Episode 94: Big Exit. Bigger Idea. $30M in Backing | Meet Rafael Loureiro, CEO of Wealth.com

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After exiting a successful startup, Rafael Loureiro went looking for a better way to do estate planning…and came up empty. The experience? Clunky. Expensive. Outdated.

So like any smart entrepreneur would do, he decided to build something better.

Today, Rafael is the CEO of Wealth.com, a FinTech firm backed by Google Ventures and designed to modernize the estate planning process for advisors and their clients.

In this Episode, Rafael sits down with Stacy to discuss: 

• Rafael’s backstory – How he went from Brazil to Silicon Valley to Wall Street 

• Why his post-exit estate plan felt more like Mad Libs than modern finance 

• How that clunky estate planning experience drove him to go from introverted software engineer to front-and-center CEO

• Why it’s actually easier to raise capital before the product exists (yes, really)

About Rafael Loureiro:

Rafael Loureiro is the CEO and co-founder of Wealth.com, the industry’s leading estate planning platform. Under his leadership,Wealth.com has become the fastest-growing solution in the space, empowering 750+ wealth management firms to modernize the delivery of estate planning guidance. Backed by Google Ventures, Wealth.com is the only tech-led, end-to-end estate planning platform built specifically for financial institutions—helping advisors scale, drive efficiency, and serve clients across the wealth spectrum.

Rafael was named ThinkAdvisor’s 2024 Executive of the Year in the financial planning technology category and also received the Advisor Choice Award for Technology Providers: CEO of the Year in the 2024 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards, where Wealth.com was recognized as the Best Technology Provider in the Trust category. 

A technology entrepreneur and product innovator, Rafael brings more than 20 years of technical and executive leadership experience across start-ups, growth-stage ventures, and Fortune 500 companies. Prior to founding Wealth.com, he served as Chief Technology Officer at Emailage, a global fraud prevention SaaS startup acquired by Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions in 2020.

Rafael is a member of the Forbes Finance Council and an active community leader in the Phoenix start-up ecosystem. Originally from Brazil, Rafael has been in Arizona for over 20 years. Outside of work, he enjoys time with his family, hiking the Arizona desert, playing pickleball, reading, and gaming. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors. 

[00:00:00] Rafael Loureiro: We got the team together. We had the idea, no software.

[00:00:03] Rafael Loureiro: And then we went to raise money right away. Right. Right away . We raised some capital. Mm-hmm. $16 million one six. And then we got to build wealth.com. So we went from an idea to have a product in market in nine a month.

[00:00:16] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacey Er. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow-on assets for investment boutiques, you could say, against the odds. Yeah, understatement.

[00:00:41] Stacy Havener: I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here. Money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college [00:01:00] mixed with happy hour.

[00:01:03] Stacy Havener: Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast.

[00:01:15] Stacy Havener: Many founder backstories include this idea. I had a problem and I started my company to solve it. It's a classic why that can lead to a passionate mission led venture. Not many founders have applied that concept to this space, though. Estate planning. What I know. Stay with me. I want you to meet my friend Rafael Rero, whose journey from Brazil to Silicon Valley takes a twist toward Wall Street.

[00:01:46] Stacy Havener: Rafael is the CEO of wealth.com, a FinTech firm that recently secured 30 million in Series A led by Google Ventures to scale up a biz That solves a big problem in an old school industry estate [00:02:00] planning. Rafael and his team faced this problem individually after they had their first exit from a previous technology firm and they decided they should do something about it.

[00:02:10] Stacy Havener: Rafael and his team don't only help financial advisors make estate planning easier for their clients. They also make it cool. Grab your popcorn. This is a great story with a lot of lessons on the power of story. Let's dive in. Meet Rafael. Rafael, thank you so much for being here today. Now let me just tell our listeners this is the first time that we've met and they're getting a chance to listen in on this conversation, but we've known each other for what, five minutes and we're already like geeking out on so many things in the green room that I had to quickly turn this on so that we could capture the magic.

[00:02:47] Stacy Havener: So thank you so much for being here,

[00:02:49] Rafael Loureiro: Stacy. Thank you for having me here. I'm super happy to be here.

[00:02:53] Stacy Havener: Okay, so we're gonna start with your story. And I wanna go back like way back machine. [00:03:00] I wanna go back to your childhood. I. And I want to really unpack not just your career journey, but just how did you come to sit here in finance?

[00:03:10] Stacy Havener: Like, did you always know that you wanted to be in the finance space or like, let's just go back and take it forward.

[00:03:18] Rafael Loureiro: I'm glad we have a three hour podcast. Let's go. But, uh, uh, yeah, a little bit about my background. I mean, the accent you can hear here is, uh, I'm Brazilian. Okay. Originally, uh, born in France.

[00:03:32] Rafael Loureiro: Oh. But, uh, uh, from Brazilian parents, right? They're going to school in France. And then I happened to be born there, but went back to Brazil when I was like six months old and then grew up in Brazil. But somehow this kind of like shaped my life a little bit. Oh. Because, uh, I grew up like hearing my parents telling stories how cool was to live in Europe and blah, blah, blah.

[00:03:52] Rafael Loureiro: So one of the things I always wanted to do was to, I. Be able to live outside Brazil to have a different experience. Right. So, [00:04:00] and I'll get you, uh, to answer your question, but, uh, uh, I think that shaped yes. My, uh, uh, uh, desire for a adventure. So when I was 27 years old, I had opportunity to come to the us the traditional immigration story, right.

[00:04:14] Rafael Loureiro: To work as a, uh, as a developer, H one B developer. That's my background. Okay. You know, I'm a software developer through and through and, uh, uh, uh, came to the US and, uh, uh, loved it. Never wanted to to go back. Right. I mean, the opportunities, uh, uh, all the advancement in technology field. So I've been here for now 23 years, mostly in Arizona.

[00:04:36] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[00:04:36] Rafael Loureiro: With a short stint in California. Uh, been involved in four different startups. Right. And also consulting. Have I ever planned to be in the financial field? Not necessarily.

[00:04:47] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:04:48] Rafael Loureiro: But, uh, because of a experience we sold the company, I went through the. Big, big liquidity event. I went to this paid planning process myself, and that [00:05:00] experience made me think, Hey, this process is broken.

[00:05:03] Rafael Loureiro: It's too pen and paper, uh uh, too, uh, it's outdated. And, uh, being an engineer, having just sold a company, I, I was like, there must be a better way. And I had the team. Yeah, right. Again, I mean, we just saw the company and I'm like, the team is ready for the next adventure. I went back to them and said, Hey, look, here's the idea.

[00:05:23] Rafael Loureiro: Let's disrupt state planning. Let's modernize it. And we all jump on the jump on board. And then here we are with wealth.com. Uh, so no, I, I had no plans initially to work on the financial field, but I'm super happy to be here. Love the PE people love the challenge.

[00:05:40] Stacy Havener: Yes. Yeah. Okay. We're, there's so many layers to this and we're gonna, we're gonna peel them back.

[00:05:45] Stacy Havener: So were your parents, what does your parents do? Were they in finance? Were they computer people? Like what was their, what was their deal?

[00:05:53] Rafael Loureiro: They're not, they're both, uh, actually architects. Whoa. In the university. University teachers. [00:06:00] Yeah.

[00:06:00] Stacy Havener: So they're architects, so they like to build things. And so do you, just different things.

[00:06:06] Rafael Loureiro: I love it. Uh, I cannot do anything else but be a soft engineer. I knew I wanted to be a soft engineer when I was 12 years old. Literally 12 years old. Yep. Someone came over to my house. Uh, he happens to be another French, French person, Uhhuh. He was a, a, a teacher. And, uh, even though he was visiting Brazil, he's like, Hey, I'm gonna teach you how to coach.

[00:06:28] Stacy Havener: Oh, would you be

[00:06:28] Rafael Loureiro: interested? I'm like,

[00:06:29] Stacy Havener: yeah,

[00:06:30] Rafael Loureiro: we had a computer. I try it and I, I was hooked. Mm-hmm. I'm like, I want to do this for the rest of my life. I'm not, I'm not very patient. So I like to be moving. I like to be doing things. And I think Soften engineering allows you to do that, right? Because you a builder, if I ask you Yes.

