Prediction markets are having a moment.
From political elections to sporting events and even Taylor Swift album releases, more people are discovering markets where they can trade on the probability of future events. Yet for newcomers, prediction markets can still feel intimidating. Real money is on the line, the platforms are unfamiliar and the learning curve can be steep.
Melissa Footlick believes there is a better way.
The former Chief Operating Officer of Topstep, one of the pioneers of the retail proprietary trading industry, has launched Catalyst, a platform that lets users learn and practise prediction market trading in a simulated environment before risking real capital.
The idea grew from more than a decade spent helping build one of the industry’s best-known trading businesses. Joining Topstep as its second employee in 2010, Footlick spent eleven years helping transform the company into one of the sector’s major players before eventually becoming COO. After leading operations at a government technology company, she returned to the trading world last year only to discover that while the industry had grown dramatically, innovation had largely stalled.
“There are over 2,000 retail prop firms across all asset classes,” she says. “But they’re all just a copy and paste of one another. The ones with the best marketing survive and thrive.”
What surprised her most wasn’t simply the lack of innovation, but the lack of transparency. Trying to understand one firm’s trading programme required reading through lengthy legal agreements and help articles, and even searching Reddit for answers.
“I was like, ‘This is so broken,'” she recalls.
“The complaints are always the same,” she adds. “The rules aren’t clear up front, and payouts are too often left to the discretion of the firm.”
At the same time, prediction markets were beginning to move into the mainstream. Platforms such as Polymarket were attracting increasing attention, but Footlick noticed there was no easy way for people to gain experience before committing their own money.
“I could trade on Taylor Swift’s album release,” she laughs. “That spoke to me. But there really wasn’t an opportunity for anybody to learn prediction markets without funding an account.”
Catalyst was born from that observation.
Rather than functioning as another proprietary trading firm, Catalyst allows users to participate in trading challenges using live prediction market data in a simulated environment. Participants pay a one-time entry fee, trade a simulated account and, if they successfully complete the challenge, they receive a cash payout immediately without progressing through the often-complex stages common elsewhere in the industry.
Footlick says simplicity became a guiding principle.
“I’m going to simplify it, make it straightforward. There’s no fine print. Everything is on the website and it’s fully objective.”
Building the company has been as much a personal commitment as a professional one.
“I invested my entire retirement savings, took out a loan and maxed out the credit cards,” she says matter-of-factly. “I wanted to build something better and different.”
Catalyst has since closed a funding round to accelerate its growth and product development.
The platform launched last month and is still in its early stages. Around 600 people have registered accounts, with roughly 300 having already completed trading challenges, many through promotional offers used to test and refine the experience. Feedback has already prompted changes to make the initial challenge more achievable.
Designing the challenge is “both an art and a science,” Footlick says. “We’re continually refining it as we get more data and feedback from traders.”
Footlick is realistic about what success looks like.
Rather than chasing explosive growth, her immediate focus is finding product-market fit and validating that traders value a simpler, more transparent approach.
“I’m not only building a business in a relatively new asset class,” she says. “I’m also trying to build a new category.”
Discounted Catalyst challenge for Blockleaders readers
Catalyst has offered Blockleaders readers a free $1,000 simulated account to trade live prediction market data. Use code BLOCKLEADERS at checkout: https://www.tradecatalyst.com/. Pass the challenge and earn $100.
