For context, I was stuck indoors (thanks Omicron) and wanted to build something to help my friends who wanted to try active investing. I built a basic version of this app on the side a while ago but ended up dropping it due to "work". Given the relevance of investing these days I picked it back up and finished it. Hopefully Apple approves it quickly and it's on the App Store soon .
How it works is simple.
For those looking to find alpha:
- Search for investors you want to copy and follow them
- Get notified in real-time whenever they make a trade
- If they charge a monthly fee, we let you pay with your credit card through stripe and bill you automatically each month
- Memberships can be cancelled before the 15th of each month
For those looking to share alpha:
- Connect your brokerage with Plaid on our platform and set your monthly rate (if you choose to charge people)
- Link your bank account info and get paid out monthly
- We take a 10% cut to help with platform costs and processing fees
I tried to make this app as lean as possible to keep it clean & simple. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them! If you want to collaborate and improve this project, let me know!
I wonder how much abuse that kind of platform can generate.
We had the Wall St Bets community pushing certain stocks, and the logical step of something like this is copying a trader.
At this point, aren't you likely to run afoul into multiple issues?
Off the top of my head:
* if you are charging for others to follow your trades, aren't you in a financial advisor capacity?
* is there a risk of insider trading accusations?
* what would be the equivalent of rage quitting? (sell it all, right now, where people copy it).
Even avoiding the issue of copying trades automatically (or blindly), isn't there an issue here with gaming the market?
I have two trade accounts, one of which I make public. I open a position on one side (in the private account) and then I push / pump the other side on the public account. End result is a big loss for the public account (and any followers), but I was able to make money on the private one.
- I'm not providing stock recommendations to you nor am I providing personalized investing information. Everyone has access to the same information on the platform and sees the same trades unlike financial advisors.
- It's not setup to auto trade at the moment (and likely won't be in the future) for that edge case in specific. You have the option to click on the trade, and replicate it in your own brokerage.
- Agreed that this can have influences on the market like we saw in r/WSB. I think the more optimistic approach here however is this being another source of insight to help you make investing decisions. E.g. "I'm considering buying $XYZ. Who else owns it that I follow and trust?". This information is verified too so it's not like Reddit where people have the ability to lie and post whatever they want.
Would love to learn more about your public/private account play/scheme. Can I DM you to learn how it worked? I figure that the volume needs to be quite high no?
Sorry, but what is exactly the relation to onlyFans? Is the pitch that you can sign up as a content creator and have others pay to see what you’ve been trading? If so, bold to advertise Pelosi or Dorsey as users. Or is it that you can pay to follow trades made by established figures which OnlyTrades tracks and offers the data as a service?
I thought Public was silly enough of an idea and they do this for free. I guess gone are the days of “MySpace for pets” and “Facebook for clowns” and in with “OnlyFans for XYZ” to describe a subscription service.
The relation to OnlyFans is in the private subscription model. It seemed like the easiest way to communicate the idea but open to suggestions here.
Public does let you follow people for free but that removes all incentives for any actually profitable investor. After all, why would you share alpha for free? OnlyTrades solves this by providing an incentivized platform for experienced traders to share their portfolios. You can make more money doing what you already do, with no extra effort.
On top of letting anyone share their portfolio, we have some fun established figures you can follow for free on the platform like Pelosi. We keep track of their positions in real-time. You're right though in that using Pelosi or Dorsey as mock users on the screenshots might not have been an optimal choice - I'll change those!
I've seen a ton of websites use highly influential figures in mockups for years now so perhaps Parody law has some leeway? Anyways I plan to change the mockups whenever I get some time just to be safe.
I can see myself recommending business that describes itself by mentioning OnlyFans to my friends, I can't see myself recommending the business to my family or coworkers.
I personally don't think there is anything wrong with "Onlyfans for stock trading", but I think "Patreon for stock trading" is a more general-public-palpable option, and fits just as well.
Why would anyone who is worth following show their trades to their followers. If they're successful enough to be an investing influencer, then they don't need the money from subscribers.
On the other hand, this could be used a lot for market manipulation. People can show fake trades and whatnot.
