A consumer goods company with utility patents and a deal with a company licensed to sell their products in Europe came to us to help sell their company. The major problem however was almost no sales at all over the entire history of the patent.
We discovered the family never truly tried to make a go of it in the United States and the European licensing company seemingly did their deal to block it from competing with their products. Valuing a company with little to no sales was going to be challenge.
Since the company never actually attempted to make it, we essentially treated it like a startup. A full feasibility study was conducted complete with demographics, addressable market share, competition analysis, operational plan, financial projections, etc. What we ended up with was a valuation similar to one we would do for an investor.
That valuation came to a little over a half million dollars with the inventory they still had on hand. While the price always gets negotiated during talks, the package gave them a starting point and is being used to help sell the business to investors and aspiring entrepreneurs as well as competitors!