When former YouTube product manager Kevin Xu, known as “Sir Jack A Lot” on Reddit, turned $35,000 into $8 million trading stocks between 2020 and 2022, many people thought his fortunes, and his way of investing, had peaked, just like 2021’s memestock craze had.

Xu doesn’t agree, though, and he’s now building a startup for retail investors that aims to bring the good-natured investing advice and community that people used to enjoy on platforms like the WallStreetBets subreddit, but with a layer of accountability that discourages scammers and grifters.

Launched in April 2022, AfterHour lets users link to their stock brokerage accounts and, under a username of their choosing, post their investments to a social feed...etc...

For context, 2023 was the most active year ever for retail trading. Robinhood saw more than $86.6 billion in trading volume in May alone.

AfterHour isn’t the only company realizing the potential of this space — Robinhood’s media expansion is a good example. The trading app bought the Snacks newsletter, focused on retail investors, back in 2019. More recently, it launched Sherwood Media, a financial publication aimed at the same audience.

While he’s starting with the stock market, Xu hopes that AfterHour will move into other areas of finance down the line to become the one-stop-shop for retail investors in the future.

“AfterHour needs to exist,” Xu said. “I see the internet of finance and how it is evolving, and I’m disappointed in all the other attempts [to build a similar platform]. They were just disappointing.

I’m thinking really long-term. I want it to be fun and accessible. I think it’s more entertaining than sports, and I think a growing number of people online do, too.”