Three school friends, two cousins, one mission towards financial literacy in Australia.

Finance platform Flux was founded by Gustavo Hoirisch, Justin Joffe, and Brett Joffe to reward young Australians for building better financial habits. 

The cofounders had an axe to grind: the stark generational differences in perspectives about money. Joffe points out our use of “memes as a way to engage with money”) and the dearth of help available to young people.

Flux’s website greets you with a friendly (if painfully real) proposition: “​​Remember all those classes in school that taught you how to plan for your financial future? Yeah… neither do we”. 

By gamifying financial education and pairing it with engaging and accessible content, Flux reaches out to the 50% of young Australians trapped in the paycheck to paycheck, buy now, pay later cycle. 

Through their genuine drive to help, and by espousing values like transparency, inclusivity, and community, Flux appeals to the growing numbers of consumers who want something to believe in, not just to buy. 

This is how, from humble beginnings, the Flux team grew their community from 5000 to 300,000 and counting, and hit the #1 spot for business podcasts on Spotify. 

Early days

Flux came to Skalata with a strong start and an organic following.

5000 active members were regularly digesting Flux’s social media content, newsletter, and daily podcast ‘What the Flux’.

‘What the Flux’ was ranked #2 in business news podcasts in Australia, with nearly 8000 downloads. 

Flux was always obsessed with customer feedback, having already implemented sound feedback loops to inform product development.

They also had the personality down pat. Flux business news bites were appealing to the TikTok generation by delivering industry essentials in 5-minute bursts. Brett and Justin bounce off each other, lightheartedly mimicking the classic newsreader cadence (“Brett, get this.” “Allow me to indulge in some stats, Justin…”). 

The lightning-speed summaries are always peppered with laughter - an unedited authenticity that goes down a storm with younger audiences. 

They were doing a lot right. But the team had yet to monetise their efforts.

Growing the community

Skalata helped the Flux team to get tunnel visioned in pursuing their perfect product market fit.

We helped them polish their feedback loops, survey audiences, and focus on developing products that fit their audience. 

In Gus’ words, the team “learned how to focus on data-driven decisions instead of being led by what we felt was the best decision. I don’t think I understood what being data-driven meant until Skalata.”

From these efforts came two new products: Win the Week - where users are entered into a cash prize draw for saving $25 - and the credit score checker Credit Health. 

Flux's MAU grew from 12% to 32%, with average session duration hitting 60+ seconds.

Flux's team created new revenue operations working with Skalata, growing on average 36% per month from their MVP. 

The increasingly valuable audience and growing body of community-driven resources attracted some of Australia’s largest media companies like Yahoo! Finance and Australian Radio Network - their partnership with the latter leading to a 250% revenue increase through MoM-generated advertising.

In a massive media win, What The Flux was promoted across Spotify and became the #1 business news podcast in Australia.

It hit over 1.5 million downloads over Q1 and Q2 of 2021, and over 225,000 unique listeners. 

It has even secured federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg as a guest speaker, asking: "What advice would you give to your 25-year-old self about personal finance?" and "is there hope for young Aussies priced out of the housing market?"

Monetisation and revenue growth

In 2021, Flux closed an AUD $800,000 seed funding round led by the cofounders of Catch Group, Hezi and Gabby Leibovich. 

Hezi praised the founders’ ability to make “financial education feel less like a chore and more like a game, which actually helps people achieve their goals”. 

The funding was secured to bring on more engineering talent, and target a new customer - businesses with financially stressed employees.

Brett quotes the 60% of employees for whom finances are their “number 1 source of stress…. That has a direct impact on things like employee retention and employee productivity”. 

Identifying this as a challenge for employers and an opportunity for boosting exposure, Flux developed Flux At Work as a corporate benefit to help employers retain staff.  

The future for Flux

While Flux has partnered with the Department of Health and other brands outside of finance, the company isn't extending a partnership with financial institutions. The founders don’t believe partnering with them will align with Flux's mission statement of financial education and literacy.

Having helped thousands of young Aussies, Flux is looking to expand its horizons overseas. Business customers in the US and UK have asked when they'll hit the international stage.

“We are very serious about expanding beyond Australia. We are growing really significantly at the moment, we grow at around 36% every month and we don’t expect that to slow down for the next year or so”.

We're always extremely excited about the efforts of young startups helping young people. Skalata will continue to support Flux in their efforts to spread the good word of financial literacy, and give ambitious Australians an edge in the increasingly complex financial world.