Seven Years of Brooklyn Fi

by AJ Ayers

This week marks seven years of Brooklyn Fi. I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve built and the community we’ve created.

Brooklyn Fi was founded on the idea that people’s financial lives are complex and fluid—and they need an advice partner who can help navigate change. Shane and I wanted to help people who weren’t getting the advice they needed. Not out of altruism, but out of necessity. Our friends turned to their parents’ financial advisors for guidance on their growing photography businesses, only to be told to get a real job. They asked the “investment guy” at their bank about stock options, and were met with a blank stare and a disclaimer about tax advice.

We saw there was a growing class of young, successful people building businesses and growing companies, and no one in traditional finance seemed interested in learning what they actually needed. So, as outsiders to the industry, we started Brooklyn Fi—a firm that would listen first, then build the service around the client. Not the other way around.

What is Financial Planning at Brooklyn Fi?

Shane and I, as naive as we were when we launched in 2018, did understand one thing correctly: a financial plan is not just a portfolio or a tax return. It’s a framework for life’s biggest decisions. It’s a conversation about adopting a child. About managing the estate of a parent you've just lost. About what to do when the world shuts down and your freelance work disappears overnight.

In that context, the real product we offer isn’t spreadsheets—it’s trust. Human connection. The ability to say to someone, “I know this is hard. Here’s what you need to do next.” That value proposition—real advice from someone who knows your story—has never been more important. And we’ve gotten very, very good at delivering it.

The Future of Financial Advice and AI

AI has changed the way I plan vacations. I’ve got a meticulously optimized hiking trip to the Dolomites coming up—thanks almost entirely to ChatGPT. It saved me hours of research and helped me refine what I actually wanted out of the trip: fewer logistics, more trails, and a pace that let me breathe.

AI is going to keep getting better at things like this. It’s already changing the financial planning industry. It will help us run projections faster, organize documents smarter, and spot blind spots more reliably. Great. That means our advisors can spend less time fiddling with software and more time doing what actually matters: talking to people.

At Brooklyn Fi, we’re not worried about AI. We’re using it. But we also know its limits. No algorithm can empathetically sit across from you after a windfall, a layoff, or a late-night panic about your quarterly tax bill and say, “You’re not crazy. Here’s what we’re going to do.” That’s the core of what we offer. And it’s only becoming more valuable.

The broader money culture has changed, too. When we started Brooklyn Fi, the FIRE movement was just catching steam, and crypto wasn’t yet a punchline. Now, we’re seeing more people ask not just “how do I build wealth?” but “what is this money for?” That’s a better question. And one we’re built to help answer.

What’s Next

We’ve doubled down on the things that make us special. If you have stock options or RSUs, we believe there’s no better team in the country to help you manage them. We’ve built a firm specifically around that niche—and we serve clients coast to coast.

One of the things I’m most proud of is the caliber of our team. Brooklyn Fi is staffed by professionals who are not only Certified Financial Planners®, but who also have deep, specialized experience in equity compensation strategy. They’ve guided hundreds of clients through IPOs, secondary sales, tender offers, and multi-stage liquidity events. And they do it with clarity and empathy—because they know the decisions are rarely just about money.

We’ve also grown up as a company. Shane and I have stepped away from day-to-day operations, and we’ve built an incredible leadership team to carry Brooklyn Fi into its next chapter. Our new Managing Partner, John Owens, is now at the helm, leading a deeply talented group of advisors, accountants, and operations pros who are quietly redefining what excellent financial planning looks like.

And yes—because we are, after all, a Brooklyn-based firm—we finally have a website that doesn’t look like it was coded on a graphing calculator. Check it out at brooklynfi.com. It’s clean, it’s fast, and it actually reflects who we are and what we do.

Some Personal News

As our client base expanded, so did our team. And while I love being a planner, last year I stepped back to figure out what kind of role I wanted to have going forward. Before Brooklyn Fi, I was a writer and editor. Financial planning was a complete career 180—and the best decision I’ve ever made—but scaling a firm took me away from my creative practice.

So, I took a breath. Got quiet. And then I started writing again. I launched Money Changes Everything, a Substack where I could blend my two worlds: creativity and financial advice. And apparently it resonated, because I’m thrilled to share that Creative Money: New Financial Rules for Artists, Innovators, and Misfits will be published by Penguin Random House in November of 2026.

I’ll be spending most of this year writing it. And I can’t wait to share it with all of you.

Thank you for being part of this journey—whether as a client, a colleague, or someone who stumbled across our blog one anxious night in April, Googling “do I need to pay quarterly taxes if I haven’t made any money yet.” (Yes. Sorry.)

Here’s to the next seven.

-Ally Jane Ayers