VIDEO: Best of 2016: Morningstar Founder Joe Mansueto

–Founders’ Stories Best of 2016 —

How the investment management firm grew to a national behemoth by launching the right product on the tailwind of an emerging market trend

In this special Founders’ Stories episode, we sat down with Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar, the $3 billion investment research firm with over 4,300 employees nationwide.

Have a listen as we learn about how Joe leveraged an emerging market trend to create a company that was built to last, and how he believes that being “scrappy” is the key to solving hard problems, especially in a company’s beginning stages.

Content Breakdown:

0:00 The genesis of Morningstar and how Joe’s first job as a stock analyst led him to leading the democratization of investing

9:20 The difference between finding an unmet need and finding an unmet need that is also on the tailwind of an emerging trend

13:20 Morningstar’s very first product — and how customers essentially funded Morningstar’s growth

20:34 Why having a couple of years of discovery actually helped Morningstar achieve high growth later

27:12 Lessons learned in Joe’s entrepreneurial journey

Essential Quotes:

• “If it’s an emerging trend…your clients will forgive you for not having the perfect solution.” Click to Tweet
• “Growing up in a capital-restrained manner forges your cultural DNA [as a business].” Click to Tweet
• “I’ve always approached business with a ‘built-to-last’ mentality. People want the overnight success tomorrow…and some of those tendencies can become unhealthy.” Click to Tweet

This video is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You can view details of this license here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode