Show HN: Fulfilled – Non-custodial financial co-pilot for goal optimization (opens in new tab)

(matthew-glossops-workspace.share.arcade.software)

5 pointsmattglossop5mo ago7 comments

Hey HN,

We’re challenging retail wealth management. Most individual portfolio optimization is fundamentally flawed because it’s static and ignores your specific goals.

I spent a decade helping some of the world’s largest investors build their portfolios. My co-founder built hundreds of financial plans for retail investors before backend engineering at Microsoft. We know the problem: traditional portfolio construction and maintenance approaches (like Modern Portfolio Theory) rely on myopic, static allocation.

This failure of methodology is why advisors ignore retail investors below $250k in assets and platforms push generic funds. Personalized, dynamic allocation is non-viable for them because the complex computation required is too difficult to scale manually.

We built the solution: a financial co-pilot that gives you a single clear picture of all your finances, and shows you how to achieve your goals with tailored, dynamic guidance. This is a scalable, non-custodial platform, unbundling advice from assets.

- Custom dynamic guidance: Get ongoing investment recommendations truly customized to you and your specific goals. Our model continuously adjusts risk based on your time horizon and current portfolio state - an approach that studies show can increase goal achievement probability by 30%+ compared to traditional models.

- Tracking without transfers: Automatically track progress towards goals by securely connecting your accounts (API link with Plaid/SnapTrade). You never have to transfer a dollar; take our guidance and use it where you already invest.

- Total clarity: See a single, clear, unified view of household wealth, spending, and goals.

This wealth co-pilot is designed to guide and empower users to achieve their goals and build positive financial habits.

For a full review of our investment approach, please review our whitepaper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_WhcShE2G8eJJJuq1odsPq5BVAH...

Fulfilled is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor offering this automated platform across the US.

Check it out and give us your brutal, honest feedback on the clarity of the UX and the value that we offer.

Product link: https://www.FulfilledWealth.co

7 comments

sakib0020015mo ago

Solid approach to a real problem. You're right that traditional portfolio models optimize for generic risk profiles when most people just want to hit specific goals by certain dates. The dynamic strategy that adjusts based on both time remaining and current portfolio value makes sense. One question on the execution side: since users keep their money at their own brokerages and you just provide recommendations, how do you actually get them to follow through on trades? Especially the hard ones like buying more stocks after losses when they're behind on a goal?

mattglossopOP5mo ago

Great question, and we're still working on improving the process there. At the core what we do is break down all tasks into small achievable steps - with a reward system encouraging users along the way to continue taking action.

What we're also integrating is an "opportunity cost calculator" showing users how delaying or avoiding the action we're recommending would impact the achievement of their goal.

Call it a "carrot and stick" system.

This feedback loop, coupled with small achieveable steps, has performed well so far in keeping users on task and on track for their goals.

j_cmack5mo ago

I like the continuous recalculation approach you’re thinking about - it would be helpful knowing that what I’m invested in is constantly being re-aligned towards my goals. Not sure if beginner investors will really care about this - it may be a bit advanced. But if the platform is targeted towards prosumers or people who are already investing, I can see the appeal. How is the no-custody aspect managed? Everyone makes trades on their own?

mattglossopOP5mo ago

Totally fair point. We think that beginner investors already have a ton of resources at their disposal. There are a lot of platforms aimed at making it as easy as possible to start investing for the first time. We're focused on people who are already investing and who want to just have more clarity as to where they stand financially and whether their goals are actually on track.

The no-custody aspect is really a starting place. We wanted to eliminate the usual friction that investment platforms impose in asking people to transfer their assets before receiving service. We think this is one of the biggest points of friction in financial services, and one which drives up CACs across the industry.

Functionally, what happens with our platform now is that we show you exactly what to invest in with specific ETFs to buy and keep you on track with regular rebalancing instructions. You then make those trades wherever you're already investing. Trades sync to our platform through an API connection (Plaid/SnapTrade) so you can see your progress towards your goal.

Our aim is to add a custody solution as well, letting users trade on the platform, but we always want to offer the non-custody solution as an entry point for users, making it super easy to get started and gradually earn user trust.

tylerpress5mo ago

Really interesting approach. How does your dynamic allocation engine weigh conflicting goals when users have multiple time horizons? Would love to understand how you solve that optimization problem.

mattglossopOP5mo ago

That's a great question, as complex goals are often conflicting.

Right now, each goal uses a qualitative scale to establish an initial risk budget.

In the future, we will ask users to rank all goals (like a weighted priority list). This ranking allows our dynamic allocation engine to solve the optimization problem:

Prioritization: The ranking determines the importance of each goal in the final outcome calculation.

Continuous Recalibration: The engine doesn't use a fixed risk cap. Instead, it continuously adjusts the risk allocated to each goal based on its performance and time horizon.

Risk to Maximize Probability: Goals that are far from being achieved may temporarily take more risk to increase the chance of success, while goals that are ahead of schedule will de-risk immediately to protect gains.

This ensures the total portfolio risk stays optimal while maximizing the probability of achieving your goals in priority order.

workworkwork715mo ago

Other co-founder here. Really would love to hear some feedback on the approach, testing & general app use is free w/ no payments required!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

7 comments

sakib0020015mo ago

mattglossopOP5mo ago

What we're also integrating is an "opportunity cost calculator" showing users how delaying or avoiding the action we're recommending would impact the achievement of their goal.

Call it a "carrot and stick" system.

This feedback loop, coupled with small achieveable steps, has performed well so far in keeping users on task and on track for their goals.

j_cmack5mo ago

mattglossopOP5mo ago

tylerpress5mo ago

Really interesting approach. How does your dynamic allocation engine weigh conflicting goals when users have multiple time horizons? Would love to understand how you solve that optimization problem.

mattglossopOP5mo ago

That's a great question, as complex goals are often conflicting.

Right now, each goal uses a qualitative scale to establish an initial risk budget.

In the future, we will ask users to rank all goals (like a weighted priority list). This ranking allows our dynamic allocation engine to solve the optimization problem:

Prioritization: The ranking determines the importance of each goal in the final outcome calculation.

Continuous Recalibration: The engine doesn't use a fixed risk cap. Instead, it continuously adjusts the risk allocated to each goal based on its performance and time horizon.

This ensures the total portfolio risk stays optimal while maximizing the probability of achieving your goals in priority order.

workworkwork715mo ago

Other co-founder here. Really would love to hear some feedback on the approach, testing & general app use is free w/ no payments required!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse