RSSFierceMarkets is a Good Buy for Questex
I was very happy to get the announcement today that Questex Media has acquired FierceMarkets. I remember meeting Jeff Giesea in late 2006. He had a very interesting and aggressive business model that made sense to me:
- Hire super smart, young editors who are willing to learn anything
- Sick them on a major industry that is hungry for information
- Build an e-newsletter around the editor’s ability to quickly aggregate and analyze information
- And–perhaps most importantly–do not be afraid to pull the plug if it doesn’t gain traction
Obviously, there’s more to it. But to bigger, traditional publishers, FierceMarkets represented (represents) one of the most dangerous types of adversaries in the digital jungle: fast, nimble, powerful, ruthless.
I’m happy about this transaction because I remember when people who were looking at the landscape and looking at FierceMarkets as a potential add-on to their businesses, and they knocked where FierceMarkets was in its development cycle. It wasn’t a big enough business yet. It wan’t far enough along in generating revenues. Forget that it’s growth curve is more of a straight line pointing directly at Alpha Centauri than a curve. Forget that its president is extremely dedicated. Forget that the company had proven the model already in various industries. And forget that what you were going to get was, A) a business that was already profitable, and, B) the know-how and drive to get these small e-newsletters off the ground and attacking entrenched traditional competitors.
So, now that Questex has seen the value, I’m curious to see what Kerry Gumas and Co. are going to do with it. More on that and how FierceMarkets is a good fit for Questex in the 1/28 issue of min’s b2b.
More Fierce:
Building The FierceMarkets Empire, One E-Letter At A Time (Premium)
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