

Live Long And Prosper with FutureAdvisor (YC S10) - jonxu
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/03/futureadvisor/

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dschobel
Okay, I'm very impressed. I work at a financial research company so I
approached this with a very skeptical eye and was worried that this was going
to be "The Idiots Guide to Index Investing" where it just pushed advice
without explaining what the methodology was, all wrapped up in some Web 2.0
gradients and rounded corners.

What I found, I'm happy to report, was a lot of technical depth _just_
underneath the surface. When it told me to consider investing in Real Estate,
I first scoffed and then clicked the "why this model portfolio?" link and saw
all the reasoning, complete with references to original sources.

In short, they managed to strike a nice balance between being user friendly vs
overwhelming the users with financial theory.

Great work guys.

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Harj
_In short, they managed to strike a nice balance between being user friendly
vs overwhelming the users with financial theory._

it's not coincidence or luck they've struck that balance. for the past two
months they've paid a painstaking amount of attention to how to present that
technical info without overwhelming the user. i saw it evolve week by week and
it's cool to see users appreciate it.

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cperciva
Please make it possible to enter data directly rather than providing login
credentials and having you download it. This would solve two problems: First,
the fact that some people won't want to give you access to their money; and
second, the fact that some people have accounts not with one of the three
mentioned funds.

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jonxu
Thanks for the feedback, this is in the works. For the second issue, we are
planning to push out additional financial institution support in the near
future even with the current download method. For the first, you're right that
entering manually or even uploading from a standard file format (e.g. csv)
will help reduce friction. -Jon

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cperciva
_we are planning to push out additional financial institution support in the
near future even with the current download method_

You're never going to cover everything. Also keep in mind that even if you're
targetting US users, you're going to have non-US users -- who have non-US
investment accounts, and often e.g., pension plans which don't have online
access at all.

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jonxu
Point taken. Manual entry is definitely a proper catch-all. The Yodlee service
gets pretty close, although perhaps not as wide reach internationally (I
believe they support some banks in India) or pensions.

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groaner
The one thing that makes this kind of service a no-go for me is the need for
me to disclose my password to a third party. What would it take for the
financial institution to allow read-only access using a separate set of
credentials? All I have here is that I have to take FutureAdvisor's word that
their access is read-only.

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jonxu
Hi Jon here from FutureAdvisor. Thanks for the feedback. We're working on
allowing you to enter your investments manually which would solve this problem
somewhat. A bit less convenient. I'm with you, it would be great for banks and
financial institutions to do a read-only password. Quick question, what are
your thoughts about using Mint.com?

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iamelgringo
I didn't use it because of the privacy issues. Probably a bit too much Nerd
Privacy Paranoia Disorder (TM).

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aspiringsensei
Don't you incur large potential liabilities by dispensing financial advice
over the internet?

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tansey
To a financial professional (or at least to me), the info that's available
without signing up is a little vague. It would be great if you could clarify
things in the details pages. Maybe a demo or tour?

How exactly are you optimizing portfolios? If I had to guess from the
description, I'd guess you guys just cracked open "A Random Walk Down Wall
Street" and made a big if/else chain based on people's age as to how much they
should invest. Is there any kind of mean/variance optimization going on here?

Also, how are you determining which funds are "similar"? Is it just the
description of the assets or are you actually calculating correlations of
returns and finding historically similar assets?

Are you guys a registered RIA? Your terms of service say that you are not
providing financial advice, but I'm curious as to how that actually holds up.
I mean your company name is "future advisor" and you are recommending people
invest in different areas based on dschobel's comment. That seems like advice
to me.

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lutorm
Found some typos in your "investment methodology" article:

In _additon_ , many funds charge high fees...

If you agree _with_ luminaries...

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johnnyg
I'm hitting some major slows during registration. Two 504 time outs. Good
problem to have. :)

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jonxu
Jon here from FutureAdvisor. Thanks, we're thrilled that people are excited
about investing the right way for the long-term. Thanks for being patient.

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azymnis
good job guys!