[00:06:47] Rafael Loureiro: To develop a program, you and I, even though the, the end result might be the same, how we gonna be, how we gonna get there is going to be different.

[00:06:56] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yes.

[00:06:57] Rafael Loureiro: Right. So I, maybe it's a little cheesy, but I feel [00:07:00] like, uh. Soft engineers are like artists because we all create the same thing different ways. So, yeah.

[00:07:06] Stacy Havener: But you know what's so fascinating about that? Because when I said builder kind of pulling forward, you know, your parents being architects, you went to how software engineers are builders. And you know what I was thinking? Entrepreneurship. And you didn't go there at first. So how did the entrepreneur, because you went to software and I was like, I don't, but now I get why you said that.

[00:07:31] Stacy Havener: So how did the entrepreneur bug start for you then?

[00:07:34] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah, so moving to the us I think that's how we started in Brazil. It's a different market.

[00:07:39] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I

[00:07:40] Rafael Loureiro: don't know how, I don't know if you know Brazil. I know you are a biggest soccer fan.

[00:07:43] Stacy Havener: I am at

[00:07:44] Rafael Loureiro: the background. Uh, and you play soccer. Uh, but, uh, uh, uh, uh, I don't know if you had the chance to go to Brazil.

[00:07:50] Rafael Loureiro: It's a great country, good economy, but it's not as dynamic as the us Not even close. Okay. So, uh, I never thought about creating startup, you know, in Brazil. [00:08:00] I mean, when you grow, when you're growing up, your dream is always, Hey, I wanna work for IBM, I wanna work for Microsoft, I wanna work for someone, you know, and then, uh, uh, have opportunities coming to the us.

[00:08:10] Rafael Loureiro: I came here as H one B to work on a startup. Ah, and, uh, I was there for like eight months, literally eight months. It was the beautiful year of 2001. The whole internet market was crashing. I don't know if you remember this. Yes. But I was lucky. Never lost my job, but that's when I got here. I'm like, oh, my luck.

[00:08:30] Rafael Loureiro: But in eight months, the company was sold. And that was my first experience to work for a startup. I love the fact that, uh, there's no red tape. We move at very high speed. Uh, the goal is always to get things done. So I got hooked, right? Again, to my point, I'm very impatient, right? I wanna be, be, be able to be building things.

[00:08:52] Rafael Loureiro: So I was hooked. I'm like, I want to work in a place where we can create, where I see the, the fruits of my labor being used, right? I wanna be [00:09:00] able to see whatever I'm developing, going live. So that was my first experience. And then, uh, I worked with consulting as well. I mean, I had a chance to work with, with Avanade.

[00:09:11] Rafael Loureiro: Which is a Microsoft Accenture, uh, uh, uh, arm. Right? So that's also good because you always work in different projects. Uh, every six months they change the project. So you always learning, you always meeting people, you always advancing. So it, it's great. And then, uh, I had a second startup.

[00:09:30] Stacy Havener: Okay. And

[00:09:30] Rafael Loureiro: that was in the, uh, it was called Couture book.

[00:09:34] Rafael Loureiro: I was the CTO. I was not a founder, but I, I had shares of the company join really in the beginning. Uh, we produced these high end photo albums. I cannot tell the people that we produced the albums for, but they were really, really highend photo albums. I was there for three years. Uh, it's still around, became a lifetime business, right?

[00:09:54] Rafael Loureiro: And, uh, I moved forward, uh. Another startup I was involved with as a founder [00:10:00] was during the 2008, the real estate burst, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, it was a startup to help investors find a foreclose foreclosed broker. Oh, think about like zero for That was huge then.

[00:10:14] Stacy Havener: That was huge. Then.

[00:10:16] Rafael Loureiro: That was huge. I mean, we tried it.

[00:10:18] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, one thing we noticed is like, those type of investors don't like to spend a lot of money,

[00:10:23] Stacy Havener: so, uh, exactly. Oh, that's great. So

[00:10:28] Rafael Loureiro: that one didn't go anywhere. But I mean, even failure, you, you learn from failure, right? So that's, and then we, we evolve with another startup. And that one wasn't the fraud prevention space.

[00:10:42] Rafael Loureiro: So Stacy, you can see here, like all these startups, you got the

[00:10:45] Stacy Havener: bug. Yeah.

[00:10:46] Rafael Loureiro: And they were all in different spaces. Yes. Right. One was fraud prevention, one was like real estate. The other one was like, for, for me, the adventure, the challenge is like, what is the problem? Yep. Is is there a [00:11:00] problem first? Yeah. Can we solve with technology?

[00:11:03] Rafael Loureiro: Yes, you can. You know what I mean? So I lo I love the challenge itself. Yeah. So in Milage, that was the company before wealth.com. It was in the fraud prevention space, a global company. We had office all over the world. Brazil, Singapore, Sydney, uh, New York, San Francisco. And uh, uh, that was extremely successful.

[00:11:22] Rafael Loureiro: We sold the company in 2020, uh, during Covid to Lexus Nexus. And, uh, I went to work for Lexus Nexus for a year, and that's why the idea for wealth.com came about.

[00:11:32] Stacy Havener: Thank you for sharing that. This is not like what we're supposed to be talking about, but let me just tell you because. We could be here for three hours.

[00:11:40] Stacy Havener: Like I would love to dive into those startup experiences and what you learned, and to the extent that you are creating content, I think this part of your journey is really valid because as you said, you learn things in every, in every initiative, in everything you do, [00:12:00] whether it works or it doesn't. One of the things that jumped out to me in what you said, and we laughed about it, was the, the foreclosure, uh, startup.

[00:12:09] Stacy Havener: Those people don't wanna spend money. So as an entrepreneur, like, I have a great idea, there's definitely a problem, I can solve it, but the but the economics of it didn't make sense for you to spend your time on it. And I think that's tough when you're a founder and you're building something and you realize you can really help these people.

[00:12:26] Stacy Havener: So there's just so many lessons in there. I would love, I would love to read and hear more about those as, as you continue your wealth.com journey. Um, 'cause there's so much gold there. So one of the things, uh, look, I wanna talk about wealth.com. The other thing that jumped out to me when you were sharing your story, and thank you for the candor, um, is that you, like many founders, you solved a problem.

[00:12:54] Stacy Havener: You had, you solved a problem that you saw as an exited founder [00:13:00] who needed to, to build an estate plan. And you said something in the green room that I want you to, to kind of elaborate on because it was so awesome, which is you wanna just make estate planning Cool. So tell me what you mean by that.

[00:13:19] Rafael Loureiro: Yes.

[00:13:20] Rafael Loureiro: So I'll tell, tell you a little bit about my experience, right? Yeah. So we sold the company.

[00:13:23] Yeah.

[00:13:24] Rafael Loureiro: Great, great, great experience. Uh, uh, long process m and a process is not a easy process. Took us like six months of, uh, talking to potential acquirers, but you always learn something.

[00:13:37] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yes. Right.

[00:13:38] Rafael Loureiro: So we sold the company, uh, uh, and then one of the things I did, it was a fairly good sized liquid event.

[00:13:45] Rafael Loureiro: I just wanna clarify. I was not a founder. I joined the company before Series A in millage. Right. And I was there all the way to the acquisition, uh, with the team. And then I went to my financial advisor, Hey, I have a liquidity event. I got this, this money here. Uh, uh, I wanna [00:14:00] set up my stake planning. My financial advisor, I love her.

[00:14:03] Rafael Loureiro: She knows everything about my life. Mm-hmm. My family, my kids, my uh, uh, my, my, uh, future aspirations. Yeah. Right. But when it was time to do the estate planning, she's like, Hey, go. We always use this lawyer. Mm-hmm. Go talk to him. I'm like, okay. I went to the lawyer expecting that he would know everything about me.

[00:14:24] Rafael Loureiro: My financial device. I know my, my daughter's social security number, right? So I was expecting like a super connected process and when I got there, the whole technology was a Microsoft Word document, fill out the blanks, and that cost me $5,000, right? So I fill out the blanks. $5,000 later I get a hundred pages of document, Hey, here's your, here's state planet documents.

[00:14:48] Rafael Loureiro: Good luck, right? In my mind as an engineer, I was like, can we create a solution that combines very high [00:15:00] quality integrations? Right? So I have integration with Zillow, with Carta, Coinbase Coin Market Cap, 14,000 finance institutions, and then have this intelligence layer that as you live your life. I keep estate planning up to date.

