The birth of SLvia

The Birth of SLvia — How Two Advisors and a Friend Built the AI They Needed

SLvia wasn’t born in a pitch deck.
It wasn’t dreamed up by a product team chasing the next AI trend.
It started with two financial advisors who were simply… tired.

Tired of rewriting the same emails.
Tired of scrambling for meeting prep.
Tired of staring at client documents, knowing there had to be a smarter way.

Alexa Pao, a practicing advisor with 14 years of experience, had lived it firsthand.
“I loved the client work - the relationships, the planning, the real conversations. But the weight of everything in between? It was constant. It was draining. And it wasn’t why I got into this business.”

Her husband and co-founder, Tony Pao, had seen it from every angle.
With over 20 years in financial services as an advisor, partner, recruiter, and mentor, he knew this wasn’t a personal struggle.
“This is the industry’s quiet problem. Advisors are buried under busywork that keeps them from doing what they’re best at. We knew there had to be a better way — and if no one else was going to build it, we would.”

That’s when they brought in their longtime friend, James (Jimmy) Vela, a seasoned back-end developer who could turn vision into reality.
Jimmy didn’t come from finance. But he knew how to build systems that work; simple, intuitive, powerful beneath the surface.

“From day one, it was clear this wasn’t about chasing trends. It was about building something useful for people I respect,” said Jimmy. “The goal was simple: create an AI assistant that feels invisible in the best way — an extension of how advisors already think and work.”

For 2 ½ years, the three of them built SLvia from scratch.
No investors. No funding rounds.
Just real work, real money, and a clear mission.

Every feature was born from their own frustrations.
Every workflow designed for how advisors actually operate.
No fluff. No gimmicks. Just practical solutions to the problems that eat away at an advisor’s time and energy.

What started as a pain point became a purpose.
To give advisors their time back.
To protect their authentic voice.
To help them scale their value, without losing the personal touch.

That mission became SLvia.

Not a Silicon Valley product.
Not another AI gimmick.
But a platform built from the trenches of real advisory work.

SLvia is the tool they wished existed.
Now, it does.