Should Entrepreneurs Scale Their Business Forever? | Michael Keenan

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of The Profitable Creative, Christian Brim sits down with Michael Keenan, founder of Peak Content, to discuss the rapidly changing world of content marketing, entrepreneurship, and designing a business around the life you actually want.

Michael shares his unconventional path from freelancing out of a van and writing $25 articles to building a lean content agency serving major software companies. The conversation dives deep into AI’s impact on SEO and content creation, the realities of scaling a business, lessons learned from failed ventures and angel investing, and why intentional business design matters more than endless growth.

If you’re an entrepreneur, agency owner, freelancer, or creative trying to navigate the chaos of modern business while protecting your sanity, this episode is packed with practical wisdom.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• AI is rapidly changing content marketing and SEO, forcing businesses to adapt in real time. 
• The best content is still written for humans first, even when optimizing for search engines and AI. 
• Building a business intentionally around your desired lifestyle is more important than chasing endless growth. 
• Strong relationships and trust are critical when building teams and scaling a business. 
• Entrepreneurs must learn to stay calm and solve problems under constant uncertainty. 
• Not every opportunity is worth pursuing — focus on the work that aligns with your strengths and goals. 
• Financial success means little if the business creates stress and destroys quality of life. 
• Designing a business with the end goal in mind leads to healthier systems and better long-term outcomes.

Join our community of creative entrepreneurs and get a free copy of our No-BS Guide To Making Your Creative Business Actually Profitable delivered straight to your inbox. We’ll share smart, simple tips to help you keep more of what you earn—no boring accountant talk, we promise.  
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.142)
Welcome to another episode of the profitable creative the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host Christian Brim special shout out to our one listener in Lehigh, Utah. Been many towns in Utah. It's a big state. I don't remember Lehigh, but thank you for listening. Joining me today, Michael Keenan of peak content. Michael, welcome to show.

Michael Keenan (00:30.658)
Hey Christian, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Christian Brim (00:34.12)
Absolutely. So, what is peak content?

Michael Keenan (00:39.149)
So what is peak content? It's actually an interesting time to be running, managing peak content right now. I am the founder and we have a team of about 50 freelancers at the moment and we manage editorial content for software companies. And so if, you know, if any of our listeners here have been on LinkedIn or if they're in content in any way, shape or form or search engine optimization, they'll know that

Christian Brim (00:47.319)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (00:50.958)
Okay.

Christian Brim (00:56.003)
Hmm.

Michael Keenan (01:08.792)
The industry has been very complicated since the onset of AI, right? And we've been facing a lot of challenges, but one thing that, you know, for me, that's always been kind of a theme that's carried through my years of being an entrepreneur has been adaptability.

Christian Brim (01:26.818)
Mmm.

Michael Keenan (01:27.436)
So we've been taking the past two years really to adapt to the new landscape. And yeah, we're still rolling. So still happy to be involved.

Christian Brim (01:39.702)
Yeah, the sands are shifting, that's for sure. I described it to somebody else. Yeah, somebody on my team is like the fog of war. We know explosions are happening, but we're really not clear who's shooting at who and who's surviving or not. It's a wild time to be alive, for sure. So how did you get into content?

Michael Keenan (02:06.881)
Yeah. And I do want to say one thing that I would like to stop seeing since we brought up the people firing at each other is I would love to stop seeing SEOs and agency owners fighting with each other on LinkedIn because no one really knows what they're doing just yet. all figuring it out. So everyone hang tight. how I... All of sudden everyone was friends and now everyone hates each other and they're fighting to see who sounds the best on LinkedIn to get more clients. But anywho.

Christian Brim (02:23.532)
Yes.

Michael Keenan (02:35.875)
How I got to the agency today was actually, it may have been 10, 11 years now. kind of, growing up I was always a little rebellious in the sense of not like I was getting arrested and things like that, but more I was cutting school to go to, I probably should have been arrested. I won't say these things publicly because there's that window.

Christian Brim (02:49.665)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (02:54.402)
But you should have been arrested. Okay, yes, okay, yes. The statute of limitations is run. No, it's fine. Statutes run. You're good.

Michael Keenan (03:05.379)
Thank you. But I, for example, like I would cut out of school to go to work. So I guess that is something illegal for the employer, not for me. But, you know, I worked off the books and stuff like that since I was about 12. And so I always had a passion and kind of the drive to make money for myself.

Christian Brim (03:14.03)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (03:28.429)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (03:28.514)
and so I did the standard, right? Like I went to high school, I went to college, university, in Albany, New York. And I was living in, I worked in service, service industry for a long time. And then a friend of mine that, I was living in Portland, we.

