the youngest ceo we've had on probably in the history of the show and he just closed a half-million dollar seed round. a closer look at so-called new york banks which is sometimes aren't banks at all and just build the darn thing, the author and entrepreneur catherine betty this week on press here. >> and morning, everyone. one of the best things you can say to an entrepreneur, one of the best pieces of advice is don't wait for permission, just do it.

this is one of the pieces of the information that so few people understand. nobody is going to give you permission to build the next great thing and their opinion didn't matter anyway. or as my first guest titled her new book, build the thing, catherine city says don't wait for the system to let you in, right down the door. thank you for joining us this morning. you were an influencer before the word influencer ever existed and you were an entrepreneur, but my question is not that you need permission to write a book and certainly don't need my permission to write it, what makes you an expert to write a book like this? >> what makes me and expert is i've done it. i've built a number of things in my career. i built one of the first lifestyle turning it into a media company and it became one of the first black women to actually sell a startup in 2012. i then went on with another woman startup called law occur

that also got bought. and so part of two exits quickly which was a rarity especially at these times that the exits happened. then i built one of the premier organization called digital and divided that worked to give more black women access to the tech startup world, that organization is eight figures, six different cities, two different countries, and now i work as a district -- i run my own genius guild. not only have i been advancing, i invented it as well. >> one of the things we were taught from an early age is play by the rules and ask for permission and do everything you can to avoid failure. if you are going to give advice to a kid going off the high

school for the first time, you would say play by the rules, listen to what the people above you say and don't fail, but those are all key important parts of succeeded in silicon valley, don't play by the rules and don't ask for permission and you are probably going to fail. >> it's just a data point, it is not the endpoint. i think that's one thing that entrepreneurs do know is that when you fail, it is not over. in fact it's part of the process. it's part of the pathway to success. so every time i failed and i failed a lot. i have used it as a data point, what did i learn from that experience? what can i take from that to then go on to the next stage? that is something i talk a lot about him build the thing, how do you convert these sort of perceived failures into wins? and everyone who is ever been successful has failed. and i'll tell you a story about beyonci who we can all say is not a failure. but they actually lost star search to a hair metal rock band

called skeleton crew that no one's heard of before. can you imagine if beyonci said, okay, it is over. i lost it with your band, i want to it. so all of these amazingly successful people had failures, the founder of spanks which is an over billion-dollar company incredibly successful was a fax machine saleswoman, but before that, she lost an opportunity to be goofy at disney world. and they talk about the failure to not get that audition as a part of getting her used her rejection, because this is all part of a process that is being an entrepreneur and that the thing we all need to embrace in past entrepreneurship. >> one of the lessons that you have for entrepreneurs is when you find a cofounder tommy suggest you go on a three day

road trip with them because if you can't stand them at the holiday inn, you won't stand them at the office. i love it. >> creating a company is a marathon, not a race. you will be that person for the existence of your company and you are going to have challenges. i always say to the entrepreneurs that things are always going to break, something will go wrong. that is the way of entrepreneurship. and you need to know that when things go wrong, this is a person front in a despite with together as a team. and if you are not as a team, then you shouldn't create a company together, because you are going to be challenged. you need to make sure that you are a cohesive unit and you can get to those challenges. >> you teach a lot of things to young entrepreneurs in this book, what did you learn writing the book? >> i learned so much from writing the book and i learned a lot when we did the audio version. one, just how powerful my

connection with my father who was this incredible person who went from workers to a tech executive and how much that story impacted me and influenced me. and it guided me. and i knew it, but reading the words and i was talking about him in the book, that just really touched me. i learned how much i knew. i forgot so much information that i gained over the past 20 years in fact so much that you should see what is on the cutting floor. my editor was like, you can't write a 500 page book. so there will be a part two, and all the things i've learned , and it was really helpful for me to just kind of reflect back. it is something about reflecting on your own path and where you have gone that really helps send a light on where you are heading for yourself and

the next steps for me. so it was really one of the most gratifying things i've ever done in my life. writing the book. and to see the response so quickly. it just came out on june seventh. to see the response, the positive overwhelming positive response. it has been such a joy. how many people are taking the book and taking it advice and saying how much it relates to them and how inspired they are by it, that's one of the best feelings i've ever had. >> she is the author of build the thing which she wrote, i appreciate you being with us . this morning. coming up, a stanford student and ask permission to build a new app, a new investment app for teenagers. the ceo joins us from literally his dorm room. when press here continues.

