Adam Dell's Flat-Fee Planning Service Adds Subscriptions

The firm’s new subscription model, offering continuous financial planning advice, provides three membership options: Essential, Strategic and Comprehensive, the last designed for clients with complex financial needs.

Essential membership is for people building a strong financial foundation. The Strategic option is for professionals managing increasing wealth and financial sophistication. It includes tax planning and a customized investment strategy.

The third membership, Comprehensive, is tailored for high-net-worth individuals, business owners and families with advanced financial needs. It features estate planning guidance, real estate analysis and in-depth tax and investment strategies.

Along with the new business model, Domain has this year increased its prices. However, with the annual subscription membership, each fee drops after the first year: Essential costs $3,200 for the initial year and renews annually at $1,800; Strategic is $4,800 for the first year, renewing annually at $2,500; and Comprehensive is $7,800 for the first year and renews annually at $4,500.

Domain Money, the fifth company that Dell, a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” has founded, focuses on serving the mass affluent, including older HENRYs — high earners who are not rich yet — starting to plan for retirement.

The firm’s investors include actor Ashton Kutcher and Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff.

In the interview, Dell, formerly a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he was head of product at Marcus by Goldman Sachs, talks about Domain Money’s proprietary software built to meet the needs of the mass affluent, whose concerns are largely cash flow and expenses.

The firm’s purpose-built artificial intelligence platform helps advisors create comprehensive profiles and personalized plans by analyzing documents and conducting in-depth assessments of clients’ finances.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: Are you still targeting HENRYs (High Earners, Not Rich Yet)?

ADAM DELL: Our demographic spans the full gamut of mass affluence, which includes HENRYs that are in their mid-40s and 50s and starting to think about retirement.

We have three tiers of service, each geared toward a different segment. The highest one is for people who are very serious about retirement, estate planning, trusts and the like.

Are your HENRY clients scared about the current volatility in the stock market?

Obviously, volatility is scary for everyone who is an investor in the market. But we advise our clients to stick to a strategy and not let short-term market swings impact their long-term thinking.

Our advisors are taking advantage of tax-loss-harvesting opportunities. So we’re helping a number of our clients minimize their taxes.

What technology that the firm uses stands out in particular?

We believe our proprietary technology is unique and enables our advisors to be much more granular in their planning than what’s typical of the industry.

We use our own proprietary planning solution specifically built for the mass affluent. That segment really cares about cash flow and expenses.

They really want to know how much they can spend on vacations this year, for example; how much they can contribute to the renovation plan they have for their house or even purchase a new one.

All our plans are designed to address these concerns, which speak specifically to the needs of the mass affluent segment.

You maintain that crypto, a hedge against inflation, has a place in investment portfolios. What do you think about the blockchain? Does the digital ledger for transactions, typically those of cryptocurrencies, stand a chance of ushering in an infinity of new businesses?

Developers are working on various applications of the blockchain, particularly around things like security and settlement.

Blockchain is the foundational technology that supports applications like stablecoins [created to reduce volatility]. So it’s a very useful thing.

What has to happen for blockchain use to really take off?

Purely, an app.

In the early days of the internet, developments like that were email and search. They led to a huge ecosystem of value creation — businesses that were born out of email and search, now too numerous to count.

If you apply that same analogy to blockchain, the developer community needs [an app], which has yet to emerge. That doesn’t mean it won’t. It probably will. But that’s what the ecosystem needs to flourish further.

There are a lot of developers out there who are working on various applications of the blockchain, particularly around things like security and settlement.

But a lot of the wind has been taken out of their sails based on how hot AI is.

You’ve founded five companies. What’s the hardest part of generating growth?

There are a lot of challenges with startup companies: finding the right talent, finding capital, finding product-market fit, finding those first early clients.

Finding really, really committed, high-caliber talent is among the most challenging because there are so many opportunities out there; and the best talent flocks to them.

We’re lucky at Domain Money because we have a stellar, super-committed team; we’re building [excellent] tech; and we’re really good at providing financial planning services.

High-caliber talent is a very precious thing.

I wonder: Do you talk about business with your brother Michael (founder of Dell Technologies and the world’s 17th wealthiest person, according to Forbes)?

I talk to my brother a lot.

Does he give you advice?

Yes, about some things.