25 Comments
 

I'm curious about what is costs to maintain this site. I'm talking strictly the site hosting, not the courses and other career resources. Anyone have an estimate?

 
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You sure you work in finance bud? Is this your first time on the site? WSO has four pretty clear revenue streams: 

1. Ad revenue. Assuming you dont live under a rock and arent blind, surely you see the ads on the site. Do you think WSO puts them there out of brand loyalty, or because the companies pay a fee?

2. WSO Training Courses. When you enter the home page you see, at the very top of your page, the following quote, "Join 929,713+ students for the most modeling tests, the most cases and the best instructors from elite firms". So firms and individuals are paying for these services, seems like another fairly sizeable revenue stream, no?

3. Mentorship program. While the fees are generally low here, this is another service whereby WSO acts as the middleman for, generating revenue yet again. 

4. WSO Premium. Premium is yet another source of revenue whereby users pay for interview guides and specific firm data. 

So hopefully by now you can acknowledge that WSO can at least generate revenue. How much? Hard to say, but I bet it its more than you think given the # of site users and prospects trying to break into finance. 

Next, we have costs, which are likely very low. COGS for most of these services is 0 - 10%, so they have a gross margin far above 99% of companies. Next, we have opex, which is also going to be very low as SG&A and R&D are next to nothing. Lean # of FT employees and little to no R&D means fat operating income. 

So you have a company that has likely demonstrated exponential growth, is the sole player in a unique but growing market, and has a strong margin profile. 

But no, for sure you could buy it man. Looking forward to you submitting your IOI and revamping the site first year Analyst in S&T. 

 

Pretty detailed response thanks.

I love the passive aggressive insults as well. Actually been looking to lateral into corp dev any tips, should I blow $150k on my mba now or later?

 

Nice job refuting any of the points I made, I can tell your response mirrored your OP in terms of thoughtfullness. 

Like S&T, most roles in Corp Dev dont require an MBA, its a pretty common exit op from IB / Consulting. I wouldn't expect you to know that given you thought a website (which does operate as a business and doesnt survive through subsidization) didnt generate revenue. 

I take it you're on the sales side of S&T, not a whole lot of critical thinking required. 

 

fwded to our mobile dev about the iPad app...it's a tiny fraction of our traffic and we have limited budget but we'll try to get a workable landscape mode.

As far as search, can you tell me a specific search you tried where you couldn't find something?  there were indexing issues several months ago that were fixed and I think the results are much better now than historically.  thoughts?

 

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