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So You Just Bought Sex.com For $13 Million – Now What?
- Ryan_IRL 16y agoI don't think I've gone to random domains since I was on a 14.4 modem. I find it pretty hilarious that that domain can break even just parked.
- pavel_lishin 16y agoI wonder if some of them come from people "searching" from the address bar, or even from search engines? (Google results for "sex" are kind of funny.)
- jrockway 16y agoIt's not breaking even, right? The domain was 13 million. It makes "almost 7 figures" a year. So in 13 years, assuming that people still keep visiting a bogus site, it will have paid for the domain registration. If you just want to break even, you should probably just register a google.com typo domain for $20, and then you need a lot fewer visitors to break even.
- dotcoma 16y agoSell it for $15 million to someone who is more of a sucker than you are. Isn't that the same plan Goldman Sachs has for its 'investment' in Facebook?
- iwwr 16y agohttp://anything.com/ http://anything.com/ http://can.com http://can.com http://happen.com/ http://happen.com/ http://on.com http://on.com http://the.com http://the.com http://internets.com http://internets.com
- Groxx 16y agohttp://theinternets.com http://theinternets.com * gasp * someone bought The Internets! All of them! What'll we do?!
- mattsidea 16y agodoes anyone have any idea what i could use shag.me brought it a few years ago when the .me come about but still dont have any idea what could be a good idea for a site all ideas welcome, thank you matt
- levigross 16y ago1. Open up a website for students. Student EXchange = sex.com 2. Stack EXchange can get a shorter name or use them as a short URL.
- melvinram 16y agoI would go with a reoccurring membership porn site. 125k daily visitors x 1% conversion rate = 1250 new customers per day 1250 new customers per day x 365 days in 1 year = 456,250 new customers per year (reached at the end of the first year) 456k new customers per year x $120/year in revenue (assuming $10/month) = $54.7mil per year in revenue (though the math isn't fully accurate since it doesn't take into account churn but it works to illustrate a point.) With a tiny bit more brains, you could take that up to $100mil/year, prove the stability of the revenue and sell for 10x of revenue at a cool $1 Billion Dollars (Dr. Evil pinky finger lift) Obviously it's much easier to be an armchair quarterback and pull numbers out of thin air than to execute and create real value.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoWhat justifies assuming a 1% conversion rate? How many people do you run into walking around town, what would justify a 1% conversion rate in selling products to them? Just because 1% seems small does not mean it's a guaranteed conversion rate.
- jacquesm 16y ago1% would be a very badly converting adult site so I would think that would be an ok assumption.
- rorrr 16y agoIn a world where porn is mostly free, I doubt you could get a 1% conversion.
- jacquesm 16y agoYou doubt that based on what?
- rorrr 16y agohttp://srv349.rackco.com/showthread.php?t=119198 http://srv349.rackco.com/showthread.php?t=119198 This company promises 1:300 rate. subscriptions. 1 out of 300 unique visitors will join. I had 1200 unique visitors and no joiners. http://www.upiu.com/articles/pornography-business-is-booming http://www.upiu.com/articles/pornography-business-is-booming She the conversion rate from viewers to paying members is about one in 200
- il 16y agoMake it an adult dating site...it has the makings of a strong brand. The significant type-in traffic will help get over the network effect issues that plague most dating sites, and your traffic is very targeted- people looking for sex(or at least naughty pics). So you'll quickly have a core of active users you can leverage to build your audience. Dating sites done right are FAR more profitable than porn sites.
- melvinram 16y agoHonest question: Got any numbers to illustrate that last point?
- il 16y agoSure: Here are some numbers based on affiliate network stats, from the affiliate side: Amateur Match conversion rate is between 14-22%, paying out an average EPC between $0.70-$1.07. If they can afford to pay more than $1 per click and still be highly profitable, I assume they're converting free users to paid/upselling quite well. If someone remains a member an average of 3 months at $30/month, you're looking at a CLV approaching close to $100.
- matwood 16y agoDating sites done right are FAR more profitable than porn sites. That seems odd to me because if the dating site works people will not be coming back.
- tomjen3 16y agoElsewhere they say the industry standard is 3 months average length of a membership. It properly takes that long (maybe not consecutive) if not more for somebody to get of the dating market permanently. A porn site has little chance of going viral (who wants their facebook status to be "John is browsing cocksuckersluts.com"?) and almost no chance of an upsell - but I know that people share recommendations of online dating sites and when there they are an excellent place to send people to other partners (looks like you are going on a date! Do you want to buy flowers and reserve a table for two at a romantic dinner?) something that is not likely to happen on a porn site.
- staticshock 16y agoThe reason he doesn’t simply jump into the lucrative online porn industry? Because such an endeavor would close the door on other, more mainstream options, narrow down his exit possibilities – such as selling to a public company – and limit the ability to take the business public in the future, Jeff says. I've noticed recently that most porn businesses are, in fact, private. The TechCrunch article alludes to this as obvious, but to me it is not. What would be the obstacles to taking a porn business public?
