Hacker News Reader

Comment by jollyjerry | Hacker News Reader

Curious to hear what you're looking for from a wealth management product.

With banking / brokerage platforms like Alpaca, it's possible to create an open source roboadvisor, but I'm not sure who the market would be. Someone who is interested in algorithmic trading would go directly access the API's, and someone who wants a hands off experience could choose from existing products, or get bundled services from a big bank.

I'm squarely in the frankenstein of spreadsheets, but also made a mobile frontend in https://jch.app The people I've talked to who use spreadsheets do it because it's fun.

View on HN

Yes I've done a lot of customer discovery interviews in this space, and what resonates is a quote: "People like spending their money, not spending time with it."

Outside of people who money manage for a living, most analysis tools seem to fit into a "low frequency, low pain" problem for individuals in the "retail" segment. UHNW have so many assets they need tailored help. And people with huge pain in debt don't have much time, or lack the wherewithal to manage spreadsheets or analysis apps.

Ya the people I talked to that enjoyed tinkering were FIRE enthusiasts or bogleheads. But that felt more like entertainment and community rather than looking for a solution to a specific problem.

I talked with small financial advisory firms (1-3 advisors) to see if there were some backend tools to help them with client work. There's some initial data gathering and entry, but the value is the coaching and psychology rather than the hard numbers.

Yes I think that is very true about advisory. In the retail space a lot of the value prop for an advisor seems similar to a personal trainer -- someone to keep you accountable. At the "more money, more problems" level, advisors actually do become busy executing specific tasks -- monitoring and trading multiple accounts, negotiation among family members, real estate agents, or PE firms... -- tech is empowering advisors to do more rather than replacing them.

I like Arta's pitch as a "digital family office" that handles more than just investments. Managing investments is still table stakes, but they also throw in estate planning and other offerings that a traditional financial advisor would offer.

I tried Titan a while back and found that less compelling as a "hedge fund / active management roboadvisor". It didn't seem to differentiate sufficiently from the passive roboadvisors or what traditional wealth management could offer.

One thing that I would like to see is tax impact analysis though this is naturally very country-specific.

For example I would like to calculate the impact of wash sale or seeing the tax impact for selling from certain lot (in terms of short/long term taxes). And if you did these what would your tax impact look like if you sold things at expected mark growth rate (or certain value you set).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com