There's (Now) an App for That...
Rather than work around the unique problems of their respective worlds, two young SHU alums are developing innovative solutions to tackle them head on.
Feature article from the Fall 2020 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine
Wilder Rumpf ’19
Wilder Rumpf graduated from Sacred Heart in 2019 with two degrees—and a company. The young entrepreneur is the CEO of FinTron Invest, a new brokerage and investment platform boasting a capital raise of over half a million dollars.
“I was trying to fill a personal need,” he says when asked about his inspiration. The initial goal was simply to free up some time by automating his own trading strategies. In a small office on Sacred Heart’s West Campus, Rumpf started building FinTron. Professors Mark Ritter and the late John Gerlach aided Rumpf with licensing and raising capital for the fledgling project. Later, Professor Michael Gorman joined the effort, running beta tests for the startup in his FN215 classes.
During the testing and development of FinTron Invest, Rumpf recognized one pitfall present across many other online financial platforms. “They’re having an incredibly hard time leveraging new users,” he says. Traditional financial institutions struggle to market to younger generations, and Rumpf recognized an opportunity for FinTron to solve that problem.
“We took the idea that people were intimidated and overwhelmed,” he says, “and we leveraged technology to create an approach for young people.” This fresh approach led to the development of a simulated trading game within the FinTron platform to encourage confidence in trading among younger generations.
This game, coupled with the additional online banking, investing and philanthropic opportunities (the company promises to donate 5% of net profits to charity and 1% of revenue to a student loan forgiveness program) offered by FinTron, provides everything needed to manage finances safely and effectively. FinTron Invest is set to launch their app this fall with the support of their partners, Apex Clearing and Radius Bank.
It’s a simple answer to a complicated problem. “You can build almost anything; there’s an app for anything you can think of,” Rumpf says. “It’s the logic that you have to create.”
Juliana Fetherman ’19
Juliana Fetherman has been an advocate for those with special needs for years. “I loved building awareness on campus and fundraising for the club,” says the 2019 SHU grad. “This was what really sparked my passion.”
Bolstered by her activism, she began work on Making Authentic Friendships (MAF), a web app that offers teenagers and adults with special needs a safe platform to connect with others based on diagnoses, interests and location. “I knew there were people struggling with the same thing,” says Fetherman. “It was mind boggling that something like MAF wasn’t invented.”
Fetherman partnered her innovative vision with the coaching and capital accessed through iFundWomen to produce a web platform that now sees thousands of visits per day and is used across five continents.
And there is more to come.
MAF’s web application is a steppingstone to a mobile app (due for release this fall) that will give users the opportunity to create unique avatars and earn in-game “coins” by passing quizzes or playing games. In addition to the social networking aspect of MAF, the mobile app will also offer many immersive new activities designed to encourage users to build social skills and learn about internet safety to protect themselves. In this way, the more they practice smart and safe internet and social networking choices, the more coins they earn.
It’s a fantastic way to take the problem of internet safety, arguably one of the greatest challenges facing any social media platform—and one particularly difficult on a platform designed to serve those who may be especially lacking in those skills—and turn it into a feature of the app.
“It’s going to help them use the app more safely and effectively, but it’s also going to help them with their life skills,” says Fetherman. By increasing users’ social awareness, individuals will be able to form lasting friendships and feel confident in their abilities to communicate in their daily lives.