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Financial blog Bankaholic.com acquired for a mere $15 million

mircea Written on 4th October 2008                                                                                                              8 COMMENTS some text
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr

“Blogging has become a major business” says Patrick de Laive in his post about the perfect Wordpress theme. He couldn’t be more right, read on for some proof.

Bankaholic, a banking and financial blog, was bought by Bankrate for $15 million. They paid $12.4 million up-front, with up to an additional $2.5 million earn-out payment available at the attainment of certain performance metrics in the next 12 months.

One man show

Financial blog Bankaholic.com acquired for a mere $15 millionThat’s a sweet payment for Johns Wu, the owner and single employee of the almost two-year old, Wordpress powered blog.

Bankaholic provides rate information on savings products, such as certificates of deposit, savings accounts, and money market accounts, as well as insurance quotes and a comparison of the best credit card offers, which are currently powered by Bankrate. In addition, Bankaholic offers consumers advice and information that allows consumers to comment and rate banks and their promotions through social networking features.

Bankrate and Bankaholic had a previous business relationship and it seems Bankrate was so pleased with the results that the company decided to acquire Bankaholic. “Bankaholic is ranked high in natural search for both deposit and credit card keywords. We believe their organic traffic will increase our deposit and credit card revenue, and with a high composition of free traffic, will help to improve margins.” stated Thomas R. Evans, President and CEO of Bankrate.

Everybody wants financial info now

In these harsh economic times, everyone is seeking financial and banking information. Bankaholic is well positioned on this market, so Bankrate might have made a great deal. Compete.com shows a traffic of about 300,000 unique visitors last month from the US (double that and you have an approximate number of visitors from the whole world)

The management and operations of Bankaholic will be taken over by Bankrate immediately and the founder, Johns Wu, will be working with Bankrate until the transition is complete (and maybe after).

Too expensive?

This acquisition will inspire a lot of bloggers (financial bloggers or not). Although some say the price paid was too high. I think Bankrate can improve the blog by bringing in a team of financial journalists. More quality will probably mean more revenue.

Noah Kagan, lives in the same Berkeley dorm as Johns, gives us the moral of this story in a post titled “Bankaholic sells to Bankrate for 15 million and no one noticed”.

Focus. Johns started out just doing Credit Card rates and became the #1 term for it on Google. Then he expanded to other banking categories.
Relevance. There are 1,000s of personal finance sites. Most of the people just consume some information. You go to his site to find deals and sign up for them. That’s the point.
Monetize. Johns picked a lucrative category where clicks will pay out $50+.

Well, Noah, The Next Web noticed this and congratulates Johns, even now it’s a bit late!

About the author: Mircea Goia was born in Romania and emigrated to US in 2005. He lives in Phoenix, AZ and works as web developer. His is involved in several online projects and one of them is MyTestBox.com. Mircea shows a keen interest in commercial Web development such as social networks, viral marketing, e-commerce, online video (and filmmaking). He can be reached on his personal website (for suggestions, news, tips).

8 comments to “Financial blog Bankaholic.com acquired for a mere $15 million”

  1. By Drivingsouth on Oct 4, 2008

    Hi :)

    Bankaolic link doesnt work.

    “so Bankrate might have made a great deal.” and 5 lines after big header “too expensive?” No threadflow here: Either everybody needs financial info and so its a great deal or it is too expensive

    Reply

  2. By Mircea Goia on Oct 5, 2008

    Link corrected. Thanks.
    I just said right below of that title that “Although some say the price paid was too high. I think Bankrate can improve the blog by bringing in”…so that “Too expensive” was for people who wondered if it’s too expensive (I think the price was ok).

    Reply

  3. By William Brickel on Nov 12, 2008

    Hi,This is good financial blog.

    Reply

  4. By Jermy Kyle on Nov 12, 2008

    I am very much appreciate on yhis blog .

    Reply

  5. By bestcred on Nov 25, 2008

    Thanks for this blog post. Bankrate is in the business of buying other businesses. I can’t imagine how his life would change for 15 million.

    Reply

  6. By Sireena on Nov 26, 2008

    well… i visit your website first time and found this site very usefull and intresting !

    well… you guys doing nice work and i just want to say that keep rocking and keep it up !!!!

    Regards
    Sireena

    Reply

  7. By downloadme on Dec 6, 2008

    I could’nt agree more, the site is nice and he did a good job and very useful as well.

    Reply

  8. By Debt Consolidation on Mar 26, 2009

    He really put a lot of time and EFFORT into building his site. Anyone that refuses to accept this fact is a joker. Imagine what it takes to build a blog up to the point of it ranking TOPS in the major search engines for high expensive and highly competitive terms as those. In one word? INGENUITY!!!

    Reply

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