We're talking and I was like, I just don't want to work a job anymore. You know, like I want to do something for myself. I want to be in control of my time and my money. which the being control of time thing was that took a long time to get used to being on your own because you realize that time, like things drag you, know,

Christian Brim (04:06.412)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Keenan (04:08.582)
And I started, he recommended me going on Upwork actually. And I was like, well, what am I good at? And he was like, I don't know, you just figure it out. So I did like some customer service work. did like freelance stuff. did like freelance writing. I was making 25 bucks an article.

Christian Brim (04:13.55)
Okay.

Michael Keenan (04:27.426)
It kind of took off from there. started writing these $25 articles. would be, I would be traveling in a van, sitting in a bar, paying five bucks for a beer when the good times were, and, typing out these articles for a couple hours. And I'd probably drink as many beers as the article would earn me, but I was in control of my time. So it was exciting, you know? And the story kind of takes itself from there. So I was in my van for like only six months, and then I got a good gig.

Christian Brim (04:46.592)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Keenan (04:57.014)
working out of New York. So I went home from New York originally and I was getting paid like 35 bucks an hour, I think. So that was like a big, big amount of money at the time too. The most that I was earning at that point and that it's, it depends on how deep you want to go because that was from there it took off. That's kind of where I learned SEO. That's where I learned how to.

you know, like write strategic content that earns sales and it's kind of snowballed into freelance writing into this agency that is growing faster than I was expecting it to.

Christian Brim (05:35.234)
Yeah, yeah, content. Wow. I have a lot of thoughts on content. I started, well, I mean, I started marketing before digital was a thing, you know, before content marketing was a thing. And of course then the advent of SEO and are you writing content for humans? Are you writing it for the bots and how do you marry those two things? And now the whole

Michael Keenan (05:42.793)
I'm sure.

Michael Keenan (06:00.181)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:04.498)
LLM search layer that is, you know, further modifying it. I guess you call that technical writing because like when I'm writing like a Substack post or something like that, I'm not thinking about discoverability, right? I'm just like writing what I think and trying to make it as good as I can for the human.

What is your take on that as far as content for humans content for machines?

Michael Keenan (06:42.59)
Yeah, so kind of the premise of my the agency itself was built around

both, right? So writing content that's good enough so like, so humans enjoy reading it and they act on it. Cause you know, like in the space that I'm in, which I mean, most people like everyone in business, right? Like we were, we're trying to get actions from these content, like from the content. And so the premise of the agency was built was kind of like as a, all these like Mecca agencies out there, these like massive, massive ones that have a hundred plus staff and work with other vendors and everything.

Christian Brim (06:54.678)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (07:05.208)
Right.

Michael Keenan (07:19.656)
I had noticed in the market that they were producing kind of like what I would consider not great content. Like it was just for machines, it was just for SEOs, just so they could keep adding more more blog posts to this company blog every day. And so when I created Peak Content, it was based on the premise of like, well, we're gonna actually invest more in the writers and the editors and less in like account executives and like paying, you know, like

Christian Brim (07:42.306)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (07:49.062)
senior managers and everything to, to manage content when we can kind of just build a more lean system and focus more on the quality of writing. and that's, that's been my, and the thing is, is the writing get good human writing still gets picked up by search. So it's just the space right now is getting more difficult.

Christian Brim (07:57.806)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (08:09.088)
because a lot like brand reputation goes into it and there's a lot of more signals coming out from like LinkedIn and so, and other social platforms that are contributing to if you get found in AI search. But again, we're, we're adapting with the times. But so my premise is like, I'm always writing for the human first, but we do have to add kind of like the technical indicators and you know, the things that need to be done. So it is optimized for like an AI search engine or Google, which maybe Google is an AI search engine now, you basically.

Christian Brim (08:15.278)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (08:38.993)
But so that's kind of my take on it. And I do stand by that. And we're not finding that clients want anything different. They still want good content. Even if the content is placed not only on search, maybe they're using it on more strategically throughout their newsletters and sharing it on social media, which are things that have been true in content for 10 years now, right? Like write something and distribute it.

Christian Brim (09:07.254)
Yeah, I just had this strange flashback back when I started optimizing for SEO. And I remember like having to physically underline the word in the article. Obviously that, yeah, yeah. And it always just felt like this just does not seem right. It doesn't flow like, yeah. So that, I think that's an art.

Michael Keenan (09:19.85)
Yeah

Michael Keenan (09:23.751)
Yeah, bolding, underlining. Yeah.

