About

My name is John Everett Morton. In my 20s I realized that neither school nor my parents gave me much education surrounding personal finances. Many of us learn the hard way as we make it through life. I decided I would try to break the cycle for myself, and help others to do the same.

I read many books and articles online and soon I was the guy with an above average knowledge of personal finance and investing.

Now I'm attempting to use my knowledge as a User Experience (UX) designer to determine "How Might We" leverage technology to help those in financial distress.

The Short-Term Plan

Make Content: This will be articles and blog posts here, plus video content. It will also mean pointing people to already existing sources of knowledge.

Connect with people: This is where I feel many other people get it wrong. They might respond to folks in the comments on their YouTube videos, but that’s where it stops.

Connecting with people will probably look something like starting a Discord server and holding regular “ask me anything” kind of meetings on both a scheduled and impromptu basis. It might also mean holding workshops over Zoom or Google Meet.

Group and 1-on-1 Counseling/Advising: This will wait until after I have some more education and experience under my belt. My ambition is to offer a “pay what you can” tier for people in real financial distress.

The Long-Term Plan

Using insights from executing the short-term plan, I hope to use my talents as a User Experience (UX) designer to build a platform where users can consult articles, videos, interactive models, and connect with verified financial professionals who are willing to lend their expertise.

It is difficult to say what that platform will look like, but these are a few values I have attached to the product:

I won’t borrow money to advance the platform. I won’t accept money from investors expecting a quick Return On Investment (ROI). It will be slowly bootstrapped over time, even if that means moving slowly and having a multi-year development plan.

To be truly different from competing platforms, it is important to me that the platform doesn’t exist primarily to sell products. This means it has to be ad free. It should act as near as possible to having a fiduciary relationship with the users.

The Dream Plan

I don’t know if the long-term plan is feasible or not, but let’s pretend anything is possible for a moment.

The dream scenario would be to create a non-profit foundation affiliated with the platform. The foundation would provide financial gifts to financially distressed users who have been nominated by their peers or financial professionals. Funds would come from excess proceeds after platform costs have been met as well as users who are happy to pay their success forward.

Personal Trajectory

February/March 2025

Currently I am studying for the Series 65 license exam. Passing this exam will legally qualify me to work as an Investment Adivsory Representative at a Registered Investment Adviser or broker-dealer. With no professional experience, it is unlikely I would be hired on as an adviser, but I hope having passed the test will make me a good candidate for a support role.

April/June 2025 - Spring 2026?

Tentatively planning to pursue the Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC) designation. It requires studying a curriculum, passing an exam, and having 3000 hours of experience. Some of the things I’m doing now (creating content, reviewing books) will count towards some of those hours. Having a full-time job in the industry would be ideal because I could count much of my work day as experience hours.

Spring/Summer 2026 - ?

After completing the AFC, the current plan is to pursue a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation. It also requires finishing a curriculum and passing an exam, but it requires 6000 experience hours and a capstone project. The CFP process is also more costly. Fortunately, some of the 6000 experience hours should overlap with the 3000 experience hours needed for the AFC.