Talk Your Book: Future Proof 2024

0:04Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

0:34We're joined today by my brother, Matt Middleton. Matt is the CEO and founder of Future Proof. Matt, welcome. Guys, pumped to be here. Thanks for having me. All right, this is the third year of Future Proof. And when we left last time, I said to Ben, you know, I don't think we did enough to pump this event up. And I know that we mentioned it a bunch, but maybe we were too, we weren't loud enough. And I left feeling like we're not going to make that same mistake again. So with that, for the audience, for people that are thinking about going for repeat champions, just the, it's the third year. This is going to be our third year.

1:09The size and scope of this event is unbelievable. Can you share with the audience where we're at going into the event, which is in just over two months, I guess two months from now. Two months to the day. Yeah, no, super excited. It's funny, right? In three years, you start to look at an event and start to see, you know, how far can they stretch it? How big can it get? What more can they do that's, you know, new and surprising. And I feel like for me in kind of the builder seat, I'm more excited than ever before. Just kind of where we are today with two months to go, we just eclipsed 2 ,500 total attendees.

1:47Last week, that number hit. More importantly, 1 ,500 advisors, wealth management executives. So when you start to think about the ecosystem here, it's super exciting because it's not only getting built on really the industry side, which, look, we've all been to these events, right? After a while, what you start to see is an event gain some traction and the industry and sponsor community is like, wow, there's a huge opportunity here. And then it becomes majority vendors and less of the - Theatrophy. Yeah, exactly. And so super excited to see both of those numbers go up, anticipating getting to about 4 ,000 total bodies when it's all said and done.

2:33So Matt, if we do get to 4 ,000, where would that put us in terms of size of industry events? Yeah. So already we are the largest annual wealth management event in this space. And I think even more important to that is we're the largest independent wealth management event. Right. So most of the larger events here are user conferences, which means if you're not a part of that, you know, fintech company or that custodian, you don't get access. And then the bigger thing that I would say that makes us unique is it's the no pay to play model. So not only are we independent, meaning we're just selling an experience.

3:10The other side of it is the people on stage are actually there because they deserve to be there. It's based on merit. It's not based on, you know, the biggest sponsor wanting to pay for a keynote. And we are truly the only event in our space that is no pay to play. Wait, we're bigger than we're bigger than impact already. Yeah. Really? Yeah. This year will be bigger than impact over 4 ,000. For those who don't know, that's that's Schwab's annual event. Correct. Yeah. Which is the big event, right? Like it is. Holy shit. Credit to us. And if you go to one of those huge events, you're in the ballroom or the big open facility there and it feels like there are a million people there.

3:48And I think one of the cool parts about Future Proof is when you are walking around, it doesn't feel overly crowded. So how do you handle this logistical nightmare of having this many people in one place? Well, this year we're 30 % bigger, which I think we all walked onto that outdoor space last year and said, oh my God, it's that much bigger than it was that first year, right? This year is 30 % bigger than it was last year. So that wasn't intentional. We wanted to actually start to constrain it a bit more. Just the reality of, you know, more stages, more people, more activations, it just naturally gets bigger.

4:24And so for the most part, it's a contained outdoor footprint. But yeah, it's encroaching on close to, you know, three quarters of a mile. So when you say 30 % bigger, you mean like physically, like there's been more parking lots? I mean, physically, yes. So from north to south along the coast. Michael, do you think you could run from one end to the next without stopping? I already proved that I can. I did not to brag. And listen, no, no shade to the Shrub Impact event because I went last year and it was, it was a wonderful event. It just feels more like a trade show. Correct. Yeah. Then, and then, so what we're doing is a totally different vibe.

5:00It's outdoors, it's on the beach. And what I said to a lot of people, this is like my, my line of the year, last year at the conference walking around, of course, it's a great time, right? Of course, it's beautiful and it's fun and all that. But if you left there without any true, tangible economic benefit, which I don't think you could say the same about any other conference, if you can't leave with a brighter financial future than before you came, you should truly consider leaving the industry. Yeah. I mean, look, let's talk about the narratives, right? Year one, we came onto the scene, called it a festival, right?

