My name is Emma. For as long as I can remember, I have been a music fan; it is part of my family’s fabric. So much so that when I was eighteen, I started my own music label. I signed a few artists, wrote and negotiated contracts, managed the bands and got them shows! That experience led me to a major label, which then brought me to a world class concert venue, and then to the premiere global live entertainment company. Collectively, this gave me fifteen years of music marketing experience.

Throughout that time, I earned a Bachelor’s degree, a Masters in Business Administration, and I am now working towards a law degree in entertainment law. I have always been ambitious and have strived to achieve my goals. Everything has come with hard work and long hours, sometimes requiring working two to three jobs while attending classes. However, I never shied away from the required efforts because the harder I had to work, the more gratifying the accomplishment. This ambition led to spending two and a half years building a female-owned entertainment company, while in law school. This company was to be built on the principles of advocacy and diversity. Everyone would have a place, a voice, and a community to share their passion. The only thing it lacked was funding.

I sought funding with great expectations, with an open mind and excitement of making my vision come true. That came to a complete halt when I was introduced to a company called DelMorgan & Co. What I did not know is that only two percent of female companies have the opportunity to be funded and that only eight percent actually get funded. I was in mere desperation, but was told that DelMorgan would solve all my problems. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was wrong! 

After a couple of weeks of conversations with DelMorgan, I was led to believe that funding was guaranteed and would only take three months. Because of this guarantee, I agreed to pay their enormous engagement fee of $150,000.00. This fee is not only almost double my annual salary, it required me to take out copious loans. Alongside the loans that I will be paying off for the next eight years, I accepted money from my elderly father who prior to giving me the much-needed funds said, “let’s go and achieve your dreams.” He, too, believed in my vision. 

Based on DelMorgan’s assurances, I thought I would be advised, coached and led to the promised land of finance. Instead, I was met by a group of men who were rude, lacked respect, and showed an intolerance toward me during our first meeting. Ultimately, DelMorgan’s promises landed flat. They were only able to secure one meeting after allegedly reaching out to 120 companies, which equates to a 0.8% success rate. Arrogance overpowered a conversation about what it would take to get funded and communication ceased over the following months. It appeared that DelMorgan lacked the experience to raise funding for this type of company; however, insisted that they deserved the full amount that they were paid. I was left with a sense of frustration and helplessness knowing that DelMorgan made minimal efforts and could not care less about whether the company was funded. Not to mention, I had paid them my life savings and was left with a dismantled company and no viable path forward.

My motivation to start the music label at eighteen was to advocate for artists rights and to protect them from unfavorable agreements. Ironically, I am in the exact situation I sought to save artists from. I am bound by a severely one-sided agreement that has allowed DelMorgan to walk away with $150,000.00 without providing any sort of services that deserve that sort of excessive payment. I worked my entire life to avoid being in debt, I even earned scholarships to help pay for school. Yet, I am now left with crushing and debilitating debt because of believing in a company that took advantage of my confidence in their abilities and my desperation for an investment firm to see beyond my gender. 

I write this knowing that others may not have experienced the exact situation, but may have experienced something similar. Maybe we share similar experiences by trying to grow a small business with big dreams, or when sitting in a room filled with men that don’t see us for who we truly are and what we have to offer, or have been taken advantage of because of the extreme disparity in available business opportunities.

Now my goal is to turn lemons into lemonade. I hope that this experience can be a platform for change. Specifically, change that will close the gender gap in funding available for female-founded companies.

Please join me in demanding change by signing this petition today!