Ghost Stories Ep1: Charles Savage (EasyEquities)

Ghost Stories is a long-form podcast that gives me the opportunity to have deeper conversations with founders, executives and market participants who have a great story to tell.

In the inaugural episode, I welcome a founder who has literally reshaped the way people in South African invest in the market. EasyEquities has opened doors that were previously closed, enabling retail investors to build wealth in a cost-effective manner.

In a conversation lasting over an hour, we covered numerous points related to the story of EasyEquities, the purpose of the business, the use of partnerships, the product roadmap, the total addressable market and more.

This show is for every entrepreneur who wants to learn from a great founder and every EasyEquities investor who wants to get closer to the business. Get ready to learn from Charles about:

• Spotting a market opportunity
• Taking the plunge to build a business that was guaranteed to lose money unless it became the biggest in the market
• The discipline required to build a differentiated product
• The culture at EasyEquities and why it delivers a sustainable competitive advantage
• The decision to stay in South Africa and build a business here despite the obvious challenges we all face in this country
• The quality of investors using the platform and how they have defied the naysayers who believed they would lose money and run away during a bear market – the data tells a very different story
• The way EasyEquities think about launching new financial products to the user base
• The thinking behind equity partnerships (like Sanlam) and route to market partnerships (like Capitec and Discovery)
• The global total addressable market for EasyEquities and how the management team assesses new international markets for expansion

 We ended off with a fun question to Charles about three local and three global stocks that are in his portfolio. The local choices are focused on energy and the global picks are focused on tech, which isn’t a surprise!

This podcast is for every South African investor. We hope you enjoy it!

DISCLAIMER: EasyEquities is a product of First World Trader (Pty) Ltd t/a EasyEquities which is an authorised Financial Services Provider. FSP number: 22588. This material is not intended as and does not constitute financial advice or any other advice and is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive. The views expressed by the contributor are his or her own (as an independently registered financial services provider, financial adviser or other independent capacity), and not necessarily endorsed by EasyEquities (as a separate financial services provider).