Beanstalk Challenge Nears Finale: Plenty of Websites, but Where Is the Traction?

MIAMI, FL – Rick Schwartz’s Beanstalk Challenge has succeeded at one thing beyond dispute: getting valuable domain names developed. In roughly six months, dozens of premium domains that previously sat largely undeveloped have been transformed into websites, marketplaces, applications and online business concepts. Many of them look good. Some are surprisingly sophisticated for projects only months old. The harder question is whether they are becoming actual businesses with customers, transactions, recurring users and revenue.

With the inaugural Beanstalk Challenge finale approaching in Miami, Strategic Revenue reviewed the project’s current LIVE BUILDS and DOMAINS IN-BUILD lists, reconstructed earlier public project rosters, checked the Day 201 clawback announcement, visited the domains themselves where accessible and reviewed publicly posted statements from Schwartz and participating builders.

The result is a considerably larger and more complicated picture than the current Beanstalk website alone reveals.

80 Startups, 67 Current Listings – and at Least 81 Domains in the Public Record

In his six-month update, Schwartz reported 80 startups, 60 builders and 41 LIVE projects, with more than $200 million in what he described as category-defining domain assets being mobilized.

Strategic Revenue’s reconstruction of the public roster finds slightly different numbers depending on where in Beanstalk’s rapidly changing history the snapshot is taken.

As of September 21, the official Beanstalk website displayed 30 LIVE builds and 37 DOMAINS IN-BUILD, or 67 current listings. A reconstruction of the Day 182 public roster produces 79 individually identifiable domains. At least two additional domains, UsedLamborghinis.com and Bluffing.com, appeared in earlier public Beanstalk updates but had disappeared before that later roster.

That means at least 81 distinct domain names have been publicly associated with Beanstalk at some point.

That does not necessarily conflict with Schwartz’s reference to 80 startups. A “startup” and a historical domain assignment do not have to be the same unit, and assignments have changed. Projects have been reassigned, removed, moved between LIVE and IN BUILD, and placed into clawback. But it does demonstrate why any accounting of Beanstalk needs a date attached to it.

Development Is Real. Traction Is Harder to Prove.

Schwartz has been clear about the objective. In describing the Beanstalk formula, he has said builders are expected to create a real functioning business demonstrating revenue, users, traffic or meaningful traction, rather than simply placing a landing page on a valuable domain. Beanstalk’s own Builder Framework lists business execution, growth, revenue potential, operational quality, user traction and long-term viability among the factors that may be considered.

On development alone, there is plenty to point to.

JobFind.ai, for example, presents a developed AI-assisted Swiss employment platform with free and paid plans, including automated job applications and career coaching. Associations.com has been developed into a substantial association industry portal containing directories, software comparisons, employment listings and paid vendor opportunities. TradeShows.com contains a large trade-show directory and a growing collection of exhibitor resources and tools.

Booty.com is another unusually revealing example. The fitness platform contains structured workout programs, account functionality, a three-day trial, a $19 monthly subscription and individual programs priced from $29 to $69. Yet the site also candidly states that it has no ratings or download counts because nobody has trained there yet. That single disclosure illustrates the challenge facing the entire experiment. Building the product and acquiring the customer are two different accomplishments.

Strategic Revenue found numerous examples of real functionality, pricing structures, subscription models, directories, lead-generation systems, marketplaces and other substantial development. What remains much more difficult to independently verify across most of the field is actual revenue, paying customers, completed transactions, recurring active users or significant organic market adoption. That does not mean those things do not exist. Builders may possess private Stripe data, analytics, customer records, contracts or revenue figures that have never been made public. It simply means the visible evidence currently proves development far more clearly than it proves traction.

The Clawbacks Have Begun

That distinction appears to matter to Schwartz as well. On September 21, the official Day 201 clawback list identified 27 domain assignments involving 10 builders. Schwartz said DNS was being updated and gave the affected builders one final seven-day opportunity to put a legitimate operating business online before a domain could be permanently reclaimed and offered to someone else. For that reason, Strategic Revenue is not describing these 27 projects as permanent failures. As of September 21, they are clawback projects with a final cure period still running.

The announcement also exposed how quickly Beanstalk’s public status information can become inconsistent. Banker.com, assigned to Angela Chance, remained labeled LIVE on the official Beanstalk site while simultaneously appearing on the Day 201 clawback list. Numerous other clawback names were still displayed under DOMAINS IN-BUILD.

Of the 27 clawback domains, 20 could still be found on the current official Beanstalk roster during Strategic Revenue’s September 21 review. Seven others – eGold.com, CourtOrder.com, SaveMe.com, Schmaltz.com, IncomeProperty.com, Weapons.com and Boardroom.com – were no longer displayed on the current project roster. This is important when interpreting the labels below. LIVE and IN BUILD are Beanstalk’s own current classifications. They should not be read as independent verification that a project has customers or revenue.

