In a nondescript office space in downtown Sapulpa’s Rumble Fish Alley sits a local entrepreneur working on a product that he believes could bring a system of education and accountability to family finances in a way that sets the family tree up for success for years to come.
As an advisor in the financial space since the 1980s, Jim Kirkpatrick has accumulated a wealth of knowledge regarding personal and family finances, and more. Eventually, he started a company around that knowledge, and even named it, “Knowledge Your Best Investment,” or KYBI for short.
“We believe that knowledge can be packaged, pre-sold, and delivered digitally,” he says. The vehicle for that delivery is what might be the most unique aspect of all—a gift card.
The process is not difficult to understand: “Grandma, grandpa, mom or dad buy the gift card, it’s a $20 purchase, and it’s activated at the register,” Kirkpatrick explains. The educational experience starts when they sit down at home in front a computer, where they sign in to a special website and send the “gift” to their relatives. “It’s a very simple user interface. (Grandma) would then start entering the names of the niece and nephew, the son and the daughter—anybody that she wants to have a better financial life, or wants to be sure that hers is protected.”
The relatives Grandma entered into the website will be sent a personalized text message with a link to a 6-8 minute video of a “short, true and practical little movie about real people’s financial life.” These little pieces of content are called “knugets” (pronounced “nuggets”) for their purpose of delivering a small morsel of financial knowledge to the recipient. Eight different times, three days apart, they’ll receive a new “knuget” of financial wisdom. “We talk about basic things like types of interest, types of risk and types of money,” he says.
At that point, the benefit of the personalized gift card is obvious.
“Grandma gets to call up grandson later and say, ‘Grandson, what did you think of that?’ And that’s much different than grandma telling her grandson, ‘I was on a nice website the other day and you should look at it,'” Kirkpatrick says.
Aside from the family-based gift card product, Kirkpatrick also has two other versions of the same concept—one customized for employers, and another for agencies that might want to provide this product to their customers. The process and the benefit are similar; “Employers get better employees when they know how to handle their money,” Kirkpatrick says.
Jim Kirkpatrick says that KYBI has operated quietly in the alley for years, but Kirkpatrick says it’s time to unveil their product to the world. “It’s everything we’ve worked for, and it’s time for us to be on the rooftops.”
Kirkpatrick has been working on the product for years at this point, and after having “hundreds of conversations” during last year’s Route 66 Christmas Chute, he says he’s refined it enough to hold an open house at his office. He’s calling it a “trunk show” in the spirit of the old-fashioned merchants peddling their wares out of a trunk on the street corner. “We’re showing three products, so it’s a triple-trunk-show!” he exclaims, chuckling.
On Tuesday, April 30th through Friday, May 3rd, the offices of KYBI will be open twice a day at 18 N. Park Suite B in the Rumble Fish Alley on the north side of Dewey Avenue between Park and Water Streets. There will be donuts for the 9-11 am session and pastries for the 3-5 pm session. Kirkpatrick says he’ll have the products on display for prospective customers to see up close.
“It’s a chance for the employer to come in and kind of see and touch and feel what they can provide to their employees’ families to help their financial lives.” He also pointed out that the reason was to help people “know more about money sooner,” and not sell investments. “We are independent, unbiased, and conflict-free. We do not recommend investments nor any who sell them.”
He says he hopes that families, employers and agency owners will come to see what KYBI has to offer, and believes that many will be drawn to the program when they have the chance to see how it works.
“It’s a chance to see something like they’ve never seen before,” he says. “We could be just the right thing—which I believe we are—because in the end, I believe everybody is either curious, cautious or concerned about their money or somebody else’s.”
For more information on the program or Knowledge Your Best Investment, visit kybi.live
