Colin Keeley on Micro-PE, Future of Audio, How Chicago can Improve, and Leveraging Human Capital
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And then whether Chicago has those consumer successes, I think it's a bit of a misnomer that we don't… Many of the biggest successes here, Groupon, Grub Hub, Cameo recently Tovala - those are all consumer-facing companies. They all had a business model that was clearly going to make money.
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:
Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired. Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.
