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Narrowing Your Scope: Eric Franklin on Leveraging His Tech Career To Build a Client Niche
54 Plays1 month ago
As an advisor, your past can be just as powerful as your future.
That was true for Eric Franklin. After years at Amazon, a curiosity-turned-passion for investing evolved into something bigger, leading him to co-found Prospero Wealth.
Their focus? Tech professionals, just like Eric was. On Synergize, he talks about the journey and unpacks…
- His enthusiasm for investing from an early age into adulthood: In his, RIA Reflections piece, “To The Kid Reading Stock Tickers on the Living Room Floor” Eric reminisces about playing stock-picking games in the newspaper and eventually starting his own investment club amongst Amazon colleagues.
- The moment he realized he wanted to become a fiduciary: Managing the trust of a family member, he recounts the realization that the role of the advisor can be truly meaningful and impactful.
- Building growth by carving out a client niche: Through specialization, Prospero advisors were able to leverage their lived experience around complex financial lives of tech professionals, tailoring their strategy and communications to fit the fast-paced schedules of their clients.
Copyright 2026. TradePMR, Inc. For a transcript of this episode with sources, visit synergizepodcast.com. Prospero Wealth and TradePMR are unaffiliated companies. If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at synergizepodcast.com. This content is provided for general information purposes only.The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TradePMR Inc. or its affiliates. TradePMR Inc. and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services. This channel is not monitored by TradePMR Inc. TradePMR Inc. does not provide investment advice, tax advice or legal advice. TradePMR Inc. is a member of FINRA and SIPC. TradePMR, Inc.,is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission {SEC) and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). TradePMR provides brokerage and account services to registered investment advisors. Custodial services provided by First Clearing. Clearing is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.
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Transcript
Introduction to Synergize Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Synergize, unscripted conversations where we explore the evolving role of the financial advisor in an emerging AI-driven world. Join us as we bring together thought leaders across a range of disciplines and industry experts, sharing insights designed to help RIAs thrive in the industry of tomorrow.
Host Introductions
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back to Synergize. I'm Bill Capelle, Director of Client Growth at Trade PMR, a Robinhood company. And I'm Ryan Neal, Editorial Manager at Trade PMR Robinhood. And Bill, I'm coming to you a fresh back from two weeks in Italy where I was at the Winter Olympics. Did you did you catch any of the Olympics at all?
00:00:48
Speaker
You know, Ryan, I did, and I was convinced that you were doing that crazy freestyle skiing when I saw this guy go off and do an amazing stunt. So congratulations on it. Yeah. No, it wasn't me, but I was um i was in the audience watching Snowboard Slope Style. We saw the ah gold medal for for men and women. It was a lot of fun. USA didn't win gold in any of those, but it was ah it was cool to be there.
00:01:13
Speaker
And I love the Winter Olympics. I love both Olympics a ton, but the winter especially because I love niche sports. I love the stuff that we never get to see on a
Importance of Client Niches
00:01:22
Speaker
regular basis. And I'm bringing this up as an incredibly strained way to segue us into our topic today, which is client niches. It's something that I've heard a lot about as a reporter over the years. Various people like Michael Kitsis have advocated for advisors fighting a niche and and using that to develop their business as a strategy to grow. um I know kind of like counterintuitively, focusing on a smaller area of clients can actually be a way that REAs grow their business. But Bill, can you talk a bit little bit about that? i know you sure you know a lot more about this than I do
00:01:54
Speaker
Sure. You're absolutely right, though, Ryan. you know Focusing on a niche can be very rewarding, particularly when you have roots in the niche you're focused on. You know, and the reason for that is is twofold. First, it can align with your own beliefs, which of course will influence your approach to planning.
00:02:13
Speaker
And having walked in those clients' shoes, you're in a much better position to be authentic in dealing with those clients. And second, Your relatability can really increase when you are aligned with your client because of that thing you have in common, in that niche.
00:02:29
Speaker
Having something concrete in common with a client supports building a trusting relationship, and that's really at the core of what we do. In turn, this can influence how you communicate, your style, it can influence your marketing, and it can even influence the specific advice you give to that client.
