Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business Interview. I'm Jennifer Duke. Today's interview is of particular interest to me as an economics journalist because I've used the product that we're speaking about, but it's also an example of a fantastic Australian success story, a story of a company being built from the ground up, identifying a need, meeting that need, and then being acquired. So Market Index is a website that serves as a portal to the Australian stock market. It provides share prices, research tools, ASX news and more. It was launched in 2014 and less than a decade later has grown to almost 700, 000 monthly users. Late last year the platform was acquired by market analysis and news site, Livewire Markets, and we love remarkable stories at Fear and Greed and this is definitely one of them. Matthew Gabriele is the founder of Market Index and now executive director at Livewire Markets. Matthew, welcome to Fear and Greed.

Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business Interview. I'm Jennifer Duke. Today's interview is of particular interest to me as an economics journalist because I've used the product that we're speaking about, but it's also an example of a fantastic Australian success story, a story of a company being built from the ground up, identifying a need, meeting that need, and then being acquired. So Market Index is a website that serves as a portal to the Australian stock market. It provides share prices, research tools, ASX news and more. It was launched in 2014 and less than a decade later has grown to almost 700, 000 monthly users. Late last year the platform was acquired by market analysis and news site, Livewire Markets, and we love remarkable stories at Fear and Greed and this is definitely one of them. Matthew Gabriele is the founder of Market Index and now executive director at Livewire Markets. Matthew, welcome to Fear and Greed.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me.

So let's start right back at the beginning. Where did the idea for Market Index come from?

So let's start right back at the beginning. Where did the idea for Market Index come from?

It came from someone in about 2007 when I started working as a stockbroker. He told me how huge the internet is going to be and he said, " Matt, you've got to go for a land grab, try and grab every bit of real estate online related to the stock market that you can, because you're going to regret it in 10 or 20 years time." And so in 2007 I started accumulating all these domains. In 2010, I really got into search engine optimization, really obsessively, and I started building a whole bunch of websites in the stock market niche. And over the years, more and more traffic started coming and by 2014, I think I was having about 100, 000 users a month on various websites and I thought, geez, I've got to do something about this or I'm going to regret it. And late 2014, that's when I merged all of them into one and launched Market Index.

It came from someone in about 2007 when I started working as a stockbroker. He told me how huge the internet is going to be and he said, " Matt, you've got to go for a land grab, try and grab every bit of real estate online related to the stock market that you can, because you're going to regret it in 10 or 20 years time." And so in 2007 I started accumulating all these domains. In 2010, I really got into search engine optimization, really obsessively, and I started building a whole bunch of websites in the stock market niche. And over the years, more and more traffic started coming and by 2014, I think I was having about 100, 000 users a month on various websites and I thought, geez, I've got to do something about this or I'm going to regret it. And late 2014, that's when I merged all of them into one and launched Market Index.

So what were you able to provide that investors couldn't get elsewhere? What was the need here that you were filling?

So what were you able to provide that investors couldn't get elsewhere? What was the need here that you were filling?

All my websites fulfilled one specific need. So if they wanted to know one specific piece of data or one specific area of analysis, I dedicated an entire mini site or website to that one thing. Most of it is people just want an easy way to consume large amounts of dry financial information, and enjoy doing it. That's it in a nutshell, just make life easier for ASX investors

All my websites fulfilled one specific need. So if they wanted to know one specific piece of data or one specific area of analysis, I dedicated an entire mini site or website to that one thing. Most of it is people just want an easy way to consume large amounts of dry financial information, and enjoy doing it. That's it in a nutshell, just make life easier for ASX investors

As simple and complex as that task must be to fulfill. So what were some of those challenges that you encountered along the way in trying to do that and are there some specific challenges around using the ASX as the source of data?

As simple and complex as that task must be to fulfill. So what were some of those challenges that you encountered along the way in trying to do that and are there some specific challenges around using the ASX as the source of data?

I wouldn't say the ASX specifically. I'd say the data industry as a whole. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of financial information is still manually taken out of announcements. So the company pushes the announcement to the ASX, the ASX, distribute the announcement, and then we've got all these other data collation companies who manually go through it, manually plug in all the financials, manually type in all the dividends and things like that. And whenever you get large amounts of information that are copy and paste, there's going to be manual errors along the way. And one small error, let's say in a dividend, can have a huge impact on a number of other calculations down the track. And until the data industry is entirely automated, I don't see it changing very much and people really should be aware of data integrity and we try our butts off to try and keep everything as accurate as possible.

I wouldn't say the ASX specifically. I'd say the data industry as a whole. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of financial information is still manually taken out of announcements. So the company pushes the announcement to the ASX, the ASX, distribute the announcement, and then we've got all these other data collation companies who manually go through it, manually plug in all the financials, manually type in all the dividends and things like that. And whenever you get large amounts of information that are copy and paste, there's going to be manual errors along the way. And one small error, let's say in a dividend, can have a huge impact on a number of other calculations down the track. And until the data industry is entirely automated, I don't see it changing very much and people really should be aware of data integrity and we try our butts off to try and keep everything as accurate as possible.

