To fund it, he sold stock. He sold shares to get things started, and then he just kept selling them.

When the War ended in 1945, I started selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Then I sold insurance door to door. I even tried selling cars.

When I started, one of the big selling points of the Wall Street Journal was that it had complete stock stats. Truck drivers and teachers were buying the Journal because it was the best place to find that material. Now that data is everywhere.

We manage the same fund for mutual fund holders and annuity holders, and we happen to own the shares underlying the annuity instead of the mutual fund. That's why it appears we don't hold shares when you look at the SAI data, but in effect we do -- just through a different vehicle.

I started out selling IBM products to tire manufacturers in the midlands of Britain -- thousands of miles from headquarters. The company tried all sorts of different things to motivate the sales team, but checks always spoke far louder than any of my sales managers' words. In a nutshell, driving greater sales success is mostly about setting clear and simple goals, and delivering financial rewards quickly.

It's the first primarily broker-sold fund family acquiring an ETF family.