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Its First Year, This Startup Struggled to Get 75 Clients. Five Years Later, They Have 18,000. Here's How They Did It.Financial planning startup Facet knew they were targeting a huge untapped market. But getting clients wasn't as easy as they hoped.

ByLiz Brody

Key Takeaways

  • This startup shares three tactics that helped them grow quickly and effectively.
  • "Don't be afraid if that first client doesn't come from where you want it to."

This story appears in theSeptember 2023issue of雷竞技手机版.Subscribe »

Courtesy of Brent Weiss
“Don’t believe you always know the truth,” says Facet’s Brent Weiss. “That can take you on the wrong path.”

A greatbusiness ideais worth nothing, until you can find paying customers. But how?

Here's a start: Think like the founders ofFacet. It's an onlinefinancial advisorplatform that spent years (and multiple pivots) figuring out how to get members. Now it has 18,000 of them, and brings in $35 million in annual recurring revenue.

Facet was partly born out of a new rule issued in 2016 (but ultimately never implemented) by Obama's Department of Labor. It required financial advisors to becomefiduciaries(这意味着他们必须完全从客户的行事st interests). What caught the attention of Brent Weiss and Anders Jones was a number they saw in the public comments: The planning industry said this would make services too expensive for 8 million people currently using advisors.

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