This post is part of the #IwantDRAFT campaign with support from DRAFT, the app that uses crowdsourced data to help you understand and compare your portfolio, in partnership with Kasai Media. As always, the words and opinions, are mine and mine alone.
When I lived in Silicon Valley, I was fortunate enough to attend Finovate, a conference of financial companies, most of them very small start-ups. Companies like Mint and Lending Club cut their teeth there. I like to call that time in 2008 the Golden Age of consumer financial applications. As the years went on, companies seemed to put their focus on creating products that they could sell to banks. Those are great too, but they are a pain to write about. People can’t use them right away.
Over the last couple of days, a new company, DRAFT, has used Finovate to launch a new consumer-focused application for tracking your money. It’s 2008 all over again, and I mean that in an awesome way. They are opening up their private beta and all you have to do is give your email address to get in line.
So what is DRAFTApp? It’s a mobile application designed to help you manage your money in one place. It
One of the most interesting things to me is the crowdfunding aspect of draft. You can see this in the image. It gives you not only your returns, but also a comparison with the top 10% of DRAFTApp users. This really shines when it comes to understanding the investment fees that you’ll pay. I’ve seen hundred of charts about how fees greatly reduce investment returns… and perhaps I take it for granted that regular readers have seen some of them as well. Of course DRAFTApp highlights this as well.
I will be signing up for DRAFTApp just for this alone. (I’m going to bring down that Top 10% average… ha ha!)
One thing that I won’t focus too much on is the investment returns of the top 10%. By definition 90% of people are going to be disappointed in it. I had significant money in Europe, which didn’t perform well last year. I know my performance is going to be disappointing. I want to be careful to not let this disappoint change my diversification to chase winners.
That said, it is refreshing to have other options than just a comparison of my portfolio to the S&P 500. Many tools use a few basic indexes and in the last year, I didn’t compare well with that either. In most cases your portfolio isn’t an index, so I find such comparisons odd anyway.
There are a few more features that I could highlight, but I think part of the fun is discovering them on your own. So why not join the waitlist and give it a shot? You’ve got nothing to lose
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