A 30 Under 30 alumnus has won a unanimous vote of confidence from the ‘dragons’ on CBC’s Dragon’s Den.
Christian Lunny, who was named a 30 Under 30 in 2015, appeared on the TV show last week to pitch Musi, a streaming service he created with co-founder Aaron Wojnowski.
The pitch: in just two and a half years, the app-based service has been downloaded 750,000 times and earned $30,000 in revenue via advertising. Those stats were enough to catch the ear of the dragons, each of whom put in an offer to help fund the venture in exchange for equity.
In the end, Lunny and Wojnowski went with an offer from Joseph Mimran – $125,000 for 15% of the company and another $75,000 if needed – but the deal fell through during due diligence.
Lunny explained to Marketing Mimran’s team was concerned there isn’t legal precedent for a service like Musi, an audio service that streams content owned by other parties via YouTube and Soundcloud links.
“We went back and forth with [Mimran’s] counsel quite a bit and at the end of the day they came to the conclusion that, though it was a great, tangible service and profitable, they were having issues with the legality,” Lunny said.
“They decided it wasn’t the right opportunity for them and we moved forward.”
Lunny said the company has been in contact with YouTube at various stages to ensure Musi is compliant with the terms of the larger company’s API and has made changes in the past at YouTube’s request.
The entrepreneur said he and Wojnowski knew going in to the taping that legal concerns may be a problem for the dragons. However, he doesn’t see the concerns as a roadblock for the company.
“We’re an organizational tool for a pre-existing platform that does not currently charge,” Lunny said. “If you go on your laptop and go to YouTube, you can listen to any song you want for free. That’s essentially all we’re doing – we just provide a better user experience for it.”
Musi is currently working to add additional ad space to the app it plans to sell to music publishers, labels and artist that want to get in front of the platform’s growing audience. Lunny is also busy at work as the co-CEO of the Winnipeg-based ad agency Dash. (His Dash partner David Bell is also a 30 Under 30 alumnus.)
Despite the fact the deal struck on the show fell through, Lunny said appearing on the show was a positive experience.
“It was surreal to actually be on the set of a show we’d watched for so long,” he said.