5:35It was pink and purple colors. There's like we were laughing about it because most people in the industry that are more traditional, right, that are staple attendees and sponsors of some of the larger events. They were like, you guys are running a festival. Like, what is this? Right. And then we were like, it's outdoors and it's all this. And people started using it's the Coachella of that and this. And so it really took shape in that year one. But I think to everyone's surprise, like, yes, it was fun. It was exciting. You left there feeling more energized than you came. You can't say that for any other event in the space.

6:10Year two, we doubled down on that. The biggest thing from year one to year two was, hey, we love this from a setting and experience standpoint. We need it to be more efficient and more impactful for our business. Help us grow. Help us connect with people that aren't just in our traditional circle. And that's when we introduced the Breakthrough Networking platform. And so last year was the meetings program. And that, for all intents and purposes, was a beta version of it, right? And we facilitated over 17 ,000 one-to-one meetings. More importantly, there was a 98 % satisfaction rate of those who met with each other.

6:46So it just shows that there's a huge appetite for one, more modern kind of energizing events. But two, there's a real need for our industry to get together annually and connect. And it's not just on the buyer seller marketplace. It's not, oh, we're going to bring asset managers and fintech companies and we hope, you know, financial advisory, you know, executives want to meet with them. No, there's so much different, you know, in industry interactions that happen within the wealth management space that makes this super impactful. It's a guy who's not big on small talk and just walking up to people.

7:19The fact that people can go in and know these meetings are set up ahead of time, that's huge. I assume this year, how many more meetings are we talking? 30 ,000 is what we're anticipating, which pretty much, if you do the math, it's about seven to eight meetings per attendee. And some people do all 24 and other people do two or three based on what they need. Matt, as I've gone to industry events over the years, what I've noticed is just a shrinking number of actual advisors attending to the point where vendors, it's like that John Travolta meme where they look around and like, where are the buyers?

7:51Where are my clients, my customers? Future Proof, as you just mentioned, is going to have 1 ,500 advisors this year. And it's extraordinarily difficult for vendors, whether it's asset managers, fintech companies, this software, that software. It's impossible to get in front of your buyers. It just is. There's too many emails. There's too much noise in our inbox. So to be able to, with this new revolutionary breakthrough setting, facilitate these opt-in meetings is extraordinary. So that's really what I said, if you can't leave with economic value, that's what I had in mind. As Ben and I were walking around last year, the volume, the actual audible volume was extraordinary.

8:32It was so loud. Yeah, it was pretty wild that first time, if you could just visualize it, looking down from like the main ocean stage. And once that last session ended and people had about 10 minutes to walk to the meetings pavilion, just to watch thousands of people all at once, like it's a parade, walk in, and then like clockwork, you know, on that 15th minute, just start talking. And to your point, like it was loud and vibrant. And to some people, it was actually almost too loud, right? And so actually a part, one of the enhancements we have this year, which is kind of making that pavilion bigger, but also actually turfing it all out and getting better tenting to try to, you know, drown out some of that noise and sound so that people can have more productive conversations, you know, while there's 800 plus other meetings going on right next to them.

9:22And the great part about that, too, is that if you are more a person who just likes to schmooze a little bit, you can have conversations all over the place. There's tables set up all over the place. You can stop someone as they're walking. Michael and I had, I don't know how many impromptu talks with people last year that you just never know where they were going. And I think that's one of the cool parts about it is everyone is open to just having conversations with other people in the industry. Yeah, I mean, think about it. Most events that we all attend operate like that, where it's you hope or you trust that there's a good community of attendees that are worth your while.

9:53That's one aspect. So that's to get you to buy a ticket. The next part is actually putting yourself out there in quite literally in the right rooms or areas to serendipitously bump into those folks and have those conversations. So I think actually we do that better than anyone else because the format and the experience and the setting and the lounges, all of that, the music, the art, right? It's built. Future Proof as a platform is built to connect people at a human level, right? So what are your hobbies? What are your interests? What are your lifestyle? We're going to build that into the content, into the activities.

