How Kudosy Is Revolutionizing Kids’ Financial Education | Ep. 259

Intro/Outro: You know what it is, that’s right. It’s time to talk money with your money, nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It’s the money talk with Tiff podcast.

Tiffany Grant: Hey, everyone. I’m excited because I have Tyler Nichols on the line. Now, Tyler is a founder and he created the company Kudosi, which aims to make financial education fun.

So, of course, I had to have him on the podcast. So, hey, Tyler, how are you today?

Tyler Nicholls: I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

Tiffany Grant: Yes. I am so appreciative of you coming on and having this mission. So let’s just hop right in for the audience and kind of just give a little background cause I want them to kind of understand your journey to get to even having a piece of FinTech software that can help people.

Uh, how did you decide that this is what you want it to do? And how did you get

started?

Tyler Nicholls: Yeah. So, uh, my dad, he has always been a financial planner my whole life. Uh, and so I’ve always had this fascination and interest with money, right? I believe that money gives you freedom and opportunities. And so I was always kind of looking at ways that I could earn money, but then also help teach people about money.

One thing that I found that was really interesting is every year, the United States spends more and more money on financial education. And this year in 2023, actually, it’s projected we’ll spend 3. 8 billion on it. So a lot, a lot of money. Uh, but if you look at financial literacy rates over the same time period, uh, essentially our financial literacy rates are going down, right?

So the great irony is we’re spending all this money on financial education, but it’s not it’s not moving the needle and And then I think it’s a big problem because not only I guess from a macro perspective Right societies don’t do very well if their economies kind of fall apart but also like It hits closer to home, right?

If you start looking at, um, you know, money issues are oftentimes like the leading cause of divorces, right? Families can be torn apart because of money. People can find a lot of, uh, uh, depression and misery when they don’t understand money. And so I wanted to, to create something, uh, that I could help my own kids with.

I’ve got, I’ve got two young kids and, you know, I want to help them navigate this world. I want them to, to understand how money works. Uh, and so, uh, as I was looking around for solutions, I found there wasn’t really anything out there that did what I wanted it to do. And, uh, being a product manager, a software guy by trade, I decided, you know what, I’m going to build a software.

And that’s kind of how kudos he came to be. Awesome.

Tiffany Grant: Awesome. And you know, that is very encouraging that so much money is being poured into financial education, but also disheartening that, you know, it’s still declining. So what are some reasons why you think that is? Like, why are people not gaining this knowledge, although The resources are out there.

Tyler Nicholls: Yeah. So I’ve, in doing my research, I, I, I made three observations that I believe kind of are the, the leading factors for this first, I would say teaching someone financial education is actually really easy, right? You can tell them the concepts and they’ll. They can learn it. Uh, the thing that’s much more difficult is changing someone’s habits.

Uh, and so we are teaching people about money, in my opinion, far too late. If you look at, uh, financial, uh, or if you look at a number of studies, I guess, from Purdue university and Brown and other places like that. Um, people are finding that a person’s money habits are mostly set by the time a person is seven years old, right?

So it’s, it’s much, much younger than we think. And I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice when we only talk about it when we’re old, when those habits are, are fully set, um, that. The second observation that I made was that oftentimes when we talk about money, it’s very individualistic. I mean, we even talk about it as personal finance, but again, in my opinion, personal finances and personal, right?

We have families, we have friends and like how my wife decides to spend money affects me and vice versa. Right. And how our kids, uh, Talk about money and spend their money also affects, you know, all of us. Right. And so, so a lot of what I’m trying to do with Kudosie too, is like make it so we can talk about money more, make it less individualistic and remember that money is kind of a team sport.

We’re doing it for each other. And, and, uh, especially in family units, you know, it’s good to have these conversations and how we collectively decide to spend money or earn money or whatnot. Um, the third, uh, observation that I think is, um, relevant and pretty quick is oftentimes we talk about money as a mathematical problem, but it’s really kind of psychological.

Um, and I, I love that the book, um, the psychology of money, I think that explains it pretty well, but it’s, it’s a mindset and we have emotions and things that draw it. So, uh, so that’s essentially why I think we’re, we’re failing and, and what I tried to create there with kudos.

Tiffany Grant: Gotcha. Gotcha. And you know, to your second point.

