Brian Bares is the founder of Bares Capital Management, a $5 billion long only investment boutique that employs independent, qualitative research on growing companies to build highly concentrated portfolios.

Our conversation covers Brian’s early life investing lessons, bootstrapping an asset management business, and finding product-market fit. We then turn to his investment approach, highlighting target companies across business quality, management, and growth, the research process, position sizing, decision making, and sell discipline. Lastly, we discuss the evolution of BCM’s business from a micro-cap strategy to three strategies across market capitalizations today.