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Yaw, I think this is a case where a really profitable domain company decided they needed a webdev team and found a well-priced turnkey team in the Auctomatics.

Yaw, I think this is a case where a really profitable domain company decided they needed a webdev team and found a well-priced turnkey team in the Auctomatics. It's easy to underestimate the value here, but it's huge, I think. Imagine the time, cost (and opportunity cost!) of trying to build your own team, including the risk that you'd hire a bad seed or two. With a scant $5mm, this company gets a functional team that's already used to working together. In addition, presumably there's a vesting schedule that requires that they stay there for some number of years to get paid... With lots of web devs hopping jobs every year or so, this is a big deal.

Harj 19y ago
no that's not what this deal was. of course the talent of our team was attractive but that's not why they paid $5m. Live Current have a huge amount of organic traffic with genuine purchasing intent that comes to sites like perfume.com and electronic.com. but they have no understanding of what tools you need to provide sellers to get them to invest their time in another trading platform. you'd be surprised how ineffective pitching the potential for a new distribution channel is to most sellers, they value their time so highly getting them to convert is incredibly tough. you can only do it by making it very easy for them to integrate their set up with the platform you're offering. not surprisingly we have a deep understanding of what these sellers want and have developed tools they use. we always wanted to eventually build trading platforms but didn't have the buyers to seed an initial platform with. now we can promise them great tools and an immediate audience for their products. incidentally there's no vest on our cash, we're working at Live Current because we see it as the next step of Auctomatic (hence we've kept a lot of autonomy) and not a well-paid job. it'd be very tough for someone to compensate us well enough that we'd be happy to work as web devs implementing someone elses ideas on domains.
- Mistone 19y ago
  thanks for adding that layer of details.
- axod 19y ago
  Still absolutely don't get it. Unless perfume.com is about to sell things on ebay :/ ebay seller tools != Affiliate marketing Oh well, good luck to you all :)

Harj 19y ago

no that's not what this deal was. of course the talent of our team was attractive but that's not why they paid $5m. Live Current have a huge amount of organic traffic with genuine purchasing intent that comes to sites like perfume.com and electronic.com. but they have no understanding of what tools you need to provide sellers to get them to invest their time in another trading platform. you'd be surprised how ineffective pitching the potential for a new distribution channel is to most sellers, they value their time so highly getting them to convert is incredibly tough. you can only do it by making it very easy for them to integrate their set up with the platform you're offering. not surprisingly we have a deep understanding of what these sellers want and have developed tools they use. we always wanted to eventually build trading platforms but didn't have the buyers to seed an initial platform with. now we can promise them great tools and an immediate audience for their products. incidentally there's no vest on our cash, we're working at Live Current because we see it as the next step of Auctomatic (hence we've kept a lot of autonomy) and not a well-paid job. it'd be very tough for someone to compensate us well enough that we'd be happy to work as web devs implementing someone elses ideas on domains.

Mistone 19y ago
thanks for adding that layer of details.
axod 19y ago
Still absolutely don't get it. Unless perfume.com is about to sell things on ebay :/ ebay seller tools != Affiliate marketing Oh well, good luck to you all :)