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welcome back. if you are familiar with robin hood, the app, not the story, you will understand what my next guest is working on called bumper come it is an app for young people, teenagers is that they can invest on their own. cloverleaf is a stanford student also the ceo of bumper, run out of lincoln nebraska and out of the stanford dorm room as well. thank you for joining us. i suspect you cringe a little at the comparison to robin

hood. >> a little bit. tell me why. >> we created bumper to help teams learn how to invest responsibly at a young age. without that the standard school curriculum wasn't robust enough and didn't really expose teenagers to this world of finance. so oftentimes what we see is when they turn 18 and have access to training platforms like robin hood, they usually don't know how to use them responsibly. that can lead to some pretty drastic consequences. >> they can indeed. we've heard some stories. parents are still heavily involved. first of all, legally, they have to be. a teenager, what is your target age? 15? >> about 15. >> so a 15-year-old cannot go on and start buying shares in apple, because they are 15. >> that is correct. the parents are involved from

the start to finish. so they're the ones opening the actual account. and then they have oversight during the entire trading process. so they can choose to even manually approve or deny every trade request that comes through. so parents are hopefully involved. >> at base trading and i will compare it to robin hood tend to game a fight all of this, but the truly good investor is someone who identifies a company early, it has good earnings and you think the price is a little low and holds onto it for quite some time. but that is not even fun. >> right. [ laughter ] >> buying and selling and pressing the buttons is fun. so how do you handle that? i assume you teach the principles of good investing. >> we do. so we currently run what is called a master program where we meet with about one to so teenagers a week and anyone is welcome to join. it's usually either a fiasco and they teach them the basics

of finance and investing and a fun environment where they can talk with other teenagers and we teach them through games with fake money. so that is where we put the fun of investing on the actual app, a lot of teenagers follow the strategy mentioned. they are averaging just 2 to 3 trades every couple months. and so you don't see a lot of daytrading on the app which is definitely a positive. >> you mentioned the ambassador program. and the ambassador system. and then believe it or not, even when i went to college, they ambassadors on various products same sort of idea. you are paying them some sort of fashion and then they are spreading the word about whatever the product happens to be. >> our ambassador program is focused on having the masters spread the word, it is focused on developing users that really love the product and helping us give some product feedback. so we spent an hour teaching them the basics of finance and investing so we don't think of

it like a free course for users of the app. and then in return, what we hope is that they then become strong users of the product and strong advocates for our product. but we don't pay them to go out and spread the word about it. >> what is the motivation for them? >> just spread the word about it. >> we've seen a strong word-of- mouth in the program, but a lot of our teenagers and the masters love learning about financer investing so they tell their friends, hey, we didn't find out about this in school, you should jump on and learn about investing and you can see explosive organic growth that way. >> when you get growth out of it, i have to say i the way, we will add sanjiv into this conversation come he is an ambassador that works for you. and in 404 episodes of this television program, i don't think we've ever had the ceo and essentially and in turn on at the same time. so congratulations on making history. >> first of all i think you ought to be asking this guy for money is my first thought, but tell me what you think an ambassador does and how are you

spreading the word about investing your your group? >> yes. the mess up around is really just an incredible opportunity to learn and connect with other people around the entire nation. but also my age. and fellow high schoolers and college events from nebraska and even other states. so it's an opportunity to connect with them while simultaneously learning about finance. it provides an incentive to actually go and tell my friends about it as well and all of my friends are obviously looking for connections as well and it's a great opportunity especially in the field that we all love. >> back to the question of game of vacation, every young person i know is on coin base making money off dog coin, but this is not this is. these are blue-chip companies purchase and hold, your competition talking to your peers is welcome i just made

