Why Are the Smartest People I Know So Lost When It Comes to Money?
It started at a playground and ended with six weeks of late nights in my basement — the story behind YouGotThis.
It’s late 2025, and I’m at a playground watching my son on the monkey bars. I’m there with two friends — both physicians, with kids about the same age. It’s the usual Saturday afternoon in October, leaves falling, and while the kids run around we get to talking. It usually starts as small talk, but because I work in investments, it usually ends with me being asked for financial advice. This one’s familiar — these two ask me all the time, because everything to do with their personal finances feels daunting. It’s tough for me too: I’m not a financial advisor, so there’s a real limit to what I can say and do. And it’s different for each of them. One has a good bit of cash saved but no clue where to start. The other has an advisor he’s satisfied with, but knows the guy isn’t doing everything he could. Both are strong earners — and neither knows what their net worth is, when they can retire, or what to do when the mortgage comes up for renewal.
This is a pattern. It’s not just them — it’s everyone. I see the same confusion again and again, across my personal network and my non-financial professional one. Smart people. Good jobs. They’re not bad with money, exactly — they’re underserved. And it breeds a quiet sense of being lost. No one has a clear picture. After enough of these conversations, I started to see three clusters: people who have an advisor but, more than half the time, aren’t satisfied with the arrangement; people using tools built for 22-year-olds just starting out or living paycheque-to-paycheque; and people doing nothing at all, because nothing ever felt right, so they opted out. That’s a massive share of the population.
Even as an investment professional, I feel this from personal experience. My wife is a physician. We combined our finances about six years ago, when she finished fellowship, we were expecting our son, and we were buying a house. Until then I’d been doing my own thing, but I felt there needed to be a professional in the equation who wasn’t me. So we did the tour — a bunch of advisors. It’s not my first rodeo with advisors, planners, retail brokers, whatever you want to call them; I’ve been on the institutional side of this business a long time. It was still eye-opening. Where it got strange: we were referred to a small firm through a close personal relationship, and it was treated as though they were doing us a big favour (they weren’t — it was a favour for them). I went to the meeting anyway, and the red flags started going off immediately. The longer I listened, the worse it got. It was clear these guys were dishonest and incompetent. There was no way we’d go with them — and now I was in an awkward spot personally. I didn’t need that.
So I looked at what tech and innovation could do for us. Trust me, I looked at everything. There are budgeting apps that are great for beginners. There are robo-advisors that are competent and easy on your time — but the moment life gets even a little more complicated than a bit of money in a couple of accounts, they’re not enough. There are advisors, and a good one is worth the fee, but you can’t tell who those are; it’s opaque, siloed, and expensive. And the “just Google it” approach produces noise, not clarity. For a 38-year-old couple looking at a new baby, a mortgage, no pensions, and a little money starting to build across various investment accounts — there simply wasn’t a tool that fit.
For my family, I pieced it together myself. I went with an investment management firm for the portfolio (at least then there’s a person to call), and a tax accountant. Then I handled the rest of the picture on my own — which turned out to be a ton of work. The most strenuous part was putting together a financial plan. I modelled it myself, and it took me every night for six weeks. When I finished, I was happy with it, and I felt a huge relief seeing the whole roadmap laid out. But I also sat there in my basement thinking: there’s got to be an easier way.
That’s why I created YouGotThis. It puts your whole financial picture in one place, built on three pillars: find out where you are now; figure out where you’re going; and show you how to get there. I wanted it easy to use without being useless — complex enough to make real decisions, simple enough to actually understand. It’s built for mass-affluent professionals who’ve outgrown the simple tools and maybe don’t want, or aren’t ready for, an advisor. And if you do want a professional at some point, that’s there too. It covers net worth, investments, retirement, debt, education savings, and estate planning — all in one place, with clarity and without gatekeeping. It walks through where to start and what to do next. The goal is simple: financial clarity, and a bit of peace of mind.
If you’re that doctor, that lawyer, that engineer — or if you advise them — I’d love to talk. We’re building this for you.
See your full financial picture — free, and built for Canadians.
A version of this first appeared on the YouGotThis blog.