00:02:49
Speaker
You can create a boutique advice experience that will resonate directly with the type of client more effectively.
Guest Introduction: Eric Franklin
00:02:56
Speaker
Well, that leads me to introduce our guest for this week's podcast is Eric Franklin. He's the co-founder, managing principal, and a financial advisor at Prospero Wealth, an RIA based in Seattle. Eric did a ah story for us on RIA Reflections that I love for you if you're listening to to go and check it out. He talks about his career in tech back in the 90s where he was working back then at a very small company called Amazon. i worked there for about 20 years, rising through the ranks. And then he he made a pivot into the the world of financial advice and and becoming an RAA. So he talks about that story and our reflections. But today we're going to talk to him a bit about how he's used his experience to find a client niche and grow his practice. So Eric, welcome to the show.
00:03:45
Speaker
Thank you guys. I'm psyched to be here. And we're great to have you. And by the way, to our listeners, I really encourage you to check out the article, Yeah, I think Eric was our first letter to my former self, which is something we're getting a lot more interested in. And if you're listening and you have a story you want to share, drop me a line.
Eric's Journey to Financial Advisory
00:04:04
Speaker
But Eric, for anyone out there that hasn't read the article and and maybe doesn't know you, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that background and and how you made that shift and why you made that shift from the tech world into the financial advice world?
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, um I thought working on that piece was was like It was a really fun experience because, you know, you live your life forward and it seems chaotic, right? You have kids, you have job opportunities, you go to college, you do all these things. But when you have a chance to kind of reflect and look at the breadcrumbs of of what got you to where you are and and that's that's what that article really did for me. And and it really
00:04:49
Speaker
um sort of clarified what I'd always known, which is that the the interest in sort of financial matters happened really, really early for me.
00:05:02
Speaker
um And it was something that I never really knew what the jobs looked like in the space. you know I grew up in a pretty small town with a father who was an independent business owner, ran ran a couple of auto parts stores. And then learning that the RIA business even existed,
00:05:21
Speaker
That like the minute I found out the RIA business existed, I think that the timeline to creating one was very short. With with my co-founder um who had been my advisor in the past, I discovered that, hey, there's this fiduciary side of the business where you're not selling products, where you're really selling the advice.
00:05:45
Speaker
You're sitting on the same side of the table with your clients. You're charging clear fees to them and you're just there to help them realize the goals that they have. Yeah, but i yeah but i want I want to drill down on something here because I think you're underselling something that's really important, which is you began to read the financial sections of the newspaper when you were young.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's a funny story. i mean, i did I read the newspaper. My family got the newspaper um daily. And there was a stock market game that you could sign up for. And i had I've used my allowance money. i think it was something like $7. And I wouldn't say i didn't learn I was Warren Buffett for certain. you know I was picking things that just looked interesting based on names. I remember picking something that said platinum because I was like, oh, that's an expensive metal. um So like I should own platinum, that's probably going up. And and I was picking companies I knew, um but even though I didn't have any fundamental analysis, it still taught me a lot about the way things move sort of week to week and what picking a basket of those things look like.
00:07:01
Speaker
And, you know, I remember, i I did, you know, I think above average and it was picking randomly. So I was, it was a, you know, I was lucky more than good, but I still think I learned a lot from that experience.
00:07:17
Speaker
And, you know, I think that was, that was foundational. Sure. Yeah. sounds like you grew up in a, you know, your dad was a, had his own business, um, uh,
00:07:30
Speaker
It sounds like you were in a pretty entrepreneurial environment as you were growing up. You were the first, as you write in your article, to attend and graduate college. yeah Interesting major in literature.
00:07:42
Speaker
um you're also a train ah You're also a musician. Whether or not you're self-taught or trained, I don't know. But you worked a long time on the music front, playing gigs, as you call it.
00:07:52
Speaker
as you kind of went through the college experience and then on to what comes next, talk to us about how that transition took place and, you know, how these inputs got you to the front door of Amazon.
