Showing up
The first thing you notice about Chase Burton is his presence. He’s more than friendly. He’s warm, direct, and disarmingly honest. The kind of person who makes you feel comfortable almost immediately, and then makes you feel like you can actually do the thing you’ve been putting off.
In his role as Stackwell’s Community Manager, that matters. Chase is often the first real conversation someone has about investing. He has a way of making those conversations feel natural — grounded, human, and free of pretense. He’s a dedicated professional, but he’s not trying to sound like one. He’s a work in progress, and he’s open about that.
For all intents and purposes, Chase embodies what Stackwell is trying to be. And every day, he’s working to bring more people into that experience — expanding access, building trust, and helping people take their first step.
But that instinct didn’t start here. It started much earlier.
Chase grew up in Douglasville, Georgia, a small town he describes simply: “There’s cows. It’s country.” He was raised by his mom in a single-parent household, in an environment where money wasn’t something you talked about — it was something you managed, quietly, as best you could.
“My mom didn’t have the financial knowledge to make her money grow,” he says. “I know what it’s like to have the lights cut off.”
For a long time, there were things he didn’t fully understand about his own story. “Everyone told me my dad was an astronaut,” he says. But eventually, the truth became impossible to ignore. “I saw my father get arrested on television when I was seven,” he says. “I saw my mom crying, and I had to wipe the tears from her eyes.”
At a young age, Chase made a decision. He didn’t have the full plan yet, but he had a principle; he was going to commit to excellence, and he was going to keep showing up.
He ended high school in the top 10% of his class, but his plan to get a football scholarship didn’t go exactly to plan. “I wasn’t the typical defensice-end,” he confesses, smiling. “I was 5’10 with shoes on.” There were no guarantees waiting for him at the next level. When he got to Morehouse, it was as a walk-on. No scholarship. No clear path.
But the approach didn’t change. He kept showing up.
“Football, weights, class, sleep,” he says. “That’s all I did. I was always the first in and last out.”
When his moment came, it didn’t look polished. It looked chaotic. A late-game situation, a team worn down, a freshman getting thrown in out of necessity more than strategy. “Everybody else is hurt. I’m a freshman. No scholarship. No one liked me,” he says. “I just prayed to God.”
Then instinct took over. “I crawled through the guy’s legs. We got the tackle,” he says. Next play, he did it again. By the end of that season, he had earned a scholarship and a 3.8 GPA. Not because everything clicked at once, but because he kept putting himself in position for something to.
That pattern followed him. Through Morehouse. Through graduating in three years. Through Georgetown. And eventually, to Stackwell.
“When I first connected with Trevor, I didn’t think I was going to get a mentor out of it,” Chase says. But the opportunity came, and like everything else, he stepped into it before he felt fully ready.
“I was starting up in a startup,” he says. “That’s crazy for your first job.” At first, he kept his head down. “I just wanted to be a sponge.” But over time, the same habit took hold. Show up. Speak up. Figure it out as you go.
“I went from having just a little knowledge and rarely speaking to being one of the loudest people in the room,” he says. Within six months, he was promoted.
Now, he sits at the center of the user experience — working directly with people who are navigating investing for the first time. People who are skeptical. People who have been told, explicitly or implicitly, that this space isn’t for them. And his message to them is simple:
“Just keep pushing,” he says. “If you keep going, you just keep showing up.” It’s not framed as a grand philosophy. It’s practical. It’s what he’s lived. Because for Chase, showing up isn’t just how you get through hard moments. It is the strategy. It’s how you build confidence before you feel confident. It’s how you learn something before you fully understand it. It’s how you start investing before you feel like an investor.
“Just be who you are,” he says. “You don’t have to wait your turn. You’re fine being the person who you are. There’s strengths there. That’s your superpower.” That belief shows up in how he works with users. It shows up in how he approaches his own finances. Investing didn’t start as a perfectly optimized plan. It started the way it does for most people: trying things, learning, adjusting.
Now, it’s consistent. Automatic. Something he does at the beginning of every month without overthinking it. That’s the shift he tries to help other people make, too. In a lot of communities, these conversations don’t happen. Not because people don’t care, but because they haven’t been invited in. They haven’t seen themselves in it.
“Black people like to see people doing it and proving it,” he says. “Word is going to get out.” So he shows them. In conversations. On campuses. Through relationships that last long after a program ends.
He talks about a student named Paris, who had never invested before connecting with Stackwell. Now, they still keep in touch. “He’s my mentee now,” Chase says. “So I feel like Trevor.”
That’s how it spreads. Not all at once. But person by person. Conversation by conversation. And underneath all of it is the same mindset that’s carried Chase from the beginning. “My mom didn’t raise a quitter,” he says. It’s not said for effect. It’s just the truth.
When you zoom out, the bigger picture Chase was looking for all along isn’t something you suddenly arrive at. It’s something you build — one decision, one action, one day at a time. You show up, even when you don’t have the full plan. Especially then, in fact.
And before you know it, you’ve made your own path forward.