Kim Githler started The MoneyShow in 1981 by selling her Corvette for $11,000 and using the money to fund a single investor education conference, at a time before CNBC, before the Wall Street Journal was a household name for retail investors, and before Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week gave everyday people any real window into the markets. More than four decades later, the company produces roughly 39,000 minutes of video content a year and counts well over a million clients, drawn largely through a network of about 2,000 expert speakers who bring their own followings to MoneyShow events.
Her son Charlie, who grew up literally playing on conference floors with Rukeyser, now works alongside her running the business. The two describe a pivotal moment in 2020, when Covid forced the cancellation of the company's usual slate of roughly 30 in-person conferences with two years of dates already booked. Working with CTO Aaron West, the team retooled MoneyShow's virtual conferencing software, a platform Kim had actually pioneered back in 2005 with early Hotmail-based webcasts, and relaunched as a virtual event eight weeks after Covid hit, drawing about 20,000 attendees compared to the usual 1,000 to 2,000.
Spotting the difference between education and hype
Asked how everyday investors should tell real guidance from internet noise, Kim is blunt: be wary of anyone flashing rented supercars and promising outsized returns, and instead seek out mentors with real skin in the game. She points to the company's new free offering, MoneyShow University, aimed at beginner investors and built partly in response to what she sees as younger generations losing trust in traditional institutions. The company's average attendee net worth runs $4 to 5 million, but Kim says the free university program is meant to reach the retail investor the business was originally built to serve.
From conferences to condos
The Githlers have also become active Sarasota real estate developers, buying their first downtown building years ago and now developing One Park, a luxury condominium tower in partnership with Property Markets Group that is more than half sold and has broken ground near Bay Park. Kim credits Sarasota's relatively open, non-clique business culture, compared to bigger cities like Miami or New York, for making that kind of local investment possible.
What you'll take away
- Kim Githler founded The MoneyShow in 1981 with $11,000 from selling her Corvette, and the company now produces about 39,000 minutes of content a year for more than a million clients
- MoneyShow pivoted to virtual conferencing eight weeks into the Covid pandemic, drawing about 20,000 attendees compared to the usual 1,000 to 2,000 for in-person events
- The company is launching a free program, MoneyShow University, aimed at beginner investors even though its typical attendee has a net worth of $4 to 5 million
- Kim warns investors to be skeptical of flashy social-media investment gurus and to instead find mentors with real skin in the game
- The Githlers are developing One Park, a luxury condo tower near Bay Park in Sarasota, more than half sold as of the recording
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
“It's not what you make, it's what you keep.”
Places mentioned: Bay Park, Downtown Sarasota, One Park, UTC