60 Seconds with Reorg Research's Kent Collier

What does your company do?
I wrote a fairly popular investment blog for a long time. I had this problem every day on the buy side accessing legal data. Legal filings for a distressed-debt investor was difficult to find. So I built a system that changes the way Wall Street accesses that data. Now, instead of the legacy US government systems, people use our service. We also built an overlay of proprietary content.

What does your job entail?
I have to think about the product and the roadmap over the next couple of years, and to hire the right talent to build these proprietary content offerings. I very much enjoy that part. We started with two people and now we’re 25 and growing.

What do you do to unwind?
Hang out with my kids and wife, and golfing whenever I can get out on the course.

Who is the most influential person in your business life? Why?
I have an investing background so I would have to say Seth Klarman. He’s an incredible investor. Even from a building-a-business standpoint, we don’t want to disenfranchise our customers and we’re not focusing on shooting for the moon; we’re trying to hit a lot of singles and doubles, and at the end of the season we’re on the all-star team.

What is the greatest mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?
At the very beginning, we made a few missteps with our hiring decisions, but now we have a rigorous process where we interview 30 to 50 candidates per position. So it’s very tough to get into this room. That was a good learning process for me.

What was your first car?
A 1997 Nissan Altima.

What is your favorite vacation spot?  
Tyler Family Resort near Lake Champlain in Vermont. It’s a fantastic resort if you have small kids. It’s the best vacation I’ve ever had.

What is your favorite TV Show?
Shark Tank, probably like every other CEO.

What keeps you awake at night?
Making sure we put out the best product for our customers, because we are mission-critical. If we miss something, our customers can miss trades. So making sure we have high integrity with our data, making sure we’re putting out the best product.