215% yesterday on some made up cyber coin, and here you are trying to get them to purchase american airlines. >> so actually my dad compares it like all of these coins to almost like gambling. in the sense that there isn't really any measurable way to actually know what is going to grow. it is almost random as far as my limited knowledge goes. so i tend to steer clear of it. in my friends do since a lot of these coins are super expensive, the gains are really limited. on the other hand, stocks are really widespread in the sense that they are low-cost stocks and high-cost stocks, so you can spend a little amount of money and still get a ton of stocks and see a ton of growth, whereas if you are investing in coin and even if it grows a 40% growth, if you invest 20% or $20, you won't see that much.

>> that is fair. >> luke, you have an investor program that is using very young people, your own executive team is young, you, yourself are still a stanford student. what sort of challenges does that ring? >> when talking with investors and potential advisors and mentors, that is always the question with wrought up, you have the expertise, the financial world is incredibly complicated, but you have the expertise to navigate it correctly. and that's the biggest question , the biggest challenge. i think at the end of the day, our age is more the benefit than i guess a harm or if roadblock in the sense that we really can connect with the demographic we go after and at the same time still work with advisors and experience in the finance world to make sure that we are complying with regulations and we are growing properly or developing the app properly. so i think it is more of a

benefit at the end of the day. >> and then the question for both of you is, it is one thing to get onto college campuses or onto high school campuses and say, hey, try this new stock trading app when everything is going this direction up and to the right. lately on the markets it's been rough. and have you seen the enthusiasm wayne a bit when we are taking multi-hundreds point hits on the dow each day? >> i'm curious to hear your thoughts because your little bit more on the ground than i am. we've seen enthusiasm wayne a little bit, but i think the most part what was seen is a lot of teenagers view it as an opportunity to buy. the stocks are a lot cheaper than a couple weeks ago and this demographic is incredible savvy and they recognize when a deal is a deal and i don't think you can see enthusiasm way too much, i'm curious to hear your thoughts. >> like luke said, enthusiasm hasn't been waning that much.

i've made terrible decisions on stock market before, i've lost a lot of money as well. and so and still, i was investing every day checking stocks like robin hood and bumper. and i still check them every day. and my friends do the same in the sense that we are taught to not do daytrading and actually hold onto our stocks. so individual days drops like this should really affect us in the long run. and so we learn to just not really be too effective in terms of emotions. by day-to-day trading and actually hold onto these spots. >> both of you fellows have a much more mature investing attitude than most of the people i know who are twice your age, i appreciate you joining us this morning, the company again is bumper. we will continue to look at sin tech after the break with the ceo of personal finance company aspiration. that is when press your continues.

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welcome back. the fed has been raising interest rates meaning it is more expensive to borrow but it also means it is more beneficial to save. an online only bank says it offers higher interest rates on savings than traditional brick- and-mortar banks the ceo of aspiration, to begin with, i called it a bank, but it's

technically not, it acts like a bank, i have a cash card and direct deposit, but if it is in a bank, what are you? >> we are a sustainability focused online financial firm. and what that means is when you open and aspiration send and save account, it's a cash management account and as you said, allows you to do every thing that you normally do with a checking or savings account. you can deposit your paycheck fdic insured deposits and so on. we have an aspiration zero which is our credit card but what makes aspiration really special is that we are really built around providing sustainability.. >> will talk about that woman, but explain the cash management. not a bank. >> what is that mean to me as a consumer? >> to be honest, it really doesn't make any difference. it is again exactly what you would be getting from a checking or savings account. from direct deposit, your