10:26And so you're naturally going to bump into people that you otherwise need to and want to get into conversations with. Now, let's take it a step further. Most people traveling across the country need to see a real concrete ROI. And so you need to have some number of guaranteed meetings to push your business forward. And let's paint all the different sides. If I'm an advisor looking to grow, I might be going there to recruit people. I might be going there to possibly merge with a company. I also might be there looking at the latest technology or investment funds and opportunities. And so I want the most efficient way to do that because, Michael, you brought it up.

11:07It's harder and harder to do that. I would say it's the hardest because of COVID. We all were conditioned to be in offices or at least you'd have a large number of folks in offices daily. And so when you're going to visit a city, you could go and make your rounds either with current clients and prospects and do all of that. But right now in the world we are, it's so distributed that it's hard. And I grew up in a sales culture, right? So I used to be on the road all the time. I used to have New York, Chicago, Boston, LA, San Francisco. It's a waste of my time to try to organize those meetings. So I'll get one or two meetings now because everyone's like, I'm kind of in a burbs or I'm doing this.

11:48Can we just do a Zoom? And while that may be efficient in some ways, it's inefficient to building relationships. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to build a culture where face-to-face meetings actually matter. But how do we do it the most efficient and effective way possible? And that is that meetings program. What do you think is going to be or what are you looking most forward to in terms of something that's going to be the biggest leap from year two to year three? Yeah, look, I'm super bullish. on this networking aspect. I think most events, and not just in our industry, but in general, most events still operate in an archaic model, which is they believe content is king, right?

12:25And content rules the audience. And that's why people will travel around the country and do all these. Look, it's expensive to go to events. It's expensive to negotiate with your spouse to take three days away from the family, right? There is a lot to be said about committing to going to an event. And so what we realized early, and again, another thing that, you know, came out of COVID was, look, content digitally distributed is better. It's more efficient. I can listen to you guys weekly while I'm working out, right? I don't have to travel around the country. And now I can listen to the people that you guys interview and all of this.

13:05And so I get some of the most important and under the radar sometimes, frankly, people in my ears on demand. Why would I ever wait 12 months to go and have the potential to sit in an area where I could passively listen to it? It's the same thing. And so what is the driver? To me, it's like when we set out to build FutureProof and grow it, we didn't want it to be the best content that the industry has ever seen in an event perspective, right? We wanted it to be the largest networking platform for our industry because we believe if we could get people to connect better, then we can build a better industry in general.

13:42And so I'm most excited about the Breakthrough expansion of the Breakthrough networking platform. So we introduced the meetings program last year. That was super popular. What people don't really understand, they just think they're coming back for the meetings program again. But we've introduced two new programs, Breakthrough Talks and then Breakthrough experiences. And so Breakthrough Talks, very simply, is modernizing the roundtable discussion. You know, a lot of these events do these roundtable discussions. They're topical. And so they allow you, if you're an attendee, to say, oh, are you interested in that topic?

14:13Come show up at this time and sit at a table. The problem with that is you don't know who's sitting next to you. And so the same way we connected the folks to do one-to-one meetings, we're connecting five to eight peers. But more importantly, you might be interested in AI, let's say, right? How is AI going to transform my business? But if you're a REA CEO, that's three people, 100 million versus national with 30 ,000 reps and 50 billion, that conversation is really different. Yeah, you're still an REA CEO, but the needs, the desires, the pain points, the opportunities, completely different. And so with Breakthrough Talks, the same way we connect people with those meetings is you opt into topics that you're interested in.

15:01And based on a whole series of data points, we place you at a table with peers that are of equal size, experience, needs, desires than you. And so that's the - Where's that going to be, Matt? Where's that physically going to be held? Yeah. So this year, it's only for financial advisors and wealth management professionals. So if you have that ticket type, you can participate in this. It's going to be held Monday and Tuesday each morning. And so we're going to have that in actually the Hyatt and the Hilton hotels. So that would be alongside breakfast. So you'll have a sit down breakfast, have a discussion with your peers before things really kick off outside.

