Keeping Up with Savings Instead of Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Building a Wealth Management Platform for Everyone.

Matt Cohen is the Founder and CEO of Invest Forward, an innovative and holistic wealth management solution that aims to help the everyday American manage their entire financial life in a simple, transparent, and low cost way. Matt has been very thoughtful about building out the Invest Forward platform and I’ve never seen him as excited about his work as he has been with Invest Forward. He’s built out a strong set of partnerships and has a good set of investors (including Transamerica Ventures). Matt has a strong background at the intersection of finance, technology, and making an impact. Matt has been a Partner at City Light Capital, a top impact investment VC firm that he helped build from the ground up. He also has finance and startup experience as a banker at Citi and Bear Stearns and was a founding member / VP of Business Development at Netfolio, an early 2000s fintech startup.

America has a savings problem. Spending has certainly been made easy, but savings, for a variety of reasons, has not. In Invest Forward, Matt has built a holistic wealth management solution that aims to improve people’s financial lives by improving access to information and advice on personal finance and enable people to take actionable steps in their financial lives that help them easily save and invest.

In this episode we cover:

• How 33% of Americans have $0 saved for retirement, how 63% of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover an emergency of $500, and how fintech platforms can help people change their behavior and better understand their financial health.
• How fintech platforms can help America’s consumption obsession and help people keep up with their savings and expenses rather than Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
• How little changes in people’s personal finance behavior, like automating savings, can make big changes in people’s financial health.
• How hockey and his high school hockey coach helped shape Matt’s view on building Invest Forward and building a team culture.
• How thinking about your financial life like your physical health can help you be responsible with your finances.
• How having a peer group who can talk finance is so important and how Marshawn Lynch, the star NFL running back, has been an expert saver and has imparted that wisdom on his NFL teammates.

Quick Hits: * Biggest Mentor: Matt’s dad. * What Keeps You Up At Night: How he can create a technology platform that democratizes access to financial services and impact a lot of people. * Saying You Live By: “If you’re not falling down, you’re not trying hard enough.”