Healthspan Wealth strategy memoJune 25, 2026

Start where buyers can move.

SEIA is useful because it shows the enterprise ceiling. It is dangerous if it becomes the whole strategy.

Thesis

We should aggressively pursue scaled operating RIAs before we let the enterprise track define the company.

92firms in the tight SEIA neighborhood
1,787firms in the $5B-$100B scaled band
4explicit Salesforce FSC signals in the stack scan

The enterprise track is too narrow to be the starting market.

The 16,544-adviser headline is not the market we can actually sell into. Once we ask for firms with real wealth-management operating complexity, the market collapses fast.

That is not a reason to run away from enterprise. It is a reason to stop treating the hardest version of enterprise as the first repeatable motion.

SEIA can teach us where the product has to end up. It should not teach us to wait 9-12 months for every answer.

If the first motion requires every C-suite stakeholder to agree before the advisor feels value, we are making the company harder than it needs to be.
The real starting market is a subset, not the headline Approximate SEC-registered adviser count by AUM band; counts scaled to the 2025 IAA total of 16,544. Under $100M Subscale 1,704 $100M-$1B Mainstream small RIAs 9,596 $1B-$5B Institutionalizing RIAs 3,210 $5B-$100B Scaled / enterprise RIAs 1,787 $100B+ Mega platforms 247
Caption: The usable scaled market is not 16,544 firms; the first serious band is the 1,787 firms between $5B and $100B. Source: IAA/Comply 2026 snapshot and SEC Investment Adviser Statistics, April 2025.
The SEIA-like pool gets small fast Public market count compared with our ADV-derived target pools. SEC advisers public top-line 16,544 $5B-$100B scaled public band 1,787 ADV-filtered adjacent our SEIA-like search pool 556 Core + tight stronger operating fit 196 Tight SEIA neighborhood hardest enterprise lane 92 Named shortlist closest comps 39
Caption: A 92-firm tight neighborhood is useful for reference accounts, but it is too narrow and too slow to be the only commercial path. Source: ADV-derived target universe, 2026-06-20.

Grimes is the right kind of smaller.

Grimes is not SEIA. That is the point. It is about one-fifth of SEIA by assets and roughly a quarter of SEIA by employees, but it has enough HNW planning, offices, advisors, and operating structure to expose the same class of problem.

That makes Grimes and similar firms better first conversations: smaller buying committees, clearer operator access, and more room to build a useful app around one painful workflow before selling the whole operating layer.

This is not “down market” as a retreat. It is down market as a way to find motion.

Grimes is SEIA-shaped, not SEIA-sized.

That is exactly why it matters. It has the same kind of operating problem with a less punishing buying process.

FirmScaleEmployeesBucketSales-cycle read
Grimes$6.3B~69Scaled operating RIA60-180 days if scoped around an operator/advisor app
SEIA$22.5B ADV / $30B+ public AUA~230-251National platform RIA9-12+ months if it becomes a full enterprise deployment
Caption: SEIA should inform the enterprise bar; Grimes should inform the first repeatable motion. Source: Form ADV-derived rows and public SEIA disclosures, June 2026.

The CRM chart argues against starting with CRM.

Salesforce matters. SEIA matters. But the stack scan does not show a market waiting for one Salesforce integration. It shows firms already using several systems at once: custody, CRM, planning, documents, portals, advisor workflow, and AI.

Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is especially narrow as a starting assumption. In our scan, explicit FSC evidence shows up only four times. Salesforce broadly appears more often, but even then it is one lane in a fragmented operating model.

