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We visited the headquarters of some of the most innovative and inventive leaders in business for The CEO Series to learn what it takes to launch and grow a thriving brand. For this episode, our team went to the office of M1, a fintech platform that bills itself as the “financial 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 clients. I sat down with founder and CEO Brian Barnes to learn all about the platform, how it was created, and his advice to founders on running a company built to last.
Below are some highlights from our conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity. You can watch the full video above.
The thrill of investing
“M1 is a personal finance platform. We started the company about eight and a half years ago. We now manage about $8 billion on the platform for half a million clients. And we really try to create the best possible way for someone to manage their finances. And we do this with a lot of personalization, customization and automation. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to finance at a fairly young age and was immediately hooked. I love the idea of investing, trying to figure out what a company is worth and how it works in a complex world. As an investor, you are making a strong bet. If you’re right, you make money. If you’re wrong, you lose money. So, you know, some people like sports gambling. To me, that’s what a company is worth over the next five or ten years.”
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Doing business in good times and bad
“We want to create a financial institution that will last for decades. There are companies that have been around for centuries. If you’re around for that period of time, you’re obviously going to have these huge shocks to the overall market. And so we’re trying to build the organization so that we can survive in any macro environment, not just be built specifically for one.”
Calm in the storm
“I’m trying to keep calm – on the outside. [Laughs] A quote about entrepreneurship that I love is that the highs are high, the lows are low, and they are ten minutes apart. There are times when you think you’re taking over the world. And then there are times when you’re like, What the hell am I doing? I took all this money, I convinced people to quit their jobs and join me, I compete against the Swabians of the world. But stewing in all this stress accomplishes nothing. I think keeping my emotions in check and figuring out how I can allocate my time productively is a good quality I’ve had while building the organization.”
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The life of a founder
“Being a founder of a technology company is more than just being a CEO. You are both the oldest and the youngest person in the company. You can set direction and strategy and things like that, but in every area where there isn’t someone dedicated to that role? It’s up to you to fill the gap. I would say I played CEO from 8am to 11am and then I played junior analyst from 11am to midnight every night. You just run around and try to add value where you can. As you grow, you’ll want to put things on hold until you figure out how to scale your team. But that’s not the way it works – you have to scale your team and build product and acquire customers at the same time. There’s a bit of chaos, but you have to kind of thrive in the chaos.”
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The legacy of leadership
“My mother, Brenda Barnes, was the CEO of PepsiCo and Sara Lee. I mean, that’s a great person to learn from. She was one of seven sisters. They all shared one bedroom. They were a family of Polish immigrants in Chicago. Her father was a factory worker. And so, I think she always had an insanely healthy respect for the people who did the actual work in her companies. The people who bottled the car, who loaded the delivery trucks. As a CEO, you have to respect that they know their job is better than yours. And a leader’s job is to set an example of what you want the values to be throughout the company. If you can write down all the positive qualities and values that you would like to instill throughout the company, then you better show those things.”
Explore more profiles of innovative and impactful leaders by visiting The CEO Series archives.
