business.com increases in value 2300 times in 10 years
There are some truly fanatastic figures being paid for .com’s at the moment. Take just one example:
Business.com’s partial sale history:
$150,000 in 1997
$7.5 million in late 1999
$345,000,000 this month (July 2007)
That is a 2300 times increase in ten years — i.e. it has sold for 2400 times its 1997 value after 10 years … shame I never got into domains at the time!
Don’t forget that this is not only a domain name that is being sold. The company behind the site forms part of the valuation. It employs around 100 people and is on-track to generate $50 million in revenue in 2007. Taking into account future appreciation in value this looks like pretty good business.
Non je ne regrette rien - (if only!)
Further reading:
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July 29th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I work for Business.com and wanted to provide a bit more context around this acquisition.
In this case, you can’t really compare the purchase of the business.com domain name in 1999 to the acquisition of Business.com, Inc., the company, by R.H. Donnelley in 2007. I definitely agree that business.com is a great, recognizable domain name, and it made sense to buy in 1999 because it fit the vision for the company. However, RHD is acquiring Business.com, Inc., the company, which contributes technology and the talents of ~100 employees to RHD, in addition to three rapidly growing, profitable online properties:
* Business.com site - the leading business search and directory site with over 6 million unique visitors per month.
* Business.com Advertising Network - the leading business pay-per-click advertising network reaching over 30 million unique visitors per month across leading business destinations such as Forbes.com, BusinessWeek.com, The Wall St. Journal Online and many more.
* Work.com - the leading business expert community site featuring over 1,800 business how-to guides on a variety of topics
To use the real estate analogy, if you purchase a piece of land and leave it alone that land may appreciate somewhat in value over the years. If you have a business vision, find the right piece of land on which to build, and work hard over the years to deliver real value to the “user” community, then you have an enterprise worth much more than the land on which it sits.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Thanks for the update Ben, I luckily managed to retrieve your comment from Aksimet that thought it was spam.
My analysis was quick, basic & admittedly flimsy – I just wanted to readdress the balance from the blog posts headlining the sale of the domain & forgetting about the business behind it — the detail you’ve added is very welcome