10. How You Survive an Unprofitable Business
Sean Peace has a captivating story to tell about selling and exiting an unprofitable business in a unique niche: a fintech startup dealing with entertainment in the Southeast. In 2013, he founded Royalty Exchange, an auction marketplace selling music royalty streams as memorabilia to the highest bidding fans. After two years and $100K in revenue, the company landed $2 million in venture capital financing to accelerate their growth \u2013 or so they thought.
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0:20 \u2013 2:22 Background on SongVest leading up to Royalty Exchange business idea
2:23 \u2013 3:49 Formation of Royalty Exchange and running it for the first 2 years
3:50 \u2013 6:41 Attracting first $2M venture capital injection and how funds were invested
6:42 \u2013 11:10 Pivot point to switch marketing strategy when proven ineffective
12:06 \u2013 16:50\xa0Deciding to exit and splitting sale of company to two buyers
16:51 \u2013 19:13\xa0Finding buyers without hiring an advisor & paying down debts
19:14 \u2013 25:17\xa0Discussing deal surprises and lessons learned
25:18 \u2013 27:01\xa0Sean answering would he start another company and raise from VCs again
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M&A Science by Kison Patel (kison@dealroom.net)
DealRoom: Data Science and AI for M&A (www.dealroom.net)