mobile app, your debit card bill pay, fdic insured deposit. so it gives you everything that you would normally get from a bank, it just means frankly that we are regulated by enron as opposed to the federal reserve. >> which makes no difference to me really as a consumer. >> i know when we were first and i'm going to use the word bank in the poetic license as opposed to cash management system. when we were first presented with online banks, a few years ago, i think some of us were a bit uneasy about that potential because you can't go into the branch and say, hey, this went wrong or whatnot. so when it comes to your industry, the customer service has got to be absolutely job number one. >> absolutely. and the truth is, most people these days don't want to have to go into a branch. and so if you can provide a great digital experience, if you can provide a way for them to be able to do everything

they have to do without having to go into a branch, that is usually seen as a positive. >> one of the things i think as we talk about people being uneasy about online banks et cetera, you helped start the consumer financial protection bureau. those are pretty good bona fides. >> i don't know that i helped started. i work with a law professor on the idea that it originally became -- >> i think that's even more impressive. some banks are not fans, some industry are not fans of the consumer financial protection bureau. but regulations seem to help the consumer in or mislead. >> they probably have to speak for themselves, but the biggest challenge they have is the lack of trust and misalignment of incentive and values and when people do have trust that they

are going to be treated fairly, that actually becomes a positive for them. i think regulation actually helps the industry and it's something that when done the right way and a smart way is actually going to be a positive. >> as we move into a digital generation, digital -- i was just talking with the ceo of chipotle who was talking about how we see ourselves in the restaurant business but also in the digital business, the way that you present choices to the consumer really begins to matter. i was stressed that you told the consumer they can set their own fees. >> gets back to that question of trust and frankly the mistrust that people have because the truth is for traditional banks, they make money when their customers do work. it's more late fees more out of network fees, more service fees. and so on. with aspiration, want to make sure that we were aligned with our customer.

that we only get paid when they are so happy with what we are doing that they choose to pay us. the customer gets to decide that monthly fee that they choose to pay us if they think we deserve zero, that is what we should be paid and that means that we have an incentive to always do our best to deliver for our customers. >> we first started talking, i cut you off, you talk about sustainable deposits. so i think people may not fully think about it, but they realized that when they put hundred dollars in their savings account, the bank takes the $100 and does something with it. in your case, you're doing it with things that i wouldn't object to. environmentally friendly things. you're absolutely right, most people don't think about the fact that when they are depositing their paycheck, doesn't just sit in a vault somewhere, but the bank's lending it out and the truth is in many cases are what they are lending, that money out to is the finance fossil fuel projects, the very projects

driving the climate crisis. the biggest banks in the world finance more oil and gas exploration drilling pipelines in a day than a company like exxon mobil will in a year and there's so many people thinking about the impact of their spending on a daily basis him about nothing about the impact of their savings in the truth of the matter is that moving about $2500 from one of the big banks to fossil fuel free accounts at a place like aspiration is the equivalent for the average person of moving from their gas guzzling car to buying a tesla or another electric vehicle. it is a massive impact and yet those people aren't taking about that. >> what do you think will happen more quickly? i bank at chase and i think the app is quite good. thanks like chase are going to deliver a good digital experience to traditional customers, or traditional customers are going to move over to these new online banks.

>> i think the banks by and large have been catching up in terms of providing a good digital experience. what they are not doing is changing the way they do business. and so the app of a place like chase can be as good as one of the new banks out there, but the truth of the matter is if you are banking at chase, you are having a direct impact in driving the climate crisis which is a biggest challenge in life and that we've ever faced as is a humanity as a civilization. and so that is what they are not changing, they're not changing the way they do business. that is really what matters and so the reason that we are seeing it will come to aspiration now over 7 million members as we called them is because they are looking for something different. they can compete in terms of big banks in terms of technology and in terms of what they offer, but as long as they continue to ride the challenges we are facing as a people who

are facing the challenge of the climate, they are going to continue to lose customers. >> as our journey as the ceo of aspiration, i appreciate you being with us this morning and press here will be right back.

that is our show for the we, my thanks to guest and thank you for making as part of your sunday. er

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