The Dorm Room Jet Empire
Kolin Jones was 19, broke, and stuck in his dorm during COVID when he decided to compete with billion-dollar private jet companies.
Six years later, his company Amalfi Jets will do $140 million in revenue this year.
A couple of things about Amalfi: It’s one of the top 10 private jet brokers in the world and it doesn't own a single plane.
Kolin was just on my podcast to talk about how he did it.
It’s a great lesson for anyone who wants to start a business but is thinking way too small.
Here's what you can actually steal from him.
Out-work the math, not the man.
Kolin had no money, no connections, no client list.
So he Googled "Los Angeles attorneys"—because attorneys put their emails on their websites—and started cold emailing.
2,500 a day.
His logic: "If my competitor sends 400 emails a day, in one of my days I'm doing six of his days. In one month I'm three to four months ahead of him."
You can do this today. Pick a niche. Find the public emails.
Send 100 a day for a month.
That's 3,000 touches your competitor isn't making. Volume is a strategy people refuse to use because it's boring.
Lose money on the first sale.
Kolin's first booking was a $25,000 charter to Cabo. The plane cost him $24,500. The client haggled. Kolin sold it for $20,000—a $4,000 loss.
Why? He wanted that client bragging on the golf course about how cheap Kolin was. The next sale was a referral. Then another. He floated the losses on his Amex, paid them off in 30 days, and built a referral engine.
The takeaway: your first 5 customers aren't profit centers. They're your sales team. Treat them that way.
Be loud where the incumbents are quiet.
His competitors are 20 to 30 years old. They have private equity money, marble lobbies, glossy brochures. They post on LinkedIn twice a month.
Kolin posts 8 times a day across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn. His first viral video was about a client who chartered two jets at once—one for his wife, one for his mistress. A million views. 15,000 flight requests in a single day.
He doesn't try to outclass the incumbents. He tries to "bury them with irrelevance." When you think about private jets, he wants you thinking Amalfi.
Not VistaJet. Not Blink. Amalfi.
Apply this: whatever your industry is, find the format the incumbents refuse to touch. Be there. Be loud. Be daily.
Track the variables nobody tracks.
Kolin built a social listening tool to study his own videos.
He performs 36% better wearing a black t-shirt. Filming at his desk converts 12-20% better than other backgrounds.
He doesn't guess. He measures.
You don't need a custom tool. You need a spreadsheet. (And maybe AI.)
What hook worked. What length. What time of day. What outfit. After 30 posts, patterns emerge. Most creators never look. That's your edge.
Convert the attention before it leaks.
When his biggest video hit 50 million views, his sales team's phones were unusable for the entire day. So he hired seven receptionists to qualify and route calls before they hit sales.
Most people obsess over going viral. They ignore what happens after.
If your website, phone, and inbox can't handle a spike, virality is a tax, not a windfall.
Audit your own funnel today.
If 10,000 people showed up tomorrow, what breaks?
The pattern.
Distribution beats incumbency. Personality beats polish. Volume beats budget. Measurement beats intuition.
The kid sending 2,500 emails a day from a Starbucks is going to eat the lunch of the firm with the marble lobby.
I've seen this pattern over and over for 30 years.
It never gets old.
It’s worth listening to the whole thing.
