**”One-Click Copy Trading” Pelosi, Federal Reserve**
Do you also want “one-click copy trading” to perfectly replicate the stock lists of Wall Street giants and celebrities?
Professional institutional investors enjoy numerous advantages, such as vast networks and specialized research teams, while retail investors can only seek investment references from financial news, financial reports, and even social media.
Steven Wang was puzzled by this situation until the “GameStop incident” unfolded, prompting him to think of a business idea: enabling everyone to follow successful individuals’ trades.
The GameStop incident involved several hedge funds shorting the well-known video game retail chain GameStop listed in the U.S. However, Reddit stock forum users, known as “Roaring Kitty,” believed that GameStop’s stock price was “over-shorted,” resulting in a showdown between “online users and Wall Street titans.”
How does Dub address the pain points of retail investors?
In the past, the investment market was predominantly led by professional institutions, leaving ordinary investors at a disadvantage due to information asymmetry or lack of expertise, often leading to losses in the investment market.
The core philosophy of the investment platform Dub, founded by Steven Wang, is “choose the investor, not the stock.” Dub offers “Copy Trading” services, allowing users to directly follow the investment portfolios of top Wall Street investors, hedge fund managers, and even political figures, perfectly achieving “one-click copy trading.”
Dub provides “Copy Trading” technology, enabling users to directly follow the investment portfolios of top Wall Street investors, hedge fund managers, and even political figures.
Image / Dub Official Website
Steven Wang explained that U.S. Congress members and government officials must disclose their stock trades to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), and these records are publicly accessible. Dub utilizes trading disclosure data supervised by the SEC to compile the “Pelosi Portfolio,” allowing retail investors to directly follow the investment strategies of former House Speaker Pelosi in the stock market. He added that this portfolio achieved a return of over 70% in 2023.
Image / Dub Official Website
Users only need to download Dub, register an account, and browse the investment portfolios on the platform. Each portfolio displays past returns, risk assessments, and investment targets, allowing investors to choose suitable options to follow based on their capabilities.
Unlike typical community investments, Dub has a strict vetting mechanism for selecting investment experts to ensure that the individuals users follow possess professional backgrounds and excellent investment records. Steven Wang emphasized that the investment portfolios provided by Dub come from SEC public trading records, covering transactions by figures such as Bill Ackman and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, ensuring the reliability of the portfolios.
Additionally, Dub’s investment team consists of quantitative analysts from Wall Street hedge funds, including experts from Millennium Management, Goldman Sachs traders, as well as data scientists and mathematicians from MIT and Harvard, who screen investors suitable for the platform and analyze appropriate investment strategies.
Steven Wang further explained that once an investment portfolio is selected, Dub automatically executes trades, ensuring that users’ capital allocation aligns with the investment experts without the need for manual buying and selling, making the investment process more efficient. Currently, Dub has already achieved 800,000 downloads.
Witnessing the GameStop short squeeze, he resolutely left Harvard to found Dub
Where does Dub’s philosophy come from?
Founder Steven Wang hails from a Chinese immigrant family in Detroit, recalling his childhood when his father’s annual salary was only $10,000, which barely maintained a basic standard of living. Therefore, Steven Wang started learning about investments using a custodial account opened by his parents at Scottrade as early as the second grade, hoping to help the family alleviate financial pressure as soon as possible.
His entrepreneurial talent began to show in high school when, at just 16, Steven Wang decided to drop out to start a VR education company named Realism, aiming to use VR technology for immersive learning experiences. Realism’s projects included lunar landing experiments, medical research, and even designing a course for students to practice Spanish in a virtual environment.
“Even with the best technology, without a channel to enter the market, these technologies cannot be turned into successful business models,” Steven Wang admitted. At such a young age, bringing Realism to market proved to be fraught with obstacles, due to the complex procurement decisions in public schools requiring multiple confirmations from administrators, teachers, and parents, resulting in lengthy sales cycles. “The educational technology industry is perhaps the hardest of all industries,” he confessed.
Despite this, Realism’s VR education technology received recognition from MIT Media Lab, and Steven Wang and his team secured $220,000 and entered a three-month accelerator program called Play Labs. He recalled that the team lived in a small apartment in Boston, fully dedicated to developing their VR products.
Steven Wang believes that although Realism ultimately failed to commercialize successfully and was acquired by other companies, he quickly accumulated a network and secured startup funding through the accelerator program.
Later, he entered Harvard University, where he engaged in extensive day trading and witnessed the investment forum WallStreetBets ignite a “retail vs. hedge funds” battle—namely, the GameStop incident.
“My parents are typical Asian parents; they want me to become a lawyer, a doctor, or an entrepreneur like Zuckerberg.” Thus, Steven Wang thought it would be really cool to drop out of Harvard to start a business.
Further Reading: Is It Really Robin Hood? A Look at the Business Model, Competitors, and Future of the Investment Platform Loved by Young People, Robinhood
Having witnessed millions of retail investors impact the entire financial market, Steven Wang observed that many investors do not make decisions based on rational analysis but are influenced by social media, choosing so-called investment gurus or following insider tips from groups.
“I didn’t want to just place random bets in the market; I wanted to build a platform that genuinely helps retail investors.” Consequently, Steven Wang decided to drop out again and founded Dub, hoping to create a platform where retail investors can “follow the right people” in their investments.
Image / Steven Wang LinkedIn
How is Dub different from Robinhood?
Dub’s service positioning easily evokes comparisons to the investment platform Robinhood, which played a significant role during the GameStop incident.
Robinhood also provides a platform for retail investors to trade stocks directly, but Dub and Robinhood differ in their profit models.
Robinhood primarily profits through Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), selling users’ trading information to high-frequency trading firms (HFT), allowing these firms to know in advance which stocks are about to see significant buying or selling and thus profit. In contrast, Dub operates on a subscription fee and investment management fee model.
Both platforms cater to retail investors, but the differences in their profit mechanisms indicate that Dub is more aligned with the interests of ordinary retail investors.
During the GameStop incident in 2021, Robinhood faced accusations of violating fair trading principles by restricting users from purchasing GameStop stocks and was even investigated by the SEC. Steven Wang shared that the Dub platform they founded is the first “Copy Trading” platform in the U.S. to receive approval from the SEC and FINRA, ensuring that all transactions are monitored and do not rely on PFOF for profit.
“We aim to create a truly transparent and trustworthy investment platform, rather than making retail investors victims of financial institutions,” Steven Wang stated. Through a $10 monthly subscription fee and investment management fees, Dub ensures that its operating model does not rely on Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), providing a more transparent trading environment than traditional brokers.
Additionally, Dub will charge management fees for certain specific “premium portfolios,” meaning that users who wish to follow the top investment experts in the market will need to pay an additional fee, which will be shared between Dub and the investment expert.
Seed round completed, Dub aims for IPO
Currently, Dub has raised $17 million in seed funding (approximately NT$550 million), with investors including Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder.
Our Series Seed Fundraising and Public Launch Announcement, a thread:pic.twitter.com/9KIzVxEk0B— dub (@dubinvest) February 22, 2024
Steven Wang expressed his hope that retail investors can easily replicate expert investment models on the Dub platform without spending excessive time on stock analysis. He also revealed plans to push towards an IPO in the coming years, stating, “We hope the Dub investment platform can make financial markets fairer and more open.”
References: “CNBC,” “Business Insider,” “TechCrunch,” “AUDIOCRAIC,” “Dub”