SYDNEY, Australia -- Malcolm Day, a former Australian civil engineer, is pursuing a business strategy so simple it's amazing someone hasn't done it already.
Day is harnessing the stock market's current obsession -- e-commerce companies -- to the world's most powerful urge: sex.
His recently unveiled, Australia-based company, AdultShop, sells sex toys online, and the business has caught the attention of Aussie investors. Since 28 June when it listed on the Australian stock market, AdultShop's stock has jumped almost seven-fold.
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Day's strategy is simple: target a huge but highly fragmented global market; establish a global brand through the Internet; and sit back while the money pours in.
"Everyone knows sex sells, and everyone is anticipating huge increases in e-commerce," Day said. "Combining the two in a public listing should be pretty successful."
Much more so than managing building projects in Perth, Australia, which he did for several years.
"Mom was proud to tell her friends I was a civil engineer -- she's unsure what to tell them now," says the 34-year-old Day. "But she understands better now watching the money coming in."
Day's one-sixth share of AdultShop is now worth about US$10 million.
After getting a college degree in 1985, Day worked on building sites in and around Perth, eventually moving up from surveyor to project manager. On a three-month hiatus between construction jobs in 1994, he visited the United States, stopping in Miami where, he says, he had a tryst with an alluring Cuban.
It was a decisive moment. In a noncarnal moment, he came across a Miami weekly newspaper with pages and pages of advertisements for phone sex and dating services, which at the time didn't really exist in Australia. Similar advertisements were all over late-night Miami television, in magazines, and in telephone booths.
