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Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

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Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#71

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

delish wrote: post #27
hn9780470248775 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confusingly, my browser renders that symbol () as a... square.

Chrome, it's a 't' surrounded by italicized parentheses. Unsuccessfully searched for unicode lookup to find the text description of the character. Edit: at http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm?q=%E... I found: Not sure what to make of it. Apple decided to assign to a Unicode character their logo. Does anyone have context?

> Not sure what to make of it. Apple decided to assign to a Unicode character their logo. Does anyone have context?

Might be for compatibility with MacRoman, which also had such a character.

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#72

Post by jamiequint »

CyrusL wrote: post #17
mey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to go dig for the SEC filing, but transaction revenue is not something look at, as that is basically booking money they are moving on behalf of someone else. I would suggest looking at EBITA, fraud loss, avg transaction fee schedule and transaction number volume.

Square uses "Gross Payment Volume" to describe that, not revenue. GPV is ~$30 billion. You can search for GPV in the S-1 to see the specifics: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1512673/000119312515...

Braintree was doing $12B in GPV when they sold for $0.8B and are now doing ~$50B in GPV. Square is actually doing around $35-45B now (8.8B in most recently reported quarter). Growth is relatively slow though so will be interesting to see what happens in the IPO.

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#73

Post by chx »

heydenberk wrote: post #69

Is anyone willing to give a contrarian take? I'll give it a shot: Square is an ambitious company with some great engineers, stellar UX and a giant total addressable market. Their business loans are interesting and could grow into something important. Square readers are a fashion accessory for hip businesses. No sooner would a coffee shop be seen without a Square reader and an Edison bulb than its yuppie hipsters patr…

Erm, nope. So nope. I see how many transactions the lemonade stand on the beach right below my balcony does on Square -- it's an awful lot. Runners, bikers do not need to carry cash just a card. I went with a friend to Burnaby Mountain and between the two of us we would've had problems to buy ice cream from a truck showing up for the three of us for cash but he had Square. It's not "hipsters" it's another nail in the coffin of cash. I hate cash. (And no, I do not have a Macbook or an iPhone, I am a stout believer that Apple should be boycotted for being the leader on the "sanctioned apps only" road)

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#74

Post by pragone »

chx wrote: post #73
heydenberk wrote: post #69

Is anyone willing to give a contrarian take? I'll give it a shot: Square is an ambitious company with some great engineers, stellar UX and a giant total addressable market. Their business loans are interesting and could grow into something important. Square readers are a fashion accessory for hip businesses. No sooner would a coffee shop be seen without a Square reader and an Edison bulb than its yuppie hipsters patr…

Erm, nope. So nope. I see how many transactions the lemonade stand on the beach right below my balcony does on Square -- it's an awful lot. Runners, bikers do not need to carry cash just a card. I went with a friend to Burnaby Mountain and between the two of us we would've had problems to buy ice cream from a truck showing up for the three of us for cash but he had Square. It's not "hipsters" it's another nail in the…

Not sure where you're living, but I lived in Rochester, NY and just outside Pittsburgh, PA the last two years. The last time I saw a square reader was when I lived in Manhattan, 3 years ago. I'm not sure if I'm just not frequenting the types of places that would use square readers, or if where they're popular is isolated geographically.

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#75

Post by josephjrobison »

I've always wondered - why was it so easy to replicate Square's scanning device? Seems like about 6 months after they really started gaining traction, PayPal came out with their copycat triangle one, and then a cascade of copycats.

It went from not being a thing to there being tons of them overnight. I would imagine there would be somewhat of a barrier to entry, but it seems it's a fairly easy device to create?

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#76

Post by american158931 »

Can someone help me understand...

Let's say an employee was granted 10,000 stock options at $1/share. They're all vested.

Does this mean that each share will be worth $9? So if exercised and cashed out, the employee would essentially earn $80,000 (before taxes)?

Trying to understand how the economics of all of this works.

Also, does this mean there are 300,000,000 shares? (How many shares do start-ups usually start with before funding rounds and what not? Seems like Square must've started with 100,000,000 or something.)

So many questions.

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#77

Post by chasing »

josephjrobison wrote: post #75

I've always wondered - why was it so easy to replicate Square's scanning device? Seems like about 6 months after they really started gaining traction, PayPal came out with their copycat triangle one, and then a cascade of copycats. It went from not being a thing to there being tons of them overnight. I would imagine there would be somewhat of a barrier to entry, but it seems it's a fairly easy device to create?

There are magnetic stripe readers everywhere -- I can't imagine they're that hard or expensive to produce.

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#78

Post by [deleted] »

josephjrobison wrote: post #75

I've always wondered - why was it so easy to replicate Square's scanning device? Seems like about 6 months after they really started gaining traction, PayPal came out with their copycat triangle one, and then a cascade of copycats. It went from not being a thing to there being tons of them overnight. I would imagine there would be somewhat of a barrier to entry, but it seems it's a fairly easy device to create?

[deleted]

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#79

Post by calcsam »

josephjrobison wrote: post #75

I've always wondered - why was it so easy to replicate Square's scanning device? Seems like about 6 months after they really started gaining traction, PayPal came out with their copycat triangle one, and then a cascade of copycats. It went from not being a thing to there being tons of them overnight. I would imagine there would be somewhat of a barrier to entry, but it seems it's a fairly easy device to create?

"The Shakespearean model holds true today. Consider the Square card reader. Square was the first company to do mobile handset credit card processing right. It did the software piece and the hardware piece, and built a brand with the iconic white square device.

Then there was a proliferation of copycat readers. PayPal launched one. They shaped it like a triangle. They basically copied the idea of a simple geometric-shaped reader. But they tried to one-up Square; 3 sides, after all, was simpler than 4.

Before PayPal’s PR people could celebrate their victory, Intuit came out with a competing card reader. It was shaped like a cylinder. Then Kudos came out with its version, which it shaped like a semicircle. Maybe someone will release a trapezoid version soon. Maybe then they’ll run out of shapes.

How will this all end? Do you really want to get involved in making a new card reader at this point? One gets a distinct sense that the companies focused on copycat readers are in a great deal of trouble. Much better to be the original card reader and stay focused on original problems, or an original company in another space entirely." - Peter Thiel, http://blakemasters.com/post/23250566538/peter-thiels-cs183-...

Re: Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

#80

Post by ksherlock »

heydenberk wrote: post #69

Is anyone willing to give a contrarian take? I'll give it a shot: Square is an ambitious company with some great engineers, stellar UX and a giant total addressable market. Their business loans are interesting and could grow into something important. Square readers are a fashion accessory for hip businesses. No sooner would a coffee shop be seen without a Square reader and an Edison bulb than its yuppie hipsters patr…

That's a great example. For contra-contrarian reasons: If your coffee is less than $7.75 (debit card) or $4.00 (credit card), square loses money (cf Starbucks).
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