In today’s world, we see countless startups aiming to redefine everyday processes by innovating traditional services or products. Stoa, a UK-based fintech startup, captured my interest recently with its intriguing approach to personal savings. When I founded my own startups, the constant motivation was identifying gaps in a system and offering a solution that felt like a natural fit for users. Stoa’s concept feels like something that could resonate deeply with individuals fatigued by low savings interest rates and the lack of tangible benefits. Let’s dive into how Stoa moves beyond conventional savings and offers rewards that people can enjoy in their daily lives.
Stoa Pots, their flagship product, lets users deposit funds and earn perks upfront rather than waiting for interest accumulation. The perks can be subscriptions or one-off rewards, tapping into consumer desires for instant gratification, similar to what platforms like Netflix or Spotify provide. This concept is refreshing for people like me, who, despite years of experience in business, prefer savings outcomes tied to things I actively use and value over the uncertainty of investments.
Why Stoa Matters to Modern Savers
Barclays reported that UK savers had £614 billion in spare cash by 2025, a third higher than in 2022. Many adults keep their money idle due to risk aversion or lack of awareness about investment options. Personally, I appreciate that Stoa doesn’t push users toward risky ventures. Instead, it presents savings with tangibility, using lifestyle rewards as motivation.
As someone who enjoys experimenting with systems, the gamified approach to saving makes me curious. Imagine locking £3,000 for a year and receiving upfront access to services worth hundreds of pounds, usable across subscriptions like LinkedIn Premium, Spotify, or even membership perks like Third Space gyms in London.
How It Works
Here’s how you use it effectively. First, choose perks that align with your lifestyle. Whether you love streaming, need productivity tools, or even financial newspapers, there’s a reward for everyone. Then, lock your savings for 12 months. You get full rewards immediately, Netflix subscriptions, Dropbox storage, all while knowing your initial deposit will return intact at the end.
Stoa uses this structure to engage savers with everyday benefits while simplifying financial management. Through partnerships with merchants and financial institutions, it embeds itself into an ecosystem where banks can attract deposits with non-monetary incentives. This aligns with emerging fintech trends that embed finance directly into user experiences.
Common Mistakes to Watch Out For
Some pitfalls deserve attention. The most obvious one is failing to match rewards with actual lifestyle needs. Savers sometimes opt for benefits they don’t end up using, making the program less personal and rewarding. On top of that, misinterpreting long-term benefits versus upfront perks can lead to decisions that feel less impactful later.
As entrepreneurs, we know markets evolve. Value perception among consumers depends heavily on how businesses communicate the emotional or functional payoff. With Stoa, missing personalization opportunities or limiting its merchant partnerships could dilute impact over time.
My Main Takeaways and Outlook
When building my startups, flexibility and clear value propositions made the difference between growth and stagnation. Stoa’s middle-layer approach, to work directly with banks and merchants, is what impressed me most. It skirts away from encouraging debt or excessive spending and focuses on safe, manageable financial growth for users. By offering perks upfront, it reduces the barrier many consumers have around immediate value not built into saving strategies.
In the next few years, there’s no reason why a platform like Stoa can’t scale globally. It offers a "new way" to think about money, not investing, not spending but saving actively and seeing returns differently. This is a chance for merchants and financial entities to collaborate on what could be a flagship product for driving deposits in cash-savvy markets like Europe, Asia, and the U.S., each of which has its own cultural nuances about saving.
If you’re a startup founder or entrepreneur seeking ways to innovate personal finance, platforms that rethink traditional systems, like Stoa, should sit high on your idea checklist. Whether you aim to launch the next big tech solution or work on sustainable products, observing trends like these will help you shape offerings that users truly embrace.
Final Thoughts
As a serial entrepreneur, I’m constantly analyzing how startups break through industry pain points. Stoa has found a clever way to flip the narrative around saving: encouraging financial discipline while rewarding consumers with immediate, tangible perks. This idea isn’t about grand financial shifts but about tweaking what already exists to fit changing consumer behaviors. It’s simple, yet powerful.