15:36So that's the Breakthrough Talks program. The other piece to this is Breakthrough Experiences, which, you know, to me is really exciting. We introduced this at Future Proof Retreat earlier this year, much smaller audience, but it was super popular. And this affords us to, again, and kind of expand on the group activities. And that could be content, that could be various experiences outside, that could be workshops. So you could go deeper in certain topics, or you could have some fun and learn how to roll a sushi roll, right? But this is all, again, tech enabled, built through data with the desired outcome of putting you alongside peers that actually matter and hopefully to help move your business forward.

16:15So this is important because I heard from this from someone at the very first conference, and they said, listen, we have people working remotely all over the country. We don't get together very often. We want to all be in the same place at the same time, but we want to do it in an experiential manner. We don't want to sit at a table and listen to someone talk to us all day. So they said, you know, we're using this as a way to better enhance the culture of the organization as well. And I think that's really important to have these kinds of experiences where you're having drinks or dinners or just walking and talking with people and having, or, you know, people get up and work out on the beach or go for runs or walks, or That's the kind of thing you get here that I don't think you get in any other event like this.

16:53Yeah. I mean, Ben, that's a great example. Like we had a similar thing. This program was built to connect people that don't know each other, right? But an actual use case that came out of last year was the more and more people coming from a particular firm that may be distributed across the country, unique ways to get them together. And so, yes, you come because you have access to all that FutureProof offers. But for four hours of the afternoon, we want to actually consolidate our group and have a learning experience or a networking event. And so we could do that through breakthrough experiences.

17:26So we have enterprise REAs that are actually doing that now for this year on Mondays and Tuesdays in the afternoon. One of the things I'm most proud of is that years ago before we did Future Proof, we had a very prominent tech launch on our stage. And to be able to get young, exciting companies up off the ground and showcase what they're doing to an audience of real buyers is awesome. But there are only seven slots for our tech demo, which is going to be on Sunday night. To have the ability to showcase not just seven companies, but a lot of other ones that are exciting and worthy of stage time.

18:04We just can't fit them. What are we doing to solve that problem next year? Yeah, no, it's a great point. And it's something, another thing just came out of feedback from last year, which is a lot of the fintech companies that were there, you know, look, there's other fintech conferences here in our space, and they've been going on for a long time. I think the pain point is, again, to the earlier point is they become vendor fests, right? And they're great for fintech because there's a lot of integration partnerships that happen. So that's a real need and opportunity. However, what we were told is this event is phenomenal because this is a true marketplace.

18:40And so the fintech companies come, but there's actually buyers here, people that can make decisions and move the conversations forward. And so we leaned into that. And how do you create the largest marketplace for fintech companies and wealth management decision makers? It's more than just the demo, right? It's more than just seven demos on a stage. And so what we're introducing this year is the FinTech Alley, which is a dedicated pavilion for some of the most emerging and innovative FinTech companies, serving advisors in larger enterprise wealth management firms, a space where they could, one, get some brand visibility, but two, more importantly, set up demos.

19:17And so they could do one-to-one or one-to-many demos throughout the time of the event. And I think having this village, if you will, allows for folks to go in there and see what is kind of the next coming of fintech solutions. And I think the piece that I always hear about from advisors is there are far too many fintech companies that I can even consider. Some are tools that I need and others are nice features, but I just can't even do diligence on them. I can't even entertain them. I then can't introduce them to my team. And so we hope that this platform not only helps you discover these companies, but allows you to kind to fast track that diligence and really assess, is this nice to have, or is this a must have?

