Today we’d like to introduce you to Gayle Reaume.
Hi Gayle, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When my daughter was young, I wanted her to develop her own sense of financial autonomy, to understand how money works and to build skills for an empowered experience with money. I searched for education resources. I read plenty of articles about talking to your kids about money or tips and tricks for handling money conversations, but I couldn’t find a system designed for real experiential learning. That began my 16 years journey on a quest to understand how we build good financial habits from a young age.
Through countless real-world hands-on experiences with parents, kids and money, I found that parents were struggling with the same problem of not knowing how to structure that learning at home in their families which is where kids report learning 99% of what they know about money…
I founded Moolah U in 2005 and offered our first afterschool “Money Club” at Parkside Community School on Toomey Road. The kids got real experiences with the complex world of money by setting up savings accounts and using some of their money to create business projects that made that money grow. The curriculum was then certified by the Texas Education Agency and made available in schools. We went on to create our magical entrepreneurial summer camp for kids and online parenting courses which have been featured on NBC Nightly News, CNBC, in the Wall Street Journal and Bankrate.com. Moolah U has supported thousands of families get their kids great with money.
In 2020, we digitized our learning system and put it in the palm of your hand with a family financial app that uniquely transfers age appropriate financial responsibility and the consequences into the hands of children, where they can get practice building habits. The app integrates education with a budgeting system, a savings plan and a task marketplace to earn extra money.
Parents can now confidently offer their kids experiences that build smart money skills and financial autonomy and grow their money while integrating new habits.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In 2020, the pandemic created a challenge. We had to close our live summer programs down, ending our opportunity to serve 300 Austin kids through the entrepreneur camp and also losing the revenue that was allowing us to bootstrap the app project. We quickly moved the planned in-person programs to online interactive, and it turned out to be a brilliant crisi-tunity. We were suddenly serving kids from across the globe, not just from Austin (15 states and 5 countries)
We were able to recapture a portion of the lost camp revenue, continue bootstrapping the app development and complete the MVP of the app which will launch to the public in June 2021. The entrepreneurial mindset that is the core of our company culture allowed us to pivot our product to continue to fulfill on our mission.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Moolah U is a thought leader in youth financial education through creating real experiences with real money…
Our proven system of personal financial responsibility is unique in the field.
Kids AND parents take thoughtful and intentional actions to create practice with the full range of sustainable money skills.
What makes you happy?
I am continually delighted and proud of the many families and kids who have used our methodology and system to build good habits. Hearing from past students on their smart financial choices and the successes they are creating lights me up beyond measure.
We may not be able to solve wealth inequality, but we can empower people to be capable of creating financial stability, no matter how much money they make. This makes me happy.
Contact Info:
- Email: Gayle@MoolahU.com
- Website: https://moolahu.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moolahu/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoolahU
