Chris Hutchins and Chris Doyle came to serve the financial advice needs of millennials from different places, but arrived at a similar conclusion. Hutchins spent time at Google Ventures, and Doyle at Barclays working with mortgage backed securities. In 2015, they founded Grove in San Francisco to make financial advice and planning affordable to everyone.
Grove is different from the thousands of millennial-aged advisors serving millennials. They appear to be seeing a very large business for themselves in the future as they have a sizable staff and have created their own investment algorithm that goes hand in hand with staff CFPs. In fact, the process starts with a CFP-rendered financial plan. They are clearly targeting the competition with a low flat annual fee, plus a low asset under management fee for their own robo.
An impetus to start this business was an observation that Doyle made: even his sophisticated associates were unsure of how to address the various and complicated questions they had surrounding finances.
Nicholas W. Stuller is the author of The Truth Shall Set Your Wallet Free: Secrets to Finding the Perfect Financial Advisor.