Christian Brim (09:36.758)
in and of itself is being able to combine those two things for sure. you said that you've been doing this as an agency for a couple of years, correct? Okay, so what...

What would you say your biggest lesson in the last two years? Like if you're going to go back and tell your two year younger self, hey, watch out for this. This is, this is going to be something you need to know. What would it be?

Michael Keenan (10:13.789)
So what I would say is, I was just, reading a book about Shintoism and I found this saying in there and I'm not gonna get it word for word, right? Because my memory doesn't serve me that strong. But it's, the one thing I would say is like, be a stone.

Christian Brim (10:18.253)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (10:32.122)
a wet stone amongst the waves of chaos, right? So being able to stay like present and calm and aware of the things that are going on, because what I've learned was, and it doesn't matter whether I was freelancing or I was subcontracting as a freelancer, which is like led into agency life or even running the agency is.

Christian Brim (10:33.538)
Mm. Mm.

Michael Keenan (10:54.287)
you can't predict everything and shit's always going to happen. And you just have to be there and be ready to solve the problems and get your hands dirty and make decisions on the spot. And so like that idea of right, the stone and there's always waves like crashing around it. You just got to be a wet stone and chill, you know, and enjoy it and enjoy the road because I think a lot of these like problems that arise and they could be like a client communication issue or something even like more

more minuscule like it, like an article, something went wrong in one particular article, just fix the problem, own up to it and find the solution moving forward. I've always found that that helps keep face. and also holds you accountable for, for your own actions, because at the end of the day, when you're running your business, even if someone else makes the mistake down the chain, you're at the end of the day, the face of it and responsible for it.

Christian Brim (11:51.136)
Yeah, that's probably one of the hardest lessons I had to learn as an entrepreneur was being, was getting comfortable with others mistakes that, that, you know, I had delegated and then, you know, having to own the outcome regardless. that's, that's a hard thing for a lot of entrepreneurs to get past because they, have a skill and they're good at it. And then.

they reach their limit of what they can do. And so they realize they've got to get something off their plate. But if we sit there and micromanage it and quality control it, you can call it whatever you want, but like you're still in the equation, then you really haven't solved the problem. You're still the bottleneck, right? So being able to just...

Michael Keenan (12:39.974)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (12:43.86)
hand that over and own the outcome regardless. That was a tough lesson.

Michael Keenan (12:50.481)
Yeah, you know, Christian, I've been, I, that's something that I learned too. And I always learn like what I've, one of the things that I always stand by too, is bringing good people with you wherever you go. I've been working with some of the same people for.

eight, nine years now, in different capacities, in the best capacities that work best for them, but I'm always bringing the best people along with me. And vice versa, you know, like, like, I bring them with me, but they'll bring me with them to other places to if they if a client may need an agency, you know, or there's like an investment possibility, you know, and they think of me as an option, like to as an investor. It just being kind, right? And like, and focusing on and bringing those

Christian Brim (13:06.465)
Right.

Christian Brim (13:21.165)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (13:33.163)
people with you that you trust because you also learn, I mean it's the same thing in life and friends and stuff like that but...

people aren't always trustworthy. So if you can find someone that you have that relationship with where you both trust each other, you'll go down on the ship together. All right, I'll play the violin as someone, I used to play by the way, but I'll play the violin as we're going down together. Those are the kinds of people that you want on your team when you're growing a business or not always growing if you just like your business and I don't think growth, I don't think endless growth is always the answer, but in your business practice, however that may be.

Christian Brim (13:50.669)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (14:08.916)
no. No, I agree. mean, growth for growth sake usually ends up not where you want to be. You usually end up working harder and making less when you just try to grow. That's that's for sure. So who is your ideal customer? You said you work with software. What what specifically like if you're if you're going to pitch me on who your ideal client is, who is it?

Michael Keenan (14:38.832)
Yeah, so my ideal client is a big ass company. I'll leave it there with that. And they already have internal processes and marketing teams. And they come, and we come in as a support to existing programs. So we do have strategists within our teams, but we're coming in less strategically and more for scale to help these clients scale. So they're ambitious. They're not startups because I just, I've

Christian Brim (15:01.902)
Okay.

Michael Keenan (15:08.536)
In my experience, like working with startups has always been challenging. so I'm much more comfortable coming into a place that already understands what they want. They just need the support to get there. and they know that content is like an actual business asset and not just like we're doing it because we have to do it. You know, there's a reason behind why they're scaling a content program. and so, yeah, so that's my ideal client, real product, strong marketing team.

Christian Brim (15:12.801)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (15:19.736)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (15:30.478)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (15:38.429)
and a need for scale.

