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and welcome. You are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your
host, Carrie lets Well. Financial education, or lack thereof, is one
of the greatest problems confronting the United States and the world for that matter,
because the basic financial tools are generally not taught in school. You learn them
by the seat of your pants, whether it's opening a bank account your parents
take you to the bank for the first time. I mean, I guess
now on the internet you could open up a PayPal account when you're But all
these things you need to learn, and there's no great way of teaching them.
You know, guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad or dad has made
great strides and teaching you, but the actual practical learning is still up to
you. But there's a new app called Kudosi. I've got the originator of
it on with me now, Tyler Nichols. Tyler, you're established software developer.
He came across this concept. You saw avoid in the market, and
you said, you know what, there's an app for that. Actually there's
not an app, but I'll create it. So you created an app to
really teach all levels financial education. Just give us a little background on you
and how you came up with the concept. Yeah, awesome, Thank you
so much for having me. But yeah, that's exactly right. I was
doing some research a number of years back and found that every year the United
States is spending more and more money on financial education, and in fact,
in twenty twenty three, it's projected we'll spend three point eight billion dollars on
it across the economy. But what's interesting is we also do studies to determine
the financial literacy rates of the country, and our financial literacy rates are actually
going down. So it's incredibly ironic that we're trying to teach people how to
spend money better, but yet we're not spending that money very effectively. We're
we're not actually moving that needle, and so I wanted to help move that
needle. I think that it's a big problem for the country in the world
at large, to your point, and I also think like it's a big
problem even for individuals. You look at the statistics and something like twenty to
forty of all divorces occur because of financial issues, and it has the ability
to tear apart families and all these sorts of things. So I wanted to
create a solution here. I saw that there was a need and I wanted
to come in. And as I was doing that, I saw a couple
observations and tried to like fill that gap. So it's just like all other
education in the United States were spending more and more money on it and getting
less and less of a return. I'll tell you this, Okay, I'm
going to relate this to personal thing with me. Twelve years ago, I
wanted to learn podcasting. Wasn't listening to podcasts. There weren't a lot of
people doing it then, And I did an internet search and I find this
guy, the podcast answer Man answer Man, Cliff Ravenscraft. I sign up
for his course. It was eight hundred bucks. I found an affiliate link.
It was a thousand, but I found an affiliate link for eight hundreds,
so I saved money. Right there, and it was an eight week
course with basically getting on the what was then the equivalent of a Zoom call.
We didn't really have zoom that much then and online there were like twelve
of us and he went down the basics of it. And prior to that,
I was doing my podcast and I was getting maybe thousand downloads a month,
which I thought was incredible. Took the course and overnight I'm getting twenty
fifty hundred thousand downloads a month, and that was like, they weren't teaching
that stuff in college. Now they teach podcasting in college, believe it or
not. So the point is that where the public education system fails, private
private sector has jumped in with two feet and you can learn more from these
online courses then you can learn it a semester in college. And so I
think you're really on the right path here. So what age groups is this
aimed at? Yeah, so really Kudosi is it's called Kudozi Family Wallet,
and it's it's designed for the whole family. It especially helps families with young
kids. So kids that are ages three to thirteen especially are really kind of
a sweet spot for that app. So they can learn at a young age
the correct principles that will help them the rest of their life. Yeah.
So you know, like I one time, go back. I'm a little
bit older than you, and I had an Apple two plus computer. I
couldn't do much on it, but it had it had this game called Lemonade
Stand, and I had my niece and nephew in my apartment, and basically
you had to figure out how much to spend on your stand, how much
to spend on ingredients, what to charge, and then when you screwed up,
it went bank and you went bankrupt, and the whole Lemonade Stand like
blew up. And I didn't realize it then, but that was actually a
financial education at its most rudimentary. Yeah, absolutely, I there have been
some interesting studies that showed like the most effective way to learn financial principles is
not death by PowerPoint, but hands on experience doing it. And so Kudozi
really aims to gamify the whole experience and make it fun and interesting and compelling.