And as you're saying, it is an incredibly precise field and any mistake that you make affects the data that investors are really using to make their decisions. Does that keep you up at night at all?

And as you're saying, it is an incredibly precise field and any mistake that you make affects the data that investors are really using to make their decisions. Does that keep you up at night at all?

Not so much now. We've got a lot of automated ways to flag things, but yeah, certainly learning it and understanding it initially, it was a huge thing to do because there isn't online help documentation. It's you just have to grab the data feed, go through it one company after another and make your decision that way, whether you're going to use that feed or not.

Not so much now. We've got a lot of automated ways to flag things, but yeah, certainly learning it and understanding it initially, it was a huge thing to do because there isn't online help documentation. It's you just have to grab the data feed, go through it one company after another and make your decision that way, whether you're going to use that feed or not.

Stay with me, Matthew, we'll be back in a minute. I'm speaking to Matthew Gabriele, the founder of Market Index and executive director at Livewire Markets. Obviously the COVID period was massive for investing. Loads of new investors coming into the market. All of them had to get data and insight from somewhere. What did this mean for Market Index?

Stay with me, Matthew, we'll be back in a minute. I'm speaking to Matthew Gabriele, the founder of Market Index and executive director at Livewire Markets. Obviously the COVID period was massive for investing. Loads of new investors coming into the market. All of them had to get data and insight from somewhere. What did this mean for Market Index?

Yeah, so March 2020 during the crash, that was the best month in history for Market Index. August just been was the second. But whenever there's a crash, more people search for things on the stock market than they do when it's actually hitting new highs. Because that panic and that fear comes into it and people are just checking it all day every day. In that March 2020, I was struggling to keep the website up and I actually had to drop a few minor data feeds just to keep the server running so the website would stay up for people to watch it. That was the biggest thing. And I think with COVID, working from home, you don't have a boss looking over your shoulder the whole time. So people were checking the stock market a lot more. A lot more traders were coming into the market. I had never had so many people reaching out saying, " How do I set up a broking account? Where do I do that?" It blew my mind. And COVID actually was a fantastic thing for the website because once people visit it once, they tend to come back. And if you look at our long- term traffic, that was a huge blip and I think it was the huge blip for pretty much every website in the finance industry.

Yeah, so March 2020 during the crash, that was the best month in history for Market Index. August just been was the second. But whenever there's a crash, more people search for things on the stock market than they do when it's actually hitting new highs. Because that panic and that fear comes into it and people are just checking it all day every day. In that March 2020, I was struggling to keep the website up and I actually had to drop a few minor data feeds just to keep the server running so the website would stay up for people to watch it. That was the biggest thing. And I think with COVID, working from home, you don't have a boss looking over your shoulder the whole time. So people were checking the stock market a lot more. A lot more traders were coming into the market. I had never had so many people reaching out saying, " How do I set up a broking account? Where do I do that?" It blew my mind. And COVID actually was a fantastic thing for the website because once people visit it once, they tend to come back. And if you look at our long- term traffic, that was a huge blip and I think it was the huge blip for pretty much every website in the finance industry.

I think we'll take that as a nice silver lining from COVID, that people became much more engaged with investing.

I think we'll take that as a nice silver lining from COVID, that people became much more engaged with investing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, I did mention in the introduction that in August this year you reached about 690,000 monthly users, which is massive. And you've done all of that without spending on advertising I'm hearing. How? How would you do something like that?

Now, I did mention in the introduction that in August this year you reached about 690,000 monthly users, which is massive. And you've done all of that without spending on advertising I'm hearing. How? How would you do something like that?

I think what it comes down to is that I'm driven by fun and passion, not money. So particularly in the initial years, I cared more about the website being loved and being used and getting all those emails than I did about making money. And apart from a few ads at most, two ads on a page, little banner ads, I didn't monetize the website until a few years ago. All I wanted was to build this big website that everyone loved. Because the more ads you put on, the more sponsored stuff, the lower the user experience and it can harm you in the longterm. So I did it by first off, looking at the data, what are people searching for? Build something that is insanely useful around that specific problem they're trying to solve and make the user experience really awesome. So they want to come back and it's a pleasure.

I think what it comes down to is that I'm driven by fun and passion, not money. So particularly in the initial years, I cared more about the website being loved and being used and getting all those emails than I did about making money. And apart from a few ads at most, two ads on a page, little banner ads, I didn't monetize the website until a few years ago. All I wanted was to build this big website that everyone loved. Because the more ads you put on, the more sponsored stuff, the lower the user experience and it can harm you in the longterm. So I did it by first off, looking at the data, what are people searching for? Build something that is insanely useful around that specific problem they're trying to solve and make the user experience really awesome. So they want to come back and it's a pleasure.

So do most people find you through search and then they become loyal users? Is that the path?

So do most people find you through search and then they become loyal users? Is that the path?

That is the path. Yes. So as I said, no advertising. People find us once online and because of that year- on- year we've grown. We haven't had a down year yet in traffic and that's it. They search for their favorite search term, quite often we're number one or number two in the search. And then we've got a new loyal visitor, which is great.

