Algebra.Com

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I registered algebra.com in 1995 for completely random reasons, without even thinking about its economic potential. After a few years I realized that I had a lot of visitors who were children looking for algebra help, and started working on the website.

At first, it was a number of nice calculators and solvers, and lessons written by me. Also a few dozen interactive word problems.

In 2004, I developed a lot of perl based software and almost all content is now in a MySQL database. People can register on algebra.com, ask math questions, answer questions (all answers are public to avoid pedophiles and preserve contributions), write lessons and even create solvers.

The entire site works using Apache, mod_perl and MySQL. It works under Linux. It also has a little wiki.

I envision two possible kinds of buyers. The strategic domain buyer who wants the domain for his or her existing business, or a proprietor buyer who wants to own a cash cow domain and continue useful work to help children with math. Here are requirements for the second kind of buyer:

Stats

About 32,000 pageviews per day, 3% click through rate, about 150 problems solved per day by free tutors, out of about 190 per day asked (some questions are nonsensical), about 200 GB of traffic per month, 14 requests per second during peak hours, 615 tutors, 16483 registered users.

Financials

The site makes revenues from direct advertising (links), Adsense, and donations (typically several $5 donations per month). The starting price I am asking is less than 20 times projected 2007 Adsense revenue. (with 8 months passed I have a good idea).

I own this domain privately since 1995 and have a clear title to it.

Some future money making opportunities include adding more content to the site, seeking affiliate relationships with education service providers, or pursuing development of a marketplace for academic services. (be careful here, as unsavory people will come out of the woodwork once money gets into play).

Transfer and intellectual property

Transfer is to be done through escrow.com only, with all escrow.com fees paid by the buyer. Buyer is do perform necessary due diligence and legal research and the buyer should develop their own projections and to not rely on the seller.

I will give the buyer the complete database of users, problems, lessons, solvers, etc. I will also give the buyer the entire source code, non-obfuscated, needed to run the site. The buyer is to provide a separate colocated Linux server with adequate capacity (4 GB of RAM, dual or quad core CPU, enough disk space) with Fedora 7 and I will install all required software to give the buyer a fully running website. Note that the actual server requirements are quite a bit lower, but this IS a busy website sometimes handling over a dozen complex queries per second (including image rendering, etc).

I will provide reasonable initial help with questions and future assistance on consulting basis.

The buyer receives the non-exclusive right to all source code, including the right to use, publish, share, sell, rent, and derive all benefits from this code. Since I use some of this code on other websites (such as chudov.com), I retain the right to use it also. I can sign a reasonable non-compete agreement limiting my right to open an algebra website within, say, a year. I am not looking to screw you here, but I cannot be expected to just delete code that I spent years to write.

The buyer agrees to set up mail forwarding for several personal algebra.com email addresses and retain indefinitely the personal Igor Chudov's page.


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