[00:15:16] Rafael Loureiro: Whoa. Stays moved. I know you moved because I got a pink from Zillow. I update estate plan. Uh, you have a big liquidity event. I know because I'm connect to Carta. I update estate plan. You have kids, you get married, you get divorced, you cross tax thresholds. We keep estate planning up to date. So that was the idea then.

[00:15:35] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. Right. And the the funny thing is, uh, uh, March, 2020, COVID was going on. No vaccine. We're having these, uh. It was cool. Then virtual coffee, long hair, right? And, uh, we are all talking all, all, all, all the, all the people from mileage and, uh, somehow we start talking about state planning. And the complaint was the same [00:16:00] across the board, like the chairman of wealth.com, he used to be mayor with CEO, he's my chairman and one of my largest investor, little different situation, right?

[00:16:08] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. He's, the liquid event for him was much bigger and that in his case, he spent way more money than I did. And he got all the documents in place. He had been leaving Arizona for 20 years and he's like, look, Raphael, I'm done with the heat. I'm moving to Denver.

[00:16:23] Stacy Havener: Oh,

[00:16:24] Rafael Loureiro: his name is. So he's like, I'm moving to Denver.

[00:16:27] Rafael Loureiro: The moment he hit Denver, he gets a call from the state planning lawyer. Hey, now that you're leaving in Denver, Colorado, we need to update your state planning. He's like, what? I just spent all these money creating my documents. Now I have to update them. In a nutshell, the idea was like, how can we create a solution that keep your estate planning up to date as you live your life?

[00:16:46] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah.

[00:16:48] Rafael Loureiro: Right. Because, uh, in my opinion, I know you have a also background estate planning is, uh, uh, it's very misunderstood. People don't know they need estate planning usually. What I, [00:17:00] and just to make this clear, when I'm talking state planning, I'm gonna talk about wills. Trusts, advanced healthcare directive, guardianship documents, power of attorney, financial documents.

[00:17:10] Rafael Loureiro: Right. So they don't know this. And I usually ask them, do you have kids? Oh yeah, I have a daughter. You need state plan. I don't care how many, how much money you have. Yeah. If you have a daughter, you or a son, you need state plan. Do you own a house? You need state plan. You have kids going to college, you need state plan.

[00:17:26] Rafael Loureiro: But I don't wanna make this boring, but Yeah.

[00:17:29] Stacy Havener: But that's like, that's like a great commercial or an ad or something. Because that was so powerful, what you just said. And so when you think make estate planning cool, which I just love and you explained like the, the workings of it, right? The, the a hundred page document that the word doc, all of that stuff.

[00:17:50] Stacy Havener: There was another element that you shared in your story though, which was the, there's okay, this is not gonna be correct 'cause I'm not a software engineer, but the [00:18:00] UX. Is that right? Like the user interface, like the client experience, whatever that cool term is that you software engineers use, was that part of it too?

[00:18:11] Stacy Havener: Because if I put myself in your shoes, sitting in the office with this attorney who now knows nothing about you, when you're so used to your financial advisor who knows everything, and this guy who's probably very talented and very, you know, credentialed, you know, has got a word doc for you to complete, that's not a great experience for you.

[00:18:34] Rafael Loureiro: 100%. We actually engage the company, uh, their name is Clay, uh, clay Global. Okay. They are in San Francisco. It's the same company who designed Coinbase and Robinhood. So even before we launched the company, we knew we need a very good ux.

[00:18:50] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah, okay. Oh, I got it right. It needs an

[00:18:52] Rafael Loureiro: easy, you, you got it right.

[00:18:54] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. I mean it's all about the user experience.

[00:18:56] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:18:57] Rafael Loureiro: Right. Uh uh. It's a tough subject. Yeah. [00:19:00] People don't wanna talk about this, right? Yeah. People usually associate state planning to death, which is not the case. It shouldn't be the case. Right. But they do. So how do we make this process easy so they can go to the, the whole workflow and get the document at the end, right?

[00:19:15] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, uh, and have a enjoyable experience, not something that they wanna come back. It's, I I'm not trying to recreate TurboTax, right? It's scary a lot of questions. I want something friendly. Uh, uh, uh, but Stacy, I mean, one thing I wanna make clear is that yeah, this solution has evolved a lot. I mean, we learn a lot along the way.

[00:19:35] Rafael Loureiro: So the, the, the idea describe was the idea then. Okay. Yeah. So

[00:19:38] Stacy Havener: take us, like, take us current.

[00:19:40] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah, let's do it. So we, we had the, the idea we discussed. We had just sold a company.

[00:19:47] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:19:47] Rafael Loureiro: And, uh, uh, the decision was like, Hey, let's not start another, another startup if it has no legs.

[00:19:54] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm. Let's

[00:19:55] Rafael Loureiro: make sure this startup has legs.

[00:19:56] Rafael Loureiro: So we did some research, spend like three months talking to [00:20:00] people, talking to, uh, financial advisors and say, Hey, do you think these, uh, do you think people need a solution like this? And the answer was like, yes, they do. So it was the year of 2021. We got the team together. We had the idea, no software.

[00:20:14] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:15] Rafael Loureiro: Just the idea in the team. And then we went to raise money

[00:20:18] Stacy Havener: right away.

[00:20:19] Rafael Loureiro: Right. Right away. Mm-hmm. Right away. Because we knew this was a big idea. Yeah.

[00:20:23] Stacy Havener: We

[00:20:23] Rafael Loureiro: knew that we need a beautiful ux. We knew we would take time for us to create these. So we went through, uh, uh, some of the, our previous investors

[00:20:32] Stacy Havener: mm-hmm.

[00:20:32] Rafael Loureiro: From Emailage, the previous company pitched the idea. 2021 was a very good year to fundraise. Right. If you remember. And then. We raised some capital. Mm-hmm. $16 million one six. And then we got to build wealth.com. So we went from a, an idea to have a product in market in nine a month. And the reason we were able to do this is because I was able to bring a lot of my A players, yeah.

[00:20:55] Rafael Loureiro: My developers, my DevOps, my security people, and hit the ground running. [00:21:00] So we launched the product initially, the go-to market, it was not perfect. So there's a lesson there. Perfect. Even though, I mean, I've been involved in four different startups, you are always gonna make mistakes, right? Yeah. But the important thing when you're doing a startup is like, move fast, identify the mistake, uh, course correct.

[00:21:17] Rafael Loureiro: Move on. Right? Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't waste a lot of time. So launching a, uh, initially our go-to market was employee benefit, because I'm gonna give you like a very hard metric. Two thirds of the American population don't have state plan when they should two thirds. So in my mind, I was like.

[00:21:36] Rafael Loureiro: Employee benefit.

[00:21:37] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah.

[00:21:37] Rafael Loureiro: Let's make this easy so everyone can get a estate plan in place,

[00:21:41] Rafael Loureiro (2): Uhhuh. But what

[00:21:42] Rafael Loureiro: we notice is, uh, it, it, it's not a, uh, it's a three hop sales process because you have to sell to the broker. Broker needs to sell to the employer, employer needs to sell to the employee. And you as a company, you're not involved in the day window of the conversation.

[00:21:55] Rafael Loureiro: And in the meantime, we got a lot of inbound from financial advisors saying, Hey look, [00:22:00] we're, I'm having this conversation every day with my clients. You need state planning, you need state planning, and they're not doing anything about it. How can I use wealth.com? So we decide to pivot the company to focus on the wealth management space.

[00:22:14] Rafael Loureiro: Things literally caught on fire. So the application grew super fast. Now we have 750, uh, financial, uh, uh, wealth management firms in the platform. We have some of the most, uh, prestigious warehouses using the platform. And, uh, we just announced last week, for example, uh, a massive broker dealer like Satera on the platform, which is second largest US broker dealer using wealth.com.

[00:22:38] Rafael Loureiro: I know that's a little commercial, but

[00:22:40] Stacy Havener: that's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's okay. Hey, you know what? It's, it's actually facting. That's not bragging, that's not a commercial, in my opinion. That's facting and we celebrate Facting here. When you have wins like that, we wanna celebrate those successes. So it what an incredible journey.

