Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, Michelle Kesil sits down with Rosalia Gitau, CEO of Bixie, a financial literacy technology company dedicated to helping women take control of their finances. Rosalia shares her mission to educate women on earning, spending, net worth, and discovering their “Bixie number”—the key metric to living a financially empowered life. The conversation covers how Bixie combines online tools, AI applications, and offline workshops to provide practical guidance, reduce financial anxiety, and help women take intentional actions toward wealth-building. Rosalia also discusses strategies for investing, growing business revenue streams, and balancing real estate and personal investments.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (00:00)
So that’s always the first thing that our users, from a data tracking perspective, notice. They’re like, oh, that seems not balanced. Then they suddenly say, go through your burn. Are those really things you really, really need to be doing? And concrete examples. And so some people might say, absolutely, like, childcare. It’s 100 % required, right?This has come up at multiple workshops. And we say, now here’s the next thing. Why don’t you go back to every single one of those debits and just ask for a discount? So this is the fun fact about life. If you just ask for a discount, 99 % of the time you’re going to get a discount.
Michelle Kesil (02:12)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Rosalia Gitau, who is the CEO of Bixie. And this is a financial literacy technology company helping women manage their finances. So excited to have you here today, Rosalia.Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (02:35)
Thank you so much for having me, Michelle.Michelle Kesil (02:37)
I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching helping people manage and understand and build a better relationship with money. So let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is?Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (02:58)
So my mission and my vision is to ensure that every single woman in the entire world knows their how much they earn, how much they burn, how much they’re worth, and most importantly, what their Bixie number is. And it is the most important number of your life. It is the amount of money that you need to do whatever you want with this one precious life that we have. So that’s the mission and that’s the vision.Michelle Kesil (03:24)
Amazing. I love that. That’s an important mission. So how does your, it’s a, is it an app or how does like your technology work? Like what is the format? What is the structure? Yeah. Tell us about it.Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (03:38)
Yeah.So we have an AI application that is available on chat.gpt. We also, our whole belief system is online to offline to online. We know that some people need the convenience of being online, but we also know that everyone is friggin exhausted with it. And they also, particularly when it comes to money, you need to feel, especially women, scientifically based, we need to do that in community. So our online products include our software platform that we offer to businesses, and that’s where you can find a lot of our financial
Literacy and Education and our ⁓ AI application which is available on chat.gpt and those are both companions to the offline work which is the hard work which is the work that y’all need to do which is sit down
work through the Bixie workbook. We have it in hard copy. We also have it in digital. And write down and figure out your earn, your burn, your net worth, and your Bixie number. And then you need to do that once a quarter every year. So we’re talking about two hours of your life once a year. You do more Instagramming per day. ⁓ And if you do that, you will see your numbers tick up.
And that financial empowerment, it’s not just the number ticking up that builds that empowerment. It’s knowing, my gosh, I can actually do this on my own. So our offering is online to offline to online. As we always say at Bixie, we provide the knowledge.
the network and then the tools to take action on your personal finances. And these are all tailored specifically for women, not excluding men, but we really focused on behavioral science to understand why women generally do not manage their own personal finances and do not invest. We’re talking significant disparities between the gender. So we focused a lot on figuring out like, why aren’t they doing this? You know, we’re talking about educated women in general and a lot of it
has to do with emotions and feelings around money, particularly the feeling of anxiety. So we work a lot on lowering feelings of anxiety, making people feel comfortable, making it very, approachable so that you can take the necessary actions.
Michelle Kesil (06:44)
I love that, that’s so empowering and beautiful that you’re helping women shift their relationship with money in that way. And you mentioned that just doing these processes, people’s like money actually grows. Is that just through awareness or is that through other tools?Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (07:05)
So we actually track it. So with the Bixly application, it’s at the discretion of the user, but if they want to input their starting point and their journey, we track that for them. So we’re able to actually see that number go up. What’s really amazing is because we build this community and we have these quarterly, we have monthly workshops and we have quarterly catch up with our alumni.They, these, so we have what’s called front of class, which are newcomers, and back of class. The back of class are my favorites, sorry, but they are my favorite children. And the reason they’re my favorite children is because these people have said, you know what, I’m really committed. It’s not just gonna be one time I’m gonna write down my number and then go back to forgetting about it. This is just a calendar invite I keep, and I just show up just to finish the work that I started. ⁓
So that’s a really important part of what we are doing specifically for that community. I do want to go back to one thing that you said about shifting a relationship. I think that’s a really, I’ve never used it in that way. But I, so I might steal that, number one. ⁓
But maybe I would almost begin, it’s like, where does the relationship begin? And why are we doing what we’re doing? One of the questions that we, one of the induction questions that we ask ⁓ at Bixie is, when is the right time to talk about money with a significant other, right? It’s really telling about the status of the relation, how we feel about money. And we’ve hosted these Bixie workshops.
