Ask any navigator: a map is useless until you know where you are standing. Go-to-market strategy works the same way. Yet many WealthTech firms jump straight to the destination (more pipeline, a new segment, a bigger share of the market) without an honest read of where they are today.
In our work, firms tend to arrive from one of three starting points. Each carries a different set of risks, and each needs a different first move.
A market that is growing, and crowded
The opportunity is real. Cerulli Associates projects that independent RIAs will grow advisor headcount about 4% a year through 2028, faster than any other channel, while wirehouse and insurance broker-dealer headcount declines. Over the past five years, hybrid and independent RIAs grew their advisor forces at roughly 6.5% and 6.4% a year. Cerulli also finds the independent RIA channel has the highest share of heavy technology-using practices (27%), and that these practices are the least likely to be required to use home-office technology, which makes them a strong market for third-party software.
The competition is real, too. The Wealth Mosaic’s global marketplace alone lists more than 5,400 technology and data solutions from over 2,300 providers. And with advisor satisfaction falling in 20 of 23 technology categories in the 2025 Kitces AdvisorTech study, buyers are becoming more discerning, not less.
In a market like this, the starting point determines the route.
STARTING POINT 1
Launching
Founders and CEOs with a strong product, a new market, and a story that isn’t landing yet.
STARTING POINT 2
Entering
Proven firms from financial services or technology, new to how advisors buy.
STARTING POINT 3
Repositioning
Established WealthTech leaders whose market has moved, or whose product has outgrown its message.
Launching: validate the problem before you scale the message
The risk is building a go-to-market around the product instead of the problem. CB Insights’ finding that 42% of failed startups cited “no market need” is as much a positioning failure as a product one.
The first move is to validate the problem and the buyer before scaling the story. Who feels this problem most acutely? How do they describe it? What are they using today instead?
Entering: learn the buyer’s world before you translate your story
The risk is assuming that what worked in banking, insurance or enterprise software carries over directly. Advisors evaluate technology differently: through integrations, peer recommendations, compliance and, above all, how a tool affects their client relationships. Gartner research shows buyers spend only about 17% of their buying journey with suppliers, so the reputation and relationships you don’t yet have in the channel matter as much as the demo you do.
The first move is to learn the advisor’s world, and their client’s, before translating your story into it.
Repositioning: test today’s story against today’s client
The risk is Strategic Drift. Johnson’s model describes how a strategy that once fit can gradually fall out of step with a changing environment, often unnoticed until results slip. The firm still believes its story; the market has stopped hearing it.
The first move is to re-establish the client’s problem as it exists today, and test the current narrative against it honestly. (We explore this further in Strategic Drift in the age of AI.)
You can’t get where you want to go until you know exactly where you are.
Why the starting point changes everything
The same tactic can be right for one starting point and wrong for another. A launcher that invests heavily in brand before validating the problem burns runway. An entrant that borrows an incumbent’s message disappears into a crowded field. A repositioning firm that adds features to fix a narrative problem deepens the drift.
That is why we begin with a diagnostic rather than a plan. The Market Clarity Diagnostic looks at your client, your market and your message to establish an honest starting point before anyone draws the route. A few questions to help you locate yourself:
- Can every leader describe our ideal client, and their client, in the same words?
- Does our message describe our product, or the client’s problem?
- When we lose a deal, do we know why, in the buyer’s words?
- Has our market changed faster than our story?
Sources
- “Cerulli: Independent RIAs to Outpace All Other Channels by 2028,” WealthManagement.com (February 2025)
- “Continued Growth of Independent Affiliation Provides Tailwind for Sales Opportunities for Independent Software Vendors,” Cerulli Associates (March 2026)
- The Wealth Mosaic marketplace
- “Advisors’ Tech Use Is Up, but Satisfaction Is Down: Kitces,” ThinkAdvisor (September 2025)
- CB Insights post-mortem analysis, as reported in “Define the Need Before You Bleed,” CMO Council (July 2021)
- Gartner research, as reported in “Buyer Enablement Is the Key to B2B Sales,” destinationCRM (2018)
- “Strategic Drift” teaching guide, AQA (Johnson & Scholes model)
