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 – or so they thought.

0:20 – 2:22 Background on SongVest leading up to Royalty Exchange business idea

2:23 – 3:49 Formation of Royalty Exchange and running it for the first 2 years

3:50 – 6:41 Attracting first $2M venture capital injection and how funds were invested

6:42 – 11:10 Pivot point to switch marketing strategy when proven ineffective

12:06 – 16:50 Deciding to exit and splitting sale of company to two buyers

16:51 – 19:13 Finding buyers without hiring an advisor & paying down debts

19:14 – 25:17 Discussing deal surprises and lessons learned

25:18 – 27:01 Sean answering would he start another company and raise from VCs again

M&A Science by Kison Patel (kison@dealroom.net)

DealRoom: Data Science and AI for M&A (www.dealroom.net)

How You Survive an Unprofitable Business

M&A Science