Christian Brim (15:41.88)
So, excuse me, the follow-up question to that is what problem do you solve? You kind of implied it there, if you were going to say in your client's customers' words, what problem do you solve?

Michael Keenan (16:00.54)
Yeah. So in a program that's scaled where you're producing, you're probably, you could be publishing a hundred, 150, 200 pieces of content a month. Um, there are so many moving parts, you could imagine, editors, fact checkers, QA, product insights, SMEs, internal house. Um, right. Like all of their, all of their staff that's managing the program. Um, and it's hard to produce according to.

the brand's guidelines.

just to keep it, you know, as big like their style, their guidelines, the messages that they want to put out there. Those things are hard to scale. So we have our systems in place and we work again, like I still invest the same amount of money in writers as when we start. And that's something that we agree on is like having good writers that we don't, we don't outsource. We don't go find the cheapest writers just so we can take more profit. It's actually like the opposite. Like I will sacrifice the profit to the profit margin.

to find better writers so the agency can support and look better to the client. And so did I answer the question? So yeah, so it's like creating that, what we solve is helping the client create that scaled program, but keeping everything on brand, right? Like it doesn't sound like it just got spat out of ChatGPT. It doesn't sound like it was passed through a low quality writer. And that's the problem that we are solving at the moment.

Christian Brim (17:19.448)
Okay.

Christian Brim (17:30.094)
So these companies internally have a team of writers already, but they don't want to bring on more staff to scale for a period of time. Is that accurate?

Michael Keenan (17:45.689)
I can't speak to anybody's, I can't speak to any client's position on their head count and how they choose to manage that, they're coming, have editorial teams internally and they bring us on to help scale the program.

Christian Brim (18:02.816)
And the business model is a price per piece or how is it that you price your work?

Michael Keenan (18:11.044)
Well, it depends on how involved we get into the process. This is where it's actually kind of fun. So at its core, yeah, for simplicity.

we just build per, we have tiers and each tier has a different price based on how much work needs to be done within the tier. And that is how, that's the baseline pricing. And then there are, depending on what is needed, like for example, if a client wants to,

Christian Brim (18:29.048)
game.

Michael Keenan (18:47.79)
hire like if a client wants to actually I don't know if I could say that I'm sorry that one yeah that one I that's something I don't know if I can like publicly stand so we'll just leave it at that but there are other options in terms of like how do I describe it shit

Some clients also need further support outside of like a per piece, like maybe they need help with managing a calendar, right? Or managing another, like managing vendors, right? Like managing a whole separate set of vendors or maybe they wanna do hiring through you. There are also other options which you can scale into with clients.

Christian Brim (19:21.697)
Okay.

Christian Brim (19:38.766)
So how do you scale? if you're helping others scale, what does that look like on your side?

Michael Keenan (19:46.766)
So I don't scale actually. I keep a limited roster on purpose. And that's also because the, again, like the reason that I built Peak Content was I never wanted a Mecca agency and I don't want like a team of account executives and I don't want a board and I don't want any of those things. So I like a smaller business. And again, like we just, like we brought up before, like growth for the sake of growth. I have a very comfortable life. I'm very happy with my life and a lot of it

Christian Brim (20:08.536)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (20:16.749)
attributed because of like the business that I have. So we keep a very, all of the relationships that we have with clients are long-term partnerships, right? Like they're usually six months a year, 18 month engagements. So that provides a stability, but the roster is limited. I mean, I don't think I've ever taken on more than five or six clients in a year through the agency. I've taken on more as that as a freelancer than I have as an agency, but I realized how much I hated it when I was freelancing and subcontracting and having to deal with all these clients.

Christian Brim (20:20.076)
Right.

Michael Keenan (20:46.572)
And yeah, people have asked me the same thing, like why not scale? I've been asked to merge with other agencies before. That's an option that was on the table and I considered it, but I'm a happy person where I am and I don't see the need for endless growth.

Christian Brim (21:04.738)
Would it be safe to say that you designed the business to serve your needs?

Michael Keenan (21:13.921)
and the client's needs, but yeah, would definitely say I designed the structure of it,

Christian Brim (21:17.966)
Well, for instance, you choosing not to scale serves you not right. Yeah.

Michael Keenan (21:22.723)
For sure. Totally, yeah. No, I'm just busting, yeah. But no, for sure. And that's the whole reason that I got into doing entrepreneurship. I don't know if how you'd say it, right? But that's the reason why I started this whole journey was because I wanted to design my life around work. I never wanted work to dictate so much my life. And I'm sure as you know, as someone that is an entrepreneur and runs their own businesses,

Christian Brim (21:28.055)
Well...

