This isn’t a typical post you’ll find in our blog.
Instead, it’s a reflection—six months into building Back Bay Financial Planning & Investments, and nearly fourteen years into my career as a financial advisor.
Launching my own firm was the biggest professional risk I’ve taken. Before making a leap like that, there are things you know, things you don’t know, and a surprising number of things you thought you knew.
As we turn the page to a new calendar year full of opportunity, it felt like the right moment to look back at a few of the lessons 2025 reinforced—both about this profession and about how I want our firm to serve clients.
Three Things I Know (And Have Reaffirmed)
1. Great advice isn’t scalable—and that’s a feature, not a bug
This was core to my decision to start an independent firm.
We all have finite bandwidth in our personal and professional lives. I’ve written before about Dunbar’s number—the idea that humans can only maintain roughly 150 meaningful relationships. In my experience, a similar constraint exists in professional services. To be honest, I think it’s even less for financial advisory firms.
How well can you really know a client?
Real financial planning isn’t just about portfolio size or asset allocation. It’s about understanding what success actually looks like for someone—and that takes time. Those conversations aren’t always easy, they evolve over years, and they require depth, relationship, and trust.
The more clients a professional takes on, the more that depth gets diluted. I’ve seen it in my own experience and constantly talk with other professionals who admit they are in a little over their head.
I aim to spend a significant amount of time understanding each client’s complete financial picture and thinking through how we can better align their resources with their goals. There are only so many hours in the day—and I refuse to compromise the quality of advice by exceeding our capacity to deliver it well.
I’m incredibly grateful that 86 families have trusted us with that responsibility. And I’m equally committed to protecting the ability to serve each of them thoughtfully. I’ve said many times, I plan on limiting myself to 100 families. That continues to be my plan.
I have some decisions to make on the growth of the firm past that – whether to hire/bring on additional professional help. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, for now, we’ve still got room onboard the ship as we look to bring on 4-5 new households per year.
2. There’s a reason independent RIAs are growing so quickly
This gets a bit into industry “inside baseball,” but it matters. You may have never heard the term “RIA” before. In the history of how individuals interact with financial advisory firms, it’s more likely you encounter a “broker-dealer”, an insurance company or its subsidiary.
Back Bay operates as an independent, fee-only Registered Investment Adviser. Practically speaking, that means I own the firm outright and serve as its Chief Compliance Officer. There is no outside ownership, no product incentives, and no compensation tied to selling anything.
Our revenue comes exclusively from fees clients pay us directly.
We don’t earn more—or less—based on the funds we use, the trades we make, or the strategies we recommend. That structure doesn’t eliminate conflicts entirely (nothing does), but it provides the cleanest possible framework for transparency and alignment.
One of the easiest things I explain to new clients is our independence. I have a clear fiduciary duty of loyalty to you, and the way the firm is structured reinforces that obligation rather than competing with it.
That matters—to me, and I believe equally as much to the people we serve.
If your curious about reading more, here is a great blog post by a fellow fee-only advisor on the various types of advisors and their compensation.
3. When the facts change, change your mind
John Maynard Keynes said it far more eloquently than I ever could, but the principle hold and guides me in my personal and professional ventures.
When I launched Back Bay, I committed to partnering with the best technology and operational platforms in the industry. What surprised me most wasn’t just how advanced these tools are—but how rapidly they continue to evolve. In 6 months many have features that weren’t even being discussed (with me at least). It’s amazing as consumers demands change, these companies are hellbent on being ahead of it. I love the speed and rapidity of the changes.
My inbox is full of weekly updates, feature releases, and improvements. The best technology isn’t what it can do today—it’s the commitment to getting better as the needs of clients and advisors change.
I’m not “married” to any specific technology partner. But when you see meaningful improvements rolled out before they even make headlines, it becomes clear who’s leading and who’s reacting.
In an era of rapid change, staying adaptable isn’t optional. It’s essential to delivering a great client experience—and it’s something we take seriously.
The Biggest Change I’ve Made
1. Narrowing my focus has made me a better practitioner
Reducing the size and scope of my practice did more than improve work-life balance—it allowed me to reinvest time into becoming a better practitioner.
Two things that were consistently deprioritized earlier in my career just due to time are now things I’ve been able to tackle.
First, I became an adjunct faculty member at Salisbury University in their CFP® program. As the son of a teacher, I strongly believe that teaching is one of the best ways to deepen expertise. It keeps me close to current CFP® curriculum, sharpens my thinking, and allows me to give back to the next generation of planners. A personal goal of mine is to help leave the profession in a better place than I found it.
I entered this profession because of an adjunct professor who introduced me to it. I hope to pay that forward.
Second, I’ve pursued advanced tax education. I’m nearing completion of the Tax Planning Certified Professional (TPCP®) designation and plan to pursue my Enrolled Agent license later this year—not to file tax returns, but to further strengthen my ability to advise clients and represent them in front of the IRS if needed.
Tax planning is central to good financial planning. Continuing to improve as a practitioner isn’t optional in my opinion, it’s part of my fiduciary responsibility to each of my clients. You expect me to be excellent at what I do. I hold myself to that same standard.
Looking Ahead – What I Think
I’m laser focused on going from here working with our target clients. We’ll continue to prioritize working with the families and referrals of our existing clients. We are taking care of our existing clients first.
Behind that, I have found we do our best work for those who are at or near retirement and have approximately $1 – $5 million in investable assets. This isn’t a hard floor or ceiling, but it is certainly a bell curve. Many of our clients fall right between that range. As a byproduct, our processes are set up to work successfully with those individuals from the get-go.
That doesn’t mean we can’t help folks outside of that demographic.
Starting an independent firm hasn’t changed what I believe about financial advice—but it has clarified what matters most.
Depth over scale. Independence over incentives. And a commitment to continuous improvement.
As we move into a new year, those principles will continue to guide how we serve clients—and how we grow. You can see if we’re a good fit to help you navigate your retirement at the beach by clicking here.
