Mario Carrasco: How an English teacher turned a $500 prepaid debit card into an $8M market research firm

When companies like Honda want to launch a new pickup truck, and they want that vehicle to do well with Hispanic consumers, they don’t just go with their gut feeling to figure out what that consumer wants. Instead, they hire a market research firm to tell them what that consumer wants. Yet 20 years ago, market research firms couldn’t really tell you. They could tell you what general American consumers wanted, but not Hispanic Americans wanted. Mario Carrasco built the largest online Hispanic research panel companies could use to tune into this segment’s needs. But he didn’t stop there. Convinced that the future of the United States wasn’t Hispanic, but rather, multicultural, Mario and his co-founder Roy created ThinkNow, a multicultural market research firm with clients like Honda and Google and more than 50 employees across four countries. Mario joins Bísness School to explain how he went from a high school English teacher to a pedigreed marketing professional, how he started his company with a 500-dollar prepaid debit card and what ThinkNow has taught him about American consumers and the future of the country.This episode was produced by Fernando Hurtado and edited by James Jeffrey.Follow ThinkNow at http://www.instagram.com/thinknowglobal.Follow Fernando Hurtado at http://instagram.com/byfernandoh. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.