Brad Keywell: Born To Be An Entrepreneur

Spend any amount of time with Groupon founder Brad Keywell and you will quickly learn one thing: he was born to be an entrepreneur. In college, Keywell studied both law and business at the University of Michigan. Either subject could have taken him down a promising career path. But as someone who has been starting businesses since he was in high school, Keywell didn't have to spend much time contemplating his next move. “Rather than go into law, [me and my business partner, Eric Lefkofsky] started what was the first of a series of businesses that continue to this day,” Keywell told Benzinga during a

. One of those businesses is Echo Global Logistics, Inc.

, a transportation management firm. Another is LightBank, a company that's dedicated to providing seed funding for startups. “What's missing in Chicago, and more broadly in the Midwest, is ready access to quality, value-added capital that can help entrepreneurs grow their ideas and grow their businesses uniquely,” Keywell said. “To that problem, we offer the solution of LightBank.” Keywell said that he and Lefkofsky do not invest in everything they see. In fact, if your company doesn't fall into the less-than-1% that LightBank invests in, you might be out of luck. “But when we invest, we're all in,” Keywell promises. “And we invest with money and lots of help.” More than anything, Keywell said that LightBank wants great entrepreneurs, which translates to great people who have good ideas. “Maybe not perfect ideas, but very good ideas,” he said. “And have demonstrated traction. So we're more focused on people that have already done something and are in the early stages of execution, versus people with simply an idea on the back of a napkin.” “Frankly, we invest in both,” Keywell continued. “And hopefully, because we're doing this, we're making a difference in the entrepreneurial community both in Chicago and in the metropolitan Detroit area and the whole Midwest.” As a freshman in Ann Arbor, Keywell learned that entrepreneurship was not being taught at UofM. “And Sam Zell, who was a graduate of Michigan, went to the business school and suggested they teach entrepreneurship, and their response was, ‘We don't have the money,'” he said. But that didn't stop Zell, who was determined to get the ball rolling. He donated the money himself, and for the first time, entrepreneurship would be taught at the Ross School of Business. “It was a graduate school class, and I don't remember how, but as an undergrad freshman I got into this MBA class,” Keywell revealed. “I probably cared more than most others so I ended up doing very well and was introduced to the guy who funded and fundamentally created the class itself, Sam Zell.” Through that introduction, Zell and Keywell became very good friends. “And it's a friendship that's now 20+ years old,” Keywell said. “He's definitely an important mentor in my life.” To hear more from the Groupon founder – including his common threads on startup success – don't miss Benzinga's

with Brad Keywell.