AURA: THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL WELLNESS 💸
The Scope Vol. 28
Hi, CWBS!
Happy fall semester! Take a break from the stress of classes and read this edition of The Scope featuring Kelsey Willock, Co-Founder and CEO of Aura Finance! Kelsey has amazing advice for building a network and tips for getting started on your founding journey. She also talks about Aura Finance’s mission to close generational and gender wealth gaps that exist through investing. Happy reading!
Best,
Alyse Rovner, Membership Engagement Chair 2021-2022
*You can find the full version of this interview on CWBS: The Scope podcast.
LVMH & GEN-Z: LVMH has announced its plan to recruit 25K people who are Gen-Z in order to address barriers to entering the industry. Learn more.
BED, BATH, & BAD STOCK: Foot traffic slowed causing the stock to go down by 30%; the hit in sales due to the pandemic coupled with shoppers moving towards brands like Target and Amazon leave a mark for Bed, Bath, & Beyond. Learn more.
DOLLAR TREE RAISES PRICES: Due to inflation and increased shipping costs, Dollar Tree is raising its prices in certain stores. They will also carry a range of products ranging from 3 to 5 dollars. Learn more.
KELSEY WILLOCK OF AURA FINANCE
“Nothing is absolute or final. You can have so many different career paths, so don't feel stressed if you haven't figured it out while you're in college.”- Kelsey Willock
Kelsey Willock is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aura Finance. Aura Finance is a financial wellness and investment platform designed with women in mind first. She is also the author of "Not Your Boyfriend's Investment Advice" - a weekly newsletter where she uses humor and storytelling to educate her readers about investing and finance. Prior to her work at Aura Finance and NYBIA, she worked for Goldman Sachs advising institutional clients and on Launch with GS - the firm's billion-dollar commitment to investing in diverse entrepreneurs and investment managers
Can you talk about your journey up until founding Aura Finance?
My first job out of college was working for an investment bank, Goldman Sachs. Prior to that, I had worked at three different startups during college. One was Rent the Runway, one was an Ed-tech company, and the other was in the finance space. So I always thought I wanted to go into entrepreneurship, but I got lucky enough to get an internship with Goldman and then a full-time offer. I really didn't want to give up that opportunity and ended up staying there for about five and a half years. Once I got to 2020 and had a really introspective year, I knew I wanted to go back to entrepreneurship, but I didn't quite know how. So I just really spent the year thinking about what my future could look like and what were the problems I wanted to solve? Ultimately it had to do with closing the generational and gender wealth gaps that exist through investing.
Could you tell me more about Aura Finance?
We are a financial wellness and investment app. I keep telling people we were built with women in mind, although we're entirely gender agnostic. We are kind of similar to how Bumble was created with women's dating experiences in mind, but obviously, anyone can use it. I just realized that so many women, especially when I was doing my research back in 2020, were lacking autonomy and felt like they weren't a part of the conversation. They wanted to get started in investing, but everyone kept telling them what to do rather than having a conversation with them about what's right for them and educating them. So that's why I took a step back and thought, “Ok, how do I create a place where you can get started in a hyper-personalized way and also have access to community, where community means not only your friends and direct network, but also means professionals?”. So we are a hyper-human robo-advisor and we essentially give you a place to get started investing your money. We give you access to telewealth so you can speak to professionals on demand. And the hyper-personalized curation comes from getting to know about your money story and how you feel about it before you interact with investing or link bank accounts. That money archetype curates the rest of your experience. So if you feel like you're a novice and you don't like to ask questions, we make your experience extremely comfortable to that personality. On the other hand, you could be extremely risk on. You are the type of person who has invested for years, feels extremely comfortable, but you're still looking for next steps and how to plan for your future; we also curate the experience for you. So similar to how your signs kind of curate how you think your emotions react to different situations, we're trying to do that for financial wellness.
What skills are vital to starting a business in finance & investment?
