By Lisa Shidler

This comment is by Bill Harris regarding Betterment is brilliant.  We feel the same regarding Betterments' entry in the retirement plan arena

Harris does not see the New York-based firm as direct competition.

"Betterment offers a simple service, which is fine because it is targeted for people with simple finances. Most of their customers are single and maybe they rent and have very simple finances. Their service is appropriate for Uber drivers but ours is more appropriate for Uber riders."

I guess their sales guys making 150 calls a day are paying off. And convenient to launch in 2009 but let's see how they fare during their first bear market.

How Personal Capital got a stunning $1-billion AUM boost in six months -- after gathering its first $2 billion over six years

Cerulli

Advisor Software

The Vanguard Group

Personal Capital

Pershing Advisor Solutions

Betterment

Vanguard Personal Advisor Services

Scott Smith

Gabe Garcia

Bill Harris

Stripped down to its essentials, financial advice is a fairly straightforward proposition. Done well, a highly ethical individual stewards the assets and actions of an investor in a personal and professional interchange.
 
But now a vibrant new class of entrepreneurs is staking their fates and their fortunes on the premise that financial advice can be delivered in a better, cheaper, easier, more ethical, more transparent manner and, as a bonus, in a way more devoid of human annoyance on both ends of the transaction.
 
Cue the robo-advisors, arguably a callous misnomer for automated asset management. 
 
The prototypical robo-advisory entrepreneur has more brands on his or her resume than NASCAR. The bona fides of these industry upstarts often include Ivy-level colleges and MBA programs at Harvard or Stanford. They are often flush with IPO dollars realized at concerns like LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Amazon  and Microsoft. 
 
Robo-folk believe that technology is not an enabler of advice but rather, if engineered correctly, advice itself in digital form. 
 
And, they believe the best solutions originate in Silicon Valley or academia, not Wall Street. Robo-entrepreneurs are white-boarding the whole business model, culture and technology from scratch in the conviction that little can be learned from a legacy advice system still rooted in an investment banking culture acting under the core premise that if stockbrokers get rich some of the good effects will trickle down to clients – with the clients none the wiser. 
 
Robo-advisors are a scintillating topic for students of the advice game as they grow by hundreds of millions in assets every month, constantly evolve their business models and receive cash infusions from ever-larger swaths of venture capitals.
 
Throw in the fact that robo-advisors have yet to see a dime in profits -- and won’t in the foreseeable future -- and you have real intrigue. 
 
RIABiz has avidly covered the fast-evolving robo-advice phenomenon and will continue to do so. We present the growing body of articles here.

Robo-Advisors

CEO BIll Harris says part of the secret is hiring human advisors to stoke referrals

How Personal Capital got a stunning $1-billion AUM boost in six months -- after gathering its first $2 billion over six years

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