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I recently connected with fellow entrepreneur Ryan Tansom for an interview on his podcast, Life After Business, to talk about my entrepreneurial journey – the failures, the successes, fundraising, changing business models, finding your stride, and more.  You can listen to the full discussion here:

https://lifeafterbusinesscom.castos.com/episodes/-16085

and here’s a nice summary (copy / pasted from the GEXP Collaborative Life After Business website):

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The co-founder of HAAWK, Inc. Ryan Born joins me for today’s episode. Before HAAWK, Ryan was the founder and CEO of AudioMicro, Inc. AudioMicro was a media rights management company. Its most successful venture was AdRev. Ryan explains what that service was and why he felt it worked.

We take the journey with Ryan through AudioMicro’s beginnings, the pivots, the changes in the media rights industry, and what life was like after AudioMicro changed owners. This episode is a great example of the struggle and the hustle many entrepreneurs face on a daily basis.

What you will learn about:

• Ryan’s early career as a CPA.
• His time with WireImage and what it taught him.
• The only two things that generate wealth.
• The changes in the media rights industry.
• The problems Ryan saw with the system.
• How AudioMicro and microstock changed the system.
• How Ryan raised the capital for AudioMicro.
• The mistakes he made early on in the business.
• Ryan’s advice for building an effective pitch.
• Why EBITDA is important and not important at the same time.
• Other factors that buyers look at during a sale.
• Why you need to break even as soon as possible.
• The struggles AudioMicro had in the beginning.
• The list of avenues AudioMicro tried that didn’t work.
• Why you need to choose your investors wisely.
• How AdRev worked.
• Why Ryan didn’t hire an investment banker for his sale of AudioMicro.
• The indicators that it was time to sell.
• The dance Ryan and his investors did to get offers.
• How getting the best offer is like playing poker.
• The benefit of having a knowledgeable team around you.
• What happened after AudioMicro sold.
• The beginnings of HAAWK.
• The thing Ryan is doing differently with HAAWK.
• Ryan’s parting words for the audience.

Introducing HAAWK.

HAAWK monitors, monetizes, and enforces copyrights on user-generated video and audio platforms (YouTube Content ID, Facebook, Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and more). We’re building fresh technology to help bring accountability, transparency, and newfound revenue to today’s music and video rights holders. HAAWK was co-founded by myself and Ben Barger, an aeronautical engineer and operations specialist who headed up operations at our previous company, AdRev/AudioMicro, Inc..

HAAWK just closed it’s first round of funding, a $2.5M series seed round led by some of Southern California’s top VC firms and HAAWK recently acquired the assets of Dart Music, a music distribution and metadata company to help jumpstart our product offering and expand our distribution reach.

Details of HAAWK’s funding and the Dart acquisition were covered in TechCrunch, Music Business Worldwide, Digital Music News, and SocalTECH.

Thank you for your support.

I’m pleased to announce that as part of Inc. Magazine’s 2015 Inc. 500 ranking of the USA’s fastest growing private companies, AudioMicro, Inc. (including our 4 brands – AdRev, DashGo, AudioMicro, & ImageCollect) was named as the USA’s 5th fastest growing media company (and #162 overall). This accolade is based on our actual revenue growth over the past 3 years, with revenue last year growing to $13.4 million. It’s the 3rd year in a row that we’ve made the Inc. 500 (we were #2 in media in both 2014 and 2013) and if the first part of this year is any indicator, we’re in a solid position to make the list for the 4th straight time next year.  A special thank you goes out to our customers, clients, partners, and most importantly to our amazing team for all of your hard work through the years.

I am delighted to announce that Zealot Networks has acquired a majority stake in AdRev/AudioMicro, Inc. for over $20 Million.   This is the exit our shareholders have been working towards since the company was founded back in 2007.  A special thank you goes out to Danny and the entire team at Zealot – we are excited for our future together.   A super special thank you to the AdRev / AudioMicro team – Noah, Alex, Ben B, Peter, Brett, Jesse, Matt, Andrew, Ben P, Rod, Mischa, Yaroslav, Molly, Arlo, Josh P, Josh K, Christian, Oscar, Eric and everyone that contributed to the effort; and to our board of directors – Scott, Oleg, and Jamie.  I am forever grateful for all of your hard work, dedication, trust, and support throughout the years. I can’t thank you enough for everything that you do – day in day out – to help make our company a success.  I would also like to thank all of our clients, customers, and partners for entrusting us with your business throughout the years.  Without all of you, none of this would have been possible.

Press coverage and details of the acquisition can be found at:

The Video Ink

Variety

Los Angeles Business Journal

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