That is the path. Yes. So as I said, no advertising. People find us once online and because of that year- on- year we've grown. We haven't had a down year yet in traffic and that's it. They search for their favorite search term, quite often we're number one or number two in the search. And then we've got a new loyal visitor, which is great.

So when did Livewire markets enter the picture?

So when did Livewire markets enter the picture?

Well, of all the finance websites, we all kind of know each other anyway. You bump into each other or you have to talk to each other at various times. So I chatted with them about 18 months ago, and when I outlined what our vision is, what our mission is, I think Tom, the MD of Livewire was blown away at how perfectly aligned our missions were. Then about a year ago, he just called me up and said, " Matt, I want to do something big. I'm going to fly over to Perth and I want to have a chat with you." And as soon as someone, the amount of people you get wanting to buy the website and most of them are just wasting your time, when someone says they're going to fly from Sydney to Perth to have a meeting because he wants to have a chat with you, you know someone's serious. And from that day on, I took everything he said, seriously.

Well, of all the finance websites, we all kind of know each other anyway. You bump into each other or you have to talk to each other at various times. So I chatted with them about 18 months ago, and when I outlined what our vision is, what our mission is, I think Tom, the MD of Livewire was blown away at how perfectly aligned our missions were. Then about a year ago, he just called me up and said, " Matt, I want to do something big. I'm going to fly over to Perth and I want to have a chat with you." And as soon as someone, the amount of people you get wanting to buy the website and most of them are just wasting your time, when someone says they're going to fly from Sydney to Perth to have a meeting because he wants to have a chat with you, you know someone's serious. And from that day on, I took everything he said, seriously.

So you said before that you're not particularly driven by money, so I'm assuming you weren't always building towards an acquisition or were you? Maybe that's an open question for you, but even so, how did you know it was the right time?

So you said before that you're not particularly driven by money, so I'm assuming you weren't always building towards an acquisition or were you? Maybe that's an open question for you, but even so, how did you know it was the right time?

I knew it was the right time because I wasn't having fun anymore. So when you're the only person in the business, you do whatever you want, whenever you want, it's fantastic. As you're scaling the company, you get more and more staff. I hate being a MD. Absolutely hate it. I don't know why anyone would like doing it. You've become the lightning rod for everything. You can't actually do any work. You spend your whole day just putting out fires and looking after other people. I like having a specific thing to do. Let me put my headphones on. I don't want to talk to you. That's my role, and I just wasn't enjoying the day- to- day anymore. And that's something Tom loves. Livewire's a very tight ship, awesome company. And I was like, yep, cool. I want to build stuff from the inside and you can do all the MD stuff and that's it. I'll just stay in the background.

I knew it was the right time because I wasn't having fun anymore. So when you're the only person in the business, you do whatever you want, whenever you want, it's fantastic. As you're scaling the company, you get more and more staff. I hate being a MD. Absolutely hate it. I don't know why anyone would like doing it. You've become the lightning rod for everything. You can't actually do any work. You spend your whole day just putting out fires and looking after other people. I like having a specific thing to do. Let me put my headphones on. I don't want to talk to you. That's my role, and I just wasn't enjoying the day- to- day anymore. And that's something Tom loves. Livewire's a very tight ship, awesome company. And I was like, yep, cool. I want to build stuff from the inside and you can do all the MD stuff and that's it. I'll just stay in the background.

That sounds like a match made in heaven. Where to from here for you? Is there more growth available in the market?

That sounds like a match made in heaven. Where to from here for you? Is there more growth available in the market?

Yes. There's always more growth whether we go global or there are a lot of strategies that we've been investigating. At the core of it, both of us want to be the place or the most loved source of financial information and analysis. We want everyone to start their day with our websites and we're just going to be doubling down on that, with the firm belief that if you look after the user and genuinely care about every single user and what they want, that you are going to get rewarded in the longterm. I've been following that since day one and they're of the same belief and we're going to be doing that going forward.

Yes. There's always more growth whether we go global or there are a lot of strategies that we've been investigating. At the core of it, both of us want to be the place or the most loved source of financial information and analysis. We want everyone to start their day with our websites and we're just going to be doubling down on that, with the firm belief that if you look after the user and genuinely care about every single user and what they want, that you are going to get rewarded in the longterm. I've been following that since day one and they're of the same belief and we're going to be doing that going forward.

Definitely. Matthew, thank you very much for talking to Fear and Greed.

Definitely. Matthew, thank you very much for talking to Fear and Greed.

No problems. Thanks for having me.

No problems. Thanks for having me.

And that was Matthew Gabriele, the founder of Market Index and executive Director at Livewire Markets. This is the Fear and Greed business interview. Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia's best business podcast. I'm Jennifer Duke, economics correspondent at Capital Brief and filling in for Sean Aylmer. Have a great day.

And that was Matthew Gabriele, the founder of Market Index and executive Director at Livewire Markets. This is the Fear and Greed business interview. Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia's best business podcast. I'm Jennifer Duke, economics correspondent at Capital Brief and filling in for Sean Aylmer. Have a great day.