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We have been visiting the headquarters of among the most modern and imaginative leaders in business for The CEO Series, learning what it takes to launch and grow a thriving brand. For this episode, our crew went to the office of M1, a fintech platform that bills itself as “the finance super app.” The powerful online investing and banking platform has raised $315 million at a valuation of about $1.5 billion and manages about $8 billion for half a million customers. I sat down with founder and CEO Brian Barnes to learn all in regards to the platform, the way it was created, and his advice to founders on running a company built to last.
Below are some highlights of our conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity. You’ll be able to watch the total video above.
The fun of investing
“M1 is a personal finance platform. We began the corporate about eight and a half years ago. We now manage about $8 billion on the platform for half a million customers. And we’re really just trying to create one of the best possible way for somebody to manage their funds. And we do this with a lot of personalization, customization, and automation. I used to be fortunate to be introduced to finance at a pretty young age and I used to be immediately hooked. I really like the thought of investing, of trying to discover what a company’s price and the way it’s operating in a complex world. As an investor, you make a high-conviction bet. In the event you’re right, you earn a living. In the event you’re mistaken, you lose money. And so, you realize, some people like sports gambling. For me, it’s what’s a company going to be price in the subsequent five or ten years.”
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Doing business in good times and bad
“We wish to create a financial institution that lasts for a long time. There are firms on the market which have lasted for hundreds of years. In the event you are around for that time frame, it’s unquestionable that you just’re going to have these massive disruptions in the general market. And so we now have been trying to construct the organization in order that we will survive in any macro environment and never just be tailor-made for one.”
Calm within the storm
“I try to stay calm — on the skin. [Laughs] The entrepreneurship quote I really like is that the highs are high, the lows are low and so they’re ten minutes apart. There are occasions if you think you take over the world. After which there are occasions where you are like, What the hell am I doing? I took all this money, I convinced people to quit their jobs and join me, I’m competing against the Schwabs of the world. But stewing in all of that stress accomplishes nothing. I feel maintaining my emotions and determining how I can allocate my time productively has been a good attribute that I’ve had as I’ve built the organization.”
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The lifetime of a founder
“Being a founding father of a tech company is greater than just being a CEO. You are each essentially the most senior and most junior person at the corporate. You get to set direction and strategy and things like that, but in any area where there just isn’t someone dedicated to that role? It’s on you to fill the gap. I’d say I played CEO from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. After which I played junior analyst from 11 a.m. to midnight every night. You are just running around and trying to add value where you possibly can. As you grow, you’d love to put things on pause whilst you determine how to scale your team. But that is not how it really works — you have to scale your team and construct a product and acquire customers at the identical time. There’s a little little bit of chaos, but you will have to kind of thrive within the chaos.”
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Legacy of leadership
“My mom Brenda Barnes was CEO of PepsiCo and Sarah Lee. I mean, that is a great person to learn from. She was one in all seven sisters. All of them shared a bedroom. They were a Polish immigrant family in Chicago. Her father was a factory employee. And so, I feel she all the time had an insanely healthy respect for individuals who did the actual work at her firms. The individuals who bottled the cola, who loaded the delivery trucks. As a CEO, you would like to respect that they know their job higher than you. And the leader’s job is to set an example for what you would like the values across the corporate to be. In the event you could write down all of the positive attributes and values that you just would want instilled throughout the corporate, then you definitely higher exhibit those things.”
Try more profiles of modern and impactful leaders by visiting The CEO Series archives.