Betterment Growth Playbook
A smart modern money manager.
AUM
$30B+
Strategy
Simplicity
The Spark
Jon Stein wanted to make investing easy for everyone.
The Growth Engine
Behavioral Finance Architecture: Betterment's growth engine was built on the tactical removal of 'Investing Anxiety'. By replacing complex stock picking with a simple 'Goal-Based' UI, they made long-term saving feel intuitive. Their growth engine used 'Incremental Value Moments'—automated rebalancing and clear visual progress toward retirement or house goals. This focus on 'Lifestyle Outcome' rather than 'Market Performance' appealed to the mass-market Millennial professional, leading to extremely low churn and high automated monthly deposit rates.