that was actually a
- 5:28financial education at its most rudimentary. Yeah, absolutely, I there have been
- 5:34some interesting studies that showed like the most effective way to learn financial principles is
- 5:40not death by PowerPoint, but hands on experience doing it. And so Kudozi
- 5:46really aims to gamify the whole experience and make it fun and interesting and compelling.
- 5:49So people are kind of in this simulation, kind of trying to figure
- 5:55out how should I spend the currency in the app and learn more about these
- 6:00financial principles, and I just told my daughter about it, and she's got
- 6:04two kids five and two, and perfectly. I got an ad for something
- 6:12similar on Instagram the other day. I don't hate it. I think it's
- 6:15a great idea for kids seven to fifteen, but you know, younger kids,
- 6:21you know, you learn about money at a very early age, which
- 6:25is by necessity. So that's from somebody in your demographic loves the concept,
- 6:32and so have you tried it out on your own kids or test marketed it?
- 6:38How's that worked? Yeah? Absolutely so. We have been using it
- 6:41with our family for about five years. I was using other apps and kind
- 6:46of trying to do what what Kudosi eventually is now doing, and it is
- 6:51incredibly effective. So one thing that I really love about it is, you
- 6:57know, we have to talk about financial education in a very individualistic way.
- 7:02We even coined the term personal finance. But when you think about it,
- 7:06finances are really that personal, right. The way that I spend my money
- 7:11affects my wife and affects my kids. There's a whole ecosystem here and I
- 7:15can go learn all of these really awesome financial principles. But if my wife
- 7:19goes out and spends a bunch of money, on stuff that we're not good
- 7:25ahead or vice versa. She studies the stuff and I go spend the money.
- 7:28We're not going to to move that needle. So so yeah, so
- 7:31it's really designed to kind of have get everyone in on the conversation and talking
- 7:36about these things and really making it so everyone learns these principles together. Right
- 7:43And okay, so you're you're on kids were the laboratory for this and now
- 7:49you've released it. When did you release it? Yeah? So we're brand
- 7:54new. We were about four months old. Now we've launched on Christmas Eve
- 7:58of last year. Well and wish it the best here, so feedback that
- 8:03you've gotten reviews to give us a glimpse of how it's being received. Yeah.
- 8:07So we have one hundred and fifty or so families using the app.
- 8:13We have a perfect five star rating, and we are getting awesome reviews all
- 8:18the time. People are loving it because what's also nice is it serves multiple
- 8:22issues. Right, So, on one hand, it's important that we learn
- 8:26these financial principles because it will benefit us for the rest of our lives.
- 8:30We all know this is important, but oftentimes it doesn't feel urgent. What
- 8:33feels more urgent especially if you have really young kids. Is I'm trying to
- 8:37work remotely on Zoom or whatever, and my kids are just nagging me and
- 8:41driving me crazy and all these sorts of things that is really urgent, right,
- 8:46And so what's awesome is this blends the two together because within the app,
- 8:52kids can earn trudeaus, which are this fictional currency within the app that
- 8:56the parents get to decide they have a family economy that they get to control.
- 9:01And as the kids do good things, they behave well, they serve
- 9:05other people, they build their talents. Parents can give those kids kudos,
- 9:09which means you're able to have your kids want to behave well, to do
- 9:15good things. And so parents are finding their screaming last, Their kids are
- 9:18cleaning their room on their own, they're doing all of these things. But
- 9:22then also they're getting the benefit of the added benefit of learning these cool financial
- 9:28principles that will help them forever, and they get to have more financial conversations.
- 9:33And it's just been super cool to see all of these users, most
- 9:37of which I don't even know who they are at this point, and it's
- 9:39just super exciting to see, you know, they're seeing all the value of
- 9:43it and they've been given us awesome reviews about it all right and so right
- 9:50now it's free, which is we like that? That's our favorite for letter
- 9:54word on the people. Hey, if you got a question for Tyler or
- 9:58mysel Off about this, shoot us an email k l at Klutz dot com.
- 10:05The website who Dozy kudosy dot com. You'll find a link to it
- 10:11in the show notes this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. Like it?
- 10:16Let us know what you think about it. I am intrigued by it.
- 10:20If you got grandchildren out there, children, that's our demos a little
- 10:24older than new parents. But I know there's a lot of you out there.
- 10:30Download it, lay it. Let us know what you think they did
- 10:33it help? Did it make a difference because you can't start financial literacy for
- 10:37your kids financial education soon enough. Tyler, we want to reach you,
- 10:41connect with you on the web. What's the best way to do that?
- 10:45Yeah, you can email me at Tyler at krudozi wallet dot com. We
- 10:48also have a presence on YouTube and and you can yes find us there.
- 10:54And the app is available live today called Kudosi Family Wallet. It's available on
- 11:00Apple the Apple App Store and it's coming soon to Android, and I just
- 11:05downloaded it, so I'll be playing around with it and I'll give you my
- 11:09thoughts. And I think I think, Tyler or you might have the first
- 11:15financial application that goes viral on the web, on well whatever, on your
- 11:20phones, on your tablet. Probably it's the kind of thing you want to
- 11:24put on your tablet for your kids, given my choices, but however you
- 11:28have to do it. Check it out, Hey, any questions comments?
- 11:31Tyler myself again the email addresses kl at karr Letz dot com. Tyler wishing
- 11:37the best of luck on this really a noble undertaking open succeeds beyond your wildest
- 11:41dreams. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thanks for listening to
- 11:45carry Lets's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the
- 11:52latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more
- 11:58than ever. W