Founder-leader name, title & photograph
Matt McQuillen, CEO and Co-Founder
Venture name:
Xello
A single paragraph description of the venture, its primary products or services, and its original value proposition.
Xello is an education technology software that helps people build on their strengths in elementary and highschool to build their future careers. It starts out with frequent assessments of the students in their traits, characteristics, strengths and interests and supports their learning with curated resources, courses, social media feeds that support the student in getting extra education outside of school in their area of interest. Xello also formatively curates the extracurricular learning experience outside of the classroom up until their adult careers and beyond. Xello has seen numerous upgrades over the years and could be considered a company that has seen every venture of education technology. Most recently they have incorporated AI into their services to streamline products.
A short bio of the founder-leader focusing on a critical analysis of their background, skills and motivation relative to the prospective and prescribed attributes of successful entrepreneurs
Matt McQuillen is someone who has always been interested and curious about professional development. His idea started with asking a question of how people got to where they are and why they do the job they do. Since 1995, he’s dedicated most of his working career in this company with this mission of improving people’s experience in their careers starting from elementary school and all the way to when they’re adults. On top of that, Matt is still intimately involved in the day to day of the business, assisting, mentoring and growing the business in all of its aspects. Xello’s team, board and advisors are all named on the website, everyone from the leadership team to the engineering team to the marketing team to the sales team. Each one is important in forming and working on this technology since the 1990s.
Any personal reflections this analysis has inspired regarding your own entrepreneurial potential.
I chose this founder because of his focus on career growth and development (the field that I am in) and how his journey is still on-going. After 30 years, he’s still in the same company and the same role and still finding ways to grow the company and find ways to improve the program.
This is interesting and has me thinking about gamifiying. My favourite part of playing RPG’s is the character build. This reminds me of the first moments of a great game, when I consider my character’s traits and the possibilities for character development through skill trees. Similar to an Understanding by Design framework, I work backwards and make decisions to shape the character and the gaming experience I want to have — typically a stealthy, charismatic, rogue/ranger type character of human or dwarvish descent (with few fire and poison spells up his sleeve). In my mind, the immediate relevance of this venture’s experience to oneself would hook any user, and — if well-designed to truly deliver on its vision — would likely keep them coming back to earn badges for levelling up their skills and knowledge in something they are actually keen and eager to learn more about — seeing a the path toward a thriving personal future. I’m curious to know the kinds of RPG games Matt McQuillen likes to play.
Hey Patrick,
Did you make it through Baldur’s Gate 3? I’m completely the same, I would spend hours forming and creating a story for an avatar and would continue to think about that life, I typically play a character that relies a lot on charisma and talking my way out of things.
I like your analysis of gamification of Matt’s tool. I think the experience of playing with the same program for 30+ years allows you to think about the different connections and be part of that growth. The commitment and passion about a singular thing I would say is a considerable trait and could be the foil for the “move fast and break things” approach of some fortune 500 CEOs. Some people could see this longitudinal approach as too slow, but I’ll say to go back to your gaming reference, that leveling up your characters to its highest level and doing the “grind” could be rewarding in the end.
In the course module, there is reference to the fact that not all entrepreneurs are necessarily good CEOs, and that the two are actually distinct roles that benefit from different characteristics. That is clearly not the case with Matt here! Being able to found a venture and then lead it for decades, all while continuously evolving the product is indicative of high dedication and adaptability. It also goes to show that success doesn’t necessarily have to be an exit – it can be a career.
The pain-point he identified is such a key one that I think we all have encountered at some point – what path should I take, and once I’ve chosen one, what do I need to do to progress? Certainly not an easy pain-point to solve, but it looks like Xello’s solution goes a long way towards helping. I wish I had had access to Xello in highschool, I imagine it helps ease a lot of uncertainty. Thanks for sharing this one Rico.