Nick Martell went from Fieldston to finance, inventing a website to simplify one of the most complicated news topics: the stock market.
Martell wanted to create a medium people could use to read a daily recap of how stocks rose and fell throughout the previous day. He built the website MarketSnacks, aimed at both investors and college students, to be used for scenarios ranging from preparing for an interview, to understanding how bad guacamole would lower Chipotle’s stock.
“I realized there was no financial news out there that people enjoyed reading,” Martell said. While newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal write numerous complicated articles each day, Martell argued that financial news needed to become not only digestible, but also entertaining. “When lulu lemon printed sheer yoga pants that you could see through, it caused their stock to drop,” Martell said. “While that was buried in the Wall Street Journal, we saw it as a hilarious millennial story to curate and make accessible to viewers.”
The creation of MarketSnacks was more than a creative twist on financial news. “I wanted to do something more directly related to giving back, an idea that was instilled in me at Fieldston,” he said, crediting his decision to the moral values imparted upon him at Fieldston. ECFS not only encouraged Martell to make sure his career gave back, but also got him interested in finance.
“I took a Wall Street ALP course that fascinated me, especially because it wasn’t a course available at Fieldston,” he said. Martell believes that the way Fieldston shapes their curriculum allows for an entrepreneurial mindset. At such a young age, through electives coupled with a core curriculum, students are able to explore what they are interested in, fostering an opportunistic mindset.
After college, Martell decided, with the help of his roommate, to start writing daily summaries of the changes in the stock market. Aiming to give quick, accessible updates on the financial world, it was a creative extension of Martell’s career in finance. Martell grew MarketSnacks as a side hub entrepreneur, building the business in addition to his full time job. “I love what I do, so I don’t feel the need to quit my job and commit to MarketSnacks full time,” he said. “We don’t have a five year plan so this is really about growing the business while upholding the quality of our day jobs, a very fulfilling experience.” He became a voice for the millennial generation, while fighting against the initial backlash from his employer to become a valuable asset to financial corporations.
Martell possesses a priceless trait: the ability to connect with younger generations, something some of his older colleagues lack. He turned a list of numbers into comedic news. Although Wall Street seems like an unlikely path for an alumni of both Fieldston and Brown University, the motivation for all of Martell’s work comes from what he had learned at both institutions. Fieldston encouraged him to use his talents to give back to his community, and the different opportunities he was exposed to allowed him to build MarketSnacks at such a young age. His work reflects the nature of his generation, washing big corporations out with fresh new ideas, an idea that we should strive to follow as our paths take us past the walls of Fieldston.
