Money should be exciting and rewarding shouldn’t it? But how often do you get that feeling from your everyday finances? We were uninspired with the options out there and curious about what younger generations actually wanted from their everyday finances. So, in the summer of 2021, EVERYTHING was born. Inspired by a 160+ year old, government backed savings product called Premium Bonds, we kicked off our journey to build a financial experience for younger generations that is actually rewarding, exciting and social.
Where does the idea come from?💡
As with many new ventures, serendipity and timing play their part. The team at EVERYTHING with their varied backgrounds and experience, noticed some fascinating trends from previous ventures. The fusion of these trends sets the context for EVERYTHING.
There is no doubt that everyday finance has progressed tenfold since the emergence of neo-banks, which set the path towards vastly improved customer experience for everyday customers. Despite this digital revolution, everyday finance is a “single player game”, it’s individual, transactional and not particularly exciting or rewarding. You spend, you save and it looks pretty and works well, but you don’t get much back, and you do it alone.
Looking past the neo-banks to the UK’s🇬🇧 most popular savings method, Premium Bonds, where 21 million people in the UK save £114 billion, you get a thrill, some excitement if you’re drawn as a monthly winner but it’s analogue, very slow (you receive cheques in the post) and far from being social. In spite of the popularity, this archaic financial experience is just not aligned with a digital world⚡️.
The third, vital ingredient in this mix is the underserved Gen Z and young millennial populations 👦🏽🧒🏾👦🏼👧🏿.. Gen Z now make up a large proportion of our global population, with a big chunk of them in the US or UK. They are, and will continue to be increasingly important to the global economy, yet no financial experiences are explicitly made for them. Why?
Finally, there is the “social+” phenomenon shifting the way businesses are built.
What is social finance and why is it important? 🗣+💷
Humans are social beings, we crave connection and community. We evolved to travel, hunt and thrive in groups because it kept us safe. This instinct has not disappeared in our modern society, though the reasons are no longer quite as existential. Communities provide our identity, we learn from others, socialising makes us feel emotionally connected and valued. A new category of businesses have begun to emerge that have a core product or service but an integrated social experience around and within it. These are ‘social+’ businesses.
In the ‘Social+Finance’ category we are just starting to see the tip of the iceberg (and it’s definitely a Titanic sinker). There are a couple of examples where you can see what your friends are buying and chat/comment on their purchases. In the investment space there has been the meteoric rise of Wall Street Bets that has socialed investing for the normal punters like you or me. But on the whole, finance remains private, hidden and transactional and this is not how the younger generations live their lives.
Making finance rewarding, exciting and social 🥳
We are not building an untried and untested new business category. We are simply layering on top of what already works. The brilliant customer experience you get from neo-banks, the excitement of winning from Premium Bonds and an integrated social layer within the product. A rewarding, exciting and social financial experience that younger generations actually want.
To start with we are launching a free Debit Mastercard® where users can win instant cash rewards, between £1 - £1 million, everytime they *tap* or spend money. You could be jumping on the tube or doing some online shopping and *ping*, you get a win notification and that money is already in your account. 🤑
You can invite friends and family into Squads. These could be your coursemates, work friends, family, your bae or a group of people you’re going to a festival with. The more people you invite and the more squads you’re a part of the higher your chance of winning. You now have a chance to win a cash reward every time someone in one of your Squads spends, as well as chat about things you want to buy, show off your latest purchases and celebrate winning together. This authentic social layer is just the very beginning of what we have planned on this front.
The reward model is really simple. We earn revenue from merchants (not from you) every time you make a payment. We share a chunk of this revenue with you by putting it into reward buckets. There are lots of buckets between £1 - £1 million. When one of these buckets is full, the next user who makes a payment wins the reward. If it’s a squad win it is shared amongst you based on how much each member spent in that squad to ensure it’s fair. EVERYTHING starts with payments, but we have much more in the pipeline.
We are making some of the final touches to the product and will launch with a phased rollout to the top of the waitlist around late March and April.
Our waitlist is currently open, and if you haven’t already signed up you can do so here to make sure you’re top of the list - joineverything.com. 🚀
We can’t wait to build the next social finance experience for the next generation with you! 👊
Michael, Adam & Thorir