I had this idea a couple of weeks ago. It was kind of strange. It was also kind of out of nowhere. But I couldn’t shake it. I wanted it to be real. I wanted it to be a thing.
The idea: An online web-app that gave all students in a classroom their own online (mock) bank account. The teacher would get their own account too. This would then create a virtual classroom economy that could facilitate endless ways for the teacher to develop the students’ personal finance capabilities.
I was right, it’s strange huh.
I took a paper at uni; Econ304: Industrial Innovation. And over several lectures we discussed the idea of the ‘eureka moment’. What we concluded was it wasn’t really a thing. We tracked the progression of the steam engine in all of its iterative glory. We studied the Xerox machine didn’t just pop into existence, or even the Post It. Often final application of things was nowhere near where they started out. The path to commercialisation was long, and kind of boring, so often over looked by the history books—or at least Hollywood.
But what I didn’t understand during this paper was that sometimes you can be on that path without knowing, and subsequently, when that last puzzle piece falls into place it actually can feel like a eureka moment.
- Here’s a really brief version of my path:
- Generally interested in business, personal finance as a youngster (13 years)
- Studied Economics, Accounting and Entrepreneurship at tertiary level (4 years)
- Become an Accountant (1 year)
- Become a Developer (1 year)
- Eureka (1 conversation)
That eureka moment was what I often attribute to the conception of the idea for Banqer. I was visiting my family back in my hometown. I’ve got two brothers who are a lot younger than me. One is 12 and in his final year at his primary school. Without gushing too much, he’s a pretty cool kid. But this time he really surprised me.
We’re pretty similar in a lot of ways (feels weird to confess that I’m similar to an 11 year old boy), but the one thing that binds us the strongest was probably our love of sport. Any and all sport. So this was always one of the first conversation points. But this time was different. He asked me something else, he asked me a lot of different things. And they were all about business and personal finances. Tax, interest, business structures, ideas for new companies - we were talking about everything.
Where did this come from?
My brother’s teacher was running a classroom currency system on steroids. I knew of the concept of ‘funny money’, but this was a big level-up from there. His classmates all ran their own companies for which the other kids paid for their goods and services. They were rewarded for good behaviours, achievements, extra work and they were punished for lateness, indiscipline, and bad behaviours. They could spend their money on goods and services other students provided (my brother ran a rather successful chair stacking company), or they could buy reduced homework, or 20 minutes free creative time, or a whole raft of things. They earned interest on their money and they paid weekly rent for things in their classroom they used but didn’t belong to them. The free market had come to primary school.
And my brother loved it. He knew exactly where he stood in the class ‘socio-economically’ and was extremely motivated by the prospect of getting himself in a better financial position. He wanted to learn as it was coupled tightly to his personal wealth that not doing so would be detrimental to him.
Apparently all of the kids loved it. And they were all learning as a result.
That was the moment. That is when Banqer was born. I wanted kids everywhere to be having animated conversations about their personal finances. I wanted them to be asking if hiring employees or bringing on contractors to stack chairs on your behalf would be better. I wanted Banqer to be real.
It really did feel like a eureka moment. But it wasn’t. And it was. Had my brother had this conversation with my older sister Banqer wouldn’t have been born. It wasn’t the JUST the conversation. It was everything that lead up to that conversation. It was the perfect crossroad of business, personal finance and technology that ignited something.
It was me in app form.
Eureka is easy. What’s hard is recognising the pre-eureka. In recognising this I gained a lot of confidence in myself in taking Banqer forward. In making it more than a conversation with a 12 year old. And more than an idea. I wanted it to be a thing.
