Most advisory firms are built around retirement savers. Defiant Capital Group was built around founders, entrepreneurs, and business owners whose wealth is tied to equity, shaped by exits, and complicated by the success you worked to create.
For most high earners, wealth accumulates steadily. For founders, it concentrates in a single asset, then arrives all at once. That creates a set of problems most financial advisors are not equipped to solve.
The majority of your net worth may sit in one company, one stock, or one asset class. Diversifying without triggering a catastrophic tax bill requires planning years in advance. Not weeks before a transaction closes.
Negotiating the structure of a sale, earnout, or equity rollover has lasting tax consequences that no amount of post-close planning can fully undo. The window to act is narrow and front-loaded.
ISOs, NSOs, RSUs, and 409A valuations each carry distinct tax treatments, AMT implications, and exercise timing decisions that interact in ways most advisors don't map. All of which takes planning to avoid costly mistakes later.
Qualified Small Business Stock exclusions, GRATs, irrevocable trusts, and charitable vehicles can shield tens of millions in capital gains - but only when structured correctly and well before a transaction.
Once liquidity arrives, the question shifts entirely. How do you deploy concentrated cash into a portfolio that generates returns, manages taxes, and sustains your family's wealth for decades?
Most wealth managers are trained for steady earners with 401(k)s. If you've heard "we don't really do that," you already know the gap. Defiant was built for these problems specifically.
We believe estate and tax strategies only succeed when they are anchored by your family’s values and goals.
We help founders analyze the full tax picture of a potential sale — federal capital gains, Pennsylvania state tax, NIIT, AMT — and identify every legal structure that can reduce that exposure. That means timing equity exercises, establishing charitable vehicles, gifting strategies, and coordinating with your M&A counsel and CPA to ensure nothing is left on the table.
Whether navigating a third-party sale, a management buyout, or a generational transfer, we work alongside your attorneys and advisors as a financial quarterback, not a subordinate, to align your exit structure with your personal wealth goals, tax position, and legacy intentions.
For founders and C-suite executives managing ISOs, NSOs, RSUs, and concentrated stock positions, we develop a coordinated exercise and diversification strategy that accounts for blackout periods, 10b5-1 plan requirements, and the interaction between equity income and your broader tax picture. We model the cost of holding versus exercising, and make the case for action before it's too late.
We design and manage diversified portfolios that combine public markets with access to institutional-quality private equity, private credit, and real assets. Our fee-only structure means every recommendation is driven by your goals, not our revenue.
Defiant Capital Group clients don't have a collection of advisors working independently. They have one team that coordinates your CPA, estate attorney, insurance advisor, and lenders. We ensure every decision is made with a view of the full financial landscape, not just one piece of it.
We are not a large firm that added an entrepreneur practice. We are an independent, fee-only RIA built from the ground up to serve exactly this kind of client.
Defiant Capital Group started by entrepreneurs who have navigated financial complexity firsthand, not theoretically. We bring that perspective to every engagement.
Our team has advised institutional clients at Goldman Sachs and Jefferies. We bring Wall Street discipline to wealth strategies that most boutique advisors aren't equipped to design.
We are compensated solely by the fees you pay us. No commissions, no revenue sharing, no product incentives. Every recommendation we make is structurally required to be in your interest.
We are locally rooted in Pittsburgh founders across western Pennsylvania and the country. We bring the independence of a boutique and the rigor of an institutional firm.
We provide access to institutional-quality private equity, private debt, and real assets. The same alternative investment universe available to family offices are available to our clients.
We coordinate across your entire advisory team, your CPA, estate attorney, lenders, and insurance advisors, ensuring your plan is coherent, not compartmentalized.
Not every founder is the right fit. We work best with clients whose financial lives require active coordination, not just portfolio management.
No. Some of our most impactful work happens years before a transaction. If you are building a company, managing concentrated equity, or beginning to think about succession, the earlier we engage, the more options we have.
Fee-only means we are compensated solely by the fees you pay us. That means no commissions, no revenue sharing, no product incentives of any kind. Every recommendation we make is structurally required to be in your interest, not ours.
Yes. While we are based in Pittsburgh and serve a significant number of founders and entrepreneurs across western Pennsylvania, we work with clients nationally, both in person and virtually.
Our founder and entrepreneur clients generally have net worths ranging from $10 million to $200 million, though many are pre-liquidity with limited investable assets today. Our model is built to serve clients across the full arc, from pre-liquidity through post-exit, so investable assets alone aren’t a determining factor. Complexity matters as much as AUM. We work best with clients whose financial lives require active coordination across multiple dimensions.
Most wealth managers are built around steady earners with traditional asset accumulation. Defiant was built specifically for founders and entrepreneurs, by founders. That difference shows in the depth of our equity compensation, pre-liquidity, and exit planning work, and in our fee-only structure that removes every conflict of interest from the equation.
Your wealth strategy shouldn’t either. Schedule a discovery call with the Defiant Capital Group team to discuss your situation and determine whether we’re the right fit.
Let’s discuss how a personalized strategy can help you navigate your wealth and achieve your goals.
Submit the form below and we’ll reach out to schedule a meeting. During this meeting we’ll review your situation, provide more information about our process, and see if our services are a fit for you.
