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Meet Derek Notman, a REBL Dad on a mission to fix money. With a passion for adventure and a love for flip-flops and surfing, Derek is not your typical certified financial planner turned FinTech entrepreneur. “I’ve always loved the concept of money, how to earn it, and what it can do for you. So when I moved to New England after college, I started fresh and got into financial services,” says Notman.
But Notman didn’t just open a practice. He quickly began to innovate.
He went remote with his business in 2013, back when that was rare. And when his online financial advisory proved to be a successful model, he started building FinTech businesses to help other advisors do the same.
Certified Financial Planner Turned FinTech Entrepreneur and REBL Dad
Notman believes people want help from advisors they trust on their own timetable. His tech ventures, Couplr and Conneqtor, empower the consumer to find and connect with the best advisor for them while helping advisors position themselves as accessible thought leaders. When a consumer is ready, they can reach out to an advisor to start a conversation.
This process is a win-win that puts the consumer in control of the timing and the connection. At the same time, it creates warm, inbound leads so the advisor can focus on their highest value skills of building relationships, financial planning, and offering investment advice.
Another passion project of Notman’s is called, “REBL Dads.” The focus is on helping men be the best entrepreneurs and dads they can be, also known as dadpreneurs. Notman says, “It's very easy to be an entrepreneur and next thing you know, three years have gone by and you haven't really spent any time with your kid.”
So how do you become a better dad while building an amazing business? REBL stands for Remote Entrepreneurship Balanced Leadership. The program leans into those four core pillars to build strong family relationships and amazing businesses.
Changing the Financial Advisory Industry Through Technology
“When I made the transition to doing business online, I was deathly afraid that I was going to lose a lot of my clients. The financial advice industry is very old school and slow to evolve,” says Notman. “I was burned out, overweight, and unhappy. So I just started scheduling our meetings online,” says Notman.
It was a bold move but clients loved it. They didn’t have someone in a suit sitting at their kitchen table at six o'clock at night talking about insurance or investments while they were thinking about cooking dinner, getting the kids to bed, or walking the dog after a long day.
Those are the kinds of innovative ideas Notman has brought about over the last 17 years. So what’s next?
He believes the industry needs to move away from cold outreach and focus on transparency and consumer-driven outcomes. “At the end of the day, we're wired to connect on a human level. I don't think that'll ever go away, but I’ve proven we can facilitate better human connection through technology,” says Notman.
Helping People Get Proper Education and Empowerment Around Money
Notman is passionate about helping people get the right advice and education from the right professionals.
“Money is just a tool to help you live your best life today and plan to live it in the future. Use money to do that,” says Notman. “The truly happy, successful people are the ones that know that money is just a tool, like a screwdriver or something else to help them achieve their goals.”
He has seen people without proper education and empowerment around money fail to accomplish things like a comfortable retirement, home ownership, or being able to pay for kids to go to school. And the stakes get even higher. “Bad things can happen when money isn't used correctly including poverty, hunger, and high divorce rates. So I want to fix that,” says Notman.
As a FinTech entrepreneur, REBL Dad, and mentor to rising CFPs, Derek Notman appreciates Kiplinger’s commitment to publishing high-quality expertise. “I love to create content. If I'm having a slow day, my go-to is to create content that shares a cool tip or tactic. I’m excited to help others through Kiplinger Advisor Collective and open their eyes to new possibilities. Even if I only touch one person's life and it gets a little bit better, that's worth it.”
