Show Notes
Colin Keeley is the co-founder and operator of a number of companies, including Avocado, Formulated, and now Blinksale. After college, Colin worked as a Product Manager & Marketing Manager at Luma.Tv and then ran Geneva Denim for a stretch before heading to business school at the University of Chicago. During business school, Colin launched Bevy, a sharing economy startup that allowed customers to rent anything. He also launched The Tech In Chicago Podcast, the first Chicago-focused early-stage podcast.
Matt caught up with Colin Keeley to discuss his latest entrepreneurial endeavors, Avocado and Formulated. They also discussed the process of starting a podcast, his plans for scaling his Micro-PE model, and the flywheel effect of big exits in Chicago.
Key Takeaways
- Micro-PE has a boringness discount. All these startups that grow super fast, they're super sexy. But, you can actually buy product-market fit and recurring revenue for a pretty low multiple, if it isn't one of these sexy startups in a sexy space. There is an opportunity around the $100-200K MRR range, where a single developer has built something that has real product-market fit, hundreds of customers, but they don't really have that skill-set to take it to the next level. They don't have the skillset to put the processes in place or any real best practices for sales and marketing.
- Audio courses are designed for a clear return on investment. They take you from A to Z in learning. You could get the same knowledge from podcasts, but you spend a lot more time doing that. People sell audio courses for that ROI and to get consumers from A to Z. Podcasts are driven by advertisements. Joe Rogan is incentivized to have a three-hour podcast so he can fit in an hour of ads.
- Chicago needs bigger exits. It’s a flywheel - we need more people that have good outcomes that come back and become angel investors. It’s progressing. We took a few steps back during COVID, but Chicago has a lot going for it.
Please Enjoy!
Colin’s Social, Podcasts, and Companies:
Podcast recommendations from Colin:
Chicago Food Recommendations:
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