00:08:08
Speaker
The front door of Amazon that, yeah, that that's definitely a side door. So um my wife is fond of saying that I've had more jobs than anybody she knows. I've,
00:08:21
Speaker
I have tried a lot of different jobs in my life. I've made money a lot of different ways, not very many of which could actually sustain an entire lifestyle, but I have made money doing lots of of small things. um i went to college, studied literature, really loved reading, really loved writing. And I was working on a science fiction novel as I wrapped up college in Santa Cruz.
00:08:49
Speaker
moved back to Seattle where I had started college. And that's, I was working on a science fiction novel, like literally making up and trying to put together pages. And um I kept seeing these job listings for Amazon customer service reps.
00:09:05
Speaker
You know, I was like, hey, this looks like a new wave in bookselling. I can now order any book I can think of from this one shop online. I eventually went and applied and I got offered a job.
00:09:18
Speaker
And the funny thing is I was given an opportunity to choose between sort of three months of different start dates. And I chose the last one because I wanted to go visit a woman I was dating in Santa Cruz at the time. And that ended up being like a horrible financial decision and a horrible love interest decision, as it turns out.
00:09:42
Speaker
you know, it's so the the difference in, uh, uh, incentive options I would have received even over the course of that, that extra couple of months was, was very substantial. Um, cause the stock was moving very, uh, throughout 1998. So, um, well, as, as someone who was ah also a former bar back who also, uh, dated someone at Santa Cruz, yeah, you know, it never works out.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah. and Understandable. You know, it's the long distance thing, but, um, But yeah, um still it still worked out fine. I still got the experience I wanted from Amazon. it was a I definitely view my entire career at Amazon as kind of growing up and and really learning what it would take to be successful in this business. A lot of the the principles I learned there are still things that come in very handy day-to-day here at Prospero.
00:10:39
Speaker
I'd love to ask you, and and again, if everyone wants to read the rest of his story and how he transitioned from from his career at Amazon over to financial advisory, you can check it out on RA Reflections.
Lessons from Fast-Growing Companies
00:10:49
Speaker
um But rather than to your former self, if you were to give advice to anyone else out there that was maybe in their 20s or in that position you were in, um thinking about their career or maybe thinking about a career in finance or or or wealth management or starting an RAA, what advice would you give them? What what what do you think you've learned in your career that you can impart to to other folks?
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good question. i mean, the Amazon we know today wasn't the Amazon I joined, right? Sure. In 1998. And I would say, you know, I think one of the things you got to look for if you're coming out of college is a place that's just going to maximize your learning opportunities so get into anything that's really fast growth that's going to allow you to get in over your head and do things that you're completely unqualified for it just creates a lot of opportunities i would not have been a good candidate for amazon corporate but i was
00:11:49
Speaker
a very accomplished candidate for customer service. And it was a very fast growing company. And I could see that they were hiring highly educated people that were interesting to be around.
00:12:00
Speaker
And then just the growth of that company created opportunities for us to start branching from customer service to working directly with all sorts of product implementation teams across Amazon. And that's eventually what created kind of the the opportunity for me to move over to corporate. And while all this was going on, you were also still investing, right? You started an investment club.
00:12:26
Speaker
um You were what we call a DIY investor. You were kind of doing on your own, sharing ideas at various coffee shops around Seattle. um And at the same time, you're developing this expertise in the technology space.
00:12:42
Speaker
and fast forward to today, you've brought those two things together. What was the trigger that kind of moved you from being a DIY investor to one seeking advice?
Founding Prospero Wealth
00:12:53
Speaker
You know what was that transition like?
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So the minute I joined Amazon, of course, I was given as a customer service rep not ah not a lot, but I was given some incentive stock options. And it was kind of And then with with how volatile the markets were and largely upward for the first few months I was there, it was a very exciting thing to look at, right? Because I could see paper value accruing. I was trying to figure out how does this intersect with taxes?
00:13:26
Speaker
As I figured those things out, I was sharing them with people because I was excited to share what I'd found. And and And then a group of us who were kind of interested in personal finance and investing in the tech space, we started competing in a more modern version of that paper-based game I told you about earlier.
00:13:46
Speaker
there was enough people that got interested in that, that and and and my friend Marcus was was interested in it. So we decided, hey, let's let's start a real-world investment group. It's going to be different are when we put our own money into it, you know?
