Founder's Story

When I was a young woman growing up in Australia, I owned stock in the department store, Myer. It was the first stock I purchased, simply because I loved Myer and as a stockholder, I was entitled to a discount every time I shopped there. I was excited to feel like an owner of the company.

Years later, I was working as an Investor Relations Officer at Microsoft in Redmond when the company's CEO asked me what we knew about our individual investors and the best way to engage them. It was a simple question with a difficult answer, because although companies have deep relationships with the institutions that own their stock, they have virtually no relationship with individuals who own their shares. Inspired by my experience as a Myer shareholder, I wondered if it was possible to offer similar perks to individual shareholders as a way to build a relationship with them.