and one of our attorneys at her first one, and this is why she came back, she’s like, it was at my divorce. And that, like that’s the problem. I’m an ex-lawyer, we actually partner up with a female-only law firm that specializes in family law, that’s how we say divorce, and they say that over 90 % of their clients the first time they look at money is actually at the divorce proceedings. That is not an acceptable response.
Here’s another thing that we ask at induction. This is, again, this is, you know, is a safe space, but one of the things that comes up is most people around the table, the vast majority in our data collection, would rather tell you how many people that they have slept with than how much money they have. That is our culture. That is the current state, men and women, of our culture. So when we talk about shifting that relationship,
We should definitely be talking about money before we talk about how many people we slept with. We should definitely be about money before we say, let’s move in together or let’s get married. We do need to shift that relationship. And to your point about the data question, we gather at induction all of these data points, both from our application but also from our workbook through our workshops.
and we support our users to track it if that is what they want to do. So what we have seen, and this is a little bit of the magic, but it’s not magic, right? The magic is the intentionality of not just showing up, but showing up consistently and tracking your number does necessarily increase the number. And I’ll give you a concrete example.
We have what’s called the first stage of our induction is earn and burn. Write down what you earn and all of the different streams that’s really critical, right? So my job, my side of the, and then how much you burn and write down all the streams. Rent, food, my 25 subscriptions to God knows what, right?
And then, so that’s just the first one. What’s really startling, because this is in a very clear table format, is everyone’s like, first notice, first notice, even if the total number on the urn is higher than the burn, which hopefully we get to, the urn usually only has one, maybe two lines. Whereas the burn has 20 lines.
So that’s always the first thing that our users, from a data tracking perspective, notice. They’re like, oh, that seems not balanced. Then they suddenly say, go through your burn. Are those really things you really, really need to be doing? And concrete examples. And so some people might say, absolutely, like, childcare. It’s 100 % required, right?
This has come up at multiple workshops. And we say, now here’s the next thing. Why don’t you go back to every single one of those debits and just ask for a discount? So this is the fun fact about life. If you just ask for a discount, 99 % of the time you’re going to get a discount.
And so they do. They go back to the school and say, can I have a scholarship? Or they go back to the childcare facility and say, what scholarships or opportunities are available? And I
just received a text message from a professional in who said she went from 8.50 a month, 8.50 pounds, to 1.50 by that tiny gesture, and then on her earn she realized I’m only getting paid for four out of five days of the week because she negotiated as a flexible mother time, 80 % working schedule, but she was working five. So she walked into work on Monday and said, actually I’ve been tracking and I work five. And they’re like, okay.
A 20 % pay bump and an 80 % reduction in childcare. Again, this isn’t magic. It’s literally intentionality. You’re looking and you say, this doesn’t make sense. Let me go and do these things. And that’s how you lower your burn. That’s our first stage. See how you can lower your burn. See if there’s opportunity to increase your earn. That’s just day one stuff. We’re not even getting into how you’re gonna make real money. Okay, day two stuff.
How much are you worth? Everybody hates this question. Why? Because we’re talking about your debt I used to hate that question. ⁓ So let’s write down every single piece of debt you have. Michelle, I can see your face dropping. And let’s write that. And not just every piece of debt. This is the hard bit. So we create tables both in the app and in the workbook. We need to know the amount. You keep it to yourself. And that’s why I made the workbook, because I know a lot of people were…
A lot of people worried in the app collecting data, fine, do whatever you want. Write down your amount and then write down the percentage. And then we’re gonna start being intentional strategic about knocking things down. Obviously the best method is, you know, percent whatever’s the highest interest rate, but look, if it helps you to get small wins, go there. Then we’re gonna tally up what you own minus what you owe and that is your day one net worth, okay? Then we’re gonna go to the fun bit. Let’s talk about our hopes and dreams.
