471: From School Project to Financial Literacy App with Kanishk Sasikumar

11월 3, 2026

Episode 47111월 3, 202625분

요약

Every business worth building starts with a problem you’ve felt yourself. This high school senior turned his into an app.

In this entrepreneur interview, Kanishk Sasikumar, a Bentonville High School senior and co-founder of Investo, shares how a DECA competition project became a gamified financial literacy app now live on the App Store and Google Play. Whether you’re a teen with a business idea or a parent wondering how kids learn about money, this founder story shows what it takes to go from a notebook idea to a launched product before graduation.

이번 에피소드 내용:

Turning a DECA project into a real startup
Pivoting from an art tutor marketplace
Gamifying financial literacy for teens
Freemium pricing and pilot testing
Why marketing is harder than building
Why ideas rarely get stolen
Choosing a co-founder with complementary skills
School bundles and bank partnerships

⏱️ 목차:

0:41 Meet Kanishk Sasikumar

1:18 From DECA to a first startup

2:04 Pivoting to teen financial literacy

4:05 Inside the app

6:26 Marketing through word of mouth

7:33 Freemium model and Startup Crawl

9:20 Biggest lessons: business model and marketing

10:21 Balancing high school and a startup

11:44 How teens can start a business

14:10 Why your idea won’t get stolen

15:05 The money lessons schools don’t teach

16:40 Selling to parents and schools

17:58 Building with a co-founder

20:22 Five-year vision and bank partnerships

About Kanishk Sasikumar:

Kanishk is a senior at Bentonville High School and co-founder of Investo, a financial literacy app he built with co-founder Arjun. The app placed sixth at DECA’s international competition and launched in April.

🔗 Kanishk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanishk-sasikumar/

🔗 Investo website: https://investo-finance.xyz/

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