Building up passive income with dividends is a trend among young investors. The software of two founders helps them.
On Twitter there is a small but committed community of money multipliers. She calls herself #Fintwit and talks shop about finances. One group in particular stands out in the German-speaking discussions under the hashtag: the supporters of the dividend strategy. They are specifically looking for shares in companies that pay out the highest possible dividends (i.e. part of their profits) to investors. The aim is usually to be able to live off the regular income in the long term.
To achieve this, investors motivate each other, for example by posting screenshots of their portfolios on Twitter. “This month I can expect a total of 7 paydays and a total of around 107 euros in gross dividends”, it says thenoften with reference to a financial tool that illustrates earnings using charts and tables – we’re talking about Divvydiary.
Dividend calendar inspires thousands of investors
Johannes Kronmüller and Max Große are behind the tool. The two entrepreneurs from Stuttgart and Berlin founded Divvydiary in 2019, initially as a hobby project alongside their permanent position at Mercedes-Benz Bank, as Kronmüller explains in an interview with Gründerszene. “In the meantime I can take care of the project full-time and we generate around 20,000 euros in sales every month.” According to their own statements, Divvydiary is already being used by 40,000 investors. Almost 4,000 of them pay money: the premium version of the financial tool costs EUR 5.99 per month.
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The core feature of Divvydiary is simple: it is a calendar that informs users when the next dividend will be credited to their current account. Because by no means all companies pay a dividend, and certainly not at the same time. For example, while Deutsche Post AG (EUR 1.80 per share) pays out to investors, the gas company Linde does it quarterly (EUR 1.10 per share). If you now have ten or more shares in your portfolio like many dividend strategists, the payment dates accumulate.
“The overview is quickly lost,” explains Johannes Kronmüller: “Especially if, as an investor, you want to build up a regular cash flow in order to cover part of your living expenses.” about how the dividend yield compares to the portfolios of other investors. The program can also be used to create new Find stocks with high dividend yields.
Programming effort underestimated
But why do you need a special financial tool for this? Wouldn’t it be easy for custodian banks to offer a dividend calendar themselves? If you believe Divvydiary founder Kronmüller, things are complicated. “When we started in 2019, we underestimated the effort,” he says.
It was a challenge to even get reliable data on dividend payments, there was no such thing as a central provider. “Ultimately, we set up a database ourselves and also used techniques such as machine learning for this,” explains Kronmüller. For the founder, there is a simple reason why banks have so far mostly not offered their customers a dividend calendar: “The banks have been lagging behind with innovations for years, and as a fintech we are still benefiting enormously from this to this day. Of course, that can change quickly at some point.”
Help from financial influencers
It was also a lucky coincidence that Divvydiary was able to grow quickly right from the start. When Johannes Kronmüller and Max Große launched their financial tool in April 2020, a particularly large number of people were interested in shares because of the corona lockdowns – and thus also in dividends. Within a few months, Divvydiary grew to 10,000 registered users. In retrospect, perfect timing.
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On top of that, Kronmüller and Große benefited from unpaid advertising. Financial youtubers like “Homo Oeconomicus” (almost 90,000 followers) use Divvydiary to document their progress in building up a sideline through dividends. Also Lisa Osadawho uses the pseudonym “Aktiengram” (82,000 followers) to provide information on investing, uses the tool for her portfolio.
In the meantime, the Divvydiary founders have professionalized their project. In addition to a special affiliate program for influencers, the fintech also offers its data to other companies via a software interface, such as the financial service provider Ariva or the fintech Finary.
“Don’t rule out venture capital”
So far, Johannes Kronmüller and Max Große have financed their own fintech exclusively from their own resources. There are no investors yet. “In the long term, however, we are not ruling out venture capital,” emphasizes Kronmüller. There are always inquiries from business angels, for example.
“That would allow us to grow even more and build features for which we currently don’t have the resources,” says Kronmüller. As long as this is not possible, both want to gradually increase to full-time. Kronmüller resigned from his permanent position last year, and other developers are to be hired soon. “The prerequisite is that we can continue to increase our sales continuously.” The goal by the end of the year: 40,000 euros per month.
This text first appeared in February 2022.