Say Hello to Grove

Financial advice is broken

A few years ago, my wife and I started thinking seriously about buying a home and starting a family. We had to face two questions: were we financially “on track” for our future, and were there opportunities to be doing something smarter with our money?

Talking to our friends, I realized how common and difficult these questions were. We looked for a financial advisor, but were surprised when we couldn’t find anyone that offered a service that made sense to us.

When I dug further, I found three fundamental issues with the financial advice industry trying to serve our generation:

1. It’s way too expensive. Advisors we met with wanted to charge thousands of dollars just to get started with a financial plan, or required us to have at least a million dollars invested with them. The industry is focused on helping people who are already rich, which means that many people aren’t able to get the advice they need.
2. It’s built for an older generation. To get advice, you’ll need to take a step back in time; you fill out paper forms, spend hours in an office, and receive a long, hard-to-understand plan. Advisors can run detailed simulations of retirement distribution strategies, but that’s the least of your concerns if your first child is just around the corner.
3. Your interest might not come first. This is the crazy one: 9/10 of financial advisors do not have an obligation to act solely in your best interest¹. Wait, what? Yes - the person you are paying for advice likely isn’t required to tell you what’s best for you and can make recommendations that pay higher commissions.

Young people have a serious problem

My wife and I weren’t alone in struggling to find answers. 82% of millennials are worried about their financial situation, but only 14% said they would seek professional advice² ³.

For our generation in particular, decisions made now have a huge impact on our future. Small changes to spending and savings habits, investing correctly with low fees, and maximizing the benefits available to us can all compound and make a large difference in what we can accomplish and what lifestyle we can pursue in the future.

Millennials’ concerns about money is affecting their life now: 28% of millennials say that financial anxiety is impacting their job performance consistently, and 23% say that it makes them physically ill on a weekly or monthly basis⁴.

This stress is not necessary.

Grove is the solution

Today, I am proud to share what I have been working on for the last two years. With an incredible team of technology veterans and financial experts, we built Grove to make comprehensive financial planning accessible and affordable for everyone.

Grove empowers people to make sense of their financial needs and take action now to build towards their future. We are a personal trainer for your money: our team of Certified Financial Planners™ will assess where you are today and create a plan to get you into financial shape. When you work with us, you can be confident that you are doing the right thing with your money.

The guidance we provide gets at the real questions people are asking; it goes far beyond what should be in your investment portfolio. We spend time getting to know you and your goals so we can create a personalized plan that covers your whole financial life. Once the plan is in place, we work with you to help you stay on track for the future.

We are reinventing financial planning for our generation:

1. Software drives efficiency. Our proprietary software enables us to offer personalized advice from real Certified Financial Planners™ at a fraction of the price of traditional financial advisors. We have no requirement that you invest anything with us, ever.
2. A better experience. The design and usability of Grove was important to us from the beginning. With the ability to link your accounts, view your plan on your phone, and chat with our advisors online, you can have an experience that fits in with the rest of your life.
3. Your interests ahead of ours. We have a fiduciary obligation to always put our clients’ interests ahead of our own. Clients should demand nothing less, and it is the right thing to do.

Building something this big is a team effort

We’re incredibly thankful to the investors that participated in our $2.1 million seed round: First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Upside Partnership, Fuel Capital, SV Angel, Box Group, Compound, The Center for Financial Services Innovation and angel investors that include Jake Gibson (co-founder of NerdWallet) and Joe Kraus (co-founder of Excite.com).

What’s next?

Today, we are beginning to open our doors to the public. The first step is to join an online intro session where you will meet an advisor, learn more about our service and get your questions answered. Register for a session today at hellogrove.com.

We’ve also launched our free financial checkup on our website, so that people can receive an expert analysis of their own financial situation.

We look forward to working with you!

Chris Hutchins
Co-founder and CEO of Grove

Notes:

1. A 2011 study by the SEC showed that 88% of investment advisor representatives were also registered as broker-dealer representatives. Broker-dealer representatives are generally held to the suitability standard, which is less strict than the fiduciary standard. This means that in their “duties” as a broker-dealer representative, they could recommend more expensive (higher commission!) investments. Study on Investment Advisers and Broker-Dealers; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; January 2011
2. BoA/USA Today Better Money Habits® Millennial Report. Fall 2015
3. UBS Investor Watch. Q1 2014
4. Northwestern Mutual 2017 Planning and Progress Study

This material is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy or investment product. Our views and opinions expressed in any online content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Investments, including the ones involving the recommendations in the customized financial plan described herein, involve some degree of risk. There is no guarantee that the investment objective or overall goals for the financial plan will be achieved. There is the possibility of loss and all investment involves risk including the loss of principal. Please see hellogrove.com for our full Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.