Jumpstart Automotive Case Study: blueprint for a vertical ad network
written by Jay Parkhill, posted on October 16th, 2007
Jumpstart Automotive Media is a vertical advertising network focused on the automotive market. The company represents automotive web publishers for advertising sales and offers a suite of services for advertisers and publishers around that core business. Vertical advertising networks have received significant attention and investment recently, so Jumpstart’s story is timely. The company was founded in 2000 and acquired in May, 2007 for $110M in cash and earn-outs.
Interview conducted: Mitch Lowe, CEO & co-founder
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StepUp Commerce: subscription model for early market
written by Jay Parkhill, posted on September 9th, 2007
Many consumer Internet companies leverage the scale of the internet to offer cost savings over local brick-and-mortar businesses. StepUp Commerce instead uses the interactivity of the Internet to help local businesses compete against internet companies and big-box retailers. Likening itself to an internet-era yellow pages, StepUp helps local retail businesses increase visibility and advertise current inventory to web shoppers. StepUp, which was founded in 2004 and acquired by Intuit in September 2006 for $60M, charges retailers an annual fee to place their businesses and inventory with leading search engines.
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HotJobs Case Study: Vertical market entry strategy the key
written by Rob Finn, posted on March 4th, 2007
Why profiled on Startup Review
HotJobs is a consumer facing online job search engine and back-end system that provides tools for employers to post, track, and manage job openings. Founded in 1996, the site grew to become the #2 job board when it was acquired by Yahoo! for $460M in 2001. By that time it was generating $120M in revenue per year.
Interviews conducted: Dimitri Boylan, founder and CEO; Rob Jevon, Partner at Boston Millennia Partners and investor in HotJobs.
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MyBlogLog Case Study: Product progression and the widget
written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on February 26th, 2007
Why profiled on Startup Review
MyBlogLog was launched as a blog analytics service in March 2005, but became popular by creating online communities around specific blogs. MyBlogLog enables bloggers to connect with their readers on a more personal level by building profiles of readers and connecting them via social networking features. As of February 16, 2007, MyBlogLog had 70,000 registered blogs, approximately 14,000 of which are using its popular “Reader Roll” widget. The company was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007 for a rumored price of $10-$12M. The company was bootstrapped with no outside investors, resulting in a nice payday for its three founders.
Interviews conducted: Scott Rafer, CEO of MyBlogLog
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Marchex Case Study: Execution rather than innovation
written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on January 8th, 2007
Why profiled on Startup Review
Marchex is an online marketing services firm, offering merchant advertisers a mix of performance-based advertising and search-oriented services. Marchex has emerged as a leader in the direct navigation market with its purchase of Name Development Ltd. in February 2005 for $164M. Marchex was founded about four years ago and went public shortly thereafter. Marchex has a market cap of $490M on trailing twelve month financials of $125M in revenue and $39M in EBITDA.
Interviews conducted: Two early employees who preferred not to be disclosed.
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Userplane Case Study: Vertical market entry strategy pays off
written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on December 3rd, 2006
Why profiled on Startup Review
Userplane provides hosted communications applications for online communities. They offer a suite of easy-to-integrate, flash-based applications like instant messaging and multi-user web chat. Userplane’s applications are utilized by over 130,000 websites, ranging in size from sole proprietorships to the largest social networking sites (MySpace, Friendster, etc). Userplane was acquired by AOL in August 2006 for an undisclosed sum, rumored to be in the $30-$40M range. Having never raised any external funding, the exit was a great result for Userplane’s three founders.
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iStockphoto Case Study: How to evolve from a free community site to successful business
written by Kempton Lam and Nisan Gabbay, posted on November 26th, 2006
Note from Nisan Gabbay: I am pleased to announce that this week’s case study is the first to be authored by a Startup Review reader, Kempton Lam. Kempton is a management consultant who specializes in assisting start-ups. Please see Kempton’s background and blog for more information. Kempton followed the same process that I take in creating these case studies, and I served as editor to ensure that the format is consistent with the Startup Review format. If you’d like to become a guest author for Startup Review, please contact me.
Why profiled on Startup Review
iStockphoto is both an online community for photographers and a source of high quality, low-cost stock photos. As of October 2006, iStockphoto’s stock photo library contained ~1.1 million images contributed by 23,000+ photographers. In 2006, iStockphoto expects to sell 10 to 12 million photo licenses from this library, at prices ranging from $1 up to $40 per image. iStockphoto’s success opened up a new market segment for stock photography, catering to customers who could not afford traditional, high cost stock photos from the likes of Getty Images and Corbis. This success caught the eye of Getty Images, who acquired iStockphoto for $50 million in cash in February 2006.
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Greenfield Online Case Study: Innovation in an established industry
written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on October 22nd, 2006
Why profiled on Startup Review
Greenfield Online pioneered the use of the Internet for conducting market research surveys in the mid-90’s. They had their IPO in 2004 with shares trading in the $20 range, but have since seen a decline to $10 per share (see share stock chart). The market cap of the company is ~$270M as of this writing. The financials of the company leading up to the IPO were strong: 2002 ($15M sales), 2003 ($26M sales, 17% EBITDA), 2004 ($44M sales, 23% EBITDA).
Greenfield Online is an interesting case study because they faced some difficult strategic decisions in the post-bubble time period. Greenfield shifted company strategy, helping them to grow revenue more quickly, but may have compromised a larger long-term opportunity. It is difficult to say what the right decision for Greenfield was, but makes for an interesting discussion below.
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