[00:22:54] Stacy Havener: I wanna go. I wanna, let's take some pieces of that, part of the, that [00:23:00] chapter of the story of, uh, and unpack them. So when you, I wanna go back to the point in time where you said it was you and your team and an idea. Okay. And then you said, we're gonna go fundraise. And I wanna go back to this point in time because a lot of the listeners of this podcast are in the fund management space and they, a lot of them are launching new products, new funds, maybe even a new firm.

[00:23:34] Stacy Havener: And that's very much a startup. And I want them to get some lessons and advice from you here. Because what's very interesting is in this business, if you're a fund manager, people, they will tell you you don't have a shot and how to raise capital or get an investor until you have three years of track record.

[00:23:54] Stacy Havener: Now I know anecdotally that to be false because we've raised [00:24:00] over $8 billion that says it's not true. People will take a chance on you in the early days. Those are early adopters. You just need to find them. And I'm curious. How you think about this statement. Sometimes it's easier to raise money before the thing is built, and I'm gonna, so let me, so, because you, there's no data that, because I believe they're buying the founders and the vision.

[00:24:30] Stacy Havener: If you have, if you are existing, you have something to show before that point you don't. So I'm just curious how that resonates and how that dovetails with your experience.

[00:24:42] Rafael Loureiro: I think, um, it happened to us. Yeah,

[00:24:43] Stacy Havener: it

[00:24:44] Rafael Loureiro: happened to us. When you're

[00:24:44] Stacy Havener: living proof,

[00:24:45] Rafael Loureiro: I mean, wealth.com, we did not have a product when we went to raise money.

[00:24:49] Rafael Loureiro: Granted, we're like second time founders. Yes. So that helps a lot.

[00:24:53] Stacy Havener: Yes, yes. Because people like,

[00:24:54] Rafael Loureiro: hey, they know they've built it. I mean, they, they, they made a lot of mistakes, so they [00:25:00] probably won't commit the same mistakes again. Uh, so that helped a lot. They have something else that I learned through this process, Stacy, that's very interesting.

[00:25:09] Rafael Loureiro: And I, I hope, I hope I'm not offending anyone, but, uh, uh, when you raising money, you have to find the right vc.

[00:25:16] Stacy Havener: Yes.

[00:25:17] Rafael Loureiro: Right. Uh, when you raising, so usually. I go to the two coasts, I go to New York.

[00:25:24] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm. I

[00:25:24] Rafael Loureiro: present the idea, I pitch the idea, and then I go to California.

[00:25:27] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm. And I

[00:25:29] Rafael Loureiro: heard from an investor, I'm not, I'm not gonna say names.

[00:25:31] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. But I heard from investors, they said, look, New York are the engineers.

[00:25:36] Rafael Loureiro (2): Ooh. California

[00:25:37] Rafael Loureiro: are the artists. Ooh.

[00:25:38] Rafael Loureiro (2): So

[00:25:38] Rafael Loureiro: to your point, the engineers, they're more focused on, do you have product market fit? Does your product work? Can you show me traction? Right. And then when you go to California, these are the guys, and I'm not saying one is better than the other.

[00:25:51] Rafael Loureiro: Lemme clarify this. Yes. It's different. I mean,

[00:25:53] Rafael Loureiro (2): it's different.

[00:25:54] Rafael Loureiro: The California crowd, they're more like big idea. Mm-hmm. Does this have potential even though you don't have [00:26:00] a product? Yes. But I mean, do I believe in the team? Do I believe in the idea? Do I think there is a need? Let's go do this.

[00:26:06] Yes.

[00:26:06] Rafael Loureiro: Right. So.

[00:26:07] Rafael Loureiro: And I have investors. I have both investors in my cap table. I have people from New York, I have people from California, but that's what I, I have observed. Yeah. In California, they're more risk takers and, uh, uh, just having the right team and the right idea can help you raise money like wealth.com. We're able to raise money, $16 million one six with no product.

[00:26:27] Stacy Havener: Yeah. It

[00:26:28] Rafael Loureiro: was just an idea and a team at that point.

[00:26:30] Stacy Havener: It's the adoption curve, isn't it? It's the, it's that, it's that Rogers adoption curve and really understanding who's sitting across the table from you. And if you had gone to a, to a, uh, a VC that had that engineer type of psychographic, you were too early, right?

[00:26:49] Stacy Havener: They needed to be sort of next, they needed to be on deck. You needed to find, as you said, the right investor at the right time. And what I, what, [00:27:00] what happens to people is if they, if they're fishing in the wrong pond for a really bad analogy, they start. Believing that it's never gonna work. They don't think I'm just at, at the wrong fishing hole.

[00:27:15] Stacy Havener: And you're, yeah. You're living proof of that

[00:27:17] Rafael Loureiro: 100%. I mean, at this point, um, part of my job is to be talking to investors constantly when I'm raising money and when I'm not raising money. Doesn't matter.

[00:27:27] Stacy Havener: Oh, talk more about that.

[00:27:28] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah, to your point, I mean, uh, I have a very la very large list of investors. I mean, I keep these, it's like my, in my CRM.

[00:27:36] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:27:37] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, that I'm in constant communication because, uh, exactly to your point. At that point, uh, when I was raising money for the first time, maybe they were not the best investors. But now that I have traction, that now that I'm in this space, now that I'm closing contract, these guys in New York, they know everyone.

[00:27:54] Rafael Loureiro: They know who is who in these, uh, wealth management space, and they can open a lot of doors. So maybe [00:28:00] now, yes. It's great to bring them a strategic investors.

[00:28:02] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yes.

[00:28:03] Rafael Loureiro: So I never say no. I never get angry. Even when you say, Raphael, I don't believe in your idea. Uh, it's not big enough. Doesn't matter. It doesn't, you know, just keep going.

[00:28:14] Rafael Loureiro: Keep the conversation, keep going to the events, keep shaking hands, keep giving them updates. Yes. Right. So that's what I do. And, uh, uh, a lot of them come around and now they're super excited about wealth.com, when in the beginning they're like, oh, where is the traction? What's your burn? Yeah. Uh, what's the runway?

[00:28:31] Stacy Havener: We don't, we don't have that. We don't even have a client yet.

[00:28:34] There you go. Yes. But I mean, there's so much to

[00:28:37] Stacy Havener: learn from it. There really is. And I, and I wanna also put a pin in what you said, which was they, the investors were investing in you and your team and the vision for what you're building. Yes. But you and your team, and you said, we've done this before.

[00:28:54] Stacy Havener: And so a lot of the, a lot of the fund managers or even wealth [00:29:00] managers who break out of a, of a big shop and start their own thing, they've done it before. And so yes, it's a new, it's a new gig, but their pedigree and their experience and their reputation and authority and all those things go with them.

[00:29:18] Stacy Havener: So it is still people investing in people, but you don't lose all the things you did before. In fact, that's what helps people take a chance on you now.

[00:29:29] Rafael Loureiro: Completely agree. A hundred percent yes.

[00:29:31] Stacy Havener: Yeah. So great lessons there. Okay, so now you're off to the races. You found your people, you found your investor base, you've got product market fit.

[00:29:41] Stacy Havener: How so? So really at this point then. Your client, if you will, is the client, the financial advisor.

[00:29:50] Rafael Loureiro: It's okay. So as part of the, as part of evolution, one thing that we decided to do it is we don't wanna be a direct to consumer business.

[00:29:57] Stacy Havener: Okay?

[00:29:58] Rafael Loureiro: Right. Uh, uh, we [00:30:00] learn employee benefit. It was not a, it was not a good fit for our go to market.

[00:30:03] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:30:04] Rafael Loureiro: And then we start working with financial advisors, work with financial advisors, uh, uh, helped us evolve the solution. So initially when we launched wealth.com, we're helping create documents.

[00:30:14] Stacy Havener: Okay?

[00:30:14] Rafael Loureiro: Right. So think about this financial advisor, John Doe, senior on Main Street. His book of business usually, or her book of business is 80% mass Affluent people between, you know, $50,000 all the way to $5 million, and then 20% high net worth.

[00:30:31] Rafael Loureiro: Ultra high net worth. So initially when we launched the solution, we're helping them as affluent people that did not have a document, right? So you can go to wealth.com if you are a financial advisor client, right? They send you an invite, you go through the process and you can create your documents. You go to this beautiful workflow, one question at a time, and at the end of the workflow, you get your revocable trust, you get your will, you get your advanced healthcare directive.

