Our four-part series from Jacqueline Koerner, Managing Director, Product at CAIS, highlights some of the themes driving the future evolution of our technology. In part one, she introduces CAIS’ approach to setting our product roadmap, with a focus on product discovery as a theme.
Advisors face an overwhelming quantity of daily demands as they look to meet their clients' expectations—even before they consider alternative investments. Luckily, in our case, there is no shortage of good ideas around how we might best empower them; instead, it’s a matter of picking what comes first and why.
To do so, we spend a considerable amount of time distilling down requests from our users, understanding industry trends, and collecting stakeholder points of view. From these conversations, we draw out themes—ideas that express an advisor’s pain point or gap in their processes rather than a specific feature they might use. These themes are powerful, and I often encourage my team to use them as a reminder that our real objective is not to release as many features as we can, but rather to deliver on our intention of solving a specific problem.
In this four-part series, I hope to walk advisors through the themes that we’re focusing on in our 2025 product roadmap for the CAIS platform, starting with enhancing product discovery. I share these ideas as a conversation starter, and I hope, if you’re an advisor reading this, you’ll let us know what you think.
Why Enhancing Product Discovery as a Theme Works Better Than a Narrow Focus on New Tools
When developing our roadmap, we could have decided, for example, that in Q1 we are going to build a fund comparison tool. Why? Because we know from our conversations that advisors are exploring new products, and when deciding between two that may look similar at first glance, it would help to see the details that differentiate them.
Ok, great. So, we recognize that a fund comparison tool would be a valuable feature for our users, and we have the foundations to build it. But let’s zoom out to the broader “why.” Advisors want easier ways to explore new products. We’ve heard from many of them that they’re contending with a paradox of choice and are looking for more clarity, efficiency, and confidence as they find out what’s available to them.
If we instead prioritize that theme—enhancing product discovery—we suddenly could build any number of features that all contribute to this same result. Rather than focusing narrowly on one defined tool, a theme gave us room to more easily pivot to something that makes more sense to launch sooner but stays true to our original commitment and intention. This is how our technology team’s work around models came to the forefront.
By supporting models on our platform, we are still working to enhance product discovery, just in a slightly different way.
The technology that supports our models marketplace—launching more broadly later this year—will help advisors see the products that a model provider, like an asset manager or a home office investment team, believes fit within certain investment parameters. This more configurable model portfolio interface, which gives advisors some choice over what specific products or managers they allocate to, is just another means by which they can compare funds. With this functionality, any number of available products could be slimmed down into a short list—using filters like investor level, investment minimum, or tax reporting—that helps advisors land on a single selection that may meet their client’s specific needs.
Leading with theme also expands idea generation to more voices. Suddenly, everyone across the CAIS community, including advisors, can contribute to ideating on how we might enhance product discovery. Other leading ideas that could support this theme in the future may include:
An AI-powered chatbot to help identify information in presentation decks and other fund marketing materials
The ability to favorite and like products for easier access over a decision cycle that often can take multiple logins and conversations
A mobile-first experience for advisors to more readily browse offerings as they travel between conferences and client meetings
Clearing Obstacles in the Advisor Experience
As we consider each of the examples above, we see the alts product discovery process for advisors becoming increasingly on par with direct-to-consumer experiences. Despite being a B2B product, we know that the advisors and client service associates (CSAs) on the other side of the screen are individuals who engage with leading marketplace software in their day-to-day lives. Whether it’s Amazon, a particular apparel brand, food delivery apps, or ticket purchasing tools, users know a good experience by being able to intuitively complete whatever it might be that they set out to achieve. More noticeable, a bad experience disrupts natural momentum in a way that evokes feelings of frustration and anger.
But what is it exactly that makes an experience “bad?” Most simply, anytime friction is brought into a process, and especially when it didn’t exist before, there’s a better way. By identifying these friction points related to our theme—even those that may happen before an advisor logs in to our platform for the first time—we can prioritize to further free advisors’ workflows from disruption.
A Vision for Discovering New Alternatives
Other friction points that limit alternative investment product discovery, from the perspective of an advisor, might include:
Limited bigger picture view: How do these products fit into my client portfolio? We seek to address this through our portfolio construction tool, CAIS Compass, which allows advisors to analyze a portfolio by inputting weights of the alternative asset classes they may be interested in—like private equity, private debt, private real estate, and so on—alongside more traditional investments like public equities or fixed income.
Analysis paralysis: There are so many products! How can I possibly slim it down? In the future, narrowing down options can be enhanced through models, a fund comparison UI, and AI chat support. Allowing users to filter by strategy, structure, minimum investment levels, custodial availability, and more is also already helpful in overcoming this inertia.
Lack of social proof: How do I know what others have experienced when using the CAIS platform? This might be addressed through features typically seen on social media tools such as liking and commenting, or reviews that can be shared with other advisors.
Limited product discovery from the perspective of the asset manager also comes into play as we map out what’s next. That might look like:
Cold outreach: How might interested advisors more easily find my product? When alternative asset managers work to list their products on the CAIS Marketplace, an advisor can infer that the manager is actively seeking to engage with the independent wealth community. Apart from extending this initial access to advisors, a manager can also use the platform to educate them about their strategies.
Out-of-date content: How do I keep my marketing materials up to date and engaging? Asset managers can already work with our team to post content on our platform and then monitor content engagement through their own dashboard. In the future, managers might also benefit from self-service content management tools that empower them to more easily upload, gain approvals, and manage their own materials based on these findings.
Tucked away performance data: How do I show advisors my track record? If the manager provides structured data, a product’s performance metrics can be used to power charts and graphs on the CAIS platform, expanding visibility beyond marketing materials and increasing advisor engagement. Managers can also host investment and/or operational due diligence on their product pages.
The Winning Ideas in Alternative Investing Technology
I hope to have illustrated the point that there is no shortage of opportunity for what we build next. In addition, there are many levers across various user groups that can contribute to the same goal of enhancing product discovery. Deciding what we build and when requires big picture thinking and blue skies conversations.
The earlier we can explore ideas that might shape the next generation of the CAIS platform experience, the sooner we can research and validate solutions, prioritize and resource them, and deliver value to both users and the larger ecosystem we serve.
If you take away nothing else, I hope this inspires you to imagine what’s to come in the next three, five, and 10+ years ahead and reach out to chat!
So, what would the best possible product discovery experience look like for you? Schedule a call with our team to tell us.
