RG 206 – What’s The Future of Investing? HINT: It’s Not In The Public Markets w/ Eric Satz
Eric is the founder and CEO of Alto IRA, he’s also a serial entrepreneur. Eric believes that investment isn’t just for the wealthy so he works to deliver 21st century investment options to everyone including non-acredited investors. Eric is a former investment banker and early state investor with passion for nurturing start-ups and raising capital and now his business focusses on alternative asset investing. Eric made his first dollar as a child selling frozen lemonade out of a non-refrigerated van.
Eric went to Amherst college and bought distribution rights to the Boston Globe and the NY Times on campus and sold the papers to his classmates. After graduation he moved to Wall Street and became an investment banker. When he left Wall Street he started a coffee bar in NYC which completely failed but it caused him to restructure his life to account for the debt and he realised he was really good at it. He then went to work for UBS in the restructuring and advisory group. He moved to SF and went to work for the original investing firm that he had started at and helped to found their investment banking wing in the West. He also started a side business in currency exchange which was eventually purchased by State Street. He and his wife also started an organic food company called Plum Good Food which they built to $5million in sales by 2008. They shut it down and started a venture capital fund focusing on investing with Tennessee based entrepreneurs.
Eric raised his first money for Alto in 2016 and then launched in 2018 which $250,000 raised. Much of this money came from people who made IRA accounts with Alto and so invested in it too, proving that there was demand for this capability. More recently they’ve set out to raised $2.5million and ended up with $3.5 mil from Angel List. Alto has a fee per transaction which they’re very open about, if the investment is less that $5000 then it’s free to help people who are just starting out. The platform is two sided, so there’s a relationship with investors and issuers. The platform removes the heavy lifting from both sides and acts as the communication and execution place.
Top tips
- Most important habit – writing things down to hold himself accountable
- Most influential person – wife
- Most important tool – customer feedback
- Contact – altoira.com and ericsatz@altoira.com