Christian Brim (21:44.886)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (21:51.0)
there's like a real beauty in like the phases that you go through. Like sometimes, you you got to work some nights and then you're like planting, you're planting the seeds and then sometimes you can't like, you can harvest the seeds and you can take like a little, not a break break, but you like, you can relax a little bit. There's, there's like waves. Sometimes it's like heavier and then sometimes it's lighter. Um, but yeah, I would say overall the business is designed exactly the way that I want it. And it complements my life. You know, we, my, my partner and I, my husband and I, travel,

Christian Brim (22:08.108)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (22:20.954)
wherever, whenever we want. You know, we can go here, we can go there. I'm not bound by the business.

Christian Brim (22:30.222)
I think that's important to do because I know for myself, I think on the surface, if you ask me, are you building the business you want? I would have said yes, but I don't know that I really was sure what I wanted. And I think being intentional about building the business is an important step that a lot of entrepreneurs miss and they end up

Michael Keenan (22:46.776)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (22:59.2)
with something that doesn't serve them. it kind of becomes the tail that wags the dog. It's like I'm being led around by the business requirements rather than it's serving my needs. So kudos to you. What are some of the financial challenges, if any, you had in owning your own business?

Michael Keenan (23:14.668)
No.

Michael Keenan (23:26.857)
Well, this doesn't apply specifically to the content agency, but I have other businesses. I know we feel like the focus is mostly on

Christian Brim (23:32.238)
Okay.

Christian Brim (23:35.758)
Okay.

Michael Keenan (23:39.166)
on peak content so far. But I also own an investment company, Small, as well. And that does angel investments and also has like a stock futures trading arm. And then real estate portfolio that I have here. So I have a lot, like we were saying before, you know, like when you have to solve problems and be the rock, that's because like in every day, like there's just waves coming around all the time. So I really had to learn how to be a rock.

Christian Brim (23:50.766)
Michael Keenan (24:05.406)
So I wouldn't say like the agency itself, the model's pretty lean. and because I'm working with, I only have contract, I only work with contractors. So it's just me. I'm the only employee. and then obviously like there's different levels for lack of a better term of like who I place, like who I trust with what to be done. but

Christian Brim (24:24.472)
Right.

Michael Keenan (24:27.735)
You know, like I've had, you know, peak freelance in the past, which was also a, um, a writing community. We, we struggled with profitability through and through, right? Like just making the thing profitable. Um, and that was a financial challenge because Elise, um, Barnsley, who was my partner in, in that business, um, and still is my trusted confidant today. Um,

Christian Brim (24:42.051)
Right.

Michael Keenan (24:53.927)
we put in a lot of money of our own money. And we kept like, we believed in peak freelance so much, but we could not find a way to make a community like that profitable. And it eventually like now it just kind of like runs itself on a free tier. And our involvement is not there. It's still an entity, it still exists. And sometimes there's a post on LinkedIn. But yeah, that was one financial challenge was actually like,

Christian Brim (25:05.059)
Hmm.

Michael Keenan (25:21.739)
thinking about like, at some point we had to say, all right, we're putting too much money into this thing. Like it doesn't work. You know, like the business model doesn't work and whether the model doesn't work or we're not a good fit for the model, both are okay. You know, but at some point we have to accept is like, we've been dumping so much money into this business and we're not seeing any returns on it. And to the point where like sometimes that company like was not returning anything, like not even earning revenue, but it's still, we we were kind of like, we believe in this, you know, like,

Christian Brim (25:26.519)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:35.885)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:47.872)
Right, right.

Michael Keenan (25:51.625)
and we tried and we tried and we tried and it just kind of fizzled out and you know, like life happens, know, like, like Elise, Elise is building her family. I was moving into other businesses and looking at other investment opportunities and we kind of just agreed to like stop putting so much money into that, that company and just accept what it is, which is also, yeah.

Christian Brim (26:13.326)
How long was that process that you worked on the community, would you say? Before you finally said enough.

Michael Keenan (26:24.69)
Well, we finally just said enough like last year and I think this the community was started around COVID. So it was a long time. Yeah, no, we tried. Yeah, no, we did believe in it. And I still believe in the power of community, but I we could not figure out a way. We hired employees. We worked with interns and vendors and we tried different revenue streams. Just couldn't make it work. And that's OK. But that was definitely a.

Christian Brim (26:27.649)
Okay.

Christian Brim (26:31.274)
Okay. All right. That's fair enough. You believed in it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian Brim (26:50.35)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (26:51.624)
Yeah, if that answers the question of like a financial issue.

Christian Brim (26:53.27)
No, it does. I am curious. So how did you get into angel investing?