- jacquesm 16y ago> What would be the obstacles to taking a porn business public? Nothing, really: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0614/6312214a.html http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0614/6312214a.html
- neworbit 16y agoI don't think you're likely to contest that 1999 was an easier time for IPOs. Private Media and Playboy are both public. And unprofitable. And not especially worth all that much these days; you'd have a hard time getting a "real" IPO done even at Playboy's 180M market cap, let alone Private's 20M valuation.
- jacquesm 16y agoThe question was 'obstacles in the way of taking a porn company public', as far as I know there are none (legal or reporting wise). I don't know why a porn company going public would be any less 'real' than any other company. 1999 was an easier time for IPOs but not an easier time to make money online. Don't mistake the money that was pumped in to the market for turnover, there are many more people making cold hard cash online now than there ever were in 1999. The one problem with porn as a business is that the number of potential exits is very limited, another problem is that the market is very fragmented which will likely limit the size of the players.
- neworbit 16y ago
- codingthewheel 16y agoSingle-word domains from the common vocabulary usually make for shitty brands. Probably because business efforts behind these domains are rather transparently profit-seeking and wired for the short-term, make a quick buck, approach. Also there's a good amount of technological quackery that goes on in the hyping of these domains to not-so-tech-savvy investors who don't realize that a typical 14yo kid understands intuitively that "sex.com" is probably a crap parked site or link directory, whereas pornhub.com, on the other hand, provides a service that 14yo will love. "..and we've got a GREAT domain name, pets.com, I mean, if you want a pet, where you gonna go? We're right there." Labors of love are what win and enable you to eventually fleece your customers and have them thank you for doing it -- not having a 13 million dollar domain.
- puredemo 16y agoAre there any single, common word domain brands that have been successful? I can't think of a single one.
- aberkowitz 16y agoFrom what I understand, Diapers.com is a highly successful business. Their parent company Quidsi, who also owns Soap.com, was recently acquired by Amazon for $540 million.
- bbuffone 16y agoI would re-open the craigslist.com "Adult" section.
- vaksel 16y agoSex.com doesn't seem to be that lucrative of a domain name(not 13mm lucrative)...if it was, more companies would try to rank for the term sex. right now it's 1. Wikipedia Article 2. FBI Sex Offender Registry 3. Psychology article 4. Porn Tube Site 5. HIV charity 6. Virginia State Police Sex Offender Registry 7. Music Review Blog 8. Sex Pistols music site 9. Georgia Sex Offender Registry 10. Center for Sex Offender Registry I'd bet there is a ton of traffic because people just want to see what kind of site is hosted on sex.com, so its a lookie loo situation, where you'll have a crappy conversion rate. So a traditional porn site won't work that well. A better option would be to open a casual encounters type site(basically adult friend finder), and charge $5-10-20 bucks a month under the guise of making sure that there are no fake profiles.
- grzaks 16y agoDon't you think google threats porn/sex sites kinda different than others? I bet non-porn sites rank better for non-porn keywords than porn sites ('sex' is not necessarily porn keyword). And there is nothing porn SEO experts can do about it.
- rorrr 16y agoHow can you possibly go bankrupt with a domain name like that? You would have to hire a very expensive team and completely mismanage your funds. It's a goldmine. You're pretty much guaranteed to get traffic.
- elliottkember 16y agoWait until the next stupid bubble and sell it for a profit. Easy money.
- MoreMoschops 16y agoThe last time I paid for sex it only cost me dinner and my self-respect. I bet you get a really good time for $13 Million :p
- mattblalock 16y agoThe owner's no dummie, but dang, maybe a little more planning? How about they just buy my company (or hell, hire me), rebrand to sex.com, advertise mainstream utilizing a real ad agency, and easily turn in 20-30 million over the next 3 years.
- puredemo 16y agoYour domain name seems extremely sub-par for how high quality your site is. I messed around for a few minutes and came up with: funtickle.com meowsex.com Not sure if those are any better, but just wanted to see what was out there. ;)
- mattblalock 16y agoIt is one of my biggest weaknesses, but I figured once I'd proven it possible with whatever domain, I could search out another one. It's in my plan for this year, begin investigating new domains... neither of those seem very fitting, but thanks for considering it!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- 404error 16y agoHow about anonymous postings of sex encounters/sex fantasies?
- mattblalock 16y agoIf I had 125k more visitors a day, I'd make around $272,100 a day.
- puredemo 16y agoI'd go with a daily blog style page, something like "Today's Big Thing," but sex-related. Fresh daily content guarantees you a recurring audience and makes it so you potentially only need one employee, the editor.
- jyu 16y agoThe most obvious ideas are porn site, adult dating site, etc. The biggest challenge is figuring out the highest and best use. I think the best use is turning sex.com into the authoritative site for sex questions / videos. With this approach, you can get a captivated audience and build a lasting brand. Sex is something we all want to know about, but it is still taboo to publicly talk about in the US, UK, India, etc. I notice other posts mentioning developing a porn site, or adult dating site, but those seem like low hanging, 1-off sales. By building a brand, you can generate a higher customer LTV. If the owner of sex.com can afford to pay $13 million, he should be able to afford several million to develop expert content, products, and a long term business. To give you insight in the value of creating a product company, look at Bill Phillips who acquired EAS in 1996, and solid it for $160 million in 1999. http://www.ergogenics.org/231.html http://www.ergogenics.org/231.html