If Stoa successfully builds long-term trust and diversifies merchants, this could be the new gold standard for passive savings. Looking at my own past experiences, rewarding users for healthy financial habits with real benefits is a strategy that feels natural, and natural wins markets. Let’s watch closely to see how Stoa shapes the fintech game further.
FAQ
1. What is Stoa, and how is it different from traditional savings platforms?
Stoa is a UK-based fintech startup that transforms savings into instant lifestyle rewards like free subscriptions and one-off perks, unlike traditional platforms that only offer interest accumulation. Learn more about Stoa
2. How does the Stoa Pots product work?
Stoa Pots allows users to deposit savings for 12 months and unlock perks upfront, such as Spotify or Netflix subscriptions, while receiving the complete deposit back after the term. Explore Stoa Pots
3. What kind of perks can I receive with Stoa?
Users can choose from over 150 perks, including streaming services (Netflix, Spotify), premium tools (Dropbox, LinkedIn), and memberships (Third Space gyms). Discover available perks
4. Who benefits the most from using Stoa?
Stoa is tailored for savers who are risk-averse, prefer tangible benefits over uncertain investments, and value immediate rewards linked to their daily lifestyle. Read about Stoa’s value
5. What problem is Stoa addressing in the savings market?
Stoa addresses low interest rates, consumer risk aversion, and the lack of engaging savings options for over 15 million UK savers holding excess cash. Learn more about the market gap
6. How is Stoa different from traditional investment or BNPL platforms?
Stoa encourages financial discipline by rewarding savings with perks, rather than promoting consumption like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) models or risky investments.
7. What is the target demographic for Stoa?
Stoa mainly targets UK savers disillusioned with conventional savings options and those seeking safe, immediate gratification through tangible rewards.
8. Who are the key people behind Stoa?
The key founders of Stoa are Mike Saraswat (CEO) and Sam Goodenough (CTO), along with Guy Pantall, Head of Financial Product Architecture.
9. What trends are shaping innovations like Stoa in fintech?
Stoa reflects fintech trends such as embedding financial products into daily user experiences and focusing on immediate, user-driven benefits. Understand the trends
10. What are potential risks for users using Stoa's service?
One key risk is users mismatching perks with their real lifestyle needs, which might reduce the personal value of the rewards they receive.
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp's expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the "gamepreneurship" methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.
About the Publication
Fe/male Switch is an innovative startup platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs through an immersive, game-like experience. Founded in 2020 during the pandemic "without any funding and without any code," this non-profit initiative has evolved into a comprehensive educational tool for aspiring female entrepreneurs.The platform was co-founded by Violetta Shishkina-Bonenkamp, who serves as CEO and one of the lead authors of the Startup News branch.
Mission and Purpose
Fe/male Switch Foundation was created to address the gender gap in the tech and entrepreneurship space. The platform aims to skill-up future female tech leaders and empower them to create resilient and innovative tech startups through what they call "gamepreneurship". By putting players in a virtual startup village where they must survive and thrive, the startup game allows women to test their entrepreneurial abilities without financial risk.
Key Features
The platform offers a unique blend of news, resources,learning, networking, and practical application within a supportive, female-focused environment:
- Skill Lab: Micro-modules covering essential startup skills
- Virtual Startup Building: Create or join startups and tackle real-world challenges
- AI Co-founder (PlayPal): Guides users through the startup process
- SANDBOX: A testing environment for idea validation before launch
- Wellness Integration: Virtual activities to balance work and self-care
- Marketplace: Buy or sell expert sessions and tutorials
Impact and Growth
Since its inception, Fe/male Switch has shown impressive growth:
- 5,000+ female entrepreneurs in the community
- 100+ startup tools built
- 5,000+ pieces of articles and news written
- 1,000 unique business ideas for women created
Partnerships
Fe/male Switch has formed strategic partnerships to enhance its offerings. In January 2022, it teamed up with global website builder Tilda to provide free access to website building tools and mentorship services for Fe/male Switch participants.
Recognition
Fe/male Switch has received media attention for its innovative approach to closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. The platform has been featured in various publications highlighting its unique "play to learn and earn" model.
