Kennedy, who completed her Bachelor of Commerce at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha - University of Canterbury in 2022, identified a lack of accessible information about the share market in New Zealand as part of a second-year innovation class.
“Investing needs to be spoken about more openly in New Zealand,” Kennedy says.
“It’s a huge opportunity that people are missing out on because they’re too scared to try something they don’t understand.”
With a team of four, Kennedy set out to solve the problem of increasing share investment knowledge.
“The first thing we did was attempt to build an app with the basic building blocks for how to invest in shares, right from step one, and we presented our ideas to the class throughout the semester,” Kennedy says.
Buoyed on by the progress of the work, Kennedy suggested the team should apply for the eight-week business accelerator programme Entre Enterprise Challenge – a student-led entrepreneurial organisation for Ōtautahi students based at UC.
Winning the Business Choice Award, the team also earned a scholarship to join the UC Centre of Entrepreneurship (UCE) Summer Start-Up Programme – a 10-week course helping students take their ideas and launch them.
“When I joined the UCE Summer Start-Up Programme, Sharenanigans was still an app and I thought that was the way to go – everyone was building software businesses and investors were looking for the next big tech startup,” she says.
With dedicated mentors asking her to question her approach, and new speakers every day throughout the summer, Kennedy started to look at the product differently.
“We meet influential people within the start-up space in Christchurch, helping to bridge the gap between students and industry professionals.”
Building knowledge from the programme and mentorship, Kennedy refined what the problem actually was and that’s when the app became a board game.
Kennedy says she is not giving out financial advice but empowering people to make a choice about how to invest.
“I don’t have a background in investing, I wasn’t taught about it in school, and couldn’t learn it from my parents. It was always something that felt out of reach and only reserved for wealthy people and although there are ways to learn how to invest, what’s missing are conversations around the topic in households and classrooms at a younger age,” Kennedy says.
Aimed to introduce children from the age of nine to the concept of investing in shares, Sharenanigans was developed to be a fun and competitive game to help build financial literacy, providing the first step in sparking interest in investing.
“It helps break down barriers and bridge the intergenerational knowledge gap, empowering everyone to understand investment opportunities and make smarter financial choices,” she says.
