There’s more to personal finance than just tracking spreadsheets or picking stocks. It connects to other aspects of life such as family and relationships and your hopes for your future.
We believe personalized financial advice, once reserved for the wealthy, should be an expectation, not a privilege. Dobot uses the scalability and cost-effectiveness of mobile technology and artificial intelligence to create a personal financial guide for the 99%.
How? We offer tools, encouragement, and actionable strategies to help millions of people build their financial foundations and achieve goals they never thought possible. We connect the core components of financial health – saving, spending, borrowing and investing – to provide a holistic solution that is deeply aligned with our users’ daily lives and life goals.
Dobot is the first life-driven financial platform built by three industry experts who have accumulated over 70 years of deep domain expertise. We realized that the traditional banking system is outdated, complicated, caters only to the wealthy, and simply doesn’t resonate with people. So we left the traditional financial industry to create a solution that reflects how real people use and view money, with the goal of helping them improve their financial health.
Read on to discover how Dobot is proving that anyone can achieve financial health.
Life happens.
Cars break down. People get sick. People lose jobs. The average American has just $5,500 in a checking account, and 62% of Americans wouldn’t be able to withstand an unexpected hardship of even $1,000.
On the flip side, let’s say you wanted to save up for a car, or plan a graduation trip to New York with friends — but you go to Starbucks twice a day. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the finer things in life every once in awhile, but it’s a problem if you lose focus on the big picture.
The reason? They don’t have access to the right tools and the right support system to manage it. Or, they’re just flat out ignored by traditional financial services altogether.
The result? People — especially millennials, our country’s largest generation — are increasingly distrustful of larger banks and traditional financial institutions and demand a radically different engagement model around financial planning.
We can all agree that our lives are in a constant state of flux and uncertainty – more so today than ever before. And our values and expectations are different than past generations.
Unexpected life events force us to reevaluate our approach to money and reinforce the need to save more. We no longer plan only for linear, long-term horizons with traditional goals but also plan for multiple, short-term horizons with non-linear paths. We view wealth more broadly than the simple material accumulation of assets; we are planning for a richer life, encompassing new and different goals and experiences. All of this makes financial planning hard.
But here’s a secret. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Dobot is injecting next-gen AI solutions into its experience to turn the core components of financial health – saving, spending, borrowing, and investing – into something that anyone can easily grasp and feel they have control.
More than just dollars and cents
Financial resilience not only helps people weather financial storms, it also connects to other important aspects of life — like people’s relationships with their family and friends, their ability to do something they’re passionate about, and their ability to have new experiences. That’s Dobot’s philosophy, and we put this at the core of each customer’s strategy.
Goal-oriented savings
Dobot automatically sets money aside in case of emergencies and for goals that keep customers focused. We’re providing insights that improve financial literacy while also honing in on ways to plan for and realize dreams.
The right investment plan for every situation
Everyone has different life circumstances and objectives. Once users learn how to save more, we also help them invest intelligently to achieve their long-term goals. Dobot leverages powerful analytics to choose the right investment portfolio that fits each user’s unique objectives.
Instant information access
Dobot provides customers with timely and relevant expertise from our Co-Founders that is distilled through smart feeds, webinars, and blogs — as well as a community of like-minded peers offering support on their path to financial peace-of-mind.
Saving money doesn’t have to be difficult. And intelligent investing doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective. Here’s how Dobot shows you the easy steps that you can take now to make big improvements in your financial health.
Connect
Connect your primary checking account to our service via API. This pre-populates a rainy day fund and automatically outlines an actionable plan – how much to save, how to reach your goal, and where to keep your money.
Save
Our proprietary algorithm analyzes your spending trends and calculates savings capacity, which then activates the automated savings feature, transferring money via ACH transfers to your Dobot savings on a regular basis.
Invest
Dobot breaks through the confusion and fear often associated with financial investing. It all starts with your life-goals, and Dobot determines which investment portfolio will best help you meet them. You remain in complete control, and Dobot offers guidance every step of the way.
Share
You can easily share your goals, concerns, and aspirations, letting you quantify each and save in a stress-free way.
Does Dobot work with my current bank account?
Dobot connects seamlessly with checking accounts from the following banks and is constantly working to add more. Dobot will soon have access to over 17,000 banks.
Dobot is making some big strides in our mission to set people everywhere on the path to financial success. Here’s a look at our key accomplishments so far:
Product Development
We recently launched our beta with family and friends in March, 2016.
Customer Validation
100+ beta users by invitation only as of March, 2016 with over 2,000 people signed up for product updates.
Strategic Partnerships
We are in active partnership conversations with companies and institutions who share a common vision of helping people become ‘healthier’ holistically, including:
What’s Next for Dobot?
We’re building on our momentum with a go-to-market strategy consisting of various digital client acquisition tactics to build our user base, generate buzz, and drive traffic and action to download the Dobot app, including
To broaden our customer reach and help us establish scale at an accelerated pace, we are tapping into existing networks of potential partners with similar value propositions and building a pipeline of strategic partners early on.
Find out how you can help Dobot achieve these goals by requesting access to the business plan side of our profile!
John Longley | CEO & Co-Founder | John is a 27-year industry veteran in wealth and asset management and was the former CEO of Citibank Private Bank and also the Managing Director/Head of Private Wealth at Blackrock/iShares. At Dobot, John is responsible for the vision, execution of strategy, fundraising and overall leadership of the company.
Brian Davis | COO & Co-Founder | Brian is an experienced entrepreneur and 20-year industry expert and was COO of Client Service at Bridgewater Associates and worked in strategic consulting at McKinsey & Company. Brian manages day-to-day operations, including back-office operations, customer service, finance, and HR.
Brad Pope | CPO & Co-Founder | Brad is a 23-year industry leader with deep roots in fixed income and equity profile management and was a founding member of the iShares ETF business at Barclays Global Investors, later acquired by BlackRock. Brad acts in dual capacity as Chief Investment Officer and CPO of Dobot.
Andy Zurcher | SVP Product | Andy has 15 years of technology management experience and was one of the first members of the ServiceMagic/HomeAdvisor management team, from its pre-launch to over $200 million in revenue. Andy is responsible for development and management of product offering, including product development, graphic design and content management.
Eric Spery | SVP Technology | Eric is a 20-year experienced developer, architect, and leader with experience scaling HomeAdvisor’s development team as it grew to $200 million in revenue. Eric is in charge of hiring and management of the technology team, and day-to-day technology operations.
Advisory Board
David Bill | David has 25 years of experience building technology companies and teams. He is leading engineering at Vitra Health and serves as CTO for Freestyle Capital and advises a number of startups.