Sounds good, but curious as to what their bona fides are? Certifications, etc.?
Also wonder if there are people out there willing to pay them for what they can essentially get for free on MMM, Mad Fientist and jlcollinsnh, etc., which seems to be where these guys have drawn a lot of their inspiration from.
@dude - glad you asked! We passed the Series 65 pre-licensing exam that all financial advisors and broker-dealers are required to take and we’re licensed to practice in Virginia and any other US state in accordance with the laws and regulations of our industry.
As for who would buy our services, our target audience is anyone who can’t confidently answer the question “when will you be able to retire?” Our value lies in providing personalized financial advice, or as arebelspy aptly noted, “handholding” (though we’d describe it as coaching). Many people haven’t heard of a personal finance philosophy like Mustachianism, or don’t know exactly how to apply it to their lives. As an analogy, you can exercise by yourself, but it’s a lot easier when a trainer teaches you how to do it most effectively and encourages you, right?
We value the do-it-yourself philosophy and we strive to teach our clients how to fish, so to speak, and educate them on how to be financially independent. Ultimately, we’ll only succeed as a business if we serve as a good investment for our clients, and we’re working to develop tools and processes that will reduce costs and help our clients help themselves more efficiently.
We didn’t invent financial independence, but we sure do want to bring it to the masses. In a recent MMM article, a woman complained that her husband was (and I’m paraphrasing) an MMM shaped peg just waiting to find an MMM shaped hole, and that she was not. We see a lot of clients like her. Even when you want to change, change is hard. A lot of personal finance gurus give people the easy way out by encouraging them to save five percent and spend the rest rather than take the more difficult but reliable path to wealth followed by the members of this forum.
Our hope is that we can bridge that gap and help more people live happy, purposeful, and wealthy lives. Our firm is starting small but we have big ideas to make financial independence more mainstream.
Nathan