Pick 5 Real Companies for Your $1M Fund

What your kid actually makes

A portfolio of real companies, each one backed by a thesis recorded in their own voice: what the company makes, who buys it, why they think it will do well, and what could go wrong. Over months those recordings stack into a journal of how your kid thinks about the world. Every dollar behind it is simulated.

How a sitting goes

This one is ongoing rather than finished. Your kid browses companies grouped by things they understand — games, food, movies, tech, shoes — opens one, and reads the plain-language basics before any chart: what it makes, who buys it, how it makes money, its biggest risk. If they decide to back it, they put paper money behind it and record the reason out loud, then listen back and rate how clear their own reasoning was. The app resurfaces old theses later so your kid can see whether their prediction held up.

What AI does — and what your kid does

The picks and the reasoning are your kid's. The AI is a sparring partner: it pushes back with the harder question — who actually buys this, what would have to go wrong — so the thinking stays theirs. It never names a company to buy, never writes the thesis, and never scores a pick right or wrong.

What they're really learning

How to hold an opinion and say why. Explaining what a company does, who pays it and what could go wrong is the whole skill, and it travels a long way past money. Because picks are meant to be kept rather than traded, the habit being built is patience and checking your own reasoning later — not timing a market.

Good to know

• No real money is involved at any point: no cash, no card, no brokerage account, nothing to deposit, withdraw, win or lose. The portfolio rises and falls on paper, which is where the learning is.
• Your kid cannot sell. A pick is meant to be kept, so the habit is long-term ownership rather than trading.
• Paper capital comes in tiers: kids start as a Shrimp with $10,000, reach Dolphin at $100,000 by recording a thesis, and Whale at $1,000,000 asks you to co-sign — a review of their reasoning, not a payment step.
• A portfolio can be shared as a read-only snapshot. It shows thinking, not net worth.