[00:30:58] Rafael Loureiro: However, what we noticed [00:31:00] though is I was able to help 80% of their clients.

[00:31:03] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:04] Rafael Loureiro: The me affluent dentists, you know, uh, doctors, firemen. But the 20%, that 20% represent 80% Yeah. Of the advisor revenue. And that becomes their focus, right? I mean, it's my high net worth, ultra high net worth client. And at that point I was not helping them.

[00:31:22] Rafael Loureiro: So that's where we introduced. Another solution late last year called the Family Office Solution. Where for these 20%, the high net worth. Ultra high net worth, we don't create documents. We use AI to redo existing documents. Think about like people with $50 million in assets. Mm-hmm. Or more, right? So they have probably 10 different state planning documents.

[00:31:45] Rafael Loureiro: Think about all the revocable trust. Yeah. The grads. These lats. The crut. It's a letter, it's a soup of letters. Right? So we, in this case, we use AI to read all these documents,

[00:31:57] Stacy Havener: okay?

[00:31:57] Rafael Loureiro: And then we connect to the [00:32:00] client, uh, uh, uh, PFM solution, right? Like at the par, black Diamond, Orion E-Money. And then we generate this.

[00:32:09] Rafael Loureiro: Beautiful report that describe everything in your life. Wow. Right? So think about this. I mean, instead of me having to read those a hundred pages of documents, I can get this report and see everything about my, my, my estate planning financial life, right? I can see, hey, here's what happened. If I pass away, here's how my assets are gonna flow.

[00:32:29] Rafael Loureiro: Here's what happened when my wife or partner passed away. Mm-hmm. Here's how much my daughters are gonna receive. Okay? And when they're gonna receive, here's how I'm, I'm gonna be impacted by the tax cut job act. Here's what's included in every single doc of mind. Just the highlights.

[00:32:43] Rafael Loureiro (2): Wow. Right?

[00:32:44] Rafael Loureiro: So all the important decisions in a very, really nice visual workflow.

[00:32:48] Rafael Loureiro: So we can actually help. The financial advisor, entire book of business from mass affluent all the way to high net worth. It's not easy, but it's an evolution.

[00:32:58] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah. And

[00:32:59] Rafael Loureiro: it's part of building [00:33:00] a company. You hear the feedback, you iterate, you make it better. And I think the same thing with fund manager, right?

[00:33:05] Rafael Loureiro: I mean you, I was

[00:33:06] Stacy Havener: just gonna say that

[00:33:07] Rafael Loureiro: you have the initial launch and you really hear what your clients want and you adapt.

[00:33:12] Stacy Havener: Yeah. If you talk to them. Key point here, because I think what you said, it's easy to assume. Oh, of course. Well, every founder and executive team is speaking closely with their clients.

[00:33:25] Stacy Havener: You tech, FinTech tech, SaaS founders know that that's important. They know that that's like the most important thing they can be doing is talking to their clients. In the fund space you have very intelligent oftentimes. You have very intelligent, very quantitative fund managers who are not that comfortable in social settings, having conversations.

[00:33:54] Stacy Havener: They wanna sit behind their Bloomberg and run the money. And so they don't have that [00:34:00] piece. They don't even know they need that piece.

[00:34:13] Rafael Loureiro: I love it. I think you hit the nail on the head and, uh, uh, I think, uh, if you ask me, and I'm not gonna say, uh, we haven't done anything already, right? We are growing. The company's growing like crazy. Yeah. But, uh, if you ask me what is one of the secrets of, uh, of wealth dot com's success, I would say it's a combination of things to your point here.

[00:34:32] Rafael Loureiro: One, I have, uh, two co-founders. I'm not doing this alone. Right. I'm, I'm the engineer. Right. I, I'm a soft engineer by trade. That's my first time doing CEO job. Yeah.

[00:34:42] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah.

[00:34:42] Rafael Loureiro: And I do have to get out my comfort zone a lot. A lot. I mean, come here.

[00:34:48] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:34:48] Rafael Loureiro: Even though I love this podcast, I mean, it's been a great experience, but this is something I'm doing more and more now.

[00:34:53] Rafael Loureiro: Right. I'd rather be developing, I'd rather be spending time with the engineering team. But I cannot do that anymore. And I have two very [00:35:00] critical co-founders, right. Uh, one is, uh, uh, Tim White, he's my Chief Revenue Officer. Right. So we go to every single wealth management event. We go to all the

[00:35:11] Stacy Havener: two of you?

[00:35:12] Stacy Havener: Both of you?

[00:35:13] Rafael Loureiro: No, sometimes I, I don't go there.

[00:35:15] Stacy Havener: Okay. I used to go to all of them. Yes.

[00:35:17] Rafael Loureiro: I used to go to all of them in the beginning. I go to less of them. Yes. Right. But I mean, team is always there. And I, me, the reason being is we're coming from the fraud prevention space. Wealth management was not our space.

[00:35:29] Rafael Loureiro: So we need to be in front of people need to, we need to get to know them. So we go to every wealth management space. Yes. And my second co co-founder, Danny Fin, his background is wealth management. He comes from Goldman Sachs and SoFi. So that's the knowledge that we did not have. I know how to build engineering team knows how to sell, but we did not have the wealth management,

[00:35:52] Rafael Loureiro (2): the the

[00:35:52] Rafael Loureiro: financial brain.

[00:35:54] Rafael Loureiro: And that's Danny. Right. So it's a trifecta. And then we go to all these events. And the other thing that, uh, uh. [00:36:00] It was really good for us.

[00:36:02] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:36:03] Rafael Loureiro: Is, uh, when we created the company, we established an advisory board. What is the advisory board?

[00:36:09] Stacy Havener: Oh, I love that you're saying this. I love this.

[00:36:11] Rafael Loureiro: What is the advisory board?

[00:36:13] Rafael Loureiro: It's a collection of financial advisory influencers. People that are in this space. People like you, right? Mm-hmm. They have a following. They, they, they have a podcast. They know what the, what advisors want. So we gave them a little bit of the action, I mean, a little bit of the company, right? I mean, we want them engaged and, uh, uh, they, they serve.

[00:36:33] Rafael Loureiro: They serve many, many purpose one. They talk about us two, they provide feedback to the product. Hey, you guys going the right direction? You guys are not going the right direction. And three, they help us broadcast the word. So I mean, our podcast, the Practical Planner, uh, is run by one of one of these advisors, right?

[00:36:50] Rafael Loureiro: He's always talking to my, my, my, my legal arm, I mean inroads and uh, and then talking about state planning. So it worked really well. [00:37:00] So in no time I was able to go from not having a lot of experience in wealth management space to have a lot of experience in the wealth management space. Brilliant.

[00:37:08] Rafael Loureiro: Because of this. Yeah.

[00:37:10] Stacy Havener: It's like a different type of leverage, isn't it? It's like human capital leverage or something because you identified the pieces that you didn't have and instead of trying to figure out how do you get it, you didn't do the how bit you did the who bit. You said, let me find somebody who has that unique ability and that unique expertise.

[00:37:30] Stacy Havener: And get them, invite them to the party because I need them. We need them if we're gonna do this right. There's so many lessons there. Again, you know, you, I think tech and SaaS do this much better than we do as founders in the investment space. Uh, realizing, because you realize it's, you could be the best software engineer in the world, the very best you could code with your eyes closed, backwards, upside down.

[00:37:59] Stacy Havener: [00:38:00] And that if that was all you have, it wouldn't have gotten it done in the investment space. There's still this legacy thing that if you're the best investment manager in whatever asset class you're in, you're gonna win. No,

[00:38:16] Rafael Loureiro: you gotta get out there. You gotta shake hands. You gotta get outta your comfort zone.

[00:38:21] Rafael Loureiro: Otherwise you're not, it's not gonna happen.

[00:38:23] Stacy Havener: It's not. And that's why when you look, it's not the big firms. The firms that are growing, they're not always the best performers because that's not what it's all about. If no one knows you're there, it doesn't matter how good you are. So I love how intentional you were.

[00:38:37] Stacy Havener: I also love that you brought up the advisory board. Another thing, I mean, I feel like I'm pouring arsenic in the coffee of all my listeners right now. I feel like I'm just like, we don't do this well, but hey listen, you don't come here. You come here for tough love sometimes. Um, what a, what a smart idea.