Team Hazen Is a Significant Part of the Beanstalk Story

One participant deserves particular attention simply because of the volume of domains involved. Team Hazen, identified publicly as father-and-son team Andrew and Oliver Hazen, currently appears on 11 projects on the official Beanstalk roster. Six are currently labeled LIVE: HelicopterCharter.com, TaxiDrivers.com, PoolRepair.com, ACrepair.com, BreakfastBars.com and BirthdayParty.com. Five more are listed IN BUILD: AiDesigns.com, eDivorce.com, Solicit.com, FaceFind.com and CarLocators.com. All five of those current IN BUILD Team Hazen projects also appear on the Day 201 clawback list. Weapons.com, previously assigned to Team Hazen but no longer displayed on the current roster, is also on the clawback list.

Earlier public Beanstalk updates additionally associated Team Hazen with UsedLamborghinis.com and Homemade.com, although Homemade.com is currently listed under Christopher John. Across the public history of the challenge, at least 14 distinct domains have therefore been associated with Team Hazen at one point or another.

Full Public Domain Accounting Through September 21, 2026

The following table consolidates the broadest public domain roster Strategic Revenue could reconstruct.

LIVE and IN BUILD are the statuses displayed on the current official Beanstalk website. CLAWBACK means the domain appears on the September 21 Day 201 clawback list and, as of that announcement, still has a seven-day final opportunity before permanent reclamation. HISTORICAL means the project appeared in the later Day 182 public roster but is no longer shown on the current official project page. EARLIER PUBLIC ASSIGNMENT identifies domains documented in earlier Beanstalk updates that had disappeared before the Day 182/current rosters.

These are program-status labels, not Strategic Revenue ratings of the businesses.

Total distinct domains identified in the public record reviewed by Strategic Revenue: at least 81.

What Does “Live” Actually Mean?

The table also demonstrates why raw project counts can be misleading. A domain can be technically LIVE while still being at the beginning of customer acquisition. A domain labeled IN BUILD can already contain substantial product functionality. Conversely, a polished website can contain pricing, checkout buttons and large quantities of content without providing any public evidence that a meaningful number of people are actually buying.

There are also unusual cases created by the rapidly changing roster. Dick.com, for example, currently resolves to a developed streaming platform with multiple paid plans even though the domain no longer appears on the current official Beanstalk project page. Boardroom.com, meanwhile, currently presents an early-access concept and is on the Day 201 clawback list. For that reason, Strategic Revenue did not classify domains as successful or failed merely because an automated site check succeeded or failed. Some sites could not be reliably accessed by our checking tools, and an inaccessible automated request is not proof that a domain is offline for ordinary visitors.

How Will the Winner Be Judged?

The current Beanstalk website identifies a five-member judging panel consisting of David Castello, Ron Jackson, Ammar Kubba, Morgan Linton and Andrew Rosener. The project’s Builder Framework and FAQ describe broad considerations including execution, business growth, revenue potential, branding, operational quality, user traction, innovation, long-term viability and strategic use of the domain.

What Strategic Revenue could not locate was a publicly released numerical scoring rubric assigning weights to those factors or a detailed public procedure explaining how revenue, customer, traffic or usage claims will ultimately be authenticated. That is an important limitation of any outside assessment. A project that appears to have little publicly visible traction could conceivably present the judges with private financial records, analytics, customer information, signed agreements or other evidence unavailable to the public.

The Real Test Comes in Miami

The inaugural Beanstalk finale is scheduled for November 11-12 at CloudFest Americas and NamesCon in Miami, with the Beanstalk Challenge Finale appearing on the November 12 program. That event may provide evidence that simply cannot be observed from the public web today. If finalists arrive with paying customer counts, actual revenue, completed transactions, significant traffic, partnerships or measurable recurring usage, the picture could look considerably different by November.

For now, Beanstalk deserves substantial credit for activation. Valuable domains that might otherwise have remained parked are being used. Builders have invested real time. Real applications have been developed. Several projects contain more functionality than many established commercial websites.

But the larger promise of Beanstalk was never merely to prove that a good developer armed with modern AI tools can quickly put an impressive website on a premium domain. The promise was to create businesses. Six months in, the public record provides abundant evidence of building. Meaningful commercial traction across most of the field remains considerably harder to see.

With 27 assignments now formally facing clawback and a seven-day deadline to demonstrate execution, Beanstalk itself appears to be entering the stage where the distinction between those two things matters most.

Editor’s Note: Strategic Revenue did not interview Rick Schwartz, Beanstalk Challenge organizers, judges or participating builders for this report. This accounting was assembled entirely from publicly available material, including the official Beanstalk Challenge website and governing materials, public updates from Schwartz and participating builders, published reporting, historical project announcements and direct reviews of domain websites conducted through September 21, 2026. Project assignments, websites and statuses are changing rapidly. A failed automated website check was not treated as proof that a project was offline, and the absence of publicly verifiable revenue, users, customers or transactions should not be interpreted as proof that none exist. It means such evidence could not be independently confirmed from the public record reviewed for this report.

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a how-to book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several online businesses.