What do you actually want out of this life? And everybody will say, I want to write a book in Costa Rica. Great. So how much does that cost? And when I say how much does that cost, go back to your burn, multiply that by how long does it take to write a book? A year. That’s how much you need for your big C number. So we call that the amount of money you need to like never have to do anything you don’t want to do for your life. Now you can decide I just want that for a year or I want it for like my whole life, right? It’s very much related to the fire number.
So then they go back into the visualization and we really walk through that and you’ll see in the workshops and the Bixie workbook, both online and offline.
We don’t just say, you want out of your life? It’s like, what are you wearing? What are you feeling? Again, it goes back to the emotive side of money. We’re shifting our relationship with money. It’s not this thing that like, we’re strangers. It’s this thing that can facilitate our dreams. Then we tack a number on it based on the calculations akin to fire. And that’s your Bixie number. You keep all three. See you in next quarter. And we do the same thing next quarter. And we do the same thing next quarter. And we do the same thing next quarter. And you do this
every quarter of your life and that number will start ticking up. And then my favorites, the VIPs, who now we have as what are called Bixie ambassadors, so they now are licensed to host their own workshops. These people at that next level, they’re like, look, I want to get that Bixie number.
But now I need to start actually making money off money. That’s the investment side, right? And so there’s different stages of the journey, but every journey starts with the first step, which is first you have to do a situational awareness, then you have to see where am I in the world, then it’s like, well, what do I want?
It’s like, okay, it’s time to start attacking that through strategy and rationale, not fear and emotion and anxiety.
Michelle Kesil (16:53)
Yeah, amazing, I love what you guys are up to. I think that money can be a topic that triggers people, but I know that on this show, there’s a lot of investors that are more intentional with their money, and maybe they are looking at those numbers, and they’re just looking to grow and invest in scale. So what would you suggest for those types of people?Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (17:18)
So people who are at that next stage, they’re ready for those investments. know, caveat aside, I’m absolutely not a financial advisor. I was a lawyer in a past life. ⁓ But again, it goes back to the basic fundamentals, right? So everything starts with investment is risk and reward.If you know your Bixie number, you know what you want and the timeline that you want it in, that should gauge your risk and reward. My goal is always personally to take the emotion out of my investment decision. I always just go with the numbers. So if I say, look, I need to make $10,000 in one year or $100,000 in one year, let’s say, I need $100,000 in one year. You’re looking at, I’m gonna have to, and I start with 10,000, okay? I need 10X.
I can only really look at investments that provide me 10x. That’s much higher risk, much higher reward. But if my goal is, oh, I just want to retire comfortably. Let’s say retiring comfortably for you looks like having $5,000 a month.
You’re talking about I need 1.5 million nest egg then and I have 40 years to build it now We’re talking at the 4 % You know the kind of 4 % 5 % growth This is why it really depends on where you are and what you want Personally, I like a diversified portfolio as I think a lot of you do I like
I really like ETFs. That is the cheapest and cheerfullest way just to get involved, especially when you’re like, I don’t really know things. I’m not a stock picker. Like I said, not a financial advisor, not a Wall Street person. I’m not a stock picker. ⁓ So I like ETFs. I think they’re really low entry point. They’re really accessible. Most banks have it available on your banking app. ⁓ So a mix of ETFs, a mix of real estate, which obviously speaks well to your audience. ⁓
and then a mix of obviously gotta have that pension, you want, I like a little bit of a more aggressive pension side just because, I mean, I think I’m young, I’m not that young. I think I hopefully, you know with my workout schedule, I have some time. ⁓ So I like to think about that. And then I, I’m a business owner.
and I like to think about business. I like to think about businesses that I can build new revenue streams in my existing businesses, new businesses to acquire, ⁓ because I think it’s, you know.
I think it’s really interesting. People always just think of real estate as, it’s going to be this passive income thing. And to some extent it is, but then the roof breaks, and then the pool has an issue, and then this thing, and then that thing, and then you’re like, I spend so much money on this asset. Oh, and then the renters are annoying, and then, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It turns out to be less passive than just like sometimes can end up being a bit of a money pit. It’s still great to have. I like it because it’s like, Oh I know this and this goes back to like emotions around money.
