Betterment

“Eli had saved money as well as a lawyer, and so we funded the business out of our savings.”

“If it was that hard for me, ah, someone who's had all the benefits of, you know, ah, business school, and a degree in economics, and a CFA, and all of these, like, and working in the industry, wow, it must be impossible for the average person to manage their m…”

“The first meeting that he set up was with Bessemer Ventures, and we went out and we pitched Rob Stavis, and it was love at first pitch. We said, we're building this Company that is going to help people make the most of their money. And Rob said, this is fascin…”

“300 that day, right? Wow. 350. They were just, and we were amazed. We think this is incredible. And they were small deposits at first, right? Nobody put in more than, you know, 10 K or so. But all of a sudden, by, within a few days, we had a million dollars un…”

“Anyone who's invested with us is also getting some Vanguard funds. So in a sense, we're partners with them.”

“Yeah, we expect to be in the ballpark of 18 to twenty billion by the end of 2018.”

“We think of our target customer as being someone who's making over a 100,000 dollars. That means they're a professional.”

“One thing that we did right was in the early days we created provisions around buyouts, and I'm so happy we did that, and when people ask for advice, I always tell them to do this”

“And by the way, in that time, we're asking our employees to reduce their salaries and even contribute capital. To buy more equity, to pay themselves. So we were buying time as best we could until we could raise some capital.”

“We tax manage for you to save you more than you even pay us in fees. In taxes, we give you net positive returns on your investment with us”

“I didn't want to be a bank. I didn't want to be A broker. I didn't want to be any of those things, because I think they all have bad reputations for a reason. They're manufacturing product and selling product.”

“There were a couple other competitors that started at that time that still exist. Everyone who started since is either really tiny or has been acquired or this or that.”

“He's the CEO and founder of Betterment, which at the time of this recording was valued at eight hundred million dollars.”

“I had to come back to them and say, I don't think we did this right, and I want to renegotiate our split here. And that was tough, but you know, ultimately they were they agreed that that, that they should take smaller shares.”

“Among all of our customers, only two percent more customers withdrew in March than did in a normal month for us, and by far more customers were depositing the withdrawing”

“26% more of our total customer base was depositing ad hoc, not just auto deposit, but actually actively putting more money in than pulling money out.”

“In our survey of millennials, I think it was 33% of Gen Z lost jobs in our survey due to COVID versus only about eight percent of the baby boomers had lost jobs.”

“We're seeing another 40% put it into long-term retirement savings, things like an IRA, Or a four Oh one K and actually the smallest minority, maybe it's maybe it's 15% is putting putting that money toward say an immediate spending need.”

“For investors who are closer to retirement, we're recommending more conservative portfolios. We're putting them into more cash. We're putting them into more bonds that are less volatile in times like these. And nevertheless, they're more likely to withdraw tha…”

“For millennials, the most interesting thing is that for millennials, it was 37% more were putting ad hoc money in than withdrawing.”

“Focus doesn't mean exclusivity. So we still market direct to consumer at Betterment. That's a lot of the brand origin story. That's where we came from. It's, and we built around that customer. But our marketing dollars, there's only so many dollars we can spen…”

“I've seen firsthand at Betterment and at other companies that I've advised over the years, how too many simultaneous growth paths can dilute focus, even if they're all promising and maybe they're all things you want to do in the long run. I think that you can …”

“That's right. Even, even more than that today. And we manage money for over a million Americans.”