My First Million
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Wealth Management A/B Test Framework
Split significant capital between professional wealth management and self-directed investing to empirically compare performance over 5+ years
How It Works
Reduces emotional bias and marketing influence by creating controlled comparison with actual money at stake rather than theoretical analysis
Components
Split capital into equal or proportional amounts
Give one portion to reputable wealth manager
Self-direct other portion using simple indexing
Track performance net of all fees over 5+ years
Compare risk-adjusted returns and tax efficiency
Make allocation decisions based on empirical results
When to Use
When you have substantial capital ($10M+) from liquidity event and lack investment experience but want to validate advisor value
When Not to Use
With smaller amounts where fees would disproportionately impact results, or when you already have strong investment convictions
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
Example
“After selling company for $100M, allocate $20M to Goldman Sachs and $20M to Vanguard index funds. After 5 years, Goldman returned 6% annually vs 13% for S&P, confirming indexing superiority.”