00:14:03
Speaker
For those five or six years, it was like a really great way to learn. i feel like everybody in that group learned a lot and and and felt a lot more comfortable understanding what drives the valuation of these companies.
00:14:16
Speaker
Well, so to talk about our our sort of topic up for the episode of around client niche, when you eventually became an advisor as well and and you and Marcus founded Prospero Wealth, um was that the mission? did Did you guys found the firm with the idea of we're going to work with people in the tech industry? We're going work with the folks we knew? or did that evolve just sort of naturally over time?
00:14:40
Speaker
um So that it it evolved over time. is the answer. um I did not actually know who would come when we when we originally hung that chin shingle. There was a very, at the point where we set up the business, I had been managing my own family's trust from my dad passing early. My dad passed at 49 and he left a trust that needed to be invested. And that's that's what led to the conversation with Marcus was, hey, I have the trust
00:15:15
Speaker
somebody I'm already helping manage this trust. I'm already doing the management of the trust. What, what would I need to get set up? And he had, he had worked at American express, which became Ameriprise advisors.
00:15:30
Speaker
And he's the one that then told me about, Hey, that the the world is now bifurcated between kind of this broker dealer space and the RIA space. We kind of looked at both and I was like, Hey, that RIA thing sounds great.
00:15:43
Speaker
And, and then, we set it up and we just started going. So we started very investment focused. We started basically by externalizing the things we were doing with our own assets.
00:15:56
Speaker
and And so i we had a couple of different active stock kind of sleeves that we were running. And then we offered them to people at a pretty low minimum, you know it's like $25,000 minimum. And then I can, if you want to put any money into this, we'll do it.
00:16:13
Speaker
And that's that was kind of V1. And it that lasted for two-ish years until I getting more interested in the end-to-end financial planning, did a lot of studying there.
00:16:28
Speaker
Took my first client referral in that space from from from an acquaintance. And we did it on nights, you know on weekends and nights. We actually went to the couple's house.
00:16:40
Speaker
And after doing that, that that couple said, um you know, now that you know all of our goals, our timelines, we'd love for you to manage the whole thing. And that was a very substantially different relationship than people who are giving you $25,000 to try and shoot the moon. You know, now you have somebody that you're caring for their actual retirement plan, their actual goals, um and you you really knew them in end. And that was when I was like, the light switch went on. It was like, oh, we should get really good at this.
00:17:14
Speaker
um and But I would say, like, when you're still working full time in tech, um even if your colleagues love you, you know, they know that you don't have the time to to deal with all of their concerns and they can't call you in the middle of the day because you've got other
Transition from Tech to Finance
00:17:33
Speaker
pressing concerns. It was really when I took the leap of faith and actually stepped away from tech in the middle of 2021.
00:17:40
Speaker
that all my former colleagues started coming out of the out of the woodwork up until then it was much harder to get clients because you could only do it um outside typical business hours so I was trading early in the morning before work and then dealing with support issues or or anything else after hours so that that that was really hard but it only took one or two proof points to be like oh this will work if I step away and then the minute I stepped away I just saw the hockey stick came in
00:18:14
Speaker
and And now today you are largely dealing with folks that are in the tech industry as your clients, as I understand it. Right. And, you know, clearly having essentially from a professional standpoint, growing up in the tech industry, how does that that support your ability to work?
00:18:34
Speaker
create deep relationships with these people, assuming that you are, if you're, you know, what you've described here is now you're really getting deeply involved in their life and their planning and, and, you know not just, you know, what's the hot stock to buy.
Agile Financial Planning Approach
00:18:47
Speaker
It's so much easier when you're aligned with the clients in terms of like, I understand what it's like to work every day and not to be able to turn off your work when you get home. Right. And a lot of advisories, especially if you focus on pre-retirees or retirees, the whole process has been built around this exhaustive document collection, this very completest view of of your financial plan. And and so the the time involved in creating that initial financial plan can take a really long time and it can be very lossy. A lot of people might drop out.
00:19:24
Speaker
So people who are in mid-career, or on the upward trend in their career, they they don't have that kind of time. So we focus on getting moving very, very quickly, right? I think we move, we we call it agile financial planning, which is a term that comes from from the technology field.
