Fortunately
Fortunately was a financial-planning company that gave people access to automated financial plans.
- Closed
- San Francisco, CA, USUnited States
Fortunately was a financial-planning company that gave people access to automated financial plans.
Which advantages over its rivals hold up, and why are they hard to copy?
Fortunately held a price advantage over traditional in-person financial planners by offering many of their benefits for $5 per month instead of the $500 or more per year those planners typically charge.
It was an SEC-registered investment advisor and a fiduciary legally required to put users' interests ahead of its own, and it monetized by providing value to users rather than by selling their data; its senior technical team, composed of alumni from Google and Apple, focused on software security.
What could change its growth trajectory, and what would confirm it?
Fortunately's growth depended on more funding and new features, but it never found a path to financial viability. In late 2022 it planned a next fundraise to support growth and to roll out additional features such as insurance optimization; although its service got many rave reviews, it still could not find a path to exponential growth.
Fortunately gave tens of thousands of people access to automated financial plans. After raising $2.2 million, it assembled a team of technology, finance and marketing experts with experience at organizations such as Google, Groupon and Apple.
How does its pricing position it against rivals?
Fortunately undercut traditional financial planners by charging $5 per month for automated planning with many of the benefits of an in-person financial planner, instead of the $500 or more per year a traditional planner charges. The $5 monthly price applied after a 30-day free trial, and Fortunately offered an upgrade to a fully managed plan for $20 per month.
Fortunately's investment-fee evaluation service was free and carried no obligation to use its financial planning service. It connected users who wanted to discuss their plan with a financial expert at no cost.
What does the product do for its buyer, and how is it delivered?
Fortunately gave young families an automated plan for saving and investing toward home, retirement and college goals. It created that plan in under five minutes by examining a household's full financial picture—mortgages, investments and taxes—and then simulating thousands of possible futures to calculate an optimal path before building a personalized plan for each household.
In June 2022 Fortunately, a financial technology startup, announced the launch of its platform. Fortunately's plans had users invest through a simple three-fund portfolio. Fortunately shifted plan investments from stocks to cash based on the timing of each user's goals.