How Public.com Grew to $1B: Fractional Shares & Focus

Public.com went from a thousand beta users to millions in under two years — without chasing the obvious audience. Founder Jannick Malling explains how fractional shares, a counterintuitive go-to-market strategy, and relentless product focus turned a niche fintech into a $1B platform with $440M raised.

Key Facts

• Beta to millions: Public grew from ~1,000 beta users to millions in roughly 18 months (Jannick Malling)
• GameStop effect: Public doubled its user base in 48 hours during the GameStop event (Jannick Malling)
• First deposit growth: Average first deposit increased approximately 30x over a key 18-month period (Jannick Malling)
• Capital raised: $440M raised; valued at $1B+ (Episode metadata)
• Bond innovation: Public was first to offer real-time fractional treasury and corporate bond trading on mobile (Jannick Malling)

From 1,000 Beta Users to Millions: The Fractional Shares Breakthrough

Public's explosive growth began when it launched real-time fractional share trading in September 2019. Prior to this, social features alone weren't moving the needle. Fractional shares let users invest any dollar amount instantly, removing the psychological and financial barriers that kept most people out of the market.

Before fractional shares, Public ran a social investing beta with a few hundred to a thousand users. The community features were interesting, but incomplete. As Malling explains, people couldn't act on what they saw in their feed because they couldn't afford full shares in companies like Google or Amazon, which traded at thousands of dollars each.

The real unlock was flipping fractional shares from a corner-case accounting problem into the default product experience. Malling and his team spent nine months engineering this — building automation around regulatory reporting that brokerages historically treated as an error state. The result was a clean UI where users simply typed a dollar amount and owned a piece of any stock instantly.

The impact was immediate. After launching post-Labor Day 2019, every engagement metric jumped 5–10x within days. Daily active usage ratios hit 60–70%, and retention metrics were strong across the board. The product had gone from interesting to essential.

"You can build a portfolio in the next 10 minutes. And you could be done in the market — you're an owner, you go from zero to one." — Jannick Malling

"We flipped the model on its head. What if we build enough automation around that it becomes the default?" — Jannick Malling

• Google and Amazon shares cost $2,000–$3,000 each — making diversification nearly impossible without $15,000+.
• Fractional shares let users build a 20–40 stock portfolio starting with just $100.
• Real-time execution was the key differentiator — prior attempts processed trades overnight.
• The social graph became far more actionable once anyone could mirror any portfolio allocation.

The Counterintuitive Go-to-Market: Skipping the Trader Bros

Instead of targeting early-adopter day traders — the conventional playbook — Public launched into professional women's communities with no prior investing experience. This unconventional move generated high conversion and powerful word-of-mouth, because the product was built specifically for people who found the market intimidating.

Most consumer fintech startups follow the same acquisition path: go to the most engaged, highest-converting users first — in this case, active traders. Malling deliberately rejected this. Those users were already on Robinhood and had very different needs. Public's product was designed for people who thought investing was scary, not for those who thrived on volatility.

Instead, Public partnered with communities like GirlBoss, reaching professionally ambitious women who had never invested. The product's community layer gave these first-timers social proof and confidence — someone they could relate to had already made the move. Malling likens it to watching a horror movie with friends rather than alone: anything scary becomes less scary in company.

The word-of-mouth that followed wasn't the kind that spreads on financial Twitter or Reddit. It was personal, high-trust referrals within tight-knit communities — a far more durable growth engine than viral finance content.

"We went out to like professional women's communities. People who've never invested before — just went in front of them. And that really f'ing landed." — Jannick Malling

"We always have this idea of building a fan base, not just a user base. If people really root for you, virality comes easier." — Jannick Malling

How GameStop Doubled Public's Users in 48 Hours

When GameStop's stock went viral in January 2021 and competitors shut off the buy button, Public was positioned to capture the moment. Pre-approved ad campaigns and account transfer flows meant the team could act within hours — doubling their user base in 48 hours. Preparation, not luck, made the difference.

GameStop was a cultural flashpoint for retail investing. When several platforms restricted trading, public outrage sent users searching for alternatives. Public had pre-built and compliance-approved account transfer campaigns specifically for the moment a competitor stumbled. They didn't scramble — they executed.

Malling is candid that GameStop would have been a win regardless, but the magnitude of the step-change came from preparation made six months earlier. Leif, his co-founder, has spoken about this in growth playbooks: pre-approving ads, readying transfer flows, and keeping infrastructure stable when competitors went down.

The lesson Malling draws is broader than fintech: 'Luck favors the prepared.' If you know a category moment could come, do the unglamorous preparation work in advance. High-ROI preparation done months early can define your company's trajectory in a 48-hour window.

"GameStop was like, we doubled in 48 hours or something. That was wild." — Jannick Malling

"We had account transfer ads that were kind of ready to go — pre-signed off — so there's a bunch of things you could put yourself in a position to take advantage of." — Jannick Malling

Finding Product-Market Fit Again: The $10K Average Deposit Era

After the 2021 bull market and GameStop boom faded, Public refocused on serious long-term investors. By building fractional bonds, treasury access, and research tools, they shifted their average first deposit from a few hundred dollars to roughly 30x that figure — and became users' primary investing platform.

By late 2021, Malling saw the market shifting. Zero interest rate policy was ending. Speculation was cooling. He told his team they needed to find product-market fit a second time — this time for users who wanted to build a serious, multi-decade portfolio, not chase meme stocks.

The move into bonds was surgical. When interest rates rose faster than at any point in modern history, Malling noticed that no mobile app offered easy access to US Treasuries — because the last rate cycle was pre-iPhone. Public launched fractional treasuries in 2023, then corporate bonds in 2024, and layered product features like a bond account targeting 6–7% yields on top.

The result was a 30x increase in average first deposits over a focused 18-month period. Public stopped being a trial platform and became users' primary investing home — a shift Malling attributes entirely to disciplined product focus rather than marketing spend.

"The number, like the first deposit, has gone up — I don't even know — several orders of magnitude. Like 30, 40x during that timeframe." — Jannick Malling

"Next year is the time for us to go back to delivering on the original vision — really being that place where serious investors can build a serious, long-term, multi-decade portfolio." — Jannick Malling

Jannick Malling's Advice: Solve Timeless Problems

Malling's number one advice for founders: only build for problems that will always exist. Trendy problems — social fads, regulatory arbitrage, ephemeral behaviors — evaporate and take your company with them. Investing is a timeless problem. No market shift will ever make it irrelevant. Build where the problem can't be rug-pulled.

After building multiple companies across two decades, Malling distills his philosophy into one filter: is this a timeless problem? If the problem could disappear due to a trend shift, a regulation change, or a cultural moment fading, no amount of great execution will save the business.

He pairs this with an equally sharp definition of focus — borrowed from Jony Ive on Steve Jobs: focus isn't ignoring bad ideas. It's ignoring great ideas you're genuinely excited about because you're committed to something else. Most founders, Malling argues, have never truly practiced focus in that sense.

The compounding effect of focus is visible in Public's shipping velocity data, which Malling says correlates almost perfectly with gross profit per user and net deposits. Teams that stop hiring and go heads-down on one metric consistently outperform larger, more distracted organizations.

"Make sure that you really find an important, enduring problem — almost like a timeless problem. If that problem goes away, it doesn't matter what solution you come up with." — Jannick Malling

"Focus is literally having great ideas you're very excited about, not doing them because you're focused on something else." — Jannick Malling

Public.com vs. Conventional Investing App Playbook