MSE - How much is this site worth?

SimplyAUser · 28 October 2005 at 10:19PM

This site has become very popular over the last couple of years.

I am just wondering how much is this site worth? Priceless :A ... Hmmm !!!

If this was a Public Ltd. company then the share price * number of shares would have clearly shown the worth.

However this site being wholly privately owned, it will be difficult to judge that.

I suppose one way to look at it is how much Martin :money: would be able to sell it (if ever he does) or how much potential it has in terms of money making over the next 10 years.

Without much publicity, this site has about 60,000 active users and about 80k-100k email readers.

Advertising has the potential to convert number of users into Business... so I would say £50 per user for 100k users = £5m at the moment (I am sure people will disagree with this but this is a very realistic estimate)
edited on 29th Oct
I mentioned advertising just to calculate a rough estimate for this website.

Another idea to calculate the worth of this website is if there was share price of MSE, what price would you be tempted to buy it on.

innovate · 28 October 2005 at 10:46PM

I'd leave this marvellous site the instant any ad popped up, or if it got commercialised by other means. Luckily, there's no sign of either happening.

ben500 · 28 October 2005 at 10:51PM

Now don't you go getting any ideas Martin but I think I would visit the site if I had to pay a moderate admin fee which could be demonstrated to be non profit.

pavlovs_dog · 28 October 2005 at 11:03PM

another forum im a member of (a fan based community of a certain rock group) is set up and funded entirely by one man out of his love for the band.

whilst a lot of his revenue comes from advertising banners and affiliate links (none of which are in your face or detract from the site in any way), he also relys on financial contribuitions from posters - specifically those which have been around since the site began and have a (perhaps irrational) attachment to the site. they give what they can, when they can, with no obligations.

an interesting scenario, and one which i have never come across before

SimplyAUser · 29 October 2005 at 8:06AM

ben500 wrote:

Now don't you go getting any ideas Martin but I think I would visit the site if I had to pay a moderate admin fee which could be demonstrated to be non profit.

ben500. If will be very useful if you can out how much admin fee would not hurt ... This will give a rough idea multiplied by the number of users (60K) to show potential annual revenue by MSE.

ben500 · 29 October 2005 at 1:01PM

Now as a dedicated moneysaver that would be a really foolish thing for me to do, I'll wait till the day comes and then complain and get it reduced like I should do.

MSE_Martin · 29 October 2005 at 2:46PM

I've seen this thread and written a blog on the back of it - but you're going to have to wait till andrea puts it up. (she subs the blogs for me, so my spelling and grammer doesn't look so inept!)

ben500 · 29 October 2005 at 11:39PM

MSE_Martin wrote:

I've seen this thread and written a blog on the back of it - but you're going to have to wait till andrea puts it up. (she subs the blogs for me, so my spelling and grammer doesn't look so inept!)

Uh Oh! do I need to start saving Martin? We going to be having a haggling session in the near future perhaps;) , I heard you on radio 2 the other day and reckon I could do you in an old fashioned haggle bout! Come and have a go if you think your hard enough!!:money:

ben500 · 29 October 2005 at 11:57PM

On the other hand if your thinking of floating on the stock exchange I hope I'll be getting an email with share options!!

SimplyAUser · 31 October 2005 at 3:13PM

Just read Martin's blog about the site statistics. Very nice and indeed gives a true picture of the site finances.

However can I cliche the article by saying ... I am sure this (site) has a price !!!

Just as an example, AOL bought the Blog operator Weblogs for $25m ... by evaluating the worth of the top 500 blogs and the potential web visits they were supposed to generate over the next couple of years to break-even on their investment. Anything above that will be profit for AOL.

So to find out how much MSE.com is worth, I took the example that how much potential revenue would this site (if) generate, if this site was opened to adverts. I am sure that if this site is sustaining well enough just from the referrals.

To put a rough figure (with partial facts), 8 people earning 30,000 each + £60,000 for running the website
= 30k * 8 + 60k = 300k

So just from the referrals, this webiste is able to create about £3m in 10 years. Although the profit will be quite less.

Also I checked the worth of the domain using a free tool called http://www.SwiftAppraisal.com, which shows the worth of the name "MoneySavingExpert". It came about £13k.

I think the website is marketable and it does what it says in name... so right marketing will definitely increase the value by atleast 10 fold thus increasing the referral business from 300k to 3m a year.

ben500 · 31 October 2005 at 9:39PM

However the site would cease to be a moneysaving site and become a money making site allowing predators in through the front door to attack the coffers of its members!

Also taking away the perceived if not real impartiality of the site in that there would be a disincentive to critise advertisers should they ever deserve the full wrath of the members.

These are merely hypotheticals you understand but posibilities nonetheless.

Besides I like free!

MSE - How much is this site worth?

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