Oisin Breen

RobustWealth's CEO tells me all I need to know -  "Going it alone as a VC-backed firm scared me as I didn't have that part of the vision. I couldn't do it without a firm like Principal, and then they fell into our lap!"

DOA.

I'm amazed that none of these robo's has figured out a sound business model / distribution strategy yet.

As Principal takes RobustWealth reins, the looming question is whether it follows the Northwestern-LearnVest script, which had a depressing final scene

Principal Financial

Northwestern Mutual

LearnVest

RobustWealth

RetireOne

Stripped down to its essentials, financial advice is a fairly straightforward proposition. Done well, a highly ethical individual stewards the assets and actions of an investor in a personal and professional interchange.
 
But now a vibrant new class of entrepreneurs is staking their fates and their fortunes on the premise that financial advice can be delivered in a better, cheaper, easier, more ethical, more transparent manner and, as a bonus, in a way more devoid of human annoyance on both ends of the transaction.
 
Cue the robo-advisors, arguably a callous misnomer for automated asset management. 
 
The prototypical robo-advisory entrepreneur has more brands on his or her resume than NASCAR. The bona fides of these industry upstarts often include Ivy-level colleges and MBA programs at Harvard or Stanford. They are often flush with IPO dollars realized at concerns like LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Amazon  and Microsoft. 
 
Robo-folk believe that technology is not an enabler of advice but rather, if engineered correctly, advice itself in digital form. 
 
And, they believe the best solutions originate in Silicon Valley or academia, not Wall Street. Robo-entrepreneurs are white-boarding the whole business model, culture and technology from scratch in the conviction that little can be learned from a legacy advice system still rooted in an investment banking culture acting under the core premise that if stockbrokers get rich some of the good effects will trickle down to clients – with the clients none the wiser. 
 
Robo-advisors are a scintillating topic for students of the advice game as they grow by hundreds of millions in assets every month, constantly evolve their business models and receive cash infusions from ever-larger swaths of venture capitals.
 
Throw in the fact that robo-advisors have yet to see a dime in profits -- and won’t in the foreseeable future -- and you have real intrigue. 
 
RIABiz has avidly covered the fast-evolving robo-advice phenomenon and will continue to do so. We present the growing body of articles here.

Robo-Advisors

<p>The RIA business has many tech vendors working hard to serve its diverse needs, and we're seeing technology become a more crucial part of setting up and running an RIA than ever before.</p>

<p>The Technology section includes unbiased tech reviews, tech-related news, and coverage of tech-related conferences.</p>

Technology

The disparity in size, culture, locale and tenure between the $1 billion AUA robo and the $673 billion financial titan, makes the marriage an interesting case study

As Principal takes RobustWealth reins, the looming question is whether it follows the Northwestern-LearnVest script, which had a depressing final scene

Related Moves

November 20, 2019 at 10:19 PM

Brian Murphy

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