Oklahoma City startup fights financial illiteracy
Oklahoma City startup fights financial illiteracy
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By Jim Stafford
Published: September 10, 2008
In an 8-minute presentation on a San Francisco stage earlier this week, two Oklahoma City businessmen outlined the woeful state of the nation's financial literacy and how their new company can reverse the statistics.
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Real value
"There is a pretty big cash prize for the winner, but here is the real value for us,” Nelson said.
"There are going to be thousands of venture capital guys and companies there looking to possibly invest in this idea. For the next two days, if we got enough interest this morning we are going to be talking to them. We're pretty excited about that,” he said.
Shryk is launching a couple of initiatives that could attract attention of potential investors, if not the interest of educational and financial services industries.
The first is a customizable online banking tool called iThryv, which will be offered through banks and credit unions initially for an audience ages 5 to 24 years old.
"We think this will change the culture of the way that we look at managing money,” Nelson said. "There are no role models; parents don't know it; schools don't teach it. We believe this will be an online community they will live on and learn principles for financial security.
"By the way, we are going to give this to the schools.”
The other initiative is a social community called weProsper.org that will teach financial literacy.
Jim Rogers, director of enterprise services for i2E, the not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of the state's technology-based start-ups, said that Shryk's presentation on Tuesday was well received by the TechCrunch 50 audience.
"Shryk is demonstrating at TechCrunch50 that the tech world is truly flat; that Oklahoma innovators have a place at the table – literally,” Rogers said.
"Their iThryv platform helps educate young people about financial literacy in a fun and friendly environment, while providing banks and credit unions a unique platform to help serve and educate their current and future customers,” he said.
Pick a flavor
Shryk has plans eventually to roll out the iThryv banking software out for adults, as well as children and teens.
iThryv lets users pick their own "flavor” with backgrounds and graphics so their banking software reflects their own personality and lets them see their whole financial picture.
"The first flavor of the software that we are going to roll out is for kids,” Nelson said. "But we think there is going to be a lot of interest for coming out with a flavor for baby boomers; we are going to roll out flavors that are bilingual, so there could be a Spanish flavor.”
The TechCrunch 50 presentations will conclude and winners are named today, Nelson said. Of course, Shryk is celebrating a victory just by being on the stage.
"Just the exposure of making that list is pretty incredible,” Nelson said.
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Science and Technology, Technology, Business, Internet, Computer Technology, Electronic Commerce, Software, Startups
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