Michael Keenan (27:01.012)
Yeah, so there was a point in time where before the remember when we had like 0 % 1 % interest rates or whatever, like the Fed rate was somewhere around there. All over LinkedIn was like VC VC VC like everyone was becoming a VC and everyone it was like the coolest fucking job you could have, you know, and and fortunately for myself, like, I don't remember what year that was the agency was incorporated in 22. So

Christian Brim (27:11.458)
Yes.

Christian Brim (27:17.068)
Yes.

Right.

Michael Keenan (27:31.069)
I

My timelines are off, whatever it was, whether it was the agency or I was scaling the, with subcontractors into the agency, the business was doing good and my cashflow was heavy. So I was like, let's look into like investing and like angel investing, right? Cause like everyone's a VC and now I want to be a VC. So I think, I think in one year, I think I cut like seven or eight checks. I, like I deployed capital across like eight investments.

Christian Brim (27:47.054)
Okay.

Christian Brim (27:51.753)
Okay.

Michael Keenan (28:01.756)
And I, this was another financial mistake. I hated it. I hated it. I could not stand the, and maybe it's just because like I'm not a VC, you know, like I'm just a guy. have.

Christian Brim (28:01.975)
Okay.

Christian Brim (28:12.878)
Had you done that before? mean, okay. All right. Okay.

Michael Keenan (28:15.461)
No, no, I've never done that before. I just saw on LinkedIn that it was like the cool thing to do if you had, if you had extra money to invest and you know, like I had maxed out my retirement accounts and I was like, all right, well I got extra money invest. So I have a partner in that agent, in that agency, in that company, it still exists. But we've scaled down like the angel investing side. We still have some investments that are just kind of like future. We're hoping it works. But the,

Christian Brim (28:23.214)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (28:32.81)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:40.309)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (28:42.421)
The gist of it is that I absolutely hated angel investing and I'm just not good at it. And it's again, like something that I'm okay with. And that's kind of just like a quick sidebar here is that some I've done so many things with like in the world of entrepreneurship. And I think for me, if I have to like self reflect and say what is like what has helped me get to where I am today, it is that it was trying so many things and failing at so many things.

to and learning like which things to invest your time and your money and your energy and your emotions into because not everything deserves the same amount of all of that.

Christian Brim (29:26.76)
No, definitely not. I mean, I don't know if you've read Mike McCallewitz's Profit First, but you know, that was his experience was he had built two businesses and sold them and made some money and then ended up being an angel investor and going bankrupt. And yeah, and and and his, know, that's that was the birth of Profit First was just there's got to be a different way.

Michael Keenan (29:46.196)
I believe it.

Christian Brim (29:56.664)
to do this because he wasn't making a lot of money as he was building the businesses. He was just making money when he sold the business. And I think of this axiom that I heard a long time ago of like, you make all the money in your business and you lose it in someone else's. that kind of speaks to the intrigue of investing because I've done that too.

I was not, I invested in a couple of actual VC funds. They were not angel investor funds. They were VC funds, but I was just an investor. did not manage, I wasn't involved in selecting the companies or anything like that. But there, know, I'm going to tell you that it was a little bit of the, you know, getting

Michael Keenan (30:36.286)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:49.752)
FOMO like getting getting to participate in something that could be big, you know, like And I think I I got my money back I think that was about it, which I considered to be a good a good win because I didn't lose it but It was it was an interesting journey Yeah, The thing the thing about investing especially when you're investing I think it was

Michael Keenan (30:52.009)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (31:05.127)
Right.

Christian Brim (31:21.374)
Warren Buffett that said, you know, he doesn't invest in a company he doesn't understand. And I think there's some sage wisdom in that when you start putting your money into something else is do you understand it? And then I think about what Robert Kiyosaki said about enriched Ed Portad and he was talking about

Michael Keenan (31:29.181)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (31:50.624)
investing in like the stock market is that, you know, understand you don't have any control over it. Other people are using your money and they're making the decisions and you you usually get a return on that, but it's just different layers of, your involvement, your accountability, your risk. And, and I think for most of us, we're, better served putting our time and energy into our business rather than going off and trying to.

Michael Keenan (32:04.785)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:20.332)
do others, least that's been my experience.

Michael Keenan (32:23.091)
100 % man and that's funny you said that because the minute that I realized that and I cut out like I got I did I wrote off what I could write off I exited myself from where I was able to exit right away and I just took some losses and whatever and I started focusing just I was like alright like I literally I wrote out an entire list of everything I'm even talking like individual company investments through like you know like like the stock market I look I listed every single every single money that was out and I was like

Christian Brim (32:41.688)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:47.052)
Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (32:51.719)
What is wasting my time? What's pissing me off? What do I hate? What do I love? And what's making me the most money? And I just started and I went through and I scratched out everything that was in like the lower three tiers. And then the two tiers that were left, there was like a very few handful of things left. And I was like...