00:19:44
Speaker
We ruthlessly prioritize. We focus on the next biggest thing to knock down. and then we just plan on being connected to the clients over the course of years.
00:19:55
Speaker
And so, I think the whole process we have has been geared around an understanding of where our clients are in their life cycle, you know, of work, understanding that they don't have the time to meet a ton and then building a process that proactively moves and keeps them in the loop. So every quarter,
00:20:21
Speaker
we proactively communicate to every client, every planning client, regardless of if they communicated with us. So at least once a quarter, we're going in and reviewing all the aspects of their plan, what they've been able to get done, what they haven't been able to get done, and then generating some sort of, you know, status report and prioritize like, hey, if you have 10 minutes, this is the thing I would like you to work on.
00:20:46
Speaker
We try and communicate with our clients exactly the way that they expect communications to happen at their work. I don't want it to feel like work. It's your own finances and it's your own goals and dreams.
00:20:57
Speaker
But in terms of being rigorous, in terms of understanding where your investment returns are and related to the benchmarks and and and the products we're recommending and why we're recommending different things, we have a very high bar in explaining that to our clients succinctly.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah. I guess in a way it reminds me of, you know, one of the core kind of cliche pieces of advice that you give to writers is write about, write what you know, right? And I guess maybe the the same thing applies to advisors. If you want to build that that trusted relationship, ah work with people that you know, work work with the problems and the the solutions that that that group is looking for.
00:21:37
Speaker
what What it turns out is like your former colleagues trust you when they know all that about you. They know that you're you're you're doing it for the right reasons, that you're not going to suggest things to them that you don't do with your own assets, that you're not going to be selling them a product. You're going to demonstrate why this is the right solution for them.
Refining Strategies and Learning from Mistakes
00:22:00
Speaker
Great. Well, Eric, I'm going to go into closing up our episode. Something we love to do here on the Synergize podcast is leave our listeners with sort of one lightning round actionable take. Something they can take the end of this episode, bring back to their business and and help and help grow. so I think for this one, maybe in terms of of finding a client niche and and using that as a growth strategy, what's like one piece of advice you could give our listeners? Yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
Not only do you need to find the niche niche and people- Niche, I know both people say both of them. I'm on team niche. You can be on niche, it's fine. My wife gets upset when I say niche, so I'll say niche. Both are okay on this podcast.
00:22:43
Speaker
Beyond finding a niche, you also need to find the use cases within the niche that are valuable enough to support your business. And I think that's the the other half that I see messed up by a lot of early advisors is you have to continually refine and learn and find those problems that are worth solving.
00:23:11
Speaker
And I think, you know, Ryan, I think that underscores what we observed at the top of our conversation today, that coming from the tech industry has certainly been a very, very important aspect of why you have developed Eric. Yeah, 100%.
00:23:28
Speaker
Great. Well, ah Eric, thank you so much for ah for joining us here on the Synergize podcast. Thank you guys so much for having me. It was super fun.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:23:36
Speaker
And as always, thank you for everyone who's listening. Wherever you're getting this, whether it's Apple or Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere else you get your podcasts, if you could take a moment to to like, subscribe, share, click all the little buttons. They help us with the algorithm. And make sure you tune in for the yeah the next episode.
00:23:56
Speaker
And remember, the challenge is yours to capitalize on what the future offers.
00:24:08
Speaker
If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at synergizedpodcast.com. This content is provided for general information purposes only. The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Trade PMR or its affiliates.
00:24:26
Speaker
Trade PMR and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services. This channel is not monitored by Trade PMR.
00:24:38
Speaker
Trade PMR does not provide investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice. Trade PMR is a member of FINRA and SIPC. Trade PMR Inc. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, MSRB,
00:24:54
Speaker
Trade PMR provides brokerage and account services to registered investment advisors. Custodial services provided by First Clearing. First Clearing is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC. Member SIPC, a registered broker dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo and Company.
00:25:11
Speaker
Copyright 2026, Trade PMR Inc. For a transcript of this episode with sources, visit synergizedpodcast.com.
00:25:24
Speaker
Thank you.