Harbus

Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo By: Michael Reich Caption: Georg and Michael with Brendan (Intern from Notre Dame)

While living in Germany at the age of 15, I developed a passion for investing. It was that early interest I feel that drove my desire to create a forum to change the way we know investing today. It was early first semester last year when I came up with the idea to launch a community for stock investors, called the The Updown. We felt that by adding a new and exciting twist to the frenzy created by social networking phenomena the site would be appealing to both investors and college students throughout the country. Our vision is to ultimately create a community managed hedge fund. At a time when "The Up Down" describes the market on a daily basis, more and more people are interested in knowing what the right stocks and funds are and what the market will do tomorrow. We've had a lot of support from our section mates and from several professors who helped us get the company off the ground.

This idea grew out of applying the social network concept to the hedge fund industry. Georg and I both lived in Chase and played Squash together and he decided to join me and recruit a CTO. We posted an ad on the Harvard Start-Ups Yahoo! Groups site and found Harvard University graduate Phuc Truong. The business plan was done by the end of last year and it was time to shop the idea to potential investors.

In December of last year, I met Joachim Schoss, successful serial internet entrepreneur & hedge fund manager. Getting the first angel investor took less time than I thought. In early February, Joachim decided to invest in the company. This was a very exciting step forward, but it also put a lot of pressure on me to produce something tangible. Long hours at school and then longer hours at work started taking a toll on me. After I locked down the investor, the pressure started to build. We had to work harder because we had committed to deadlines.

During the summer, we were finally working full time, feeling like a company with a "real office." We sublet an office in a one bedroom apartment at one Western Avenue from Atish Babu (Section G). We hired marketing interns and developers and at times had 10 people working in that room. The summer provided a lot of positive feedback from student investment clubs who verified that there was no great website so far that meets their needs. When the summer came to an end, I had to make a tough decision: whether or not to take a year off from school.

Continued...

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