Nothing like we’re still animals in the jungle. Nothing beats a roof over our head Just knowing that and knowing that that security for my kids like whatever happens in the world Like we have a roof over our head. I can see why that’s great But I don’t see myself being a real estate mogul for all of those reasons I just listed but businesses are really cool because if you you know if you acquire the right ones and You streamline it, you know throw in some of these AI tools
and you focus on product, not service, that can really just start passive incoming you a lot easier than a real estate portfolio with 10 property managers, tenants, blah, blah. So I think that’s kind of how I see it. ETFs and some of the ETFs can be more aggressive, like you can get super aggressive ones and can be gold. Some real estate. ⁓
building a business or acquiring a business and having a pension. And I kind of want to focus on this business thing for a minute. Because I think that there are a lot of people who I’ve encountered who say, well, business is a bit of a privilege. And absolutely, because business is risk. Like sometimes it’s feast, sometimes it’s famine. In the beginning, it’s generally famine until you finally have a product that work and then it becomes a little feast. So maybe this doesn’t resonate to everybody. But people in a couple, like,
an actual long-term couple, one strategy that I think that works really well is one person goes and earns income and one person builds a business. That way, everybody has health insurance, everybody has day-to-day food needs, but one person is literally focusing on, okay, how am I going to work this business out of a job? ⁓
think that’s a really important thing. if I may, one anecdote. Yesterday, I go to the post office. Post offices are really interesting as a business. So I go to the post office and I’m speaking to the guy and turns out he’s the owner of the post office. And he used to be, and I was getting a passport taken. And he’s like, your passport’s already done. You filled it up. And I was like, yeah, I used to travel a lot for work because I used to have to travel all over the place for work and that’s in part why I built a business so I could travel less. And he’s like, yeah, used to travel.
all the time. I was a CEO of ⁓ a large car company and I thought, well that’s interesting and it’s like a very small post office. He’s like, yeah but then we had kids and I don’t want to travel anymore. So I bought my wife and I bought a post office. It’s around the corner from our house, around the corner from the school and guess what a post office also is? It can be a bank.
And so it’s, some people would think, but you were the CEO of this thing, and it’s like, I work like five hours a week.
There’s one other employee here. I pick up my daughter. Like I’m home by 4.30. I just think like, you know, we need to be more strategic. People need to really think about that business side, especially given how unstable jobs are. Like you can have a big job and then you cannot have a big job. So that would be something I strongly advocate for. Like real estate is fantastic, but real estate is an asset as is a business. Whereas like the other, so I think really thinking
about those two and then also when you do have real estate, it like a business. I know that we can get very precious about our houses and all this and all that, but it’s like, you know, at the end of the day, if you’re renting it out, it’s a business.
Michelle Kesil (23:53)
Yeah, amazing. I think that is something very wise and not a lot of people hit on. So I love that you brought that up. Amazing Rosalia. So before we begin to wrap up here, if somebody wants to get Bixie, learn more about it, reach out and connect with everything that you’re offering, where can people find you, learn about you, reach you? Go for it.Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (24:15)
Okay, all my shameless plugs. We havea workshop coming up on the 7th of February. It’s one of our classic Vixi workshops. We love new entrants. Please sign up. ⁓ It’s available on Eventbrite. I’ll add I’ll send all of the links to add to the show notes. So that’s really important. You can visit our website and you can download our… app
on chatgpt So that’s www.mybixie.com and you can find me and my team. We are on Instagram, My Bixie. We’re on Facebook at My Bixie. We’re on LinkedIn at My Bixie. And we’re very active. We have a very active community. So I would encourage anybody who’s listening, even if you’re like, I don’t want to do any of this, but you just want to be around people who are thinking about it to begin this manifestation journey. Really building community is so important.
Birds of a feather fly together and if you spend time with five people really focusing on their money, you’ll be focusing on it too. So I hope to see you 7th of February and stay tuned, we have workshops every month, online by the way, so you don’t have to, it’s an easy lift.
Michelle Kesil (25:18)
Amazing, well appreciate your time and your story. Thank you so much for being here.Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (25:23)
Thank you very much. and my last plug, please check out our Bixie podcast. It’s also on Spotify and wherever you find podcasts. And it’s a doozy. You’ll listen to a lot of very interesting and colorful money stories.Michelle Kesil (25:35)
Yeah,that’s exciting. Thank you for sharing all of that. Appreciate it. Sure. And for the listeners that are tuning in, if you got value, make sure that you have subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Rosalia who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on the next
Rosalia Gitau, CEO Bixie (25:38)
Thank you, Michelle.
