Physis Investment
Physis was an ESG-focused investment platform offering portfolios based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Backstory
Financial Investments are far from exciting or simple. That said, it's no surprise that few young people think about investing, let alone actually doing it. For those who do, the investment space can be unappealing, as investment marketing and goals are often tailored to the interests and wants of older demographics. Physis Investment's mission was to address this gap in the market.
Through novel dashboards and design, Physis Investment was an investment platform made to help younger demographics begin investing. More importantly, offerings were heavily ESG-impact driven with unique portfolios based on the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Over time, users were able to see their returns alongside their positive impact on issues such as water rights, women's education, and sustainable agriculture. I was the sixth employee of Physis and a member of the founding team.
Project Overview
The goal was to launch a platform to enable socially-conscious investments. One side of the platform was geared towards retail investors, offering ESG portfolios tailored to issues they were passionate about. The other side of the platform was tailored for fund managers and enabled them to accurately assess the environmental and social impact of investment assets.
I was tasked with handling product marketing and growth. This encompassed management of the Physis blog and social media channels through which we drove the majority of our initial growth. I created blogs, videos, and social media content and managed relationships with our early users and other sustainability-focused organizations we partnered with.
Unique Factors / Challenges
The main challenge that our team faced was product growth. With few members of our target market proactively thinking about investing, our growth strategy revolved around grabbing attention through sustainability-related topics they were already considering. In our blog, titled #Physiser, I wrote pieces on recent ESG-related news across industries, as well as articles giving advice on how to reduce one's environmental footprint. Complementary to this were videos accompanying the blogs that we allowed other organizations to use to increase viewership of our content and attention towards the platform.
Achievements & Outcome
The creation of Physis Investment, a complete platform providing ESG investment portfolios and dashboards highlighting investment impact.
Placement on the 2023 ESGFinTech 100 list, an annual list of 100 of the world’s most innovative ESG companies offering solutions for the financial services industry
Winner of the Audience Favorite award at the Visa Everywhere Initiative event, highlighting women-led startups
Intellectual property and media content for the Physis Brand and Website, leading to the current brand image
Management of social media campaigns and search engine optimization that led to 100,000+ monthly impressions across Instagram and Twitter, and increased blog visits by 30%
Honorable mention at an Amazon Web Services (AWS) pitch competition for startups