I don't think that is true. There are a lot of new firms targeting individual investors (even some YC funded). You are going to be competing against the brokera

I don't think that is true. There are a lot of new firms targeting individual investors (even some YC funded). You are going to be competing against the brokerages themselves which are constantly pushing more sophisticated platforms for active traders. Most individuals should not be active traders, and for non-active traders then your product has to compete against something like the Vanguard lifecycle funds which are damn good and cheap products. I really want to believe there is a value add in products like Betterment, but is Betterment really significantly better than a Vanguard fund? I doubt it. It might be possible to charge more than Vanguard, but I think that most who do are preying on the ignorance of investors, and that's not how I would want to make a living.