- Let's say an investor makes $10k a month trading. They can leverage their performance and share their existing portfolio with others for $10/month (keep in mind many people pay hundreds for access to investing Discord servers monthly). If 500 people pay to follow them (on the lower end if the platform succeeds), they make an additional ~$5k (50%) with no additional effort and risk.
- This isn't like Reddit, Twitter, etc where people can "fake" trades and post whatever they want. All trades and content originates from the user linking their existing brokerage so all the trades that were made are verified and actually happened.
It's probably a bit gnarly to market it so closely with OnlyFans, makes me think it's associated with them. Might be careful of a lawsuit there if it blows up. If I was OnlyFans, I would definitely try to get you to change your name/cease and desist/etc.
I do think the name works though, it's provocative and for the audience that would use this (not HN) it's probably fine and more relatable than "Patreon for X"
There is a huge asymmetric information problem (I don't know if you are telling the truth about your trades until I pay to see them), which exists on OnlyFans too, think of the Bella scandal, and if you as the platform give out any info (daily/month returns), you are leaking the persons alpha. OnlyFans gives almost 100% of the trust building exercise to the creator and doesn't really try to solve this problem but there is a lot less at risk there.
Thinking about how to game this, this makes me think I should:
1. Collaborate with some people to get one profitable account and sign up with many different profiles marketed as different people, monetizing that "source of alpha" many many times.
2. If I am an influencer, I can sign up and charge a ton for access "for this month" and monetize way more than I do off of my trades. I just keep going on and off the platform so I don't have a history.
3. I think one of the draws of the discord community is the engagement and community. One of the things that WSB showed us is that, yes it's about making money, but there are a ton of other purposes outside of that. I think you're right in that you are competing with those discord servers, but a point of disintermediation could be that we just go to discord instead of me paying to see your trades here AND I get to interact with you.
https://fundseeder.com/home did something like this about 7-8 years ago where you could get a track record to show to investors. I see they've pivoted now and I think the core thing here is that it's really about the creator more than "following trades and making money." I would focus on the people more than the alpha. i.e. Instead of marketing to the demand "follow your favorite creator so you can make money" market to the supply "We give you tools to connect with and monetize the community you have already built"
Like everyone says, if you really wanted to make money, you would just invest in an index fund.
I like your point on community being potentially valued more than the trades themselves. One of the biggest issues I've seen first hand in these Discord communities however is the server admins constantly lying about trades/gains or selectively choosing to show the ones that win. This created a dishonest and honestly quite counterproductive environment to learn from. The goal of OnlyTrades was verified data (yes with the caveat that the trust part is on the creator to build).
Perhaps this could also just extend into a Discord webhook where creators/mods can get a live stream of their trades into the channel. This might be the best of both worlds.
And lastly, yes. I agree that index funds are the best way to invest but trading & stock picking is fun. There's always going to be a large segment of the population that's going to try it and want as much information to help them make money.
I like it (the germ of the idea, I can't load the actual website), but this is really https://repool.com with extra steps and (more importantly) more regulatory hurdles.
Hmm, the website loads for me still. Not sure if more people are having this issue.
From what I understand Repool is a formal way for anyone to start their own fund and manage other people's money. This has a lot of legal stipulation and overhead. OnlyTrades on the other hand is just a one-click way to share with others what people already do over text, Twitter, and Discord. You aren't managing anyones money nor providing explicit financial advice. Just sharing your own trades in real-time to followers which is entirely legal.
I think OnlyTrades serves more as a tool / data point for investors by helping them answer questions like "what are others investing in and when are they buying/selling?" vs. Repool's goal of can I let someone else manage my money (which you can just do on eToro tbh).
How it works is simple.
For those looking to find alpha: - Search for investors you want to copy and follow them - Get notified in real-time whenever they make a trade - If they charge a monthly fee, we let you pay with your credit card through stripe and bill you automatically each month - Memberships can be cancelled before the 15th of each month
For those looking to share alpha: - Connect your brokerage with Plaid on our platform and set your monthly rate (if you choose to charge people) - Link your bank account info and get paid out monthly - We take a 10% cut to help with platform costs and processing fees
I tried to make this app as lean as possible to keep it clean & simple. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them! If you want to collaborate and improve this project, let me know!