Who are your clients?
Our clients are tech workers. We work with people in tech because:
- That’s who we are. The 3 advisors at Prospero Wealth have more than 50 years of technology between us.
- People in tech are inherently distrusting of the financial services and wealth management industries. Our shared history as tech workers allows us to resonate with our clients.
- We know and understand technology companies from the inside out. We navigate equity compensation (RSUs, ISOs, NQOs), Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs) deferred compensation plans, competitive offer assessment, and benefit enrollment.
- It is highly unlikely that an advisor at [INSERT BIG FINANCE COMPANY NAME HERE] can match this expertise.
It doesn’t matter if you’re just getting started in your tech career, about to exit it after a multi-decade run, or somewhere in between—we can help you navigate it.
How do you work with clients?
Our goal is to work with our clients forever.
Nearly all clients onboard with us through an initial financial planning engagement. This is helpful because it allows to get to know and understand their full financial picture, their goals, and their constraints, prior to building out a comprehensive investment plan.
We don’t know how to invest your money until we understand how you’re going to utilize it.
A paid financial plan gets you monitoring and updates for one year after the plan has been delivered and invoiced.
For clients that ask us to manage the majority of their investable assets, we provide ongoing planning as needed, free of charge, forever1. We deliberately selected this model so you don’t have to think about additional charges to pick up the phone and call us when things change.
What are your fees?
We charge hourly fees for financial planning and asset management fees for wealth management services. Initial financial plans average $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple (but may vary based on complexity). Some lighter options are available for people with simple planning needs or accelerated time-tables.
All financial plans include one year of monitoring and updates.
Our asset management fees are as follows:
| Assets Under Management (AUM) | Blended Tier Fee |
| $0 – $1,000,000 | 1% |
| > $1,000,000 | .9% |
| > $2,000,000 | .8% |
| > $3,000,000 | .7% |
| > $4,000,000 | .6% |
| > $5,000,000 | .5% |
Why should Prospero Wealth manage my money? Can’t I just get your recommendations and do it myself?
Since we work with smart and highly-capable clients, many come to us with a predisposition towards DIY solutions. And yes, outside of improved tools and some advisor-only products in the direct indexing space, very little of what we do is so sophisticated that you can’t do it yourself. The real question is whether you are actually doing the necessary things that professional money management will do for you.
Vanguard, that bastion of DIY investing, did some research quantifying what incremental value professional advisors can bring to money management. This is the summary table that we think is relevant:
We leave it to you to self-assess where you believe you actually fall on the opportunity to improve your investment outcomes, but Vanguard’s results indicate amounts up to, or even exceeding 3% in net returns. For most people, that can greatly exceed our fees (laid out above).
The other thing to consider is that our asset management fees are what allow us to be proactive in our financial planning and to stay connected to our clients throughout the “twists and turns” in their individual lives. Everybody needs an accountability partner. We go beyond what most clients are able to do for themselves, frequently identifying opportunities they did not even know existed.
How do you manage money?
We practice a methodology called core-satellite. At the core, for most clients, we use a broadly diversified, rules-based (quant), inexpensive investment approach. We tend to use the Dimensional family of ETFs and funds for these products2.
For clients with the right risk tolerance and risk capacity, or separate income needs, we add satellite approaches. We directly manage active Separately Managed Account strategies (SMAs) in Growth stocks, Long-Short Go Anywhere, Income, and High Yield.
Where do you manage my assets?
Most of our clients’ assets are held at Schwab. We also have relationships with Interactive Brokers and an advisory-specific firm called Altruist. When we manage assets, we only have your authorization to trade within the account. You always control what funds go in or out of the account. Some clients also authorize us to withdraw funds to an account they have linked (for retirement income, etc.).
Will you just manage my money for me (without a financial plan)?
Yes. We will. Without a financial plan, we still need you to chat with us, onboard and complete a risk assessment so that we can discuss the strategy we will implement for you.
Where did the name Prospero come from?
Prospero is a character from William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The co-founders of Prospero Wealth, Eric and Marcus went to an amazing performance of the play back in 2009, with music by Seattle musician Jesse Sykes. While the character of Prospero is no hero, we like its proximity to “prosperity,” the fact that it has shared history, and its literary pedigree (Eric was a literature major).
What’s up with the key logo?
Eric, one of Prospero’s co-founders, comes from 4 generations of auto parts store owners. The key has been a consistent symbol for his family’s business enterprises (“the key to your automative needs”).
While Eric cannot imagine owning an auto part store, he is happy to keep this logo alive and secretly hopes his children will carry on the mantle someday.
Footnotes
- Or until the heat death of the universe, we die, or our business goes away (whichever comes first).
- For clients with significant taxable assets, we may substitute direct indexing approaches (we use Schwab, Parametric, Vanguard, and Dimensional) in order to gain additional tax advantages.