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Morgan DeBaun: Standalone media companies struggle to raise venture funding

Morgan DeBaun · How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun · Jul 11, 2020 · at 13:37

Morgan DeBaun, founder of Blavity, advises an entrepreneur on why institutional venture capital rarely funds pure-play media companies.

0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.9s
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“And I think media alone as an industry is very difficult to get venture funding for we've seen so many media companies go out of business.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 15:23 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
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Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 9:19 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
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Morgan DeBaun: Venture-backed startups must target $40M to $50M in revenue
“Also, venture funding isn't for every business model, right? You know, you have to very much be on a mission to build a hundred million dollar plus business and be able to Get to 40, fifty million dollars in revenue plus, right?”
Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 13:04 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
Insight
Morgan DeBaun: Venture funding creates constant pressure to sell the company
“Now, when you take venture funding, the only way people get their money back is if you exit. That's a very tough thing that I have to struggle with because that means that we are selling it to someone else and that there's a constant push And drive towards tha…”
Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 15:00 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
What-if
Morgan DeBaun: Blavity's 1 million users would raise $5M today, not $500K
“It took me a lot of no's to get 500,000 dollars for Blavity. And I had a million users at the time. If I went out today with that, I would raise five million because there's more venture funds focused on minorities and women of color.”
Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 19:45 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
Disclosure
Morgan DeBaun: Blavity diversified revenue to avoid relying on venture capital
“Blavity, we've always had a diversified business because I did not want to be dependent on venture funding, so we've prioritized revenue at our core in terms of operating because it was important that We had multiple industries and multiple revenue streams.”
Morgan DeBaun Jul 11, 2020 ▶ 21:02 How I Built Resilience: Live with Morgan DeBaun
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