Start Investing Without Losing Any Real Money: The Best Way to Get Started Most of us learn to invest by opening a demat account and jumping straight into the real market. There's nothing inherently wrong with that — but it also means you'll likely make a fair number of mistakes, and lose real money, while you're still learning. → Related: What Is the Share Market? (#2) — for more on demat accounts and how they work. There's a better way to build confidence first: paper trading apps , which let you practice buying and selling stocks using real market prices, without risking any actual money. How It Works Apps like this typically start you off with a set amount of virtual cash (often somewhere in the $10,000–$100,000 range, depending on the app) tied to real, live market data. You buy and sell exactly as you would with real money — same prices, same market movements, same timing — except none of it is real. If a stock you "bought" rises and you sell it, you...