

From $30.00 to $90 million: RetailMeNot - bootload
http://www.zdnet.com.au/from-30-00-to-90-million-retailmenot-339307735.htm

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zach
A classic pivot. They used BugMeNot's audience and reach to slingshot
RetailMeNot into a huge site.

You would be forgiven for having written them off from where they started with
BugMeNot. You look at that site and say, "How in the world can you monetize
that traffic?!" I mean, Reddit users may be a tough audience, but at least
most of them _registered!_

But they had good resources and obviously had the resourcefulness.
Resourcefulness and resources. What else could you need?

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bennyk
It seems like these two really earned what they got. They got ahead of a trend
and developed a useful and popular real product.And that they know that their
developers are responsible for the success of the site speak highly of them as
quality entrepreneur in the best sense

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makmanalp
Retailmenot is the best. They even have a time based graph of whether the
coupons worked or not, so you can tell if a coupon has genuinely expired by
looking at the graph.

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percept
"helping start the coupon movement over half a decade ago"

Whoa, that's incorrect.

Coupon sites aren't a new development and go back to at least the late 90s.
One example is FlamingoWorld, started in 1998 and by 2001 was reportedly
earning its owner over a million dollars annually. And it was hardly the first
such site.

Edit: I should add that RMN was innovative in its design--it was like "Coupons
2.0" and I'm sure this helped a lot in growing its user base.

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mikeknoop
RetailMeNot was not their first attempt. RetailMeNot was based on BugMeNot if
i recall correctly (for bypassing mandatory login systems).

Out of curiosity, anyone know their revenue model for bringing in $30 Million
a year?

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sounddust
Linking the coupon codes to affiliate links via onClick so that you're forced
to click on them in order to copy/paste the code.

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mikeknoop
That's pretty ingenious. Though if I were a company offering affiliate links I
am not sure I would put up with this process. I imagine the majority of
customers are already committed to buying from a specific company and just
want to check if any coupons exist.

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jakewalker
There are many many times that I choose not to buy something from a new vendor
after going to retailmenot.com and finding no relevant coupons available.
There is definitely a value-add there.

~~~
mikeknoop
I agree, definitely customers who do that, but it is a numbers game. Is enough
"new" traffic generated from RetailMeNot to sustain the affiliate links? I am
not sure there is any way to know for sure at the scale affiliate programs are
typically used.

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SeanDav
"King and Clark can lay a fair claim to helping start the coupon movement over
half a decade ago."

This is the money quote for me. It just shows the sheer speed at which the
internet works, or maybe it is just me getting old...

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juddlyon
Here's a link to WhaleShark Media, the Austin, TX company that purchased
RetailMeNot: <http://www.whalesharkmedia.com/>