One thing I'll say is whenever you start a business, you're never going to have all the skills. Although some people will say, “oh, you have to check this box, or you have to check that box.” If you look at so many of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs, they took a leap because they cared about something. And I cared about solving the gaps that exist today and especially about how do I get more women involved in the conversation? I have not been an investment manager. I have not started an investment management company. That doesn't mean I haven't worked at one. I think working at one helped significantly. But it's more about do you have the right network of people that are going to fill the gaps that you have? It's not necessarily do you need all of them? Because the reality, again, is no one is going to check every box, especially at the founder level. It's really about finding the right group of people that are going to make the magic happen.
The only other thing I'll say before you get started is especially since I'm a financial wellness company, starting a business is tricky. Sometimes you have to forgo a salary. I knew that I couldn't do that right out of college. I graduated school with $130K of debt, so I couldn't start a business right out of the gate. I knew I needed to save and I needed to prepare for taking a risk. So for me, that meant over those five years, I always knew in the back of my head I wanted to start a business. I never knew what that was. I was really good about saving. And that's not to mean I didn't have my dips and I didn't have a ton of fun and I didn't spend money and go on trips and see friends. But I had to prepare for the life of entrepreneurship, which can have a lot of high highs and low lows.
Do you have any networking advice?
I would describe myself as an introverted extrovert, so networking doesn't necessarily come easy to me. This is a trick that I use and it's always benefited me throughout my life. Whenever I meet someone, I ask them at the end of our conversation if there's anyone else that they could introduce me to. So it takes a little bit of the stress off of having to continue expanding my own network by myself and it gives that person an opportunity to really be helpful to you. I think a lot of conversations that end in the networking space end with “let me know how I can help you.” Well, give that person a tangible action. And on the flip side, don't just extract from them. I try to always be mutually beneficial. I always offer something I think can help that person, whether it's making an introduction to them as well, or providing my time for feedback on their work, or even if they have a newsletter or if they have a beta waitlist, I'll sign up for it. So it's just about being an honest, genuine human and not trying to just extract from everyone and just kindness. I think one thing I try to do at the beginning of calls when I first meet people is not just to dive into business. It's always, “where are you based in the world?” or “tell me a little bit more about your background.” Again, not just business-focused. Get to know people on a human level. It's something that will stick with someone so much more than just an ask from them.
What advice do you have for college-aged women interested in entrepreneurship? What do you wish you had known?
So I have a couple. I was super actively involved in entrepreneurship in college, and there are so many opportunities these days for college students to get engaged with either existing startups or dabble in their own. So with existing ones, I know there are incredible channels like Gen Z VC where you can look for different internship opportunities. At Aura Finance, we also have our own intern and she's been absolutely incredible with everything from content creation and marketing strategy. Don't be afraid to just test the waters and see what you like. Even if the opportunity doesn't necessarily 100% fit what you want to do, there is power in the experience of learning what you like and don't like. Just working at an early-stage company is so different from a corporate role, so having experience there at a young age can be so important.
I also think that entrepreneurship doesn't mean you have to build a full-fledged business. While I was in school, I went to work for Rent the Runway where I just helped them test different random ideas. So in a way, it gave me a dose of micro-entrepreneurship because I was able to test one idea they had, which actually became their subscription model. You can do that yourself, whether it's starting a zine or renting out your clothes to friends and seeing what price point makes sense. It’s asking yourself, “Do you like the entrepreneurship aspect?”. Entrepreneurship can be really stressful and sometimes you have to be really vulnerable. Ask yourself, “is it something you enjoy?”. Test it out. Test the waters. Test what industry you like, because I think there's so much power in experience.
Don't put too much pressure on yourself to answer all those questions in the beginning. I'm still trying to figure them out. I certainly didn't know those answers when I graduated from school. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to work in an investment bank. Again, I got the role and I was so excited for it. But I was actually an English major, so I was very torn about whether I wanted to go into publishing or writing. And now, I'm writing today. So nothing is absolute or final. You can have so many different career paths so don't feel stressed if you haven't figured it out while you're in college.
You do such an amazing job of balancing serious topics in a fun and readable way in Not Your Boyfriends Investment Advice. What inspired you to create NYBIA ?
