Ben and I were sitting in the back corner booth at The World Famous on a Monday night in February. That’s when and where we decided to open our own financial planning company. It had been a dream of Ben’s since he was 19 years old, but it wasn’t something we had seriously considered. This felt like the right time to make a change.
The more we talked about our own vision and the best way we could bring that vision to reality, the stronger we felt pulled to open our own business. So, sitting in that booth, we decided we were going to try. The next day, Ben and I put pen to paper and started thinking of the kind of company we wanted to build.
At the time we decided to explore the idea of opening our own firm, we had lived in Athens for a while. We both moved here to go to the University of Georgia — me in 2010 and Ben in 2013had long decided that this is where we wanted to be long-term. Athens was our home.
We had been feeling a deep disconnect between what we were doing and where we were living. The company we worked for was doing things the right way in terms of how they treated their clients and the type of work they were doing for them. The problem — for Ben and for me — was that the firm had a fairly high asset minimum requirement for new clients ($1,000,000).
We consistently wrestled with the fact that there are a lot of hard-working people in our community who don’t have a million dollars but could benefit from working with a fiduciary financial planner.
We all face decisions about money: where to save, how much to save, how much you can actually spend on a new house or a new car, the best way to pay for that new house or new car — the list goes on and on. I’m sure you’ve experienced many of these decisions. You might have felt some level of uncertainty and maybe even a little bit of stress or anxiety because of them.
You work hard for your money, and you want to have confidence, stability, and security when it comes to your finances. You want to make the best and right decisions. Not because you’re greedy. But because, at the end of the day, you want to live your life comfortably, take care of your family, and spend as much time as you have in this life with the people you love and care about. You don’t want to miss out on opportunities or make costly mistakes that could derail your financial future.
The truth is, a lot of people just don’t have the nuanced knowledge, time, or interest to navigate taxes, investments, savings, and retirement. They’ll often seek out professional financial advisors to take that off their plates and give them peace of mind.
The problem is, there are so many “advisors” who either aren’t properly educated and trained as real financial planners or who simply aren’t incentivized to actually do what’s best for their clients. Instead, they are trained as salespeople to sell a limited menu of products that earn them a commission check. Because of how prolific these tactics are, people may see this as the way financial advisors operate. Even though it doesn’t feel right, they might still think it’s better than trying to go at it alone.
The good news is there are real, fiduciary financial planners out there. But they make up a small percentage of the advisor community, and many of them have outsized asset minimum requirements, making it really difficult for people to access these services.
We wanted to help change that in our community.
Ben and I wanted our work to feel more connected to our community. Athens is our home, and we want to see the people and local businesses here thrive. Becoming more connected to our community through our work meant confronting the reality that there was a significant lack of options for people in Athens who were looking for fiduciary financial planning. Worse yet, there was a significant lack of access to that type of financial planning and advice.
So, we decided to create our financial planning company built on five core tenets:
Together, those core tenets were the foundation upon which we built Fully Financial — a local, independent, and fee-only financial planning firm based in and committed to the Athens community, providing comprehensive and fiduciary financial planning and investment management services with zero asset minimum requirements.
Our goal — our purpose — with Fully is to bring fiduciary, goals-based financial education and fiduciary planning to more people in our hometown, helping them achieve financial peace of mind, reach their goals, and secure their financial future.
Before moving into the fee-only financial planning industry, I worked at a creative agency as a brand and communications strategist. From that experience, I knew that I wanted to dedicate the right amount of time and detail to think strategically about our company’s name and brand. It was really important to me that we created something that was approachable and trustworthy; something that not only conveyed what we did for clients, but how our services impacted their lives.
I started simply. I thought about our approach to financial planning and the relationships we have with our clients. I ran through a list of words that I often used to describe the type of work we would do — their meanings, their usage, their context, their connotation.
One of the words I landed on early was “fully.” I immediately thought “Fully Financial” had a good ring to it, but that wasn’t enough. As I progressed through this process, I started to read — word-for-word — the definition of the words I’d written down. So, I looked up fully and found this: “completely or entirely; to the furthest extent.”
That definition rang true for the type of service we wanted to provide for our clients, our commitment to our community, and the way we wanted our clients to be able to live their lives. I started jotting down the ways “fully” could describe our company:
Okay, okay, you get the point. As I worked through this, I became more and more convinced that fully was the right word to describe what we do, how we do it, and the ways we make a difference for our clients
Our company name also led us to our mantra: Live Fully. That’s exactly what we want to help our clients do.
I think good design and the design process are really important, so indulge me for just a minute. To craft Fully’s visual brand identity, we partnered with one of my great and longtime friends, Hannah Groseclose, who owns a local branding studio, Hinge Creative Co. I wanted to create something that was different from the typical financial advisor marketing, and I wanted to integrate some of the meaning behind our company’s name into our visual identity.
Hannah and the team at Hinge Creative Co. jumped right in with us. I’m really proud of where we landed. The obvious part of Fully’s logo is that it forms an “F” – for, you guessed it, Fully. But there are also some more subtleties in the design:
Ultimately, we wanted the design to reflect an established and elevated brand identity that’s modern, fresh, and forward-thinking while tying in some subtle nods to the ways we serve our clients.
Now that you know Fully's origin story, the next logical question is: What’s next? Before we look ahead, we need to look back — to that night in the back corner booth at The World Famous in Downtown Athens, just blocks aways from where we’d eventually open our first office. Deep to our core, we know we made the right decision that night, and we are so grateful for it.
We had never owned a business, and we had never built our own brand from the ground up. We didn’t have any outside funding. We were doing this thing all on our own. We had worked hard throughout our careers and had been diligent about saving. Before starting Fully, we were primarily saving to start a family. We joke now that Fully is our first “baby” (some often-needed comedic relief to distract from the fact that this is not what we originally had in mind).
Starting (and running) a small business is hard work. Plain and simple. We knew it was a huge risk. But when I said we made the right decision, I meant it. We’re adding much-needed accessibility and options for real, fiduciary advice. We control our company’s vision and our commitment to Athens. That renewed sense of connectedness between our work and our community is invaluable.
And we now have the honor and privilege of serving nearly 40 families. We get to know them and help them set goals, pursue them, meet them, and make new ones. There’s nothing like it.
We are deeply grateful for and humbled by the people who have chosen to trust and believe in us as founding clients of Fully. Without them, we would not be here. We’re going to keep working hard for them — and every other family who trusts us to guard and grow their hard-earned savings. We’re looking forward to what lies ahead for them — and for us.
We know that as entrepreneurs and as a business, we’re young, we’re new, and we’re independent. But we’re scrappy, we’re driven, and we’re focused on doing what we set out to do for the people we have the privilege of working with. And we’re just getting started.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who has stood by our side and in our corner. Whether near or far, we hear you, we see you, and we feel you. It takes a village, and we’re grateful for everyone in ours.
Fully Financial is a registered investment advisor offering advisory services in the State of Georgia and in other jurisdictions where exempt. This article is provided for educational, general information, and illustration purposes only and does not constitute specific investment advice. Registration with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or any state securities authority does not imply a certain level of skill or training. We encourage you to consult a professional financial planner, accountant, and/or legal counsel for advice specific to your situation.
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