About Owl
We have all watched our friends and families trust the wrong advisors, pay too much in fees, and make investing mistakes that have caused them to potentially lose out on their financial dreams and security. At Owl, we realized that we could make a difference by leveraging technology to make investing easy through our simple but powerful online service. Owl helps people take control of their investments & guides them towards good habits that improve their financial future.
We believe that having the tools to invest for your future should be a right, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. With modern technology, Owl democratizes personal financial planning, bringing the average household the same advice and expertise that the top financial institutions give their wealthiest clients, no matter how little or how much they have. We offer you the best advice for your personal situation, saving you thousands of dollars in annual fees and unnecessary expenses, while simultaneously maximizing your returns. Since we do not accept commissions for the products we recommend, our customers trust that we are always in their corner. Owl is an SEC-registered investment advisor that has $15 million of client assets under management and our consumer product is in closed beta. We launched as a finalist in the Chicago Booth New Venture Challenge.
What We Need From You
If you own or work at a startup or small business (less than 100 employees) please take this short survey (https://chicagobooth.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_82p4IQwv0F74dBH) to let us know if our service something you would or would not want. A little validation (or even lack thereof) would be valuable in deciding our path. If we get positive feedback, we will definitely be reaching out to respondents to start trials of the small business product within a couple weeks.
Thank you so much for your support and feedback. For more information, please read more about the value that we can provide your company below:
The Business Opportunity
We are trying to find out if startups and other small businesses would want to offer our services to their employees. For a small yearly fee (we are currently aiming for a cost $150/year/employee on the Owl system vs. $500/year for the average Owl client with $100,000), we would like to provide your employees access to our financial planning solution.
Employers Receive:
An easy way to show their employees that they care about their financial future and well-being.
Owl provides employees the comfort that they are on track towards their financial future. It’s clearly superior to the current option of "pick a portfolio allocation and pray" method of 401(k)s (here is an article about how this system is failing us), and its easy to trust since we don’t ever ask for access to employee accounts. We simply help employees make the best decisions for their personal situation, with simple, professional, unbiased advice.
Employees Receive:
1. A recommended investment plan and detailed investment recommendations for 401(k)s, Simple IRAs and any other accounts they might have.
2. An onboarding meeting with a dedicated financial advisor, and an action plan with an Investment Policy Statement personalized to their situation.
3. Unlimited access to the Owl service which would monitor their portfolio and all of their investment accounts continuously and alert them if changes needed to be made, ensuring that they maximize their wealth.
The Payoff
Employees with access to professional advice and management have been shown to end up with 2x the return and 2x the money of those without access because they avoid bad decisions, pay lower fees, and are more disciplined in their approach. Over the past 20 years, the stock market has returned slightly over 8% a year, meaning that investors should have 5 times the amount of money they started with had they invested properly. However, because of high fees, inefficient investing, and lack of discipline, the median investor has received less than 3%/year, barely doubling their money over that 20-year time period.[1] Owl helps solve this problem, providing valuable advice and peace of mind for employees and employers.
[1] Dalbar, "Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior" 2012
