We were lucky to catch up with Melisa Boutin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melisa, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Note: Figures quoted in Eastern Caribbean Dollars | 1 USD = 2.70 XCD

I started my personal finance self-education journey in the United States. There, I had access to digital financial education from my employer, at my local community library, as a bank customer, and via online personal finance blogs, for free.

Free and accessible online financial education helped me expand my knowledge about how to tackle student loan debt and gave me a guide to pay off $90,000 in debt, buy a home, invest almost $100,000 for the long-term and overcome life events that set me back financially.

After this personal finance win, I became a Certified Financial Education Instructor℠ and wrote a guide for college-bound international students titled: “Student Loan Answers – A 7-Step Guide to Understanding Your Caribbean Student Loan” (https://www.amzn.com/0692920358)

A few years later, my son and I moved back to my home country of St. Kitts & Nevis. While there, I realized there was a big problem of low financial literacy across the entire Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. According to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank’s Financial Literacy and Financial Inclusion Survey Results Report (https://www.eccb-centralbank.org/financial-literacy-and-financial-inclusion), adults in the Eastern Caribbean focus more on short-term spending than long-term saving and planning. 44% of adults can’t cover a major expense without borrowing, and almost 50% are financially vulnerable. This is not a problem just for individuals because financial consumers’ poor financial health affects the financial system at large; fueling the region’s unsustainable rates of non-performing loans (NPLs).

To tackle the problem, I founded Your Money Worth, a tech-enabled company to build digital financial education solutions to reduce non-performing loans & empower communities in the region and beyond.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Your Money Worth is a Caribbean Startup focused on driving the collective financial wellbeing of communities in the Caribbean and Diaspora. Your Money Worth’s all-in-one digital financial wellness and engagement platform helps financial institutions, employers, and housing development agencies boost their employees and customer communities’ financial skills with culturally relevant, engaging, and measurable video-based lessons, social content & online financial wellness tools.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Shortly after I took a break from my engineering career, I became a solo parent and went from a two-income household to a one-income household. In the midst of these life-altering events, I took the leap to work in financial services with no prior professional experience in that field and found an opportunity that allowed me to work part-time, gain experience in this new sector, fulfill my primary caregiving responsibilities, and earn a scholarship to study at the American College of Financial Services.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Note: I am a solo founder. This is about how I found my business coach

In 2024, I was one of 22 technology and technology-enabled startup founders selected by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Global Startup Hub to participate in the Draper University Hero Training Program in Silicon Valley, California. At this entrepreneurship and startup pre-accelerator, I networked with over 100 founders from around the world and joined a 3-person team for the program’s Hackathon. During the weekend of hacking, I met Dr. Tamu Petra Browne, who would become an essential connection, trusted business coach, and strategist on my journey to progress Your Money Worth’s financial education and financial wellness platform from idea to MVP.

Contact Info:

• Website: yourmoneyworth.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/yourmoneyworthco
• Facebook: facebook.com/yourmoneyworthco
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/Melisaboutin
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@yourmoneyworthco
• Other: https://instagram.com/yourmoneyworthapp

Image Credits
Profile Image – Copyright Shavon Thomas for CJ Creates
Additional Images – Courtesy Melisa Boutin