Admin1 --
A privately-held company, such as StockCharts.com, can avoid any
discussion of its size and business model if it wishes. Even Dun &
Bradstreet reports on private companies largely rely on the company
volunteering whatever information it wants to be public.
Luckily for this answer, founder Chip Anderson doesn't operate that
way, so we can get at least a glimpse into how the company got its
start and how it has progressed. In late 2001, in response to an
article by Marshall Brain on micro-payments in "How Stuff Works,"
Anderson talked about the business of running the web-based
enterprise:
HowStuffWorks
"Letter from the President of StockCharts.com"
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/stockcharts-letter.htm
"How Penny Per Page Might Work"
http://www.howstuffworks.com/penny-per-page.htm
Anderson notes several things about the company in late 2001:
? the company was started with less than $1 million in funding, most
of it from Anderson
? Anderson owned 51% of the company and another outside investor owned
11%. Internet.com, now part of Jupitermedia, had done a
stock-for-advertising deal with the company in 2000 and could well
have been that minority owner:
Internet.com is now part of Jupitermedia. Note that Jupitermedia's
large enough that Stockcharts.com doesn't show up as a separate entry
in the venture capital portfolio on its Form 10-K:
Internet.com
"Internet.com Reports Increased Cash Earnings" (July 31, 2000)
http://www.internet.com/corporate/releases/00.07.31-earning.html
The equity structure probably shifted after the acquisition of
MurhpyMorris, Inc., a web-based technical analysis site owned by John
Murphy and Gregory Morris. Murphy subsequently became the company's
chief technical analyst and has been visible on CNNFn and the Nightly
Business Report, two TV programs.
Murphy wrote a well-known technical analysis book:
Amazon.com
"Technical Analysis of Financial Markets" (1999)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735200661/ref=pd_sim_books_1/103-5148680-6060644?v=glance&s=books#product-details
The acquisition also added the John Murphy's Market Message Service as
a subscription revenue source:
StockCharts.com
"StockCharts.com Acquires MurphyMorris, Inc." (PRNewsWire, Oct. 9, 2002)
http://www.stockcharts.com/corp/press/pr_merger.html
? The company had no debt and had "plenty" of cash
? There were 4 employees -- though Anderson himself didn't draw a salary yet
? The post 9/11/2001 business environment changed the revenues in
several dramatic ways:
1. ads were down to 5% of revenues, an apparent drop from 25% of
revenues earlier in the year. The company is represented in seeking
advertising by Tribal Fusion, an Emeryville, CA company that also
represents other financial sites including PCQuote.com and
SiliconInvestor.com
LookSmart
"Tribal Fusion Adds" (PRNewsWire, July 15, 2003)
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0EIN/2003_July_15/105442277/p1/article.jhtml
2. Extra! Subscriptions were generating about $270,000 per year (at $200/year)
3. Newsletters had a total subscription of 25,540, including the
Extra! Participants and Anderson introduced a $90/year Basic
subscription as an attempt to gain revenues from the approximately
24,000 free newsletters. According to the Dec. 22, 2002 update from
management, though switches from free to paid subscriptions always
result in losses of readers, it worked in generating revenues and
presumably turning cash flow positive. Note that every 10% of the
24,000 newsletter subscribers who shifted to the Basic program would
generate $216,000 annually:
"2002 a Banner Year for StockCharts"
http://stockcharts.com/commentary/archives/cww20021222h.html
There's a substantial amount of other operating data on the page with
Chip Anderson's letter, including user growth rates at the time and
information on infrastructure that would help to understand the
capital and service cost structure. The 2002 report indicates that
the company is providing about 6 billion charts per year -- or almost
17 million per day.
There hasn't been substantial public discussion of the company's
progress since then, though Anderson did note in a year-end note that
revenues and subscriptions were up AGAIN during 2003 and that a
real-time advisory service was very successful. The company has
wisely priced its services consistently -- and modestly -- at $10 per
month for Basic, Extra!; Murphy Market Message; and Real Time
charting.
If you'd like to see the pages from that era and some of Anderson's
own comments on the business (which match the "How Stuff Works"
letter), the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is an excellent tool.
It will have links to archived articles in some cases even when the
company's home page has taken them down:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Some other data which may be helpful:
* According to Stockcharts.com's Internet registration, the Redmond,
WA company registered its Internet site in January, 1999.
* The law firm which does the work for the company on intellectual
property issues is Bullivant, Houser, Bailey, of Seattle.
Google search strategy:
"StockMarkets.com" + Anderson
search for Stockmarkets.com in Seattle newspaper archives (there's
very little there); the New York Times; and Infotrac (a magazine and
journal search capability)
I also checked Puget Sound Business Journal, a Seattle-area business
weekly. It had very little on Stockcharts.com, not even listing them
in their 100 fastest-growing public companies in the 2003 or 2004
editions.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA |
Request for Answer Clarification by
admin1-ga
on
20 Apr 2004 16:11 PDT
Hello,
Thank you for the information provided. Although helpful, almost all
the contents are already available in StockCharts.Com website (e.g.
http://stockcharts.com/corp/milestones.html includes Andersons?
letter, Basic Subscription proposal, etc) and regarding Financial
Information, Startup Costs, Number of Employees, Assets, Growth,
Cashflow, etc no information is provided. I understand the information
may be hardly available, but the 'numbers' are what is needed in
addition to the company?s information. Please let me know if this can
be revised.
Looking forward to hear from you soon.
|
