Young Singaporeans need a trusted partner too

IF The Business Times (BT) were a person, who do you think that person would be?

If your answer is something along the lines of “middle-aged guy in a suit”, that’s actually not too far from the truth.

Audience demographic data shows most of our users are in their 40s to 50s, and slightly more than half are men (probably reflective of the industries we write for). Given this is a business publication, it should come as no surprise that many of them work in financial or professional services.

What may be surprising is that we are now committing additional resources to serving new audiences beyond this ostensible “BT core”.

BT started Thrive earlier this month, which we hope will help young adults with money, career and personal development matters. The new initiative starts with a weekly newsletter and a regularly updated Instagram account, and will expand to events and workshops next year.

The main reason we’re doing it is the same reason we do anything: we believe there is a need for it.

Singaporeans are starting to invest earlier in life. This year’s OCBC Financial Wellness Index found that 86 per cent of Singaporeans in their 20s have investments, similar to last year and up 22 per cent from 2020. Compared with other age groups, they invested in a wider and riskier range of assets, including cryptocurrencies and foreign stocks, and with less professional advice.

Yet, young Singaporeans also worry about making the wrong investment decisions. Last year, a survey of 500 Singaporeans aged between 18 and 35 by global asset management firm Franklin Templeton showed about a third were anxious about investing and making losses, or felt they lacked knowledge.

They can, of course, flock to the dozens of “free” alternatives, including financial advisers, insurance companies, personal finance blogs and investment apps. Even so, none of these players are truly free; they are all trying to sell something.

Thrive, on the other hand, has no interest in selling any financial product. Nor will it encourage irresponsible investing or putting your money in get-rich-quick schemes.

Our impartiality is one of the reasons why BT has been a trusted partner of Singapore’s investors for over 45 years. We hope Thrive will be the same for those still schooling who want to learn more about investing, fresh graduates looking for their first jobs, or young adults looking for their first home.

The fact that we’re not making money off Thrive may raise more questions among BT’s discerning readers, of course.

Why are we building a whole new product, instead of just selling BT at a cheaper price to anyone with an email address that ends with “.edu.sg”? Or just sell it in bulk to tertiary institutions? We already do the latter, and the former would certainly need less work (and money) than building an entirely new thing.

Again, it goes back to need. After speaking to younger folks on what they want to see, we decided there is a need to go beyond just a pricing strategy for an important new audience segment.

To build Thrive, we adopted a product thinking approach – bringing together product and tech, editorial and audience, and sales and marketing.

Thrive’s distinctness from BT should make it more useful, especially apparent in our content (get a sneak peek at bt.sg/thrive!). Where BT’s voice is intelligent but serious, Thrive is informal while aiming to advise.

And although BT is growing across its multimedia platforms, the bulk of our content is still in the written word – reflecting our users’ preferences on BT’s site, app and print newspaper. In contrast, beyond its sign-up page, Thrive has no website or physical product.

Our main presence is on Instagram in the form of posts with money, career or life tips, interactive stories and reels (short vertical videos), and a weekly newsletter that breaks down the more complex issues.

Why? Thrive doesn’t aim to be a parent – that suited 40- to 50-something-year-old guy – dispensing advice to children.

Thrive wants to treat young adults as adults, and be that friend they can trust and depend on for advice. To do that well, we need to relate to them and be where they are.

What does BT stand to gain from such a lot of work? Will it be worth it? And, at the end of the day, if it is so different from BT, is it still BT?

Indeed, BT has put significant resources (with support from our parent company, SPH Media) into Thrive. It took several months and frequent internal debates about Thrive’s direction, not all of which have been resolved. But in the spirit of trying new things and stepping out of our comfort zone, we decided to give it a go.

It is also true that we don’t expect to make money, since it’s a free product. We also don’t expect large numbers of young people to immediately get a BT subscription because of Thrive.

BT’s loyal subscribers, however, know that our relationship with them goes beyond their subscription.

On top of intelligent financial and business reporting, BT is a proud member of Singapore’s business and investor community, and often its voice, and everything we do goes towards serving and building up that community.

That’s why Thrive is still BT at its heart, and why we think what we’re doing is worth it. The young Singaporeans who start thinking about how to build up their portfolio or how to pursue rewarding careers today are aiming for success in the future – and we want to be there to help them succeed.

Think of it as a long-term investment: We are building tomorrow’s community, today.

Off The Record is a monthly column by BT’s editors on the modern news industry from an insider’s perspective. We welcome feedback and suggestions at btnews@sph.com.sg.

• Find out more about Thrive at bt.sg/thrive and follow us on Instagram @thrive_bt