When Rich Watson first started building NVSTly, he wasn’t sitting in a co-working space with a whiteboard full of buzzwords. He was stuck at home with a broken jaw after a road rage incident, bored out of his mind, scrolling through trading forums, and realising that social investing made absolutely no sense. Traders were shouting about their wins, hiding their losses, and no one could tell who actually knew what they were doing. So, he decided to fix it.
From Machinist to Founder
Before NVSTly existed, Rich worked as a machinist with a comfortable salary, good benefits, and a predictable future. Then 2020 hit and between recovering from the accident and California’s lockdowns, he suddenly had time and curiosity to spare. He watched the GameStop chaos unfold, saw retail trading explode, and realised a huge gap existed between what people claimed to trade and what they actually traded.
Social media was full of signals and screenshots that no one could verify, discord groups were busy but disorganised. It was clear there needed to be a platform that added accountability and transparency to trading communities. So Rich took a leap and built NVSTly, a social trading tool where traders could track and share their performance, show verified results, and even compete on global leaderboards.
The idea clicked and within a year and a half, NVSTly’s monthly recurring revenue had grown steadily into five figures and continues to climb.
Building the MVP
Rich didn’t have a technical background, so he started by hiring developers to turn his idea into something real. The first few attempts didn’t go well. One developer left after four weeks without finishing the splash page, and another wanted more than half the company before writing a line of code. Eventually, Rich found the right partner, a quiet backend developer who delivered a working prototype in just three weeks.
That early version of NVSTly included a Discord bot that tracked trading signals and a web app that displayed performance stats, leaderboards, and live feeds of trades. It was simple, functional, and exactly what users needed. Rich offered the developer equity, and they’ve been building together ever since. The twist? He later learned that his cofounder was only fourteen when they started.
Today, NVSTly automatically tracks trading activity, compiles performance data, and ranks traders worldwide. It supports stocks, crypto, options, and forex, with futures on the way. It’s built with TypeScript, Node, SvelteKit, Discord.JS, and MongoDB, a tech stack that sounds as complex as the markets it tracks.
Viral Growth Inside Discord
NVSTly’s early traction came from within Discord itself. Rich added the bot to his own community, and soon other servers wanted it too. When people saw it in action, they started adding it to their own groups, creating a viral loop that spread organically across trading communities.
Listing NVSTly on sites like Top.gg helped too, long before Discord introduced app discovery. The beauty of building directly inside these existing communities was that NVSTly didn’t need to drag users onto a new platform. It met them where they already were. That approach turned out to be one of the smartest decisions they made, fuelling steady, organic growth without a single dollar spent on ads.
A Changing Business Model
NVSTly runs on a freemium model. Most features are free, but paid memberships unlock real-time data, detailed analytics, and exclusive Discord channels. The goal was never to lock people out but to give serious traders more power and more data.
Now the platform is evolving again. Verified top traders will soon be able to set their own subscription rates so followers can copy their trades automatically or receive real-time notifications. It’s a win-win model, traders earn from their reputation, and followers get access to proven strategies.
Revenue has grown steadily since launching memberships, and with the next phase of monetisation coming, Rich expects both engagement and income to jump again.
Lessons Learned the Hard Way
NVSTly didn’t start with the perfect business model. The first version depended on manual outreach, partnerships, and managing a team of market analysts who shared signals with members. It was expensive, exhausting, and far too slow. Eventually, Rich shifted to automation, letting NVSTly handle trade tracking and distribution automatically through Discord and brokerage integrations.
That change not only saved time but allowed top traders to build personal brands within the platform. Some even launched their own communities using NVSTly’s tools. One trader left the platform entirely until Rich promised a feature to delay public visibility of trades, a request that’s now part of NVSTly’s upcoming monetisation update.
Rich’s Advice for Founders
First, don’t underestimate how regulated the world of finance is, anything involving stocks or trading data is expensive, complicated, and full of compliance traps. If you’re bootstrapping, avoid it unless you’re ready for that headache.
Second, find a cofounder who balances you out, the best teams don’t agree on everything, they challenge each other constantly. Rich says that tension is what forces better decisions.
And finally, build something you care about, starting a business is brutal at times, and the only real motivation comes from solving a problem that matters to you. Don’t chase hype, ship something early, get feedback, and let users shape the next version.
What’s Next for NVSTly
Rich plans to keep expanding NVSTly’s feature set and growing its user base while staying true to the community-first model that made it work. He hopes to scale it into a multi-million-dollar business and maybe, one day, even take it public.
For now, NVSTly remains deeply rooted in Discord, where the community is strongest, users can also find it across social media, mobile app stores, and on its own web app.
