How Chris Mackey Bootstrapped His Way Into Disrupting One Of Wall Street's Entrenched Industries

In this episode of the Fintech Focus podcast, we look at how research management software is upending the world of investing through a user-friendly, data-driven approach.

Mackey Research Management Software started up by experts in the world of hedge funds, was brought to life to hit one major goal: to break apart a one-size-fits-all consumer application option for research management software (RMS) by harnessing the power of usability in a service that desperately needed some updating.

We speak with the company’s CEO, Chris Mackey, about software development and its role in working with investment professionals.

Listen to our interview with Mackey here and read some of our favorite moments from the interview below:

What makes a good RMS stand out in this market?
Usability. First and foremost we wanted to create a modern platform that was highly usable. If you log into our system and you know how to navigate a LinkedIn page or a Facebook page, chances are you're not going to require a whole lot of training for our platform. Then beyond that, we were really bending over backward to offer a high degree of mobility and usability...We really try to hang our hats on our mobility offering and then beyond that we are also able to win business due to automation. We can tap into a lot of different data sources, we don't force as much behavior change as some of our competitors because we're willing to integrate with more apps and devices than anyone else under the sun.

There's a lot of features with your product, but what have you found is the biggest problem it solves?
We understand that many analysts throughout the buy side are set in their ways. They have applications they're comfortable with and a process that works for them. Because of our automation, because of our ability to integrate with all of these different processes, we're not going to require that same process change and our end users absolutely appreciate that.

Then by extension, because we're getting more immediate buy-in due to our integrations and our automation, you're always going to be dealing with a more complete and a more real-time data set for the portfolio manager and for the compliance team. It's really a win-win for everyone across the board.

Some predict the role of analysts on different sides of the buy and sell side might go away as automation and efficiency increase. How does that affect what MackeyRMS does?
I think that in the niche we play in, automation is always going to be a big benefit to the investment management industry. By allowing people to deal with more complete and real-time data sets when it comes to their internal and proprietary research and content, we're allowing them to really play with a full deck. Automation, just looking back over the last couple of years there have been plenty of headlines calling for the demise of active fund management.

Listen to the full interview with MackeyRMS CEO Chris Mackey here.