Open menu
Close menu
Let's talk

Join our AMA featuring an advisor who has scaled past $75M with Betterment as his custodian. Our panel will answer any and all questions about our custody platform.  Register today

Going from $0 to $75M

How Advize Wealth built an RIA from scratch, with no clients and no safety net

Colin Overweg launched Advize Wealth Management in 2018 at 25 with no book of business and no safety net. With Betterment Advisor Solutions as his first and only custodian, he built a thriving virtual RIA.


Let's talk

By the numbers

  • Zero clients

    from his previous firm due to non-competes

  • 2-person team

    and $75M AUM

  • Zero NIGOs

    in 8 years

About

About: Advize Wealth Management is a fee-only, fully independent RIA serving about 80 households with a 2-person team. Built on a digital-first, education-driven approach, the firm operates virtually across multiple states.

Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Rochester, MI

Advize wealth management

Pain points

  • Paperwork, errors & the NIGO Trap

    Account openings required full dedicated meetings, five or more signatures, and up to 50 pages of forms. One missing initial sent everything back to square one.

  • Manual trades that ate half the day

    Every client contribution meant opening a spreadsheet and calculating allocations by hand. A single $50,000 deposit could consume 90 minutes.

  • Compliance approval that killed the content

    Every video Colin wanted to publish required BD pre-approval. By the time it came back, the moment had passed. His most powerful growth tool was structurally suppressed.

Challenge

Colin had spent nearly four years at a large broker-dealer when he reached a turning point. Manual account openings, spreadsheet-driven portfolio management, and a compliance environment that blocked his content strategy made scaling feel impossible.

So in 2018, he decided to start his own firm. His non-compete meant he couldn't bring clients with him. With runway running out, he rented out his own bedroom and moved back into his parents' basement. That is where Advize Wealth Management was born.



 

individual taxable dashboard screen
Image is illustrative.

Solution

While still at his BD, Colin opened a personal Betterment account just to evaluate it. What required multiple meetings and stacks of paperwork at his firm took about five minutes. So when he launched Advize, choosing a custodian was an easy decision.

From day one, Betterment Advisor Solutions replaced his entire back office. Automated rebalancing, tax-smart trading, and hands-free billing freed Colin from the sheer number of spreadsheets he had been working with at his BD. Automated client communications meant his clients always felt looked after, even as he grew and relocated across state lines.


I literally quit my job and started my own company after using Betterment.
Colin Overweg
Advize Wealth Management
This advisor is a Betterment client and receives referrals. Views may not be representative. See G2 reviews.

  • A Digital-First Experience for Every Client

    Betterment Advisor Solutions pre-fills up to 90% of account information. Clients confirm a few details and are enrolled in minutes. In eight years and hundreds of accounts, Advize has had zero not-in-good-order rejections. ACATS transfers trigger automated client emails and assets typically arrive within six business days with no manual follow-up required.

  • Running a Solo Shop Without the Solo Overhead

    Automated, drift-based rebalancing and tax-smart trading replaced manual spreadsheets entirely. Billing runs automatically across ~30 custom models with a flat-fee for younger clients and AUM-based fee for retirees. And quarterly compliance billing reports generate in approximately 30 seconds.

leemackey-1
“Now that we’re one year into it, looking back, the amount of time we’ve freed up in our back office is enormous.”

Lee Mackey,
Partner

Client. Views may not be representative. See G2 reviews.

The impact

  • $0 to $75M AUM from scratch

    No clients transferred. No legacy book. Colin built Advize Wealth to ~$75M across ~80 households over eight years, with Betterment Advisor Solutions as his only custodian throughout.

  • Zero NIGOs.
Eight years running.

    Digital onboarding replaced the paper-heavy process entirely with zero not-in-good-order rejections since day one.

  • The back office, fully outsourced.

    Automated trading, rebalancing, billing, and compliance reporting let a 2-person firm operate without a single admin hire. As Colin puts it, Betterment Advisor Solutions functions like a full-time trader and a full-time admin working alongside his team.

Build your RIA on a platform that scales with you

Build your RIA on a platform that scales with you

 

Read the Ultimate Breakaway Guide

Download

2026 breakaway guide