Christian Brim (32:54.414)
Hmm?

Michael Keenan (33:07.154)
this is what I'm focusing on for the next couple of years and that's it. I'm not even thinking about, I sold individual stocks, I just put them into funds and also like the thing personally is just because I also have the LLC for the futures and options and stock trading. So I have exposure to those things, but I don't act like I'm not an active manager of them. But yeah, and so like, was like, all right, like peak content.

very good model. I like doing it. I enjoy the people that I work with. Let's focus on that. You know, like the trading company, the future, I love that. I'm not, I'm personally not great at it, but I am good with making business decisions that affect it. And the team that we have over there is very good at it. And you know, so the thing, there were some things that I couldn't get out of that I'm stuck with, like some real estate, but you know, you live and you learn. So we're going, we're figuring,

We just got to figure those things out. That doesn't know you as you know, like it doesn't always you can't not everything happens at once, right? Like it happens step by step And yeah, and I have to say like not even not even like profit got better, but it did but I was happier

Christian Brim (34:11.796)
No. No.

Michael Keenan (34:19.462)
You know, like I was more aware during the day, like I wasn't drained because my phone is ringing all day long and I'm pulled into a Slack message and an email and then this and that, and I'm trying to get things done, but I can't. And then I'm working till eight, you know, and then I walk. And so when I got rid of all the...

the bullshit and like started listening to myself and not listening to like what you should, what I should be doing. I also, I to note, like also like I don't have Instagram, I don't have Facebook, I don't have Snapchat or Tik TOK or any of the, I have LinkedIn for work. Um, because I, at one point I was also, I'm just tired of people telling me what I should be doing. Um, and that also led to me scratching out all those investments. Um, but I'm, it made me a happier person. It made me more of an aware person.

Christian Brim (35:03.138)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (35:07.026)
of my life, of my partner, my business, know, my dogs, like, and my family. And, and that was, that was a good lesson. It was a hard lesson because I think, you know, like you're, you define so much of your self-worth when you're wrapped up in businesses and your business or whatever, it becomes like part of your identity and your self-worth and cutting those things out. You're like, well, who even am I if I'm not Mike who deployed eight checks, you know, like who gives

Christian Brim (35:13.304)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (35:36.682)
Right, right, right, right. No, you're exactly right.

Michael Keenan (35:36.979)
who cares how many checks someone deployed I'd rather deploy less checks and be able to go for a walk at 5.30 with my dogs than be working till 8 o'clock at night

Christian Brim (35:50.358)
Absolutely. I I was having a conversation on my other podcast earlier this morning and He was talking about his second go-around his second business He started with the these are my words not his words He started with the end in mind like he already had the exit planned of what that would look like before he started building the business and I'm like, yeah that is

That is sage advice because even even if you don't sell it or exit it, it it it gives you clarity on what it is that you're trying to build and what it looks like. And if you build a business that is saleable, it's always easier to run. Like if you if you, you know, built to sell is a is a great book if you haven't read it. But like I don't.

Michael Keenan (36:39.953)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:48.066)
the author's name, I mean, conceptually, you shouldn't, you should never build a business that you wouldn't be able to sell. Like it should, because if you build it to sell, it's going to have processes, it's going to make money. It's not going to have, you know, all of the, hair on it that, you know, a lot of businesses do. I mean, most businesses, if you're saying, show me your finances, you'd be like, I don't want you to see that. Like, right.

Michael Keenan (36:55.749)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Keenan (37:15.76)
You

Christian Brim (37:17.048)
But if you've got a business that you've built to sell, you're like, sure. mean, you you're not to everybody, but like, you'd be comfortable saying, yeah, this is what my business is.

Michael Keenan (37:28.344)
Yeah, I actually love that. And for my next business, I will take that. I will use that that framework for my next business.

Christian Brim (37:35.5)
Yeah, he said he spent like months like actually meditating on what the end looked like. And he really, he started with the personal impact, not the business impact, but like what his personal life was going to look like at exit. And I thought that also fascinating because it...

that again just kind of pushes you back into designing the business for what you need, it becoming the tail that wags the dog.

Michael Keenan (38:11.374)
Yeah, no, I love that. And I definitely am a active like practitioner of meditation every morning. And also in the idea of visualizing that what like visualizing your future, you know, and again, I apply that to business, but you can use it across anything that you want to get done in your life.

