Welcome to our Ecosystem Highlight series, where you’ll meet the innovators in our vast ecosystem of startup builders from across Florida, who are actively solving some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Keegan Zoller, Founder of VCS, which builds the digital infrastructure local and multi-location businesses need to acquire and keep customers, then runs the paid media that fills it.

What were you doing previously, and what inspired you to join, launch, or help grow your company?

I played four years of college basketball and started small businesses the whole time. At 17, I was running basketball lessons in my hometown, 20 a week, with other kids giving lessons, while I took profits. At 19, I built a power washing business in the Albany area off a referral program and did about $15K in 60 days. (I only had 73 days of summer because of basketball) During my senior year, I started running marketing for businesses near campus, and that turned into VCS. I filed the LLC in July 2024 and moved to Tampa to grow. As we grew, I noticed the gap in localized marketing amongst multi-location operators, and the lack of insight into how an ad is attributed back to revenue. We are on a mission to solve both of those.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Most business owners can’t tell you where their customers actually come from. They get reports full of clicks and impressions, and none of it connects to revenue. We build the systems that show them where demand is coming from and what to do about it, and for restaurants, QSR, etc we tie it back to the register instead of the ad platform.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in helping build or scale the company? How did you overcome it?

Selling has never been difficult for me; it’s been balancing delivery and impact, with the urge to sell, sell, sell. I could open accounts faster than I could prove the work moved anything, and that showed up as churn. I’m rebuilding around that now: fewer clients, building systems before channels, and really honing in on our measurement tools for our customer base, so we can scale effectively.

Where do you see your company headed next?

We’re a services company today across many marketing and tech services. On top of that, we’re building Vero, an intelligence layer that runs on the data our client work generates. Long-term, I want VCS to be the operating system multi-location operators use to make marketing decisions unit by unit. I see us adding the reporting product (Vero) as a revenue stream, and possibly becoming our driver in the market.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with someone building or growing a company.

The first year, I was obsessed with what other companies were doing and who my “competition” was. Truth is, I had no competition, because I had no customers. You don’t have competition until you have something worth taking, so go make whatever you’re building worth taking first. Action!!!

Why Florida?

More sunshine. I’m from upstate New York; I’m on the go, active, and upbeat. Can’t stand the winter and wanted to build something in a place I loved being.

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