You always hear, you know, personal finance is personal, you know, and so to hear your take, where you’re saying it’s not personal, it’s actually influenced by a lot of different things and all of the people around you, you know, that makes complete sense. So I’m glad that you brought that up now. When it comes to Kudosi, because I know you mentioned that, you know, we teach financial education too late.

So is this an app or software for kids?

Tyler Nicholls: Yeah, so it is an app for parents to help their kids. So essentially how it works is within the app. Parents can give their kids points for good behavior. So not only does it teach kids about money, but it also incentivizes good behavior at home and makes it so remote work is easier and all those sorts of things, right?

It gets people, it gets your kids wanting to behave well. And then as they earn those points, Then Kudosia acts essentially like a financial playground where kids can explore and try different things, um, and, and learn these principles through experience. So, uh, they can earn a bunch of different rewards and they can decide to save up or, you know, for a cool toy that they want or a cool activity with mom or dad.

Or they can, uh, you know, spend it on candy, you know, super, you know, and spend it right away. Right. And we’re also introducing a cool investment vehicle where kids will be able to invest their kudos that should come out in a few weeks, and that will be really exciting. So, so we essentially want to take these, these Big concepts that the parents deal with that us as adults deal with and make it kind of gamified and fun for a kid.

So that way, when they actually get old enough to start dealing with these things, they already know how it works because they’ve been doing it for so long inside the app. Gotcha.

Tiffany Grant: Gotcha. So, okay. So I want to kind of dive into that because I’m a tech nerd. I love FinTech, um, and everything about it. So I kind of want to understand more about the app.

So, and I also have kids and I’m over here, like they have their own phones. And if this is something that, you know, I can put on there and give them their rewards, you know, for doing their chores and stuff, this sounds like a win to me. So how exactly does it work? So I understand that I assign different tasks.

And then as they complete it, they get a kudos point or something in that regard. Yeah.

Tyler Nicholls: So, um, we’re still a fairly, uh, the, the app is still fairly new, so more features are coming and all of that. Um, but, uh, essentially currently what we can do is in the app that the parent downloads it on their phone.

Okay. Uh, and then. Once the app is downloaded, then they can give points to their kids as they do good things. Um, I have found that it is incredibly valuable to give sort of ad hoc rewards sort of a thing. So like, for instance, like, Hey, I noticed you did this. So I want to give you points for doing that, for cleaning your room, doing the dishes, whatever.

Um, and so, uh, you can kind of give points along the way for that. The scheduling, uh, sort of thing that you’re describing. That is certainly on the roadmap and something that we are, uh, going to be putting in soon. Uh, but currently that’s not, not there yet, but we are building towards, uh, that and many other really exciting features.

Tiffany Grant: Gotcha. Gotcha. So I know that I’m familiar with like VBucks and Robux and most of my audience probably is too. Do these kudos points cost us real money for us to give it to the

kids?

Tyler Nicholls: Great question. Yeah. So kudos, which is the currency inside of kudos and where it gets its name. Uh, it actually, it’s a, it’s a completely fictional currency.

So as, as parents, you get to determine the value of your kudo and you can actually let your kids redeem for anything that they want with their kudos. So, uh, within the app, we’ve got a curated list of kudos. Amazon items, uh, you know, fun toys, games or whatever things that would be interesting to kids. Um, and we also have a ton of experiences like, Hey, we’re going to have a family movie night and you get to choose the movie or, uh, you know, bake a cake with mom or whatever, right?

Like a long, a long list of things. Um, and as a parent, you can go in and you can change the cost of anything that’s there. You can hide anything that’s there. If you don’t want your kids to see certain. Yeah. Rewards, or you can even add your own rewards. So whatever you want, basically. And sometimes like when me and my wife go to the store and our kids are like, I want a candy bar or whatever, right.

Kids always for something. Um, then, then it’s really nice to be able to say, well, do you want to spend your kudos on this? Right. And they have to think like, Oh, do I, because I worked hard for those. Uh, and, and so like, that’s why this is so valuable is because it really helps kids understand from a young age.

how to provide value and what others see as value. And then once they have given that value, then they have to make these like difficult decisions. Like, do I want to actually spend these kudos on something? Um, or do I want to save them up? Right. Cause I worked hard for those things. So it’s, it’s extremely adaptable to the parent.

