Auxesys

There’s a level of precision in how Future Proof is built that most conferences never come close to touching. You can see it in the way people show up before anything is even announced. And it mirrors the level of customization AI is allowing the most forward-thinking firms to execute. Nothing about their events feel accidental. Every part is shaped with purpose: who it’s for, how people move through it, what they experience, and why they come back. It’s not spectacle. It’s design discipline. In this clip, Future Proof CMO Nyle Bayer talks through the mechanics of that discipline. The choices, the tuning, the way the experience gets refined year after year without losing its edge. And the monumental shift that Citywide is set to catalyze for the entire industry. Future Proof hasn't built to this crescendo with cheap hype. It’s swelling because the structure is tight, the purpose is clear, and the execution leaves very little room for indifference. When you build with this much precision, the right audience doesn’t need persuasion. THEY find YOU.

RIAs talk about "marketing strategy" - but most are 15 years behind the cutting edge of digital marketing. And while they are behind, they are also moving 1/10 the speed of marketing teams in growth industries, pushing out about 1/100 the experiments. Throw in the AI hype, and most are now scrambling to build shoddy shanties on top of foundations of gravy. Frankly, it won't matter how smart or well thought out your strategy is. How many surveys or how much discovery you did. How well you got to know the advisors and the work you did to define the ICPs / niche / target personas. 15 years behind, slow rate of shipping, and low level of experimentation = the ingredients for building losing GTM motions in modern competitive environments. Modern professional services firms are PLAGUED with these issues. You're great at what you do because you are SMART and SUPER PROFESSIONAL. But hubris lies at that intersection in a heaping pile. There is massive delta between preconceived notions and how audiences on the internet actually perceive and engage with marketing outputs. (i.e. if you build a strategy without DEEP commitment to experimentation, it's 99% likely that you will be WRONG!) Modern professional services firms, and especially RIAs, fail in their marketing because they simply don't run enough experiments. At their root, they've not only built a culture where experimentation doesn't live... ...they've built an "anti-experimentation" culture. There's a belief at Auxesys: "whoever has the most fun, wins." Up there at the top of the firm beliefs list is another: "whoever runs the most experiments, wins." If your firm is scared to test, slow to ship, putting out low volume, and running 15-year old playbooks - peep the article.

I am beyond proud of this fine gentleman. Skyler Delaurier has been an incredible steward of not only the gifts bestowed upon him, but also those that have been bestowed upon Auxesys. Early last year, we made a conscious effort to shift from a "founder-led go-to-market motion" to a "team-led go-to-market motion". Even though I had barely begun to build a shred of authority in the space - it was obvious that something was happening, and obvious to me that we were being beckoned to spread it around. And so at Orion Ascent this past February, we took our first crack at it. We had a plan to put Skyler Delaurier on camera and develop him into a media personality. And we wanted to spotlight the rest of our team as well by producing recaps featuring our videographers, photographers, editors, and other folks who traditionally reside behind the scenes. We tried our darndest, but the pace of client production at Ascent '25 had other plans. Fast forward another 9 months, and Skyler Delaurier has absolutely dominated. He crushed interviews at two big tier one conferences (get ready, they are coming!). He helped us with finance and strategy. He built models and decks. He wrangled team. He dipped his fingers in nearly every element of the business. From the drudgery of doing the books, to crafting our growth strategy, to appearing on camera interviewing some of the greats in wealth management and wealthtech, Skyler Delaurier touched it all this year. And we're not shy to call it out. We're new entrants. Black sheep. Outsiders. We're in awe. We're small fish. And we're eager AF. The vibe that Skyler Delaurier shares here is our special sauce and will be burned into our DNA. We may grow, we may change, and we may acclimatize. But we will never stop feeling this way. Thanks to Skyler Delaurier for crushing it this year, and to the world of independent wealth management and wealthtech for having us. To all of our clients partners and friends - we are humbled and at your service.

We talk a lot about AI replacing advisors. But the smarter conversation is about AI revealing them. That’s what struck me in this moment with Dr. Daniel Crosby, Ph.D. at Orion Ascent. He wasn’t talking about efficiency for efficiency’s sake. He wasn’t romanticizing the tech. He wasn’t predicting a robo-future. He was pointing to something deeper: When you remove the administrative sludge… When you clear the bottlenecks… When you take the repetitive, low-value tasks off an advisor’s desk… You don’t get less humanity. You get more of it. You get the advisor who has time to think. To write. To create. To connect. To show up as the one thing no model can replicate: THEMSELVES. There are ~300,000 advisors in the US. But there’s only one you. And if AI becomes the force that frees advisors to operate from their actual personality, not their task list? That’s not disruption. That’s an evolution this industry has needed for a long time. This clip is just a glimpse of where things are heading. The tools aren’t the story. What we become once the tools remove the friction... ...that’s the story. PS - Ascent '26 is just around the corner - sound off in the comments - what should we ask Dr. DC about next year???