I like the continuous recalculation approach you’re thinking about - it would be helpful knowing that what I’m invested in is constantly being re-aligned towards my goals. Not sure if beginner investors will really care about this - it may be a bit advanced. But if the platform is targeted towards prosumers or people who are already investing, I can see the appeal. How is the no-custody aspect managed? Everyone makes trades on their own?

Totally fair point. We think that beginner investors already have a ton of resources at their disposal. There are a lot of platforms aimed at making it as easy as possible to start investing for the first time. We're focused on people who are already investing and who want to just have more clarity as to where they stand financially and whether their goals are actually on track.

The no-custody aspect is really a starting place. We wanted to eliminate the usual friction that investment platforms impose in asking people to transfer their assets before receiving service. We think this is one of the biggest points of friction in financial services, and one which drives up CACs across the industry.

Functionally, what happens with our platform now is that we show you exactly what to invest in with specific ETFs to buy and keep you on track with regular rebalancing instructions. You then make those trades wherever you're already investing. Trades sync to our platform through an API connection (Plaid/SnapTrade) so you can see your progress towards your goal.

Our aim is to add a custody solution as well, letting users trade on the platform, but we always want to offer the non-custody solution as an entry point for users, making it super easy to get started and gradually earn user trust.

I like the idea of the non-custodial model in theory, but won’t that be challenging for new investors just starting out? They’d have to set up two platforms rather than one, just to start working with you, if I’m reading your model right.

Good question! We think the beginner side of the market is very well catered to. Robo advisors like Wealthfront and Betterment make it dead-easy to start with the basic objective of "growing money". And then there are platforms like Robinhood, good for straight-up gambling. So if you're JUST starting out and don't already have an investing platform, there are plenty of choices.

Our ideal user is someone a bit farther along. They already have a financial base - often $50,000+ invested, usually across several institutions. And that's the key.

Asking people who are already investing to uproot and send their money to another financial platform is a massive point of friction. This causes sky-high customer acquisition costs. We want to both avoid these costs and minimize friction users experience.

This is why a non-custodial model works so well for our market. We work with what they already have.