IAN DUNLAP

Dunlap grew up in Chicago and developed an interest in markets at a young age, influenced partly by watching the wealth gap between communities and wanting to understand what drove it. He began trading in his early 20s, focusing on growth stocks and building a methodology around identifying companies with strong earnings momentum.

He started producing content on social media, initially through the Earn Your Leisure podcast and his own channels, where he discussed individual stock picks in detail.

His content found an audience in a demographic that mainstream financial media consistently underserved — young Black men and women who wanted to invest but found traditional finance media culturally irrelevant. He has spoken extensively about the racial wealth gap as both a personal motivation and a structural problem that financial literacy alone cannot solve but can meaningfully address at the individual level.

Ian Dunlap operates through The Market Maker brand — a financial education platform that includes YouTube content, social media posts, stock picks, and a paid subscription community. He has been a recurring guest on Earn Your Leisure, one of the most popular business podcasts in America, which gave him significant exposure.

He also runs live events and workshops.

Dunlap focuses on high-growth tech and consumer stocks — companies he believes are in dominant market positions with expanding earnings. He is a concentrated investor who tracks individual company performance closely.

He tends to favor blue-chip technology companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google) as core holdings while also making more speculative picks on emerging growth names. He is explicit about his picks publicly, which creates accountability but also creates risk when the picks underperform.

His growth on Earn Your Leisure and in the urban finance space is the defining win. The podcast consistently ranks in the top finance podcasts in America, and Dunlap''s episodes there introduced him to millions of listeners who had not encountered serious stock market education framed in culturally relevant terms.

His ability to discuss Apple earnings and systemic inequality in the same conversation without it feeling forced is a rare skill.

Several of his publicly stated stock picks have underperformed significantly, which has generated criticism from both followers who acted on them and finance media observers who point to the risks of public stock recommendations. Individual stock picking is genuinely difficult and the public accountability of naming picks creates asymmetric reputational risk: right calls are expected, wrong calls are noticed.

He has maintained conviction in his methodology while acknowledging specific misses.

Dunlap''s philosophy is that wealth building is a skill that can be learned and that the Black community''s historic exclusion from investing culture — both structural and cultural — has created a compounding disadvantage that individual action can partially offset. He believes understanding how markets work, owning quality growth companies for the long term, and building investment habits early are the highest-leverage financial actions available to individuals.

He frames investing as empowerment, not just finance.

Dunlap is private about his personal life. He is based in Atlanta and has spoken about Chicago as formative for his understanding of economic inequality.

His public identity is built around his investing philosophy and community mission rather than personal lifestyle.

Dunlap has not disclosed his formal educational background extensively. His financial education is largely self-directed — built through years of active trading, study, and learning in public.

He frequently references the importance of financial education being accessible regardless of formal credential.

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