In this episode, Lex speaks  Mike Sha - the CEO and co-founder of Tandems (formerly SigFig), a leading provider of AI-powered software for wealth management firms and financial institutions. Together, Lex and Mike discuss the evolution of wealth technology through the lens of Mike’s entrepreneurial journey from founding Wikinvest in 2006 to building Tandems. Wikinvest pivoted to portfolio tracking and then to a B2B model, powering major portals like Yahoo Finance and managing over $500 billion in tracked assets. The team’s insights into poor retail investment behavior led to building SigFig, a B2B robo-advisor, eventually serving banks like UBS and Wells Fargo.

Today, rebranded as Tandems, the firm offers AI-powered tools for advisors across three key areas: meetings, asset gathering, and investment management, with AI integrated via a modular “wealth OS” platform. Tandems uses an open architecture for AI, prioritizing trust, configurability, and high accuracy tailored to the specific workflows of financial advisors.

NOTABLE DISCUSSION POINTS:

1. The Realization That Most Investors Struggle on Their Own Sparked the Robo-Advisory Movement - Mike Sha’s early data from tracking $400–500 billion in retail portfolios across Yahoo!, CNN, and other finance portals revealed that most individuals consistently underperform when managing their own investments. This insight directly led to the creation of SigFig, one of the first robo-advisors, designed to make high-quality investment advice affordable and automated. It shows how data-driven observation of user behavior can uncover market inefficiencies and spark new product categories.
2. Distribution and Integration Trumps Pure Innovation in Fintech Partnerships - Tandem’s evolution from a consumer-facing platform to a B2B software provider for major banks underscored a critical lesson: distribution and trust are the hardest parts of scaling in financial services. Rather than trying to replace institutions, Sha’s team embedded within them - learning that success requires deep integration with legacy systems and respect for the bank’s compliance and operational frameworks. The “secret” to working with large financial institutions, Sha notes, is understanding their old infrastructure and designing around it - not fighting it.
3. AI’s Real Impact in Wealth Management Will Begin with Eliminating Repetitive Work - Tandem’s current strategy focuses on AI automation for financial advisors, not as a replacement but as an assistant. Sha highlights that over 90% of an advisor’s day involves repetitive administrative work - meeting prep, paperwork, compliance, follow-ups. Tandem’s “Wealth OS” connects legacy systems and uses AI to automate these tasks first, freeing advisors to focus on human relationship-building and advice. It’s a practical and near-term vision of AI in finance: efficiency before intelligence.

TOPICS

Tandems, SigFig, Wikinvest, wealthtech, wealth management, fintech, ai, artificial intelligence, investment, roboadvisors, finance, financial management, banking, bank partnerships

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TIMESTAMPS

1’31: From Wikis to Wealth Tech: Mike Sha on How 401(k)s and “Investing-as-a-Chore” Shaped Tandems

7’05: Building a Fintech from the First Dot-Com Boom: The Origins of Tandem’s Founding Partnership

10’46: Turning Drive-By Traffic into Real Investors: The SEO Strategy That Sparked a $500B Fintech Shift

16’25: Following the Money: How Tandems Scaled Through Bank Partnerships and the Hidden Art of Integrating Legacy Systems

21’58: Inside the Fintech–Bank Power Dynamic: Lessons from Partnering with UBS and Navigating the Enterprise Maze

25’36: Scaling Smart: How Tandems Grew from 25 to 100 People by Blending Finance, Software, and Global Talent

29’55: Beyond Robo-Advisors: How Tandems Rebranded to Tackle Wealth Management’s “Unsexy” Problems with AI

34’02: AI for Advisors: Automating the 90% of Work They Don’t Want to Do

39’32: Open Architecture, Not One Model: How Tandem Builds Reliable AI for Financial Institutions

43’53: The channels used to connect with Mike & learn more about Tandems

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

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