Financial Expert Demystifies Money for Millions on TikTok. He’s Never Downloaded the App (Exclusive)

0Dean Indot; Alexis and Dean Indot.Credit: Alexis and Dean Indot/Instagram; River Callaway/Variety via GettyNEED TO KNOWDean Indot’s financial advice has gone viral on TikTok, thanks to videos filmed and posted by his wife, Alexis

Despite his success, Dean has never used TikTok and relies on Alexis to share his expertise with their audience

The couple emphasizes the power of their dynamic — Dean’s financial expertise and Alexis’s social media expertise helping them pinpoint which questions

Dean Indot has made it his mission to debunk the hordes of swirling misinformation he sees online about financial tips.

Online, his advice has gone viral, primarily on TikTok, where his videos (posted by his wife Alexis) reach millions of views and rack up hundreds of comments from curious social media users.

However, Indot himself has never used TikTok. In fact, he doesn’t even have the app downloaded. It’s thanks to Alexis that his advice has become as big as it has.

“I don’t do social media at all, even till today,” he tells PEOPLE.

“I was, in my world, we call it bearish, on social media,” he adds. “I wasn’t a big fan of it… I was one of the people who were anti-doom scrolling and people spending hours on it. I was telling Alexis, ‘You’re running your brain on that thing, go read a book or something.’ ”

Meanwhile, Alexis tells PEOPLE she “loves TikTok.”

Their videos, which often feature Dean at his desk mid-work, break down questions from viewers seeking Dean’s advice.

Dean has over 30 years of experience as a financial expert. His career has spanned multiple financial services companies and sectors. Now, he primarily works on the commercial banking side.

“As far as my expertise, how you see in our channel, I invest or trade, whatever you want to call it, and that’s just something I’ve been doing for 30 years on my own,” he adds. “I’ve never been directly involved in that as an investment advisor in my career.”

The two met during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and married during the summer of 2023. They started their channel in 2023, when their first video blew up almost instantly.

Dean says he was shocked when questions started coming in from viewers watching his videos.

“That’s when I changed my tone a little bit,” he says. “I was like, ‘Wow, people really don’t know this? Oh wow, that’s a really interesting question.’ I’m like, ‘Wow, okay, let me try and help.’ ”

“It’s very gratifying to know that I’m able to help people,” he says. “We’re able to help people in a topic that really is important in their lives pretty much.”

“This thing opened my eyes to, whoa, there is so much nonsense out there,” Alexis says. “And I’m like, my personality is that person in a classroom; if I hear BS, I’m the first one to raise my hand to quell it.”

Almost all of the couple’s videos are filmed and edited in one take. Sometimes Alexis preps Dean before filming, but sometimes she just starts rolling the camera. “I kind of know his knowledge base after doing this for so long, so I kind of know what he can and can’t talk about off the cuff,” she explains.

The couple agrees that part of the allure of Dean’s advice is how “natural” his responses come off.

“We’re just in Dean’s office,” says Alexis. “If there’s something happening on the news, as soon as I can, I ask him about it. If he’s available, I film it in one take on my iPhone. I don’t do any cuts or anything crazy with it.” She says this filming format makes it the “most authentic” and “people seem to trust it more.”

Financial literacy is a core mission for both of them, and Alexis acknowledges that it can be “confusing” with all the different resources available to start learning — but they both agree there are easy entry points regardless of a person’s prior knowledge.

Says Alexis, who is candid with PEOPLE that her understanding of financial topics is not as robust as Dean’s: “I think the first thing to do is understand who am I, what is my situation, where do I want to get to, what are my goals? And then try to find maybe resources, creators that align with your future goals and your style.”

Though his shared advice channel with Alexis has over two million TikTok followers, Dean is adamant that people shouldn’t “specifically” use social media for financial information.

“It’s not that it’s bad,” he adds. “But it’s too much noise that people don’t know how and what to make of it.”

While the couple acknowledges that starting to learn about finances is a personal journey and largely depends on the context of an individual’s life, they’re both adamant that planning for the future is the smartest thing that a novice looking to start managing their money responsibly can do.

“You need to save money, period,” says Dean. “No matter how young you are, usually the young people say they don’t need to, but you need to save money. Step one, that’s guiding principle number one: everybody must save. If you’re paycheck to paycheck, spend less on some other luxuries and try to save, or try to adjust your expenses and save. That’s the [most] important thing to start.”

He says young people, like those who watch his social media videos, need to “change their mindsets” when it comes to money. Despite his decades of work in the financial field, even Dean admits he was that “culprit too.”

“When I first graduated college, I was like, ‘Wow, I got a paycheck now and what kind of car can I buy?’ ” he admits. It’s natural, he says — which means people must be diligent about combating those feelings.

“The best advice I have is that your life will change, your responsibilities will grow, and it won’t be so carefree,” he continues. “So please put some money aside right now. And obviously the best way to do it is to put it into a retirement account because there are penalties to remove it, so that protects you from yourself, basically.”

“Time is your best friend. That’s the most important thing people need to understand. And I think it’s hard with young people, but a little bit of pain today, skipping two nights out’s worth of food and beverages, whatever, that little $50 to $100 can make a big difference if you put it into your retirement account today. A huge difference because of the power of compounding.”

Part of the magic of the couple’s social media partnership is that Alexis is a TikTok expert and Dean is not.

“She represents the audience,” says Dean. Since he’s not as “immersed” in the conversations online, he relies on Alexis to “paint that picture” of what conversations are taking hold so he can be “more accurate” in how he gives his information.

On the flip side, Alexis says that Dean not knowing what’s going on narratively on social media is perfect for their content too.

“So I kind of get an unfiltered outside of the ecosystem viewpoint on things,” she says. “So he doesn’t know what everyone’s chit-chatting about in the comments sections, and it keeps it untainted by that. So it’s part of the magic of us being separate.”