New York, NY – Ostrich is excited to announce that we graduated! Our team had the opportunity to participate in AARP Innovation Labs’ Accelerator program over the past few months, with the aim of accelerating our business. Leading up to the program, Ostrich identified three key areas of focus as a learning agenda and worked with the AARP Innovation Labs team to address them.
Our first key focus was better understanding who our customers are from discovery through first value creation on the app. What we learned is that traditional demographic segmenting is outdated. The best way to define our target customer is based on life milestones. From new parents to individuals navigating a divorce, we learned that addressing these events better defines our customers than outdated personas.
Additionally, we came into the program with a misconception that our app would appeal mainly to Gen-Z & Millennials and not older generations. Debunking this false belief through research we did during the program, ultimately led us to the realization that life events better define who our target customers are.
Ostrich’s second learning objective was to better understand the HR benefits space. Across multiple market research calls with industry experts and HR decision-makers, we learned that in fact there is quite a demand for financial wellness solutions. We also learned that Ostrich is uniquely positioned to address those, thanks to our approach of not providing financial services nor linking to bank accounts. This makes our solution more attractive to employers because it reduces their liability and any potential perception of endorsing a specific solution.
In addition, Ostrich is able to appeal to employees at all income levels and life stages, which helps large employers, in particular, provide a solution that benefits all employees, not just a subset.
Lastly, we learned a great deal from the AARP Innovation Labs team, made some incredible friendships, and met with awesome mentors whom we were grateful to get to know and can’t wait to continue working together moving forwards. We cannot speak highly enough about the AARP Innovation Labs team and how lucky we are to have been a part of the program.
Off the back of the program, we have many exciting announcements in the near future and cannot wait to share those with you.
Ostrich provides a mobile app that helps you achieve your financial goals by developing good money habits. Through game-like social challenges that are tied to your goals, you work together with others succeeding together. We are preparing to launch the latest version of the platform. To get notified when the app is available visit www.GetOstrich.com.
Ostrich’s mission is to improve financial well-being globally. We want to be the first place you go when you have a question about finances.
