Eko (Techstars NYC ‘22) is a white-label ‘Investments as a Service’ platform, helping community banks and credit unions offer a modern investing solution right on their existing banking platform. Starting from when the project was just a simple stock-picking app, I've led a team of 5 to create a best-in-class integrated investment app, balancing product vision with refactoring and stability improvements.

More than 50% of Americans want to invest their money with their trusted community bank or credit union — however <1% of Americans do, while the rest goes to third-party investment apps

Over half of Americans want to invest their trusted local bank or credit union — but most only have access to traditional investment advisors or don’t have that option entirely. Eko provides them with a modern investing solution, right beside their banking accounts.

The platform is designed to be extremely approachable, letting novice investors invest according to their goals and harness the benefits of long-term portfolio investment strategy.

Every user gets a personalized portfolio based on their investment preferences and areas to focus on. Users are able to further customize their portfolios by adding or removing companies or ETFs manually.

Initially the app was consumer-focused, with only 10 ESG-based categories. As part of the pivot to B2B2C we’ve introduced flexible investment topics, increased categories on offer to 60+ and stocks offered from 100 to 5,000.

Users deposit and withdraw funds from their bank account, starting as low as $10. Eko imports users’ bank accounts to make this process seamless.

Eko is targeted towards novice investors — so instead of requiring manual order management and monitoring, Eko automates all market operations and handles portfolio rebalancing for its users.

Eko creates balanced and risk-distributed portfolios out of S&P 500 companies, ETFs and bonds. In the onboarding users select their risk appetite and investment areas and areas to focus on.

Thanks to banking platform integrations, most user data is already filled in, saving users dozens of manual fill-in forms that are required by other platforms.

Eko is integrated into existing platforms used by banks and CUs as a a turnkey solution, handling all the complexities of ‘Investments as a Service’.

Financial institutions benefit from an additional revenue stream as well as closer relationships with clients.

To further build upon that trust, the product is customized to match the FI, from color scheme to investment categories on offer.

In my work as Project Manager and then Head of Product, I’ve:

— Shaped product direction for a best-in-class integrated investment app, balancing product improvements with refactoring and stability improvements, as Eko transitioned from an MVP to a fully featured solution

— Conducted user testing and research, translating insights into UI/UX improvements

— Created a product with a lean team of 5 that successfully competed against other solutions with 20-30x more raised

— Led development on integrating trading via third-party broker API into an existing stock picker app, delivering an initial MVP

— Spearheaded the pivot from ESG-focused B2C app to an integrated investment product for banks and CUs

— Architected the switch from single- to multi-tenant and contributed to a major revamp of existing logic to make it more flexible, increasing stocks offered from 100 to 5,000

— Designed user flows, prepared documentation and oversaw execution for major product features

— Ensured compliance with regulatory and third-party broker requirements for launch

— Conceptualized and oversaw initial third-party banking platform integrations

— Performed code reviews, manual testing and quality assurance

— Executed two corporate website redesigns to highlight the value of Eko’s solution for banks and credit unions