Startup Review

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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eCrush Case Study: Why timing the M&A market is tricky

written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on April 15th, 2007

Why profiled on Startup Review

The eCrush network is comprised of several major sites (ecrush.com, espinthebottle.com, and highschoolstyleboard.com) that offer flirting, matchmaking, quizzes, romantic content and social networking type features to teenagers (age 13-19). The sites receive over 1 million unique visitors per month, and rank as the 10th largest dating site in the US according to NetRatings. The company has been profitable since 2002, and generated $1.4M in profit in 2006. The eCrush network was acquired by Hearst Media in December 2006 for an undisclosed sum, rumored to be in the $8-12M range based on my sources.

Interviews conducted: Clark Benson, co-founder and seed investor of eCrush

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LowerMyBills.com Case Study: Adapting to new markets

written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on October 29th, 2006

Why profiled on Startup Review

LowerMyBills.com is one of the leading consumer focused lead generation companies. They were acquired by Experian in May 2005 for $330M in cash and were reported to be generating $120M in revenue and $26M in profit for fiscal 2005. LowerMyBills.com provides consumers with shopping comparison and bill payment for a variety of monthly consumer services and consumer finance products. LowerMyBills generates the majority of its revenue by selling mortgage finance and other loan application leads to lenders.

Interviews Conducted: Olivier Chaine, VP Web Operations, 2000 – 2003. Olivier left LowerMyBills to start SalesBuilder. Olivier wanted to offer other companies a similar platform for generating and converting sales leads, as the one he helped develop at LowerMyBills.

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Homegain Case Study: Working with industry players

written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on October 1st, 2006

Why profiled on Startup-Review.com

Homegain is a leader in online marketing for real estate professionals. In April 2006, ComScore ranked them the 3^rd most trafficked real estate site on the Internet with 4.3M unique visitors, topping well known real estate brands like Century21 and RE/MAX by large margins. Homegain was acquired in June 2005 by Classified Ventures, a strategic joint venture owned by 5 large traditional media companies (Gannett, Tribune, Washington Post, McClatchy, and Belo). While terms of the transaction were not disclosed, it was a significant transaction in an online real estate advertising market worth $1.7B in 2005 according to Borell Associates.

Interviews Conducted: One early employee of Homegain and three industry experts: David DePhillips (industry consultant), Mark Yellen (CEO of Appraisal.com), and a third industry insider that preferred not to be disclosed.

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Rent.com Case Study: Value of strategic investors

written by Nisan Gabbay, posted on August 20th, 2006

Why profiled on Startup-Review.com

Rent.com was acquired by eBay in February 2005 for $433M in cash. The company was founded in 1999 and became the most visited apartment listings site in the US.

Key Contributors: Two - both from sources who preferred not to be disclosed, but were involved with the company in its early days.

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