"Entrepreneurship is about living a few years of your life like most won’t, so that you can live the rest of your life like most can’t!"
#1 Ugo.com – Sold For: $100 million
Founded: 1997
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $27,397
The website Ugo was founded in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online(UGO) by Chris Sherman.Action World Inc. bought them very early on and decided to rename the business. They changed the name toUGO Networks, however the name didn’t stick for long as it was once again changed to Online Underground. Eventually it was sold on to the Hearst Corporation approximately $100 million.
#2 Fotolog – Sold For: $90 million
Founded: 2002
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $49,315
Fotolog was founded by Scott Heiferman, in 2002, and unfortunately the site began to have problems just 3yrs later in 2005 when the amount of visitors and members started to become too much for the websites servers. The website itself currently receives over 20 million unique visitors each month and was sold to Hi-Media Group for the tidy sum of $90 Million.
#3 Consumer search – Sold for: $33 million
Founded: 1999
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $11,301
Consumersearch was founded by co-founders Derek grew and Carl Harmaan in 1999, the pair also owned a privately held corporation at the time. The website sold for a huge $33 million and the news was first released by the New York Times Co. The buyers, About.com are also owned by the New York Times Co. In 2009 the website was honored in the 13th annual Webby awards competition.
#4 TechCrunch – Sold for: $30 million
Founded: 2005
Year of Sale: 2010
Daily Worth: $16,438
TechCrunch is a very well-known website publication, which is well grounded within the technology and gadget niche’s. The blog was first founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington, and the first time it was published live online was on June 11, 2005. It’s astonishing that in just five years Michael had created such a unique website which was full of valuable content and managed to sell the website for a total of $30 million to AOL.
#5 PaidContent – Sold for: $30 million
Founded: 2002
Year of Sale: 2008
Daily Worth: $13698
Paid content was founded by Rafat Ali, in 2002, and was basically an online resource for; information, analysis and news. Rafat Ali the founder of the website, was a journalist and so the website itself was a natural progression for him. In the end the website was eventually brought out by Guardian Media Group $30 Million (2008) Ali Rafat however is still part of the website, and is currently working for the company as an editor.
#6 Tatter and Company – Sold for: $30 million
Founded: 2002
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $13698
Tatter and Company or TNC as it is also known, was founded by Chang-Won Kim and Chester Roh, they formed the company in 2002. Tatter and Company itself was and still is a blogging platform for the Korean nation. I’m sure it is not a major surprise that the company was purchased byGoogle for the sum of $30 Million, in 2008.
#7 Ars Technica – Sold for: $25 million
Founded: 1998
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $6849
Ars Technica was founded by Ken Fisher, in 1998 and quickly became one of the top and most authoritative blogs with the technology industry. The site provided a great amount of news and sometimes reviews on their chosen niche. The website was purchased by Conde Nast Publications for $25 Million in 2008, a decade since the year it was founded.
#8 Weblogs.com – Sold for: $25 million
Founded: 2003
Year of Sale: 2005
Approximate Daily Worth: $34,722
Weblogs Inc was created by Brian Alvey and Jason Calcanis in 2003, with the help of an investment from Mark Cuban. In the early days the business was initially set up for professional readership, they also had a number of other websites running alongside Weblogs, in fact there were approximately a dozen websites in total. Weblogs was purchased in 2005 by AOL to the tidy sum of $25 Million.
#9 Livejournal.com – Sold for: $25 million
Founded: 1999
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $8561
LiveJournal just as the name suggests was a virtual community where users could keep a blog or an online digital diary, through their free open source server technology. They didn’t stop there though, they had the software allowing users to easily create blogs and diaries online they even allowed for calendars, polls, and even have guest writers. The website sold for approximately $ 25 million to Six Apartin 2007.
#10 Bankaholic.com – Sold for: $15 million
Founded: 2006
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $20547
Bankaholic is the creation of founder John Wu who also created CB Land Investments. The website itself was an online banking marketplace which basically provided its customers with credit card offers as well as interest rates and personal financial advice. The website eventually sold for $15 Million to BankRate and now has a hefty team of banking and financial professionals behind it so who knows where it could go? maybe it will be worth double the amount in a year or so.
#11 Deadline Hollywood – Sold for: $14 million
Founded: 2006
Year of Sale: 2009
Approximate Daily Worth: $5479
Deadline Hollywood started offas a column in the LA weekly, in 2002 by Nikki Finke. The column itself was basically an informative entertainment column based around the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Nikki decided to take her now well-known columnto the online world, and the site first went live in 2006 as a blog. She decided upon calling it the ‘Deadline Hollywood Daily’. It was so popular that in 2009 the Mail Media Corporation bought it from her in a lucrative deal with $14 million. The website has since been changed to deadline.com.