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February 15, 2006

Update

The Hottest New Thing for Sale: Daily Candy

Posted by Bobbie Gossage at 4:28 PM

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Bob Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, has decided to put Daily Candy—an Internet business devoted to trendy fashions, restaurants, and shopping—up for sale. I interviewed Daily Candy founder Dany Levy for an article in Inc.'s February 2004 issue, not long after Pittman had invested in her company. The Wall Street Journal says, at the time, he paid about $3.5 million for a controlling interest. Now, the sale of the company could fetch more than $100 million. In Inc.'s story, Levy told how she had built Daily Candy by bootstrapping when many other dotcoms had high burn rates. She kept production costs low while she built the subscriber base for her newsletter and created a clever—and lucrative—twist on the typical ad-based revenue model. Because of this, insiders reportedly tell the Journal, Daily Candy's margins are estimated to be about 60%. And with more ad dollars moving to the Internet, Daily Candy is expected to fetch top dollar.