this doesn't seem to be very different from what robo advisors do... where as they say, group you with the other people that have the same risk profile as you.
> What we do is factor in the risk appetite of the user plus the goal itself
I need some examples, b/c the goals you listed seem weird. Like trying to save $4k for a vacation, or car, seems like investing products aren't the right choice. You should keep that money cash in a HYSA and buy the thing when you have enough. If you're working with people with retirement funds, they probably would just cash out from their existing portfolio when they need to buy the expensive item.
> with a wide range of asset classes and a "glidepath" (target date) structure
I need to experiment more with the tools, but for high networth individuals with modest spending, glidepath models hurt long-term returns. For example, if someone invests $2,000/month for 45 years with a 9% real return, they could end up with $12.6M in an S&P 500 portfolio. At today’s 1.27% dividend yield, that’s $160K/year in passive income, which is enough to cover an 2x the average American lifestyle. So why shift away from an aggressive portfolio like the S&P 500 in retirement? If there is a big draw down in the market at the start of retirement, reducing the portfolio to $6.3m (half!), keeping 1 yr cash, reduce expenses by 20%, and as the market recovers you'd only pull out 1-5 years of money (2.5% per year - dividend payouts). Obviously, not ideal, but you're still not going be homeless at age 90.
