Episode 203

Creative Meets Paid Media: Steve Weiss’s MuteSix Innovation

This week on The Exit: Steve Weiss, founder of MuteSix, a creative digital marketing agency he sold to Dentsu, shares his tumultuous journey from troubled youth to successful entrepreneur. 

After being robbed at gunpoint, Steve decided to make a major pivot in his life and dedicated himself to business, programming, and digital marketing.

MuteSix began when Steve, pursuing stand-up comedy in Los Angeles, started running Facebook ads to promote comedy shows. 

This turned into a full-fledged agency, growing from 20 to over 500 employees in just four years. The company’s success stemmed from integrating creative and paid media services, a novel approach at the time.

In 2019, Dentsu reached out via LinkedIn, leading to MuteSix’s acquisition after an 8-9 month process. 

Steve discusses the challenges of maintaining business growth during due diligence and emphasizes the importance of proper accounting, HR practices, and legal counsel in preparing for an exit.

Steve advises entrepreneurs to plan for life after selling their business. Money doesn’t provide purpose, so it’s important to find what does.

For more details and insights from his entrepreneurial journey, listen to the latest episode of The Exit.

Personal Bio: 

Steve Weiss started MuteSix in 2013, where he saw that the structure of building integrated media teams was broken and needed to evolve rapidly. MuteSix sat at the intersection of creative, media buying, and data to disrupt the status quo and be an all-inclusive growth solution.

Their goal was to give leading native “Direct to Consumer” eCommerce brands the unfair advantage in quickly taking market share from leading enterprise competitors.

As CEO along with his incredible team of 450+ MuteSix’ers, they were able to grow the company by 25%+ every single year. This led to an acquisition by iProspect in 2019.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejweiss/

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The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

YOUR HOST

Steve McGarry

An entrepreneur, content creator, and investor based in sunny Tampa, Florida. In 2015, while living in San Francisco, Steve sold his first fintech startup LendLayer to Max Levchin’s (founder of PayPal) consumer finance company Affirm.

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