2mins is here! MicroFact’s free financial education app is now live in the app store, but how did it come to life? Here’s the story of how a simple idea (and a rather quirky herd of animals!) turned into an app that’s making finance fun and exciting for everyone.
A family affair
In 2024, the idea for 2mins was born alongside an unlikely business partnership: father and daughter, Chris and Emily Boxall.
Chris is an experienced investment manager, technology investor and co-founder and CEO of Fundamental Asset Management, a specialist FCA regulated investment firm. Emily is a creative comms guru, with a particular knack for making dull things exciting.
Frustrated by how the finance industry overcomplicates and bores, and alarmed by the UK’s intensifying pension crisis, the pair saw an opportunity to reimagine the way we learn about money.
Armed with a shared artillery of technical know-how and bonkers creativity, they set out to build an app that makes money matters simple, accessible, and (finally) fun!
Building original games
From day one, it was agreed that 2mins needed to go beyond financial education’s tired formulas of multiple-choice quizzes in slick packaging. If learning about money was going to work, it needed to feel good, and that meant designing games that were genuinely fun and deeply satisfying to complete.
Much of the early design process happened the old-fashioned way: with pen, paper, and scissors. Every prototype focused on transforming financial lessons into quick, clever challenges that make players think, not guess.
Those early sketches became the building blocks of 2mins’ first three original games: Holes, Tiles, and Pairs, each crafted to teach, test, and entertain in equal measure.
And this is just the beginning. The MicroFact team already has a pipeline of new games, stories, and challenges in development, all designed to keep users levelling up their financial confidence 2mins at a time!
The MicroFact herd
Every 2mins game is introduced with a short storyboard, and when work began on the visuals, we knew we couldn’t rely on the usual suspects: piles of coins, smug pensioners, and generic stock photos of calculators. So, we decided to do something a little different. Enter the MicroFact herd.
This brilliantly eccentric cast of animal characters brings financial lessons to life in ways that are fun, relatable, and genuinely memorable. From Pots the panda with a taste for doughnuts to Yarn the lion and his pension sheep, each member of the herd helps make abstract financial ideas feel human (well…almost!).
Backed by research showing that cartoons boost understanding and memory, the herd doesn’t just make people smile, they actually help them learn. Lovable, quirky, and at times delightfully absurd, these animals are at the heart of MicroFact’s mission: to turn finance from something people avoid into something they actually enjoy.
Who is 2mins for?
2mins is currently free to download in the app store and we’re excited to build an online community of users who are learning, playing, and growing their money confidence together.
For businesses looking to harness the power of the 2mins method, MicroFact also creates bespoke apps to boost engagement with pension schemes, share plans, and financial wellbeing benefits.
Get Started Today
Download 2mins here
