Today Colin Keeley ( www.twitter.com/colinkeeley, www.colinkeeley.com, and www.techinchicago.co) joins us to talk about venture capital, continued education, networking, and how to optimize learning. Colin has a super interesting story that ultimately culminates in the venture-capital field. He also runs an amazing podcast called Tech in Chicago. I think Colin's superpowers include: masterful genuine networking, appetite for taking calculated risks, and taking perpetual, non-stop steps toward his lofty goals. Listen for these themes as you make your way through podcast, and I think you'll see them all over the place. Time Stamps0:00:00 – Introduction to the episode 0:03:00 – Introduction to Colin Keeley 0:03:13 – My favorite episodes of Tech in Chicago: Jeff Carter ( https://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/tech-chicago-episode-8-jeff-carter-vc-hyde-park-angels-west-loop-ventures ), Ezra Galston ( https://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/tech-chicago-episode-6-ezra-galston-vc-chicago-ventures ), and Troy Henikoff ( http://www.techinchicago.co/episodes/2017/1/13/troy-henikoff-techstars-md-vc-math-vp ) 0:04:18 – Macalester College to Inveni 0:04:55 – Seth Levine of the Foundry Group gave a talk 0:05:38 – Cold email into a job 0:07:05 – First start up hire: "athletes" 0:08:30 – Experience with Geneva Denim 0:09:40 – University of Chicago MBA & starting in venture capital 0:15:07 – Bevy Post-Mortem ( https://colinkeeley.com/blog/bevy-post-mortemmy-sharing-economy-startupnbspfailure ) 0:16:57 – How Colin met Paul Lee https://www.builders.vc/people.html#cbpi=paullee.html from Builders VC 0:18:25 – Starting Tech in Chicago 0:20:00 – The vision for Avocado Audio 0:22:44 – Venture Capital 0:34:14 – Continued education 0:36:23 – How to learn without doing in a start-up context: "Why now?" 0:37:38 – Answers to the "why now" question 0:41:57 – Importance of persuasion, sales, and storytelling 0:44:42 – Networking 0:54:00 – Reading text and retention   0:56:56 – Audio and retention 1:00:30 – Podcast analytics lagging behind video platforms 1:02:34 – Books (American Kingpin, eBoys, The Design of Everyday Things) 1:05:41 – Skills (communication, writing, selling, public speaking, producing content) 1:07:56 – Beliefs (improved at letting trivial matters go) 1:09:25 – Strategies for learning (reading, listening to podcasts, writing, meeting with people) 1:09:50 – What he wishes younger Colin knew (make yourself uncomfortable, ask for what you want, start at a larger start-up so that you have a network if things don't work out) 1:12:10 – Support & Closing Gratitude

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