COURTLAND BROOKS - Nov 25 - I talked with the Chairman of Manhunt to find out more about Manhunt's acquisition of Jack'd, announced last week. Here's the summary of insights Jonathan Crutchley was kind enough to share.
Jack'd was started in early 2010 by Yosuke Matsuda, a young Japanese engineering student who was working on his master's degree at Cornell University. Yosuke programmed Jack'd from his dorm room while at school and launched it with the Apple and Google stores as a hobby. Yosuke now works for a company in Seattle, Washington. He decided to sell Jack'd to Online Buddies, Inc. when his hobby (Jack'd) made overwhelming demands on his time. He was the sole employee of Jack'd, and he just didn't have time to run the app as well as keep up with the demands of his daytime job.
- As far as financials and numbers go, Jack'd is a very new product. Its best days are ahead.
- Manhunt signed the acquisition deal about 6 months ago, when Jack'd had over 2 million active accounts and about 1 million daily unique users.
- ~Half of Jack'd daily users are in Mainland China, and those numbers are growing fast.
- Jack'd was bought for its traffic rather than its revenue.
Jack'd premium costs $1.99 per month or $10 per year. While Grindr and Scruff charge $12-$15 per month. Jack'd is extraordinarily popular in Japan, Korea, China, and India.
- Manhunt plans to keep Jack'd and Manhunt.net as separate products
- Manhunt.net is popular in the U. S. and English speaking countries as well as being #1 in Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese
- Last year (2012) was a record year for Manhunt.net revenue
- 2013 will probably be short of last year's record, but very respectable
Manhunt pegged the price at 5x net earnings, which was not easy, considering that Jack'd is growing at more than 100% a year. This is offset by the risk inherent in the gay market; namely, that today's popular product becomes yesterday's news very quickly.
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