First of all, Betterment and Wealthfront are good companies. If "startups" concern you, check out Schwab's robo-advisor service or, better, get a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund.
> get a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund
That being said, better to think of the risk profile questions in the demo as "dummy data". And it's pretty easy to change.
Go to Advisor -> Proposals -> Edit and update the questions. Here's a gif - http://i.imgur.com/DsZx51m.gif
What's even cooler, thought, is that this "dummy data" is loaded with fixtures. Meaning we can update it and next time you or I install wealthbot.io, no more poorly worded question! Another gif - http://i.imgur.com/1QATMeC.gif
Finally, a quick note on robo advisors. These are great services, wealthbot.io doesn't compete with them. That being said, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Be weary of Schwab's portfolio suggestions, as the CEO of Wealthfront mentions in this article - https://medium.com/@adamnash/broken-values-bottom-lines-3d55...
When coming from an RIA or other regulated entity, yes.
1. please realize that this is an open source project, so every single line of text or code can be changed to your liking. (not to mention that these are simply sample questions, and any end-user can edit them to be as complex or simple as they like). I can just as well ask your feeling about sky-diving and judge your risk tolerance based on that.
2. You have to understand the target audience. Today RIA's can pay lots of money to schwabs, fidelities, etc. Which have significant vendor lock-in and high up-front and maintenance costs, with open source RIA's have a choice they can build out a solution custom tailored to their needs using our platform. They are not locked into any specific security or cost basis. They can compete with robo-advisors without spending millions or hundreds of thousands on technology. (btw, wanna build anther robo advisor, run many firms as SaaS or build an app like Acorns? .. you can do that too).
3. Finally you can try a portfolio consisting of S&P 500 only, another Vanguard LifeStrategy only, and something more complex... just for shits and giggles see whether you can do better or not. (Wanna test a portfolio that is rebalanced vs non-rebalanced? You can do that.)
our platform is open-source alternative to costly closed-sourced solutions (this is not a new market, we are just giving users another choice)... like there are 100's of shopping carts out there, it's time for fintech to embrace some projects which cater to the masses, not only select few.
but whenever you implement any financial software, you go through the same audits. whether you paid $1M for it or got it for free.
you do realize that most banks run on open source platforms (linux). and there are countless magento installations out there? to debate whether an open source alternative is viable to a closed-sourced model we'd have to travel back 20 years, when this debate was relevant.
and bashing free stuff, is like bashing free samples at the super market... feel free to move along.
cheers.
drop us a note at hi [at] wealthbot.io