Playbook gets Millennials and Gen Z in the investment game

Future. Tax-planning platform Playbook is expanding its services to include a fully-built, automated, and diversified investment platform focused on Millennial and Gen Z users. With high schoolers learning everything except how to do basic finances, Playbook could be a user-friendly corrective to teaching people how to invest — while they’re still young enough to make a real change to their financial future.

Money moves
Playbook is trying to help a generation or two that hasn’t been coached in how to invest their finances.

• The $19/month service — classified as a registered investment advisor — will focus on helping users max out tax advantages and plan for both short-term and long-term financial goals (that can be customized).
• When a user is paid, the service will automatically allocate the funds to the proper investment “buckets” they’ve selected.
• It will also automatically adjust when a user’s income or tax law fluctuates.
• The system will also provide recommended adjustments based on life-changing circumstances, such as having a child, moving, or changing jobs.

Playbook, which was founded in July of last year, raised $5.6 million in seed funding in October from Atomic Ventures and already has roughly 40,000 users… with another 60,000 people on a waiting list.

Planning for all futures
Playbook founder and CEO David Hegarty said the company wanted to expand into investment advising because he realized how unfortunately financially illiterate many Millennials and Gen Z are. The company, which targets people between the ages of 25 and 35 with incomes over $100K, found that one-third of its users didn’t have a brokerage account, while two-thirds didn’t have a tax-advantage account or an IRA.

The goal is to help the TikTok generation (and most Playbook users actually discovered the service through TikTok) know that a good investment plan is one that has a diverse “risk” profile. As Hegarty put it:

“We try to help people understand there aren’t just two options out there — YOLO into crypto or put it in a savings account. There’s actually a way to be smart about this.”