19:59One of the themes I remember from the very first conference is we had the vendor space and so many of them said, I couldn't picture in my head what this would be like. And I didn't know how it was going to work. And then they see it in reality and they go, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then so last year building on that knowledge, you had a lot of creativity, creativity from the vendors, right? You had skateboards and surfboards and sneakers. and I think someone had a bar. Yeah, In-N-Out burgers were brought in. Shout out to Virgil. That was amazing. And so that part of it to me was so cool that the vendors themselves are getting into it.

20:32So how much bigger is that section going to be this year? Yeah, so last year we had about 180 sponsor booths and activations. This year we're going to have over 300. And to your point, Ben, I know it's crazy to me. But what's even crazier is, I frankly didn't know how people are going to react, right? You can't, you can look at events like South by Southwest or, you know, Cane Lions, which is like a brand event. And these pop-ups and activations, you know, by Spotify and others, they're tremendous and phenomenal. You know, it's hard to imagine in our space, you know, folks like Morningstar and Vanguard showing up like that.

21:08But they did, right? And they set a precedent for others to say, oh, we should do this and what's possible because of the interaction and engagement that they had. So we have, I believe, there's probably 40 large-scale activations that are occurring, to put it into perspective. Last year, we had eight. So there's going to be a lot more experiential things occurring, plus just larger scale of total number of companies. Matt, one of the great problems about FutureProof is that it's so big and grand, and it's easy to not know certain things are going on. For people that want to learn more, whether it's one advisor or a CEO who's thinking about bringing several advisors or a fintech company or an asset manager that wants to learn more, how do they do that?

21:54How do they get more information about the event and what is available for them? Yeah. So go to futureproofhq.com. We have everything there from latest agenda, speakers, trends we're seeing. Go to the blog section. That's where we drop all of our updates. Right now we're dropping two updates a week based on the 2024 experience. So you'll get an understanding of what the breakthrough programs are, how to get involved, when to participate. And most importantly, if you're interested in registering, the deadline to do so is August 16th. So ensure that you get all your questions answered by contacting my team.

22:32But yeah, that's kind of the deadline. After that, you won't be able to participate in the meetings program or the experiences And so, yeah, it's important to get registered by them. So the event is incredible. We're really proud of how far it's coming. We're super excited about what it's going to be in 2024. It's also a lot of fun. And there's some great live entertainment. Our friend Tony Stick called me and said, dude, you got three blind eyes? Who do we have for the musical act? Yeah, so a headliner this year is Third Eye Blind. So for anyone who grew up in the 90s, early 2000s, you'll love it.

23:07I got so much nostalgia when we announced that. It all came flooding back. You know what's funny? Like last year we leaned into hip hop, right? It was hip hop 50. So it's 50th anniversary. So we leaned heavily into hip hop. Year before that, we mixed it up with rock and hip hop. And when we announced Third Eye Blind, it was interesting because for me, I was super excited again, growing up in that era. But the amount of feedback that we've gotten based on that, right? with stories and interest. And even in our own Slack, right, when we shared and we were all communicating, I think that was the most engagement that both of our firms had in three years of doing this, right?

23:45So I'm excited to see the people rock out of the crowd with it. We also have X Ambassadors, which isn't public yet, but by the time of this release, it will be public. So we're super excited about that. We're bringing back DJ Mick to do some stuff. Wait, what's X Ambassadors? Oh, is that a band? That's another band, yeah. So I would say they're a more modern day third eye blind. So they have some really big hits in the last decade or so. And I'm definitely still emerging. Michael and I don't have our ear to the ground there. I stopped discovering new bands in 2001. So here's the one thing that Future Proof does not have.

24:19That's on my bucket list. Michael and I need our own frozen drink machine for Miami Vice drinks. I'm just throwing it out there. I think we actually are getting it in our booth area. Really? All right. Yeah. Sold. I'll bring them up. I think that was what Chris said. Chris is like, I got a new idea and this is it. So he's working with Lindsay on it. Chris is an innovator. Matt, anything that our audience didn't hear on today's show that you want them to understand before they consider signing up for Future Proof 2024? Yeah, I would just say, think about the purpose. And this is just generally for all events.