Communal learning is driving the fintech sector forward.
ducation is arguably the most critical pillar of a functioning society. How education operates has always been a matter of debate, with many saying that we are now in an educational crisis. These dissenting voices are gaining ground with the rise in student loan debts and worrying dropout statistics.
The structure of academia has largely remained unchanged since Horace Mann invented what is today America’s modern schooling system. However, the overriding argument is that our world has changed drastically since the 1800s, and our educational system has been unable to keep in step with the times.
The advent of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in 2008 by Stephen Downes and George Siemens and later popularized by Stanford University in 2011 created an opening in the learning solar system for communities to develop. The ‘nice to have’ at the time has evolved beyond traditional education institutions finding a corporate home throughout businesses worldwide.
Sean Mack is a young and driven entrepreneur who co-founded Lux Algo, an investment analytics company heralded for its approach to providing clarity through its technical analysis indicators. I talked with him a little about his company and how they incorporate the idea of communal education into their work.
This reporter sat down with Sean Mack to understand how his generation understands investment and the role he and others can play in expanding opportunities through communal education.
Rod Berger: The concept of communal learning continues to evolve, especially with digital ecosystems accessible to the masses. What do you think about education and its role in your professional life?
Sean Mack: The idea of education today is no longer about classroom teaching; it’s more about the process of learning itself, regardless of time and place. That’s why today, you can find learning and dynamic learning outside the traditional student lifecycle of K-12 and higher education.
Corporations and businesses of all shapes and sizes have begun the integration process of communal learning as an active and deliberate means to educate customer bases. Every moment to learn something new is inherently valuable and necessary for society’s innovation and progress.
Berger: Where did the idea for Lux Algo come from, and why fintech for you?
Mack: Well, I founded the company in 2020 with my business partner, Alex Friend. That was right around the pandemic. Owning a company in the fintech space wasn’t my original plan. Before then, I was obsessed with visual arts and was deeply into photography. It was my passion, although, over time, from sharing photos and growing my social media presence, I developed an interest in growth marketing and technology.
The people I met around that time shaped my decision to take an opportunity that randomly turned into working in a tech startup. This led me to research financial markets and, eventually, use technical indicators.
I was fascinated by the visual nature of customizing indicators and how investors could interpret them to form opinions about markets. That’s where I met Alex. He was working at the same tech startup as me and had experience developing custom indicators.
Berger: So you both came together to form a competing technical analysis product?
Mack: I wouldn’t say the plan was to launch a competing product. It was more like solving a huge problem that I noticed was prevalent in the technical analysis space.
Many investors were overwhelmed by the plethora of tools and data available to them, and there wasn’t a simple toolkit to find what they liked all in one organized location. Not to mention that most indicator vendors were putting forward misleading claims to users. The industry needed a mature brand with a user feedback approach to update and add new features to the tools over time.
Berger: From your story, I would be correct to assume that you received no formal or educational training in fintech, right?
Mack: I didn’t get a formal education in fintech. I learned as the project got started and found a product market fit. When I previously worked for a tech startup, the entire experience helped me gain wisdom on how to run my own company correctly. Of course, I had to do my own due diligence, but having the luxury of this experience was a plus and helped me learn to vet what I was learning. I guess you could call it knowledge by osmosis.
Berger: Technical analysis sounds complicated to the average reader and reporter. Have you found a market differentiator in your approach to services that positively impact customers of fintech?
Mack: The realistic approach to educating people about the nature of technical analysis through our tools makes us stand out. No one can predict the markets with
Sean Mack, co-founder and CEO of Lux Algo, actively integrates communal learning into business … [+]
any prescribed accuracy. Our tools help users better understand how different indicators perform in certain market conditions while allowing enthusiasts to create unique strategies in one organized place. Everything is designed for discretionary trading. We don’t believe in following magical trading signals blindly to make money because markets are much more complicated than that.
The community experience we introduced was never really done before in this industry. We have an active development team listening to community feedback and pushing real-time updates to all users.
Integrating directly with two of the most popular apps traders and investors use (TradingView and Discord) has significantly and positively impacted our business and customer relationships.
Berger: Many sectors depend on digital, community-based, or communal learning approaches to maintain customer connection. It sounds like this process has been central to your approach to business.
Mack: Having a community, usually best done by creating a simple Discord group, is a benefit to every business or organization, in my opinion.
Open-sourcing the educational aspect of a product experience and the development process is proving to be the most productive and realistic approach to building something great.
I have found that people generally assimilate knowledge better when they learn from others walking the same path. Most professionals can learn more intuitively from a hands-on community experience as long as it’s structured properly.
I’m not saying traditional education is a bad thing because there are obviously real requirements in certain fields. However, broadly speaking, I believe communal learning will become more and more the standard for learning new things.
Communal learning has evolved from the MOOC days to formally provide learning through a community-based lens. The fintech sector is an example of an industry rife with complicated algorithms for the average consumer to distill down into applicable means.
Mack has applied personal experiences of community to the current efforts of his firm. Though a small sample size, it [Lux Algo] might provide a window into the future of fintech and adjoining sectors with an approach to educate users and gain customers.
Communal education has been enhanced through the power of a pixilated world. Sean Mack has taken his love of visual art and photography and created a shared canvas to learn and grow.
Time will illuminate how many sectors will follow the fintech approach.
Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
