The purchase of the financial site, Mint.com for $170 million, by Intuit, is one indication that valuations may start returning to some pre-crash levels for acquisitions.
The sales price represents 17x of annual revenues of Mint.com
Nice.
Six months ago I was told people were selling domains with revenues for 2x.
Yes I know Mint.com is an active site with over million users, but at its sales price that works out to $140 per user, also quite impressive.
As some parts of the economy are picking up, the M & A area is starting to get active again and its nice to see valuations are returning.
We have a long way to go but this is a small sign of some light and nice to see for all those with revenue producing assets.
It was much simpler: approximately 100$ per registered user.
I imagine them having the most popular iPhone financial app helped a lot.
Hello Mike,
It is no secret that business savvy people are waking up to the fact that there will not be a new alphabet created anytime soon. In all cases keywords are unique one of a kind creations. Owning domain address key words or phrases is the only way to control the current alphabet to a business mans advantage. All the big players know this and they are starting to come out of the wood work. Wow! This is only a shame if you dont own any of those future web address destinations. Of course make sure it is a .com address and the magic will happen.
Gratefully, Jeff
“Six months ago I was told people were selling domains with revenues for 2x”
Well – TM typos, yes, that was always the market price
I think it may be difficult to compare a fully functioning business, complete with a well developed product to a domain with a $200 website like “Pizza.com”.
Mint.com provides a great service and just because it uses a premium domain I would be cautious with combining it to premium domain sales because I bet the domain itself had close to 0% influence on Intuit making the decision to purchase.
It is a gold mine for a company like Intuit because then now have the personal information and the eyeballs of over a million finance conscious, computer comfortable individuals that they can now market their software to. This value has to be added to what Mint.com previously was able to do with their company.
While Mint.com might have only been making 10 million per year, Intuit could very well make that initial 10 million, plus another 25 million in software sales and services for a total income of 35 million per year and suddenly you are looking at a 5 year multiple all over again.
I guess my point is that there is way to much involved in this purchase to simply state that multiples are going up, down, or dancing the flamenco.=)
Troy
FreeDomainNewsletter.com
D
I was told that the domains that were sold, were not typo domains.
Not sure to understand the buzz behind this sale in a domaining perspective when it’s a business sale and absolutely not a domain sale.
Was not LowerMyBills.com (a similar service?) sold for $330 millions a pair of years ago?
Its not a domain sale but lets look at it the other way.
Mint.com is only 2 years old.
The site launched in 2007.
Now would this site have become as successful and as quick as it did if it has a domain like comehereforyourfinancialadvice.com?
Probably not.
So while this is not a domain sale (as I said in the post) one cannot discount the import that the domain sale had on the success of this company.
17X for any company is a nice valuation when others are telling you the whole economy is doom and gloom.
In a domaining point of view I would like to outline that the difference between business sales and domain sales is that nobody sell top domains for 17 years parking revenue today. Add a zero…
“Six months ago I was told people were selling domains with revenues for 2x.” -MHB
Geez, I’ve been trying to shake the trees to catch these people for the past couple of years. I consider myself lucky if I find 2-3 per year.
Anyone want these? They’re all available for regfee:
homecasinochips.com
homebuyerschecklist.com
studenttraveleurope.com
thedomainmachine.com
charterbuscompany.com
idahoattorneygeneral.com
meatcuttingequipment.com
studyabroadireland.com
poconomountainvacation.com
grannyf**ker.com
Tony
Apparently people are going to the “big” guys and that is what they are selling for.
I took 2 off your list
charterbuscompany.com
and the one with the **
Thanks
Tony,
And thanks from me.
I took:
HomeBuyersChecklist.com
StudentTravelEurope.com
MeatCuttingEquipment.com
That is an interesting reg Mike, but where Mint.com is nice you used a really bad name for a comparison, but I bet it could have got just as popular with Manageyourfinances.com stuff along those lines. Again IMO
Everything
I see your suggestion is for sale, is that yours?
Absolutely not, it was just a random name, I would have included FinanceX.com or moneyhelp.com. My point was I just think you could use a lesser name and still be popular, I agree with you they have a great name. I have posted here enough Mike under DotWtf that if the name was mine I would have told you. Just been writing more about .tv so used the Everything.tv id.
Everything;
Just asking
relax
We are all friends here.
@Francois
I believe this sale is important. For some, development is a part of domain investing. As a community we need as many successful examples as possible to follow. This sale is a great example. Plus, as MHB already mentioned it started with a great domain name. Showing big business that a name is important.