[00:38:55] Stacy Havener: We need to do more of that on the investment side. Set up advisory [00:39:00] boards, not of other investment people who wanna geek out on what's going on in the markets of a collection of people, again, with that unique expertise. So those so many great lessons. Thank you for sharing that. That's really helpful. I have to tell you my estate planning story.

[00:39:17] Do it.

[00:39:17] Stacy Havener: Okay? Because I, I mentioned this in the green room. So I went to, this is so long ago. I'm not gonna tell you how long ago when I first got in this industry. You're gonna know when it was. 'cause there's a revealing data point or fact. I go to an investment conference, there's an estate planning attorney who's presenting.

[00:39:35] Stacy Havener: Now I'm, I'm sort of new out of school and I'm not from the investment or wealth space. So when I go to these conferences, I go to every session and I take copious notes. 'cause I'm trying to learn. So this is estate planning. Great. I'm gonna learn about it. I work on the fund side. Who cares? I wanna learn.

[00:39:52] Stacy Havener: This guy was awesome. Okay? I was so captivated by what he was talking about with all these different, all those [00:40:00] letters you were, you were riffing off before all the things you can do with these estate plans. I was so moved by this that I ordered the cd, ros.

[00:40:16] C Rome. Huh? We just lost like half of the, not half, but like 10% of the audits. But let's go.

[00:40:22] Stacy Havener: So like what year must that have been? I mean, I got out, I got outta college in 1998. That's probably right after. So I ordered the CD ROMs, I moved those freaking CD ROMs with me, like I moved from the East coast to the West coast.

[00:40:38] Stacy Havener: Those CD ROMs came with me. I would listen to them. I mean, to your point. This is an industry estate planning was ripe for technological, uh, advancement because CD Ross.

[00:40:52] Rafael Loureiro: Yes.

[00:40:53] And I mean,

[00:40:54] Rafael Loureiro: think about the, there's the other huge trend now is uh, uh, people keep talking about it and like [00:41:00] ai, it's getting overused.

[00:41:01] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. But it's the great wealth transfer.

[00:41:03] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I

[00:41:04] Rafael Loureiro: mean there is $124 trillion. Mm-hmm. Changing hands. Eight. And the interesting money. Because women usually, usually outlive men. Mm-hmm. Right. By, by, by a big margin. 70% of the women, when they inherit the money, the first thing they do is change the financial advisors.

[00:41:26] Rafael Loureiro: Why?

[00:41:26] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Why,

[00:41:27] Rafael Loureiro: why does this happen? Because when, when, when women go talk to financial advisors sometimes, I mean, these guys, I mean, they're like addressing their husband and not the wife.

[00:41:37] Stacy Havener: You know what

[00:41:37] Rafael Loureiro: I mean? Which, like, it's, it's terrible. Right? And, uh, I'm not saying everyone does this, I'm not saying that, but it happens.

[00:41:43] Rafael Loureiro: And then when she gets them on, the first thing she does, like, all right, bye bye. I'm gonna go to someone that like, pay attention can talk to me. So we are trying to create this solution that can talk to women that can talk to the next generation. Mm-hmm. It's a, it's digital. I don't have to go to someone's office and spend like [00:42:00] two or three hours and uh, uh, not understanding a word they're saying, yeah.

[00:42:03] Rafael Loureiro: And then get this document that's gonna collect dust in my shelf. And I'm not saying that, I mean, trust and state lawyers, they have, they have a role. I'm not saying they don't have a role and they have a role with wealth.com. I'm just trying to make that communication

[00:42:16] Rafael Loureiro (2): better. Better. Yeah.

[00:42:17] Rafael Loureiro: Instead of you having to carry the city roam around, you can go to a website and see that data.

[00:42:22] Rafael Loureiro: You know what I mean? Or we can teach you like pmu, what you need to know about state planning, or we can just show you what you need to know about your life situation. Right.

[00:42:31] Stacy Havener: That is so funny. So I just went through this process and it was a word doc, I'm not gonna lie. Um, so clearly, you know, I need to have my financial advisor call you immediately.

[00:42:41] Stacy Havener: Um, but I, but I wanna, but I ask a real question because I went through this, so obviously the, the interface is much better. But if I'm sitting there, so let's just say that my financial advisor had given me a login to wealth.com and they said, okay, now you're gonna go and fill all this stuff out. The questions, if [00:43:00] I remember them.

[00:43:01] Stacy Havener: It was like, what's the value of your home? What's the value of all your accounts? What's the value of this? And you know how I think I read three questions and I was like, f this, I don't, I don't have all this information at my fingertips. It's not in my brain. I don't have time to go sit here and look all this up and write it down on this Word document write.

[00:43:21] Stacy Havener: And I was like, done with it. So how do you make that easier? Like, so if I sat like, like literally if I sat down, am I gonna have to go, I'm still gonna have to go find all these data points.

[00:43:33] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, you, let's, let's say you the rule, you're not the exception. Right? Ah, and that's why we decide to work with financial advisors because

[00:43:40] Stacy Havener: they, he

[00:43:41] Rafael Loureiro: or she knows about that information.

[00:43:43] Stacy Havener: They put that in there.

[00:43:44] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. So with wealth.com, I mean, they can literally connect to all your assets. Yeah, it's a one time lift. They connect to your assets and if you already have documents, we read them, use ai, and then after that it's just keeping up to date. So next time he meets with Stacy's, like, Stacy, has anything changed?

[00:43:59] Rafael Loureiro: [00:44:00] Got it. 'cause I don't see anything changing here. Oh yeah. So and so let's, let's collect it and boom, let's update your documents. And we, I mean we, we, we know everything that's going on with your life at, at real time.

[00:44:11] Stacy Havener: Yeah. That is so great. Wouldn't it be cool if people like me, like the end client, were going to our advisors and saying, you need to get this 'cause don't send me, don't you dare, don't you dare send me another word, doc.

[00:44:25] Rafael Loureiro (2): Let's do it. I would love that.

[00:44:30] Stacy Havener: That's so great. So I, I, I'm like, I want this conversation to keep going. 'cause I feel like you have so much that we can learn from. I'm gonna ask, I don't actually know the answers to this, so I'm gonna ask it. Uh, so you're here, you mentioned you're getting outta your comfort zone. You're doing podcasts, you're doing these things, you're not from this space.

[00:44:50] Stacy Havener: All, all, all, all things. I very much relate to how do you sort of own your story and authentically [00:45:00] live it in an industry where you might feel like you're an outsider. Like how do you, how and are you sort of leaning into, because at the, I can't remember, I think it was in the green room, and I said, or maybe even on the pod, I, I wish I want more of your stories of being an entrepreneur and from tech like that it helps, it gives us so much insight into who you are and what you're building and why.

[00:45:26] Stacy Havener: So kind of authenticity and personal brand. Like how are you, how are you squaring that?

[00:45:31] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, I think part part of my philosophy is like I don't have all the answers. Yeah. Right. That's how I live my life. Uh, uh, uh, I'm super, super candid when I don't know.

[00:45:43] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:45:44] Rafael Loureiro: Right? Uh, even this space, when I meet people and, uh, I meet these warehouses and I meet these, uh, uh, uh, uh, wealth managers, I'm like, look, I'm an outsider.

[00:45:55] Rafael Loureiro: I'm an engineer by trade. And that's why this is a technology solution. [00:46:00] Mm-hmm. And we want to keep this as a technology solution. We wanna streamline the work that you are doing so you can focus more time on the client.

[00:46:07] Rafael Loureiro (2): Mm-hmm.

[00:46:07] Rafael Loureiro: Right? So, uh, for the pieces that I don't have,

[00:46:11] Rafael Loureiro (2): yeah.

[00:46:11] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, that's where like my co-founders come in.

[00:46:13] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah. Right. Uh, that's why the advise advisory board comes in. That's why, uh, uh, I have someone in my, she's not on my advisory board. She's actually not in a, in, in a, uh, a different time. We call a d. It's a different board with more high level people. Her name is Joanne Bradford. Does she come from the space?

[00:46:32] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah, maybe she was, she used to be like Microsoft, CRO. She used to be a SoFi president. But one thing that read your background, Stacy, and uh, it resonated with me a lot is, uh, she helps us well, at, at least in the beginning to tell the story.

