Jon Stein founded Betterment to disrupt the finance industry by creating a more transparent and customer-centric personal finance service. After studying economics and psychology, Stein realized most financial services hid fees and prioritized profits over customers. He drew upon the work of Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler to develop Betterment, which launched in 2010. Betterment offers automated investing, financial planning tools, and a simple interface to help users achieve financial peace of mind. The company has since grown significantly and continues innovating to better serve customers.

1. Disrupting Finance
Jon Stein, Founder & CEO, Betterment

2. From an early age, I was into happiness & efficiency
“Personal Management is about
mapping a plan for your life
that will involve setting
short-range and long-range goals
and investigating different ways
to reach those goals.”
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

3. College taught me two things:
(1) The value of rational decisions; and
(2) We humans are (crazy) irrational.
Science of Economics Science of Human Behavior

4. I majored in economics and took philosophy &
psychology courses in pursuit of a unified
theory of happiness.

5. 40 percent of my graduating class went into finance;
I couldn’t tell you what an investment banker did.

6. I took a little graduation money and quickly
made less of it.
A star has fallen
Enron share price, $
Source: Thomson Financial Datastream
I bought here
I sold here
100
80
60
40
20
1996 97 98 99 2000 01 02
0

7. After a post-grad, pre-med diploma, I took to
the road. I wanted a career with meaning,
doing well by doing good.

8. As luck would have it, my happiest friend
offered me a job in finance, the last place
I thought I’d end up.

9. The world I entered had no gravity.
Everyone was making money, lots of it.
My time in finance

10. I built consumer products & managed banks’ investments.
Hiding fees was the hottest game in town.

11. One broker took the opposite side of customer trades,
turning investments into profits in 2 months or less.
Customer Broker
Average Investment
= $ 2,000
Average Profit
= $ 2,000

12. Kahneman and Thaler taught me to apply a
customer-centric perspective. What would I want?
Daniel Kahneman Richard H. Thaler
Israeli-American psychologist. Shared the
2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
with Vernon L. Smith
American economist and the Ralph & Dorothy Keller
Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral
Science & Economics

13. The name came first…
“Making it better” =

14. I wanted a service I could recommend to my friends.
What we expect What we want
Transparency
Delight
Accessibility
Automation
Efficiency
Hidden fees
Dreadful UX
Barriers, exclusivity
Manual process
Brick and mortar

15. “Betterment is the ease of online saving
combined with smart investing.”
Simple choices
Sound advice
Intuitive interface

16. We imagined we’d launch in 5 months.
This was optimistic.

17. We launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2010.
The name came first.

18. Betterment’s strength is rooted in vertical integration

19. Our product has evolved…
The early days… Today…

20. Today…
We’ve built the best-in-market product for our customers.

21. Our interface is clean, simple, and intuitive.

22. A smarter investing experience on all devices.

23. One year ago today, mobile was less than 10 percent
of our sign-ups, traffic and logins.
Today:
• 25 percent of sign-ups
• 40 percent of total traffic
• 60 percent of customer logins

24. Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you complete
financial peace of mind.

26. The most exciting financial company of our generation
is the one you use every day and never think about.

27. “The march towards technology is inevitable.”
- The Wall Street Journal, “The New Money Apps” 6/15/2012

28. Our story is only beginning.

29. Growing is not easy…
Hiring top people is essential, and we insist that
everyone is smart, open and passionate.

30. Our hiring tactics and incentives include:
Referral bonus
Hosting events at our office
Building internal “talent” team
External recruiting
Advertising

31. We incentivize with equity and company-wide
bonuses to align around creating long-term value.

32. What’s next?
More advice
New features to guide better financial decisions
Improved mobile
Betterment Institutional
HR partnerships

33. thank you… questions?
for more information, contact us at
partners@betterment.com