Thank you for pointing out the LowerMyBills.com sale for $330 mil. I didn’t know about that one. Personally I will try to report any sales that I come across.
@MHB
Thanks for linking my article.
OH I know, I knew I did not use the other id here before today so you would not know who was posting. My bad.
Chef
Good pickup of the story on your part, so you deserve the credit.
Trying to do the right thing.
Keep up the good work
Interview with the CEO http://paidcontent.org/article/419-interview-mint.com-ceo/
Other info
Mint had raised nearly $32 million in funding, and the deal comes less than a month after the startup raised $14 million in a third round. That round reportedly valued the company at $140 million.
“I was told that the domains that were sold, were not typo domains.”
Ask to see the list, I bet thet are low quality names in one way or another.
“In a domaining point of view I would like to outline that the difference between business sales and domain sales is that nobody sell top domains for 17 years parking revenue today. Add a zero…”
That is a stretch. I htink the market is often around 20-30 years personally.
Thanks for posting this as I have been a fan of Mint.com for a long time.
I just wrote a post about some things that we (domainers/developers/web startups) can all learn about the aquisition and would be interested to hear your thoughts: http://www.domainsuperstar.com/what-we-can-learn-about-intuits-purchase-of-mintcom-for-170-million
I also linked from my post to your post here to say thanks for the good synopsis of the acquisition.
It’s a nice domain, but comon, trying to really link the price or multiple to world of domaining here, is more like drinking your own cool aid.
It’s a real company, with a real product, with a real competitor, with a real buyer. The only domain aspect of it here is that it helped them achieve the right growth trajectory of a brand.
@Ari
I totally agree with everything you are saying but I believe that what MHB and others are justifiably optimistic about is that when there are sales like this with attractive multiples that there is still some kind of parallel to domain sales as well (albeit not in exact proportions but still it is a positive sign nonetheless in some small way for domain sales as well as other sales of fully developed websites).
My average generic portfolio acquiring price is now at 15 years revenue (used to be 11 but PPC falling) and only because many of them I park in TM way, otherwise I would be looking at 30-40 years. Never heard of anyone selling bellow 10 years, I am talking here pure type-in traffic parked not some scrap lucky enough to be indexed at the moment or some expired, both of which will lose the traffic eventually…
The price is not for the domain name alone.
It is for the business. So the whole business built around mint.com is evaluated at $170 million.
Ameen
We understand this but the price being paid 17X revenue is nice to see and would the company have gotten in 2 years to this point without a great domain?
Hello Mike,
Here we go again. Its the age old argument of the non owners of premium domain addresses dissing the completely detached importance of a key root domain name address in the success of a businesses that gets the importance of using them. Yes I know that it eats you alive that you missed out on the best names that are the foundation to success on the alphabet controlled reference world on the web.
The fact is that to be accessed on the web you need a call letter identified address. Without a good identifying address a company is unrecognizable, if it cannot be easily remembered and have some source of identification. You have to locate a company through its address. You can argue all you want how unimportant a web address is , but without its foundation you will not be located. KISS , location,location,location or Locate,Locate,Locate.
Gratefully , Jeff
bankaholic blog sold for $15 million awhile back to bankrate.com
there are rumors on a forum that the price was 30 times his annual revenue from affiliate commisions
@Harpeet = “bankaholic blog sold for $15 million awhile back to bankrate.com”
I was not aware of this. $15 million could buy some high level accretive domains. One that comes to mind is RATE.com owned by the Castello’s. Bankrate would do well to invest in that one, imo.
“One that comes to mind is RATE.com owned by the Castello’s. Bankrate would do well to invest in that one, imo.”
While Rate.com certainly has some serious value, when it comes to making some serious money with financial development (Like BankAHolic.com) the value comes in great content and services. Bankaholic.com could have just as easily been BankMatter.com, BankMan.com, or JankyBanky.com, the value was in what was done with the property.
It seems that this is a major point that many domainers miss, yes, domains do have some serious value, but a good domain will not “make” a business. To say that the Castillos should make rate.com a priority might be good advice, but the truth of the matter is that making rate.com a priority would be a HUGE business development and in the end, having Rate.com as the website would probably not make that much of a difference. The value would be in what they put at it.
Many domainers don’t seem to understand that a domain is not the only thing required for a killer business. (I am not saying this is you).
Many business people don’t understand just how much a killer domain can help.=)
The real money will be found by the people the understand the importance of a legitimate business, as well as the value of a quality domain.
Domainers should be endusers, it would revolutionize the industry.
Thats a good post!!