“Education is still a must, but the gamification of the product could be a game changer,” Francois Albessard, the owner and CEO of Traders Education, told Finance Magnates. His comments were made while demand for trading-related educational content was increasing.
“There is an increasing demand for social media and video content,” he said and added that “a key factor for better engagement or retention is the ability to provide traders with the right tools/content at the right time and on the right platform.”
Traders Education offers white-label educational solutions to platforms providing trading services. Albessard revealed that about 20 brands are currently using the company's solutions, highlighting its offerings to trading academies and prop-trading firms, along with brokers.
“We observed a significant growth in 2023, which was the logical outcome after months of intense work on redesigning the product and creating a new identity,” the CEO added. “About the number of users, we estimate that there are 40 to 70 thousand unique users of the product every month, which is about twice as much as a year ago.”
Although several brokers develop their educational content in-house, the process is cumbersome and takes massive resources and time.
Albessard pointed out the strategies and challenges of brokers around educational: “Over the past few months, we’ve seen several major brokers revamping their trading academy (i.e., etoro, Plus500, etc). It shows that education is still a major component of the trader’s journey. However, building a bespoke academy takes time and requires a large team. These two factors may be underestimated in some cases.”
“An Academy for Prop Trading”
Apart from the regular brokerages, the surge in prop trading demand over the recent years pushed the demand for education content, and Traders Education was quick enough to jump into that arena.
“We realized that prop-trading firms pay specific attention to the educational content and tools provided to traders,” Albessard mentioned. “We designed an academy for a prop-trading firm back in 2019.”
“We adapted our product in two major ways. The first one was the creation of a dashboard to track the students’ journey at the academy. This would allow firms to identify student’s interests and assist them during their learning process. Another important change was the ability to create packages with different levels. Overall, the content offered to prop-trading firms has to be well structured, accessible, and actionable.”
“Each Trader Goes through Multiple Stages”
As the competition in the brokerage space gets fierce, the demand for offerings like educational materials also increases. The broker wants to differentiate its services from the competition by offering quality educational materials.
“Thanks to our clients’ feedback, we understand that there is a need to increase user engagement. This can be achieved by adding quizzes, simulations, or alerts, for instance. This trend is also reflected in prop trading nowadays,” Albessard said.
Despite the demand for educational resources, such content must be sorted correctly and strategically based on the traders’ appetite.
Emphasizing the strategies to target the traders, Albessard explained that: “Each trader goes through multiple stages for which they require specific tools. The video academy and trading courses are used mostly by beginners at the start of their journey (conversion). Other trading and market analysis tools are also essential but may be used at a later stage (retention). In a nutshell, my tip would be to provide traders with the right content at the right time.”
An Employee-Turned-Owner
Based in Cyprus, Traders Education was founded in 2013 and was part of a holding company. Albessard joined the company in 2019 as the Head of Sales.
“There was some structural change in the project quickly after [I joined], yet it was too soon to take the lead as I needed time to get more familiar with the industry,” Albessard added. “The product development and operations slowed down during the COVID-19 period.”
“Fortunately, we held several meetings with the group’s top management and drew a plan to rebuild the product. The first positive changes were visible a few months later, with new people joining the team, the release of a new logo/website, and the renewal of the educational content. Unfortunately, there was an unexpected turn of events at the end of 2022 when the owners expressed their will to pause the project.”
“For some reason, I saw it as an opportunity for the company and the team. The former owners were not opposed to a potential acquisition. Therefore, the whole process happened smoothly, and the transfer was completed in April 2023, exactly a year ago.”
Albessard additionally highlighted that, under his leadership, the company redesigned several widgets, such as the economic calendar, the market watch, and the calculator.
“By the end of the year, we managed to develop new partnerships as well as strengthen the existing ones with both our providers and clients,” he said.
“AI Is a Part of Our Day-to-Day Operations”
Talking about the importance of artificial intelligence (AI), Albessard said that new-age technology “has become part of our day-to-day operations, helping us with various areas of our business, mostly with content creation and design.”
“An example of AI-powered tools used by Traders Education is for the creation of voiceovers or subtitles. These tools help to simplify some tasks, and, therefore, allow us to focus on more complex and creative aspects of our work. However, we are also aware of its limitations and perhaps its ethical considerations.”