[00:46:48] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah.

[00:46:48] Rafael Loureiro: Because the story is everything. That's how you relate to people.

[00:46:53] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, uh, so she, she's a great marketer. She's been in several companies, uh, high profile. [00:47:00] And, uh, she helped us convey this message. The point I'm trying to make here is like, since I don't have all the answers. I have usually I have a lot of questions.

[00:47:08] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah.

[00:47:08] Rafael Loureiro: For the places where, or for the areas where it's not in my expertise, I bring people.

[00:47:13] Rafael Loureiro (2): Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:14] Rafael Loureiro: Let's, let's collaborate, let's make these, let, let's, let's make this big. And it's been working, you know, with wealth.com. It's been working.

[00:47:22] Stacy Havener: You know what I love about that? It's not just that you bring in the experts or you, it's that if I imagine you in, in a conversation with someone who's in the wealth space and they're talking about something and you're like, I don't even know what's happening right now.

[00:47:39] Stacy Havener: I bet you you say that, I don't know, like, I don't know. I'm an engineer. Can you tell me more about that? And guess what? People love that because you're admitting you're not perfect. You're admitting you don't know, and you're asking them for advice. And people love to help. So I can imagine, especially in those early days when you [00:48:00] were, you know, when you were having all those conversations and with prospects and clients, they probably loved that you were turning to them for help, admitting you didn't know, asking questions.

[00:48:13] Stacy Havener: Like, that's charming in its own way. And I think as, as people, we feel like it's, it's, we wanna hide that.

[00:48:21] Rafael Loureiro: Yes. Because usually the first thing that comes to your mind is like, oh, they're gonna think I'm weak. Yeah. They're gonna think that, I don't know, but I know about engineering. If you wanna geek, if you wanna geek out, let's talk about engineer.

[00:48:32] Rafael Loureiro: But I don't know about a lot about wealth management. So teach me, and I mean, I remember that was one of the first thing I told you in the green room, like, Stacy, I never raised money for an investment

[00:48:41] fund. And you're like, don't worry, that's not what we're here for. But, uh, uh, uh, yeah, that I, I just wanted to like come up and say, Hey, I, I haven't done that.

[00:48:49] Ask

[00:48:50] Stacy Havener: you about that. That's not what I do. Yeah. Um, no, I. You know, there's this, I, I like to geek out on behavioral, [00:49:00] uh, science. You mentioned Orion. One of my dear friends is Dr. Daniel Crosby, who's their Chief Behavioral Officer. And I think how humans buy, how humans make decisions, how they buy, it's, it's why story works so well and why story's so important.

[00:49:16] Stacy Havener: But to me that's really like the ninja skillset that you need to raise money or sell anything, is to really understand how people make decisions. And one of the behavioral phenomenons or whatever that I, I relate to a lot is called the pratfall effect, which basically says that if you have like a really just train wreck of a person.

[00:49:42] Stacy Havener: Okay. They're just like, they don't know what they're talking about. They're all over the place. And you have a really, really polished person who's like perfect, perfectly coughed, and they never, they never say, um, and that it's, everything is just spot on. And then you have somebody who's clearly [00:50:00] competent, you know, dress well.

[00:50:02] Stacy Havener: Maybe they say, um, here or there. They spill some water. When they, when they go up on the stage, they, they don't know all the answers of those three, who do you think people like the best?

[00:50:14] Rafael Loureiro: The middle one.

[00:50:15] Stacy Havener: Of course.

[00:50:16] Rafael Loureiro: Yes. And

[00:50:16] Stacy Havener: yet, who do we try to be?

[00:50:17] Rafael Loureiro: The Polish one.

[00:50:19] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:50:19] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah.

[00:50:20] Stacy Havener: And that should give us freedom.

[00:50:22] Stacy Havener: And yet it's so hard because we think we need to be perfect and people don't want our perfect, they want our real. And if we would just be okay with that, we'd be, we'd not only have more success and whenever we're working on, but it would feel better. Wouldn't it? And it would be more fun. Absolutely fun.

[00:50:44] Stacy Havener: It'd be more fun. So freeing fun. It's so freeing. It's so freeing. Yeah. So I have enjoyed this so much. If it's okay, I wanna end well. Is there any last bits you wanna tell us about wealth.com? I mean, I'm literally gonna call my financial advisor after this [00:51:00] because I literally am just going through the process of the estate plan.

[00:51:03] Stacy Havener: Um, I think it's a fantastic solution. Solving a real problem.

[00:51:08] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, yeah, I mean, just, I just wanna finish, uh, uh, it's been great, Stacy. Thank you so much. Yeah, well I have something else for you. No, no, I hear you. Can't leave. You

[00:51:16] Stacy Havener: can't leave. No, no.

[00:51:17] Rafael Loureiro: I won't leave. But, uh, it's been great. I thoroughly enjoyed the podcast.

[00:51:21] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, and, uh, uh, uh, but yeah, I just wanna finish. Uh, uh, we've been, uh, growing like crazy. Last year. We raised money from Google Ventures, right? We actually accelerate the growth, uh. And we are, uh, about to announce another very strong, uh, news soon that I cannot talk about. But, uh, mm-hmm. Stay tuned. Um, so great.

[00:51:42] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah,

[00:51:43] Stacy Havener: so great.

[00:51:43] Rafael Loureiro: Super excited. You're

[00:51:44] Stacy Havener: on it, you're on the journey. I am so exci. Uh, it's such an honor to to spend time with you and I can't wait to follow along with my popcorn as all these things keep happening. Before you leave us though, I wanna take a few minutes. To ask some questions that just [00:52:00] allow us to, to get to know you a little more.

[00:52:02] Stacy Havener: Though you have been extremely candid and I love that about our conversation. And so I have some questions inspired by Proust. They're not rapid fire, but kind of. So are you ready?

[00:52:15] Rafael Loureiro: Absolutely. Let's do it.

[00:52:15] Stacy Havener: All right, here we go. First question, what book inspires you?

[00:52:20] Rafael Loureiro: Blitzscaling from Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn, PayPal, mafia.

[00:52:23] Rafael Loureiro: Yes. Right. I love it. I mean, it just, it just tells the, uh, stages of growth of a startup and what you have to do. Love that to get there. Uh, so big fan of Blitzscaling on the. Not business side. I'm reading a book called Jerusalem. Mm-hmm. The biography. She's just tell the story of Jerusalem the last 3000 years.

[00:52:43] Rafael Loureiro: I mean, it's been super informative. I mean, with everything that's going on, I just wanted to know more. Yes. About, I mean, everything about Jerusalem. So it's, it is a great book. Love it. Highly recommend it.

[00:52:54] Stacy Havener: That is, and I love the title makes you really stop and think, doesn't it? That's great. Thank you for sharing those.

[00:52:59] Stacy Havener: Okay. We're [00:53:00] going from books to places. What place inspires you or what's your happy place?

[00:53:06] Rafael Loureiro: I'm a big fan of London. Oh, me too. I feel like it combines old world with like innovation, I mean. A lot of things happening there at the same time. So I'm a big fan of London.

[00:53:22] Stacy Havener: We're like, we were best friends before and now we're super besties.

[00:53:25] Stacy Havener: Oh. 'cause I feel the same. I'm literally going there in a couple weeks. I don't know what it is about London. It, it does, it combines all those things. Fantastic. Well, we're gonna have to talk about that in the green room. Um, amazing. Okay, moving on. We're gonna jump stop to the future a bit. Let's pretend that you are giving a talk in a stadium.

[00:53:51] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. Thousands of, of fans of, of you and what you've built. You're about to take the stage. What song do they [00:54:00] play as your walkout anthem?

[00:54:02] Rafael Loureiro: I'm not gonna be authentic here. Uh, because we have that song and we have used that song multiple times with emailage and wealth.com.

[00:54:12] Stacy Havener: Yeah, it's the same one from then.

[00:54:14] Rafael Loureiro: Yes. I mean, we've used it. I mean, we actually had like,

[00:54:17] Stacy Havener: it's like your team song

[00:54:18] Rafael Loureiro: demo stage before we go to the demo stage. We actually play that song. I mean, it doesn't matter the conference, and I mean, it gets people like pumped up. It's a thunderstruck by a CDC

[00:54:30] Stacy Havener: Oh, AC C. That's so good.