We will never earn enough if we sit below the CRM vendor. We have to integrate with the stack and take action across it.
CRM is important, but it is not the whole stack Firm-count evidence signals across 39 SEIA-like wealth platforms; categories overlap. Custody / account access 85 CRM / workflow 52 Reporting / client portal 40 Planning 43 Documents / collaboration 32 Advisor apps / AI 24
Caption: The market is fragmented across systems, which is why the product has to coordinate action rather than merely sync records. Source: SEIA-like public stack scan, 2026-06-21.
Salesforce FSC is a minority signal, not a market map CRM/workflow vendor signals in the public stack scan. Salesforce, broad 27 Salesforce FSC, explicit 4 Redtail 4 Practifi / Salesforce 3 Dynamics family 4 Other / unnamed CRM 10
Caption: Salesforce broadly is relevant; explicit Financial Services Cloud evidence is too narrow to define the starting market. Source: SEIA-like public stack scan, 2026-06-21.

The money only works higher in the stack.

The ACV chart is the discipline. If this is a specialty assessment, even a strong enterprise market is not large enough to justify the effort. If this becomes the action layer for household transitions, the same market can support serious software economics.

But that higher ACV has to be earned. It will not be earned by saying “we integrate with Salesforce.” It is earned when the product gives advisors, operators, executives, and compliance a common way to move work forward.

ACV only works if the product moves up the stack.

At feature pricing, the narrow market is too small. At infrastructure pricing, the product has to own firm action across systems.

MarketFirms$50k ACV$250k ACV$500k ACV
Named shortlist 39 $2.0M $9.8M $19.5M
Tight SEIA neighborhood 92 $4.6M $23.0M $46.0M
Core + tight 196 $9.8M $49.0M $98.0M
ADV-filtered adjacent 556 $27.8M $139.0M $278.0M
Caption: A narrow enterprise-only path forces Healthspan Wealth to earn infrastructure ACV before it has repeatable market evidence. Source: ADV-derived target pools, 2026-06-20; full-market count from IAA/Comply 2026 snapshot.

Build the apps that get us into the operating model.

We should be willing to build custom advisor apps, client apps, intake flows, resource routing, vendor steps, and integration-specific surfaces for scaled operating RIAs if they reveal repeatable patterns.

The rule is simple: custom is acceptable when it teaches the product what has to repeat. Custom is dangerous when it only helps one enterprise account get through procurement.

Keep SEIA unique until the value is obvious. Use it as a demanding reference account, not as the shape of the whole company.

The stack is already bought. The missing layer is action. A CRM integration alone leaves Healthspan Wealth under the systems that actually drive firm work. Healthspan Wealth action layer signal → assign → route advisor app → client app vendor step → evidence CRM Salesforce · Redtail · Dynamics Planning eMoney · RightCapital Documents ShareFile · Box · DocuSign Custody Schwab · Fidelity · Pershing Reporting Tamarac · Orion · Addepar Advisor apps Jump · Zocks · internal AI
Caption: The commercial goal is not to become another CRM plugin. It is to take action across the stack where advisor, household, document, vendor, and compliance work meet. Source: public stack scan of SEIA-like firms, 2026-06-21.

Conclusion

Healthspan Wealth should not start by trying to become the perfect enterprise system for SEIA. It should start by selling something useful into scaled operating RIAs, even if the first products look different across firms. The strategic job is to climb the stack: from assessment, to advisor action, to household workflow, to firm operating layer.

The prize is still enterprise. The path is not.

BucketAUMEmployeesApprox. countExamplesMotion
Advisor practicesUnder $1B<2511300local advisory firmsToo small for this motion
Institutionalizing RIAs$1B-$5B10-503210regional RIAsUseful research, selective apps
Scaled operating RIAs$5B-$15B50-150subset of 1,787Grimes, Cyndeo, Carnegie-type firmsBest place to learn and sell
National platform RIAs$15B-$100B150-500subset of 1,787SEIA, EP Wealth, Wealthspire, SavantPrize, not first motion
Mega platforms$100B+500+247banks, asset managers, mega networksDifferent sale
Caption: The best initial motion sits between small advisor practices and national platforms: large enough to feel the pain, small enough to move. Source: SEC/IAA market bands plus Healthspan Wealth ADV-derived target segmentation, June 2026.
Sources and caveats.