## [# The Advisor Experience at ETF Breakthru Connect](/sections/advisor-center/advisor-experience-etf-breakthru-connect)
# The Advisor Experience at ETF Breakthru Connect
Curious about what ETF Breakthru Connect will be like as an advisor? Matt Middleton, CEO of ETF.com and Founder & CEO of Future Proof, talks about the expectations (only the ones you set for yourself!) and the value of peer-to-peer connections.
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[By ETF.com Staff](/contributors/etfcom-staff)
Apr 08, 2026
Edited by: ETF.com Staff
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ETF Breakthru Connect offers attendees a chance to meet with a wide range of folks within the ETF industry as well as individual investors and tech/service providers without the hassle of travel. For advisors, the opportunity to connect with peers and talk shop remains a high point of a program with a 98% satisfaction rate. Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research at ETF.com, sits down with Matt Middleton, CEO of ETF.com and Founder & CEO of Future Proof, to talk about the advisor experience and what they can expect when attending.
Want to learn more about what ETF Breakthru Connect is all about? Don't miss our 15 minute explainer on it all [**here**](https://www.etf.com/sections/conferences/power-trust-etf-breakthru-connect).
## The Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Connection for Advisors
**Nadig:** Talk to me about the advisor experience. Because like you said, you're reading all the feedback loops. You know all the data from now years of doing these kinds of programs. If I'm just sort of an average advisor, sort of middle of the country at a major metro, and I've signed up to Breakthru Connect, how do you expect advisors to think about who they're going to meet with?
Are they meeting with fellow advisors that maybe serve a similar market? Are they meeting with product providers who have something interesting and new to offer? Are they meeting with potential employers that might want to poach them or potential advisors they might want to poach?
**Middleton:** Yeah, so I think the biggest misconception when we start these things is exactly how you described: It's like it's a buyer-sell-it marketplace. That's one use case of why people meet. The biggest use case that we see at Future Proof, and we're definitely going to see with ETF Breakthru Connect, is that peer-to-peer, right? It's the practice development angle.
The truth is when you think about specifically RIAs, they're small business owners, right? They are leaders and advisors that work with maybe a handful of people, maybe a few dozen people. What they really value and why they come to events like Future Proof is they value the peer-to-peer connection. They want to learn from people who are in their roles, either maybe a little bit more advanced or a little bit behind them. They want to make that connection because they don't have access to someone either mandating something down to them like the big banks or they don't have the understanding of like benchmarking themselves to the industry.
"How am I doing? I just want to feel confident that I'm doing good, that I'm leading my team, right? That I'm managing my clients to the best ability. I'm using the best technology. I have the best investment products." All of these things are why people participate in the meetings programs. So they meet directly with product providers, technology providers, but mostly they meet with their peers. And so what we do in this dynamic is we have the ability to meet anyone for any reason and we market that.
But I would say in the first people were like, "Ugh, I don't want to be forced meeting with them." Well, you're not forced to meet with anyone. You opt into whoever you want to meet with. That's the goal, right? We have a 98 % satisfaction rate to these meetings, which is like the big number that I always like to track. But when you think about it, it's. We don't want to assume you are coming to this event to come here for any intention, and I think most event organizers—virtual or live event organizers—generalize attendees too much.
Advisors, if you met one advisor, you met one advisor truthfully, right? And so instead of trying to assume we know why they're coming and what they want to get out of it, we just give them the platform to find the right people, the right services, the right products, or the right insights and make some new connections before they head out.
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etf.com is the single source for ETF intelligence. We provide real-time ETF news and analysis to educate investors and drive financial knowledge in… [View Bio](/contributors/etfcom-staff)
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