[00:54:34] Rafael Loureiro: But it's not regional.

[00:54:35] Rafael Loureiro: I mean, it's related to It's been been used many times. Yeah.

[00:54:38] Stacy Havener: But it's classic, classic. I'm pretty sure that was like classic our, our, one of our soccer team songs as well. I mean, talk about it. A hype anthem. That's a, that's an amazing one. Okay. Love it. All right. Here we go. What profession other than your own, would you like to attempt?

[00:54:57] Rafael Loureiro: Like I told you, I've, I knew I would be a [00:55:00] computer scientist since I was 12 years old. I never tried anything else, but I think if I was not a, a software engineer, I would love to be a doctor. Really. I lo I, I love to talk to people. ILII, I'm a people person and, uh, I get bored easily if I'm not moving, doing different things.

[00:55:19] Rafael Loureiro: So I, I feel like a doctor, a, a surgeon. I mean, there's always a DA new challenge. You always meeting new people? Uh, yeah, I think so.

[00:55:27] Stacy Havener: That's so cool. Now I'm gonna tell you something. A lot of people have said that answer to the next question, which is, what would you not like to be? A lot of people say doctor there, but I get it because precision, you need precision as a software engineer.

[00:55:46] Stacy Havener: I mean, one wrong keystroke can completely ruin everything, right? Yes. So it's super precise. And the people part. I love that. Interestingly, it's a lot of people's, I don't wanna ever do that. So now I have to [00:56:00] ask, what what profession would you not like to do?

[00:56:04] Rafael Loureiro: I can't, I would not be able to be a lawyer.

[00:56:06] Stacy Havener: Fascinating.

[00:56:07] Rafael Loureiro: I can't be a lawyer. Yes, but they're talkers.

[00:56:10] Stacy Havener: They're talk. They're talkers too.

[00:56:12] Rafael Loureiro: Yes. I mean they, they, they, some of them do talk, but a lot of them, I mean, spend time just like writing documents and uh, yeah. That would not be me. I mean, reading. Yeah. Keeping up to date with all the law changes, no.

[00:56:24] Rafael Loureiro: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:24] Stacy Havener: No. You'd come up with a technology solution to do the job. So that you wouldn't have to

[00:56:30] Rafael Loureiro: as to what Yes, a AI is doing this now. Yeah. A lot of companies are raising serious cash trying to improve, uh, the legal field. Yes.

[00:56:38] Stacy Havener: Fascinating. Do you not like to write?

[00:56:40] Rafael Loureiro: I like to write. You do. Is is that my, is that my Not like you.

[00:56:44] Rafael Loureiro: Is that my strong suit? Do I wanna be a writer? No, I like to write, I like to read more and I like to talk more. I'm not a big writer now. Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:53] Stacy Havener: Okay. So, but that's also very interesting because again, with AI and just [00:57:00] with technology in general, if you like to talk, it actually can turn into writing, which is such a huge advantage if you don't like to sit with a blank piece of paper.

[00:57:08] Stacy Havener: 'cause a lot of people don't.

[00:57:09] Rafael Loureiro: Stacy, I'm a I, I, I'm a, I'm a Brazilian immigrant, so a, I love ai. I mean, it just made my writing so much better because now I can go there and say, Hey, here's what I'm trying to convey. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:57:23] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:57:23] Rafael Loureiro: Help me, help me draft a better email. And it does, you know, keeping my tone and then it does.

[00:57:30] Stacy Havener: Yeah. So do you speak to it? What language do you speak to it in? Like

[00:57:34] Rafael Loureiro: English. English. You

[00:57:35] Stacy Havener: do?

[00:57:35] Rafael Loureiro: Okay.

[00:57:36] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:57:36] Rafael Loureiro: English. Yeah. Yeah. I've been here for 23 years. Even though my accent's not gonna go anywhere. I mean, it's English. Yeah.

[00:57:41] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Okay. Fascinating. But if you wanted to speak to it in another language, it could obviously, I wonder how it would do though.

[00:57:48] Stacy Havener: That was what I was gonna ask you. Like

[00:57:50] Rafael Loureiro: I haven't

[00:57:50] tried it.

[00:57:50] Stacy Havener: Yeah. So who knows? I have not tried. And who cares? We don't need to worry about it. Not our problem. I have a question for you that might seem weird. Are you ready?

[00:57:59] Yep. [00:58:00]

[00:58:00] Stacy Havener: Okay. Why did you pick the name wealth.com when? I would've thought it would've been something like estate plan.com?

[00:58:06] Rafael Loureiro: Very good question, and I'm glad you asked. I mean, the goal for us is, uh, we want, we want a name that would allow us to do more for the financial advisor, right? I mean, we start with state planning. I feel like we already have the best solution. I want to keep evolving the state planning, but there are some natural adjacencies that we can keep developing, right?

[00:58:27] Rafael Loureiro: So we just introduced something called the Scenario Builder, which helps you plan for the future. Now that I know everything about Stacy, you know, I know, ah, I have all your documents. I'm connect to all assets. Now we can start work on the what ifs. What if I had a, how is that gonna impact me? What if I had a grant?

[00:58:44] Rafael Loureiro: So it's a little bit of a income tax planning, right? So, uh, we wanna name that we, we can keep expanding and doing more.

[00:58:51] Stacy Havener: Did somebody have estate plan.com?

[00:58:54] Rafael Loureiro: I didn't even look,

[00:58:59] Stacy Havener: I imagine you [00:59:00] had to really? I mean, wealth.com is a pretty badass domain name. I can't imagine it was just hanging out to be picked up.

[00:59:07] Rafael Loureiro: It is. It's actually funny that you, you say that because in 2009, yeah, 2009, long time ago, there is actually a a, a Wall Street Journal article. The title is. Who is gonna buy wealth.com 2009?

[00:59:21] Rafael Loureiro: Who is gonna buy wealth.com? We actually tried to go back to the, to the, the, to the, after we create the company, we went back to the journalist say, Hey, we bought it. But yeah, he didn't buy it. But uh, yeah, he's now working for CNBC, but uh, it was like all about the.com. Uh, the name has never been used or a single owner.

[00:59:38] Rafael Loureiro: He bought the domain 30 years ago and he sat on the domain for all this time. A lot of negotiation then. But, uh, we bought it. I mean, we just get so much organic traffic to wealth.com. It's not even funny.

[00:59:50] Stacy Havener: Brilliant. That's a brilliant move, just right there. You're so smart. You should be a software engineer.

[00:59:59] Stacy Havener: Okay, last [01:00:00] question, and this is a long time away from today. What do you want people to say about you after you've retired or left the industry?

[01:00:10] Rafael Loureiro: Yeah, and just so you know, I mean, I'm all about the journey, less about the destination. I think, uh, the journey's the fun, right? Yeah. Enjoy every day. Stressful days, not a stressful days.

[01:00:20] Rafael Loureiro: Beauty in a company is not fun every day. Uh, now, but the journey's about everything. Uh, I think I would say he made things better.

[01:00:29] Stacy Havener: Mm.

[01:00:29] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, he's been here, he made things better. I and, uh, he left, he left a legacy and I mean, I mean, he found something and he improved it.

[01:00:37] Stacy Havener: That's great. Well, you're doing it.

[01:00:39] Stacy Havener: You're doing it now. What a, what a wonderful conversation. Raphael, thank you so much for being here. If people want to follow along, what's the best way for them to do that?

[01:00:50] Rafael Loureiro: Just go. I mean, we have a very hard website.

[01:00:52] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[01:00:52] Rafael Loureiro: wealth.com. Very hard to find it. Very hard to remember. Yeah. Well do com and then, uh, we have a podcast, the Practical Planner.[01:01:00]

[01:01:00] Rafael Loureiro: Uh, it's all about state planning, if you like to hear about the soup of letters and uh, uh, yeah, how to save money, taxes, and, uh, all these strategies follow. It's really good.

[01:01:10] Stacy Havener: I'm glad it's not CD rom. I probably still want you to mail it to me, but I'm glad I can just listen to it, uh, on Spotify. Thank you so much, Rafael, your joy.

[01:01:20] Rafael Loureiro: Stacy, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:01:23] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products or to adopt any investment strategy.

[01:01:38] Stacy Havener: Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haven or Haven or Capital Partners.

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