How Stellom Revolutionized Stock Trading Education with Collaboration, Gamification, and Competitiveness
Stellom, founded by Nick in 2019 and acquired by another startup in 2020, emerged as a unique platform designed to teach users the fundamental concepts of stock trading and market dynamics. Rooted in research conducted in 2018, Stellom transformed the often-daunting process of learning about markets into an engaging and collaborative experience.
With its blend of gamification, competitiveness, and real-world financial principles, Stellom grew from an experimental project to a platform with 70,000 active users in just a year.
The Inspiration: A Simulated Market for Learning
The origins of Stellom can be traced to a large online forum focused on financial literacy, with over 1.5 million participants. The forum introduced an innovative market simulator that allowed users to "invest" in fictional assets, including user-generated posts, users themselves, and firms, using a virtual currency.
This simulator mirrored real-world market behaviors such as supply and demand, taxation, and debt management, giving participants a hands-on way to learn the mechanics of trading without financial risk. Its unique features included:
Dynamic Pricing Based on Demand: Asset prices fluctuated based on how much users invested, replicating real-world supply and demand mechanics.
Collaboration Through Firms: Users could form firms to pool resources and strategize collectively, simulating teamwork and organizational structures in trading.
Integration with Market Indicators: The platform tied performance to real-world market indices like the S&P 500, connecting theoretical learning to current events.
Building Financial Literacy Through Gamification
Stellom took these concepts and expanded them into an interactive educational platform. It created a space where users could practice trading strategies and learn market fundamentals—such as risk management, portfolio diversification, and the impact of market trends—all while engaging in a gamified environment.
Key features of Stellom included:
Portfolio Management: Users could invest in virtual stocks, track their portfolios, and analyze performance, mirroring the process of managing real investments.
Risk and Reward Dynamics: Users experienced the consequences of risky or conservative investment strategies, helping them understand concepts like volatility and market cycles.
Progressive Learning Tools: The platform incentivized learning through rewards such as subsidies for losses, encouraging users to keep experimenting without fear of failure.
Taxation and Redistribution: Stellom introduced progressive taxation for high earners and subsidies for underperforming users, teaching participants about wealth distribution and market regulation.
Turning Learning Into a Game
By integrating collaboration and competition, Stellom engaged users in learning market fundamentals in a way that felt accessible and fun:
Collaborative Firms: Users could join or form firms with roles like CEOs, executives, and traders. These firms replicated real-world organizational structures, emphasizing teamwork and strategic planning.
Competitiveness: Leaderboards and firm rankings encouraged participants to outperform their peers, fostering a healthy competitive spirit.
Gamified Market Behavior: The platform used dynamic pricing, market-linked performance, and royalty incentives to simulate real-world stock trading in a low-risk environment.
Rapid Growth and Recognition
Within a year of its launch, Stellom grew its user base to 70,000 active participants. The platform's success stemmed from its ability to simplify complex market concepts into actionable, engaging experiences. By connecting gamified activities to real-world financial principles, Stellom made learning about the stock market both practical and enjoyable.
This rapid growth caught the attention of a larger startup in 2020, leading to Stellom’s acquisition. Its innovative approach to financial literacy was seen as a valuable asset in teaching market fundamentals to a wider audience.
A Lasting Legacy in Financial Education
Stellom’s journey underscores the potential of gamification in education. It showed that even complex topics like stock trading and market behavior could be taught effectively through collaboration and hands-on experimentation. By turning trading fundamentals into an engaging experience, Stellom gave users the tools to better understand financial markets and make informed decisions.
From its origins in a thriving online community to becoming a platform with tens of thousands of active users, Stellom demonstrated how innovative approaches can revolutionize financial education.