However, the parent wants to do it, but basically it’s a family economy. Uh, and to answer your question, no, you don’t have to buy into any of these, these points or whatever you kind of determine the value of them. And then on the backend, you just buy whatever it is for them. And then this kind of tracks it for you, right?

And so you, you deduct a number of kudos, however many you want. Um, and we have an amount that you can use, um, to make it simple, but you deduct that amount and then boom, you know, you have this kind of family economy going, that’s super easy to track and very easy to manage.

Tiffany Grant: I love that. I love that. And just hearing you talk about this app, I’m thinking about all the different concepts that it teaches, you know, uh, I guess subconsciously to kids, for instance, you know, if you do something, you should get paid for it, you know, that type of thing, or, um, learning like the beginnings of budgeting because they’re like, well, you know, I might.

need to hold off. Maybe I’ll save up for something a little more expensive. You know, maybe something in there is like getting a V bucks or something. And so they’re like, well, that’s this, do I really want this candy bar? So, you know, I really love the concept and I love that it is fictional money and I’m excited for, you know, the investment piece as well, because I remember being a child in daycare and.

They, my, one of my earliest memories about investing was we had fake money and we had to pick a stock, you know, we had to look at the newspaper, you know, back then there was no apps and stuff for this stuff. Um, and so we had to look at the newspaper every day and see how our stock moved and we would have to either get money from the teacher or give money up to the teacher, depending on how it moved.

And so. I loved that. And it was so influential for me. Um, even now today, you see, I’m still talking about it. And this was probably like when I was, I don’t know, seven, eight. Uh, so I can definitely see how this could help children, um, develop lifelong

Tyler Nicholls: habits. Totally. And, and to that point, um, you know, when you look back on those experiences that really helped you understand a concept like with money, it is always, uh, in my, as, as I’ve seen, it’s always kind of these Experiences stuff.

It’s it’s very rarely. Oh, someone was talking about money and they said this principle and then it like really, you know, like stood with me forever sort of thing. It’s mostly like, Hey, I was able to experience it. I was able to try it. And that’s what, you know, we’re really doing with kudos. He is. We’re trying to create a space where kids https: otter.

ai Try these concepts and make mistakes, right? Like, you know, a five year old can have buyer’s remorse. And that’s a good thing, right? You know, if they realize like, Oh, I spent my kudos on a candy bar, but I really wanted this, you know, Barbie doll or whatever, you know, like, like that’s actually a really good thing because you’d rather have someone learn that principle on a 10 item than on like a 30, 000 car or something.

Right. Um, and, and again, that kind of goes back to the whole concept of like, We talk about this stuff so late that like people oftentimes are already like, you know, in mountains of debt or they are, you know, they’ve made these, uh, kind of poor money decisions because they’re learning. Like that’s how you, that’s how you learn how to do these things.

You, you waste money and then you spend money well, and you kind of figure out over time, like, Oh, I’d like it when I do this. So they don’t like it when I do that. Um, and so, so, yeah, it’s just been really fun to use kudos with my family and see all of the families that are using it and the wonderful ratings and reviews that they’re giving it because, um, you can see that, like, this is valuable to these kids to have these experiences and before there’s just, there just wasn’t a tool out there that that did this sort of thing, which is again, why I felt like I needed to make it.

And I’m grateful that I did. Yes.

Tiffany Grant: And I am too, because I am so excited to try it out. I think it would do really well with my, um, nine year old. I think he would really enjoy it. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to talk about Your journey and then also kudosi. So if people were interested in learning more about you or about the app Or anything related to what we talked about today, where could they find

Tyler Nicholls: you?

Yeah, so you can look us up at kudosi. com Also, I am very much in a phase of wanting to get lots and lots of feedback. So if if you Uh, if anyone who is interested in in this app wants to give any sort of feedback, please email me directly. You can email me at Tyler at kudosi wallet dot com. Um, and also the app is currently available on the apple app store.

Kudosi family wallet. That’s K O K U D O S Y. So. Kudos with the Y at the end, family wallet, um, and you can download it directly from the app store at any time. So, uh, a number of places to check me

Tiffany Grant: out. Perfect. Perfect. And I’ll be sure to have all of those links in the show notes, including the book that you mentioned.

So thank you so much, Tyler, for coming on the show today. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks so much. You

Tyler Nicholls: too.

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Tyler Nicholls: Yeah.