While pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Boston in 2019, Juan Pablo Zuluaga and Carolina Pineda were faced with a harsh reality: neither college nor their families had prepared them for managing their personal finances, including how to save or meet debts related to studying in another country. “My Own Finances was born from the pain of being very bad at managing money,” says Pineda, referring to the moment when they began to investigate and learn on their own, as a desperate measure to be able to better manage their resources.
Realizing that they were far from the only ones facing these daily challenges, they decided, as a hobby, to start sharing what they were learning and applying on social media. This is how the My Own Finances account was born, a project which today, six years after its creation, has more than a million followers on Instagram, is also on YouTube and has its own website. “The best financial decision we ever made was to start a company to solve a real problem,” Zuluaga says in retrospect.
What started with him, speaking and teaching, and her, a little more shy, behind the cameras, has now grown to a team of 38 people. “Sometimes we are told that our growth has been very rapid, but people don’t see all the work behind the more than 3,600 publications we have,” adds Zuluaga. They both agree that the key is content, not only because of its frequency but also because of its relevance. Try to speak in a simple, empathetic and close way, starting from what worked (and what didn’t work) for the couple.
They are both surprised to think that among extremely popular content, like travel, food and celebrities, they managed to go viral talking about the economy, a kind of influencers savings and investment. “It’s not the most contained sexy world, but we managed to make it pleasant and easy to understand,” Pineda says with a laugh.
In addition to virtual classes such as Investment and Portfolio Fundamentals either Free your finances in 6 stepsand in-person consultations and workshops that have reached a total of more than 48,000 students in 15 countries, Zuluaga and Pineda organize, in collaboration with the University of the Andes and Páramo Presenta, the MoneyCon festival. This meet-up on personal finance, investing and productivity, which will reach its second edition on January 17-18, is another example of how to turn a seemingly difficult to digest topic into the main part of a high-profile event, led by the creators of some of the most important music festivals in the country.
Indeed, this “fourth baby”, as the couple calls it (because they have three children aged 6, 5 and 3), has just officially launched a digital product, MPF Invest, which seeks to complement training by advising people so that, with little capital, they can make investments. “We want to offer people financial products tailored to each goal and help them turn their dreams into achievable goals,” says Zuluaga.
Having noticed this gap in the financial training received in homes, Zuluaga and Pineda decided to instill in children the responsibility of managing resources. For this reason, she is preparing a children’s book that allows her concepts to be applied in the training of the little ones. “Spend less than you earn and invest the difference,” he says when asked what the best financial education advice he gives to his children is.
The way the project continues to grow and transform also reflects the passion this duo brings to a project that started as a personal financial lifeline and ended up becoming a livelihood, a business and a guide for thousands of people.
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