There were a few different take aways at LeadsCon for me this year. Of course the networking and new business relationships are the easy take aways to note, but let me take a moment to shed a little light on what else I learned.

The old Field of Dreams quote, “If you build it, they will come” was affirmed by the creation of BillShrink and the ensuing T-Mobile relationship. If it only it was that easy! Lets be honest for a moment, though. You simply cannot step up to bat, face a 90 mile an hour fast ball and hit it out the park with ease. It take a lot of practice and determination. Through that hard work, persistence and striving for perfection the best baseball players in the world put themselves in a position to hit one out of the park when the right pitch comes along. BillShrink put the time in, made a great product and put themselves in a position so that when an opportunity came along they would be able to seize it. The T-Mobile VP of Marketing – his name slips my mind now – even mentioned that he found another site first and didn’t like it and continued his search until he came across BillShrink. I think this should serve as motivation. Motivation to build great products that actually help people, that actually serve a purpose and that actually innovate. If that is done, then opportunities similar to this will come.

I did not participate in one conversation about the BankRates buy out offer or the acquisition of Internet.com by QuinStreet at LeadsCon. I think, frankly, that the two moves are fairly insignificant to many who are focused on their own business, however there may be a few lessons to learn. First, QuinStreet, a fairly low profile, but very large organization in the Lead Generation space seems to making some very calculated moves over the past year or so, starting with their acquisition of SureHits and a number of smaller domains and web properties and then moving on to the recent $18m acquisition of the Internet.com division. Coupling all these different moves with the more recent public announcements of their revenue numbers and that fact they are usually very private about this type of information, I would have to guess they are positioning themselves for something. In one article, which I cannot find now, they even made a point of saying, “We are not looking to make an IPO in the near future, but have not ruled it out”. Which leads me to believe and speculate that they are positioning themselves for a future IPO.

While QuinStreet has positioned itself very well in a number of different verticals including Debt, EDU, Mortgage, BtoB and has coupled that with a number of different value adds  to their company, like SureHits and high traffic domains, BankRate struggles to make a profit. The recent discussion and news about the buyout of BankRate and its perceived under evaluation by some show a stark opposite of what QuinStreet may be experiancing. Why? For one, BankRate is projected to lose money for the next few quarters due to declining ad revenue, but I think more importantly its a business model issue. Yes, BankRate is very valuable, in fact to the tune of $575m, but their site is very cyclical and relys heavily on the mortgage market. For the short term this is bad, just like selling a house in my neighborhood is bad, values are low due to foreclosures and from people being forced to sell.

BankRate is selling in a bad time, but are going to be forced to take what they can get or look like Yahoo after declining the Microsoft offer. Yahoo’s stock plumitted shortly after declining the premium offer from Microsoft. This could easily happne to BankRate if they do not take the marginal offer being presented to them now. Back to my point though. QuinStreet has mastered diversification and are reaping the benefits of profitability in certain down markets. While most companies are struggling to get what they can, QuinStreet is litterally rubbing it in our face that they are growing and making money at the same time. In fact, in one article they say, “we don’t need to go public for cash”. Ha!

Here the point that we already know, but very few apply it and live by it. Build something great. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Pace yourself and stay focused on your business goals. Hope that you have good goals. Do this and you will be putting yourself in position for success.

Lets see…now how can I apply this to my own life.

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