I did a ton of research and I spoke to about 50 women individually about their experience investing, and one comment that continued to come up was, “oh, I take my boyfriend's investment advice” or “I take my significant others or my dad's.” And I was just like, “oh, no, we can't have this anymore.” We are in 2021; “how do women not feel that they are brilliant and smart and capable investors?”. So I just decided I'm going to start a weekly newsletter called Not Your Boyfriend's Investment Advice. I was also thinking a lot about what I wanted the structure of the newsletter to look like. I wanted it to be different. I love personal storytelling and I do a lot of creative writing myself. I was an English major and I just felt that there was a way to tell stories about my life and my dating experiences— the good things and the bad things— and play them into finance.
Another thing that I did was that I got in front of a bunch of women and I said, “do you want to have a conversation about dividends?” and there were crickets all around. The next conversation I had with them was, “do you want to have a conversation about dildos and dividends?”. Everyone was like, “what are you talking about? That sounds so weird, but I want to hear more.” So I just felt that I kind of tapped into this market where I could speak to people with content that they wanted to engage with, rather than they felt they had to engage with using hyper-personal storytelling. And it also had a lot to do with Aura Finance, the fact that everyone has a money story and we want to help them rewrite the next chapter. And if I can get in front of people and be vulnerable and hopefully funny enough that you want to keep reading, I think it's an interesting way to learn.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I definitely spent the majority of my time on Aura Finance. NYBIA is published each week on Tuesday, so I either write the articles the morning they are due or on Monday night. The rest of my time is really dedicated to just building out the product. We are in the process of working on our MVP (minimum viable product), which will be available later this fall. I work with a team of four designers and we are constantly talking about UI and UX. We also are constantly speaking to our advisors at Georgetown University. We work with one who's a behavioral psychologist and another who is a robo-advising expert. It's a lot of back and forth discourse with the people that are helping us build this business. I would also say I am constantly back and forth with my co-founder, Courtney Kardon. She's a lawyer by practice, but she focuses a lot on the behavioral psychology piece and a lot on the data piece. I focus more on the financial side. So not only am I speaking to our team of designers, but I'm also speaking to our technology team who is working on the back-end infrastructure. It’s also about doing a lot of conversations like these, getting in front of people, and spreading the word. We want when we launch in the fall for there to be a significant waitlist and hope that people want to engage with the product. I wanted to learn what was right for people and build with them in mind. So that's why I've spent such a significant amount of time just having conversations with individuals about what they like about investing, what they don't like and what's lacking. So that's a little bit about what my week and day look like, although ever-changing.
Quick Take One: Name one act of self-care you practice each day.
I have a pretty regimented skincare routine. I like using retinol, vitamin C, and doing facial massage. I'm very into natural products, so I'm constantly trying new ones.
Quick Take Two: Who is a woman you look up to?
I actually have two! The first is my mom. My mom has been an entrepreneur basically my whole life and she always taught me that it's equally important to care for yourself, care for the ones you love, and love them as much as they love you. So I even think that bleeds into what I talked about when you network, not that you have to love these people, but sharing kindness and respect for people as much as they give you is so important. Entrepreneurship can feel lonely sometimes and she taught me it's so important to maintain relationships no matter how busy you get, because at the end of the day, your friends and the ones you love are the ones that you're going to have to lean on when things get tough. So it's been tough to balance, although I feel like I've been working more than I ever have, I have still made time for my friends. I know I need them and I love them and I don't want to miss out on them because this is a long life we have to live.
The second is one of my first bosses named Amy. She taught me not only the importance of working hard but the importance of giving yourself breaks. I'll never forget when I was about one year into working for Goldman and I hadn't taken any vacation. She pulled me into a side room and said, “we're going to put a week down on the calendar now.” So caring for your people and caring for their wellness is so important for the success of anyone. It's how I intend to lead this business someday. I care about the people that work with me beyond just the financial return that they bring the business. I care about their whole selves and I think ultimately that will foster an amazing culture.
Quick Take Three: If you had to choose one, what is your favorite edition of NYBIA?
Oh, gosh, that's a tough one. I think the one about the bride losing a tooth. I think that one is pretty epic and something that I never thought I would be even putting down on paper.
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MONEYGIRLS: It’s time to run your own money.
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