So people are kind of in this simulation, kind of trying to figure
out how should I spend the currency in the app and learn more about these
financial principles, and I just told my daughter about it, and she's got
two kids five and two, and perfectly. I got an ad for something
similar on Instagram the other day. I don't hate it. I think it's
a great idea for kids seven to fifteen, but you know, younger kids,
you know, you learn about money at a very early age, which
is by necessity. So that's from somebody in your demographic loves the concept,
and so have you tried it out on your own kids or test marketed it?
How's that worked? Yeah? Absolutely so. We have been using it
with our family for about five years. I was using other apps and kind
of trying to do what what Kudosi eventually is now doing, and it is
incredibly effective. So one thing that I really love about it is, you
know, we have to talk about financial education in a very individualistic way.
We even coined the term personal finance. But when you think about it,
finances are really that personal, right. The way that I spend my money
affects my wife and affects my kids. There's a whole ecosystem here and I
can go learn all of these really awesome financial principles. But if my wife
goes out and spends a bunch of money, on stuff that we're not good
ahead or vice versa. She studies the stuff and I go spend the money.
We're not going to to move that needle. So so yeah, so
it's really designed to kind of have get everyone in on the conversation and talking
about these things and really making it so everyone learns these principles together. Right
And okay, so you're you're on kids were the laboratory for this and now
you've released it. When did you release it? Yeah? So we're brand
new. We were about four months old. Now we've launched on Christmas Eve
of last year. Well and wish it the best here, so feedback that
you've gotten reviews to give us a glimpse of how it's being received. Yeah.
So we have one hundred and fifty or so families using the app.
We have a perfect five star rating, and we are getting awesome reviews all
the time. People are loving it because what's also nice is it serves multiple
issues. Right, So, on one hand, it's important that we learn
these financial principles because it will benefit us for the rest of our lives.
We all know this is important, but oftentimes it doesn't feel urgent. What
feels more urgent especially if you have really young kids. Is I'm trying to
work remotely on Zoom or whatever, and my kids are just nagging me and
driving me crazy and all these sorts of things that is really urgent, right,
And so what's awesome is this blends the two together because within the app,
kids can earn trudeaus, which are this fictional currency within the app that
the parents get to decide they have a family economy that they get to control.
And as the kids do good things, they behave well, they serve
other people, they build their talents. Parents can give those kids kudos,
which means you're able to have your kids want to behave well, to do
good things. And so parents are finding their screaming last, Their kids are
cleaning their room on their own, they're doing all of these things. But
then also they're getting the benefit of the added benefit of learning these cool financial
principles that will help them forever, and they get to have more financial conversations.
And it's just been super cool to see all of these users, most
of which I don't even know who they are at this point, and it's
just super exciting to see, you know, they're seeing all the value of
it and they've been given us awesome reviews about it all right and so right
now it's free, which is we like that? That's our favorite for letter
word on the people. Hey, if you got a question for Tyler or
mysel Off about this, shoot us an email k l at Klutz dot com.
The website who Dozy kudosy dot com. You'll find a link to it
in the show notes this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. Like it?
Let us know what you think about it. I am intrigued by it.
If you got grandchildren out there, children, that's our demos a little
older than new parents. But I know there's a lot of you out there.
Download it, lay it. Let us know what you think they did
it help? Did it make a difference because you can't start financial literacy for
your kids financial education soon enough. Tyler, we want to reach you,
connect with you on the web. What's the best way to do that?
Yeah, you can email me at Tyler at krudozi wallet dot com. We
also have a presence on YouTube and and you can yes find us there.
And the app is available live today called Kudosi Family Wallet. It's available on
Apple the Apple App Store and it's coming soon to Android, and I just
downloaded it, so I'll be playing around with it and I'll give you my
thoughts. And I think I think, Tyler or you might have the first
financial application that goes viral on the web, on well whatever, on your
phones, on your tablet. Probably it's the kind of thing you want to
put on your tablet for your kids, given my choices, but however you
have to do it. Check it out, Hey, any questions comments?
Tyler myself again the email addresses kl at karr Letz dot com. Tyler wishing
the best of luck on this really a noble undertaking open succeeds beyond your wildest
dreams. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thanks for listening to
carry Lets's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the
latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more
than ever. W