Christian Brim (38:23.021)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (38:33.131)
Yeah. And I think what he said, which I deeply resonate with there, there is no, for an entrepreneur, there is no segregation between the personal and the business. mean, like that's a false wall that, you know, the one affects the other and vice versa. So you have to be cognizant of what you want personally from the business, as well as what you want the business to look like. I mean, you can't separate those two things.

Michael Keenan (38:44.781)
No. Yeah.

Christian Brim (39:03.222)
I don't think.

Michael Keenan (39:03.791)
Right. And you need and you need to consider if you want your business to be your life, like if you if you want that life, you know, because as like, yeah, like one thing I don't think anyone downplays it, but they sometimes skip over it is like, it takes a lot of hard work. Like it's it's it's from from the outside. They're like, ah, like this guy made this beautiful landscaping business. His life must be so great. And it's true. It might be. But he probably put in

Christian Brim (39:10.186)
Right. 100%.

Christian Brim (39:20.397)
Yes.

Michael Keenan (39:31.632)
10 years of hard work, maybe three years where he was working six, seven days a week. And that's not the case for everybody, but it's like, it takes hard work and it takes dedication to, to yourself. yeah. So like visualizing the end goal, that's what keeps you going. You know, I was like, all right, this is my end goal. So I can, I can, I can do the things that I'm not. So there was a, I forget who the author was or what, but this idea of doing things that you don't actually like doing helps you like helps with

Christian Brim (39:37.153)
Right.

Christian Brim (39:46.862)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (40:00.118)
Hmm

Michael Keenan (40:01.595)
growth. And sometimes, you know, it's like, I don't want to like it, that happens in your business all the time. And I actually sometimes I even look for those things. I'm like, really don't want to do that. But let's do it. You know, and you do I don't know, I don't know how it changes the brain. But there was some like, there was some brain changes that happen when you do something that you don't like doing, and it's slightly challenging. And that's literally the life of a business owner, you know.

Christian Brim (40:14.008)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (40:24.568)
Yeah.

Yeah, but it has a purpose. You're not just like going and digging holes in the ground because it's hard. You've got a purpose behind it. Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Keenan (40:32.577)
Now.

Michael Keenan (40:36.207)
Yeah, you're looking towards a future that you want, a future that we sang like that you visualize that you want to manifest, whatever you want to call it. But it's a life that you're designing for yourself as you go.

Christian Brim (40:49.944)
Yes, being intentional. That's my catchphrase, being intentional. Yeah, Michael, how do people find out more about peak content if they want to know?

Michael Keenan (40:52.237)
Yeah.

Michael Keenan (40:56.397)
I like that.

Michael Keenan (41:04.323)
Yeah, you can just head to the website, contentbypeak.com, www.contentbypeak.com. The way my mentor, no, no, it's like the peak, the peak of a mountain top was the idea, was the idea behind it. It actually came from Peak Freelance, the writing community. But like, I really liked the brand of like the idea of the mountain peak. And yeah, so that's where, that's where you'll find it.

Christian Brim (41:11.69)
Is peak an acronym? Is peak an acronym? Okay. Okay. All right. Okay.

Christian Brim (41:22.956)
Okay.

Christian Brim (41:28.684)
I love it.

Michael Keenan (41:33.504)
I had a mentor at one point, and this is why like peak is not very public about anything. Like we don't do marketing. We don't do, you won't like, I don't even think we have a LinkedIn page. but my mentor who is in a, was at the time, like very similar to the model that I have now, maybe a little smaller. he had taught me the value in.

being less visible and like working through like relationships and referrals. And that's for a whole nother conversation. But that's why the only place that you can learn about peak is on the website because I don't talk about it very publicly. Sometimes I mentioned some things on LinkedIn or whatever, but we've survived and thrived without having to like.

Christian Brim (41:59.938)
Mmm.

Michael Keenan (42:19.662)
be so public facing. And that's because of how much effort and attention goes into every client relationship that we get referrals. And I don't keep a wait list. Like if we're not opening to clients, we're not open. And you let them go. Because again, it is what it is. And I've kept true to that.

the majority of this journey. yeah, just, I'd rather people talk good behind my back than like me like yelling out to people all the time on social media. So.

Christian Brim (42:55.394)
Hello there. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, hit the little mail envelope and shoot us a text. Tell us what you'd like and I'll get rid of Michael. Until next time.

Michael Keenan (43:14.177)
Yeah, let me know on LinkedIn too. Tell me why you didn't like me. Thank you.

Christian Brim (43:18.968)
Kata for now.