02-26-2026
Habits’ cofounder and CEO Jack Boudreau thinks about financial education less as a classroom experience and more as a content ecosystem that lives where people already spend their time: on their phones. For him, screens may be “the most important real estate” any company can compete for today.
Boudreau’s core challenge is making something “very boring” — personal finance — compete with cat videos and sports bloopers. To do that, he tailors the same underlying mission to the strengths and cultures of TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and long‑form content like blogs and podcasts.
At Habits, the goal is clear: help 25-45‑year‑olds connect with financial advisors and practical guidance in ways that match their goals, lifestyles and communication styles. Content becomes the bridge between anxious, often insecure consumers and a complex financial services ecosystem.
Boudreau describes TikTok as “a lottery ticket with every single post,” where it doesn’t matter who you are, how many followers you have or what your username is. TikTok puts content in front of non-followers where “you’re there to hit a home run.” Anything can go viral. That dynamic makes TikTok ideal for small brands like Habits that need outsized reach without outsized budgets.
Early in Habits’ existence, Boudreau leaned into TikTok with personal storytelling and emotionally honest takes on money anxiety. Over the last two to three years, that content has evolved toward promoting Habits’ mission and marketplace, using short, engaging clips to normalize working with advisors and to frame financial security as a shared, generational challenge. The platform’s virality also makes it a meaningful revenue stream for him personally, with brands paying “tens of thousands of dollars” for single posts because attention is so scarce.
If TikTok is the home‑run park, Instagram is where Boudreau tries to “get at‑bats.” He notes that around 90% of users spend more time on Stories than Reels, which is why advertisers crowd into Story placements. For Habits, that split means:
Because Habits has more ownership of its audience on Instagram than on TikTok, Boudreau can combine steady, on‑brand, bite‑sized finance tips with episodic deeper dives, all calibrated by engagement metrics and follower behavior.
On LinkedIn, the target is completely different. Boudreau is not trying to acquire 25-45‑year‑old consumers there; he is trying to reach and serve financial advisors and enterprise partners. He describes LinkedIn as a place where “everyone [is] just really liking each other’s stuff,” but in financial services that’s an asset: interact with one advisor and “50 other advisors will get access to you.”
Because advisors document their careers and credentials on LinkedIn, Boudreau can use the platform to:
In short, LinkedIn is Habit’s B2B relationship engine; TikTok and Instagram are the B2C front door.
Boudreau classifies blogs and podcasts as “retention channels” rather than top‑of‑funnel growth engines. They don’t reliably reach new people, but they deepen engagement with those already on Habits’ email list or in its orbit, where the company has more direct ownership of the relationship. Email itself becomes another data‑rich layer, allowing Habits to understand location, behavior and preferences and to tailor what “needs to be said, how it needs to be said” for different segments.
All of this orbits his view of the smartphone as the defining battleground: in a world that has “gone from in‑person to a seven‑inch device in your pocket,” JPMorgan Chase is competing with Peloton and Amazon for attention long before any advisor gets a meeting. Habits content is designed to win a little slice of that screen for financial literacy.
When it comes to building trust about a sensitive topic, Boudreau points first to social proof: he has accumulated tens of thousands of followers across channels, which signals that his message resonates. For institutional clients and advisors, trust comes from results — demonstrating that Habits tools either make their lives easier or help them make more money.
He sees one “universal truth” in business: if you can simplify someone’s life or grow their income, the specifics of your platform matter far less. In the crowded, noisy real estate of the small screen, that combination — resonant public content plus measurable outcomes — becomes Habit’s most durable trust asset.
View and listen to Boudreau’s Executive Forum class:
The Daniels School’s Executive Forum is held in person on the West Lafayette campus and is open to the public, as seating permits. Follow the business school on LinkedIn to learn about upcoming Forum speakers and more.
