The Best Investment We Make Isn't in the Market
A look behind the curtain at how the CoFi team thinks about culture, and why it matters to you.
You've heard this all before, but it bears repeating - when it comes to financial planning and investment management, the single biggest driver of your outcome usually isn't stock picking, it's whether you stayed in your seat, stuck to the plan, saw through the noise and stayed on track. Discipline compounds.
So does culture. And you know this too. If you're anything like us, you've found yourself in a less than desirable work situation. You've been overworked or underpaid. You've been unappreciated, taken for granted, easily disposed of. A bad job is an almost universal experience, a rite of passage in a society that prioritizes an “I suffered, so you should suffer the same way” mentality.
When we first teamed up in 2021, Colin and I looked around at where we were and determined to do better. Five years later, I'm proud to say we ARE doing better. We're building a firm where the people doing the work want to be here doing it, where they feel a part of the team, where they feel valued. And we're taking strides to strengthen this day-by-day. Because we care, about them, and about you, and we're convinced that's what lets the CoFi team show up for you the way we want to.
This month we want to pull back the curtain a bit on how we think about that:
Team Retreat: Portland, Round Five
Every year, the whole team packs up and heads out for an overnight retreat, this year to Portland, Maine. Teambuilding, lobster rolls, and one very intentional session of business planning where we lay out where we are, and where we're headed. Five years running now, which quietly makes it one of the oldest traditions we have in our young firm.
We reflect, strategize, ask questions. What are you proud of? What should we never lose? What do you want your day-to-day to look like in five years? What should we do better?
The answers move around year to year. The threads that don't move are the ones we care about most: authenticity, trust, the flexibility to work in a way that fits real life, and a team that still wants to grow rather than coast. We filter every decision through these values-based prisms - who we hire, how we structure a Friday, how fast we get back to you - and you experience the results.
The CoFi team in Portland, Maine
Behind the Scenes: How We Actually Work
A few specifics, since “great place to work” can mean anything until you get concrete:
Hybrid, by design
Our team isn't chained to a desk to prove they're working. We care about the work getting done well and on time. Where someone does that from is secondary. Make no mistake, the intangible value, the magic that comes from in-person work is a top priority for us. We make sure to make it happen regularly. But we recognize our place in time, and we lean on technology to operate seamlessly in our desire for flexibility.
Half-day Fridays
Every Friday afternoon, the office winds down early. It's become one of the most-used, least-negotiable parts of how we operate. The truth is most clients don't have an emergency at 3pm on a Friday. Especially not our clients, who we've worked hard to insulate against financial emergencies in general. That said, occasionally a last-minute house transaction needs to be addressed or market anxiety needs to be navigated.
So we want to make sure our clients all know that emailing info@cofiadvisors.com is the best way to ensure you get immediate attention. You have a team working for you, and this is the team inbox. Reaching out to a group of people makes it more likely your needs will be addressed than texting Colin or myself directly.Honest about the tension
We'll be straight with you: the world doesn't run on a four-day work week yet, and neither do markets, custodians, or the IRS. Business continuity for you comes first: someone is always reachable, nothing falls through the cracks on a remote day or over a long weekend. Even if it means the cofounder is the one here checking the mail the day before a holiday.
But within that constraint, we've built as much flexibility as we responsibly can, and we keep pushing on how much further we can take it. We'd rather be honest about that balance than oversell either side of it.
Room to Grow: Where We're Trying to Get Better
Every year the retreat surfaces at least one uncomfortable answer, and this year's was communication. Not a crisis, just a recognition that as we've grown, we've occasionally moved faster than we've explained. We're committing, as a team, to slowing down on the things that matter, being clearer about priorities and timelines, and treating feedback, internally and with you, as fuel rather than criticism. If you ever feel like something could've been communicated better on our end, we genuinely want to hear it.
Feedback is necessary for growth. And we have thick skin. We can take it.
A Thank You: To the Ones Who've Been With Us Since the Beginning
Some of you have been clients since Colin and I first started out on our independent paths. Some of you found after we joined forces. Either way, thank you. A firm's culture is easy to talk about; it's much harder to actually live out, year after year, especially while also running a business. The fact that so many of you have stuck with us, referred your friends and family, and trusted us with decisions that genuinely matter to your lives is the reason we get to keep doing this work the way we want to do it.
We started CoFi because we thought advice could be delivered better, with more warmth, more transparency, more clarity and without pretense. Culture is just the internal version of that same promise. Get the inside right, and the outside tends to follow.
Here's to the next five.
