Fortunately, it’s relatively easy for the average person to trade stock in public companies nowadays. Unfortunately, it’s not currently effectively legal for small start-ups to sell stock to the average person, but hopefully that will change within a year or two.

For buying and selling stock in public companies, online brokers make the process easy, convenient and relatively inexpensive. Traditionally, if one had savings to invest, you’d find a brick & mortar broker/financial advisor office in your town, they’d recommend or insist on a given portfolio and either charge standard fees or bill commissions based on your earnings. Online brokers started appearing online by the late 90s’ which allowed investors to bypass the higher commissions and scrutiny of traditional brokers. Although online brokers had their downsides for some (naive, impulsive investors tended to lose more money without an advisor’s experienced oversight), many found it a more freeing and profitable way to trade. Online brokers also allowed people to get started with relatively little. Traditional, brick & mortar brokers may have laughed at you if you came in with any less than $10,000 or $20,000 thousand to invest, whereas online brokers have minimums of $1000, $500 or no minimum at all. There have been some sad stories, such as many naive (and many experienced) investors who lost it all when the dot-com bubble burst, but many happy stories too, many clever, disciplined investors at least doing slightly better than the market average.