Stephen Chen wants to get financial planning into the hands of 100 million people—and working with advisors will help him get to that goal.
He has spent the last decade growing his consumer-focused financial planning startup Boldin—previously called ‘NewRetirement.’ Almost 400,000 consumers have accessed the platform, which provides tools for analyzing their financial wellness or building personal financial plans.
In September, the company, which has grown to more than 50 developers and employees, announced its name change “to reflect our hope for our customers: That you can be financially confident enough to be bold in life, whatever that means to you.”
The platform has a range of offerings, from simple, free, do-it-yourself software for basic financial and retirement planning to premium services that include access to articles, podcasts, classes, coaching and certified financial planners at a low flat fee. It introduced a snapshot that shows a user’s financial health measured across more than 20 metrics.
“There are 33,000 people paying us for planning, representing $90 billion in total assets—and the average free user of our platform has $1 million in total assets,” he said.
While its direct-to-consumer popularity continues to grow, so has interest from advisors and enterprise platforms, which can access the technology through APIs or as a white-label offering.
Several dozen smaller advisors are already actively using the platform with clients, and one large firm (he could not disclose the name) has built more than 2,300 plans representing about $4 billion in total assets.
“The average millennial on our platform with an advisor says they sought formal financial guidance at age 29,” said Chen, who noted that this was nine years sooner than the average Gen X client, and 20 years before baby boomers.
“This is why the advisor is so important. For a lot of people, they will use the platform and build a plan and say to themselves, ‘this looks interesting, but I want to bounce it by a CFP,’ he said.
Chen, 55, has spent the last decade on Boldin, but prior to that, he worked in technology for years, including stints with Dimensional Fund Advisors, Charles Schwab, Lloyd’s of London and Credit Suisse First Boston, as well as technology firms like HP and IBM.
The Boldin origin story is a homespun tale: His mother, worried about being able to retire, came to him and asked to borrow money.
Instead, he wanted to understand her finances and get a more holistic picture of her retirement needs. He found no simple way to do that, no well-rounded consumer planning applications, and few advisors at that time were touting financial planning services—most wanted to manage assets.
So he began to develop a solution that would enable anyone to create a plan based on their own resources, values, goals and priorities.
It turns out there is plenty of demand among advisors for the platform, too. Whether that growing army of wealth management users will get him to 100 million individual clients or not remains to be seen.
