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SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

factmag.com

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Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#51

Post by nbzklr »

strgrd wrote: post #14

I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x.

It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks.

Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay!

Please give us an option to hide them...

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#52

Post by dragonwriter »

camillomiller wrote: post #50
anotheryou wrote: post #29

What do 200 people do in such a company? (serious question, I just wonder how the workforce is usually distributed for a single online product of that size)

The way a startup can become a bloated corporation-like structure here in Europe is a surprisingly fast process.

Aren't startups usually corporations ab initio?

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#53

Post by rgbrenner »

npalli wrote: post #38
rgbrenner wrote: post #10

Article is bs. they lost 44m in _2014_. Raised 77m last year. They may need to raise more in 2016. Nothing else. No other facts. No info on their balance sheet, etc. Doesn't even know if they're growing, what their revenue or losses for 2015 were. And based on that, Fact thinks that's enough to say they "may be forced to close".

The auditor has clearly stated that it has doubts about the company as a 'going concern'. This is a technical term in auditing that implies the auditor has doubts that the company will survive (i.e, will have to liquidate) another twelve months. It's not a willy nilly "growing company is losing money" type statement, it means there is a fundamental problem in how the company is financed and operated. https://en.wikip…

By reducing the statement to that, you're overstating what the auditor actually said:

KPMG said in the report that the need for more investment represented “a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

And again, this was in their 2014 report. So clearly they've last more than a year at this point.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#54

Post by camillomiller »

rgbrenner wrote: post #46
camillomiller wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that now investors are asking themselves more frequently, after a few years of sight-unseen venture investing, if it really makes sense for them to keep funneling money into companies that might never turn a profit, let alone have a profitable exit at the horizon. The talk around here (let me say that again: "the talk") is that investors are getting tighter and tighter and money is not so easy to get a…

Where is the evidence that Soundcloud is or will have trouble raising money? Pandora just raised $300m in December. Deezer (france) raised €100m less than 2 weeks ago. And Spotify is looking for $500m (just 8 months after raising ~$500m) right now.

No evidence yet. I stated pretty clearly that it's "talk" I was writing about, and it was centered around the Berlin scene. Which is global, of course, but has its own peculiarities.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#55

Post by camillomiller »

dragonwriter wrote: post #52
camillomiller wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way a startup can become a bloated corporation-like structure here in Europe is a surprisingly fast process.

Aren't startups usually corporations ab initio ?

Well, they shouldn't gain the bloated-ness of a 40yo bureaucratic corporation that fast, though? At least, that's what all the theories about the way startups should operate are about...

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#56

Post by detaro »

Touche wrote: post #23
strgrd wrote: post #14

I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…

> I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Yeah, probably at the point when they started hemorrhaging money. Why do people expect a company that is dying to focus on UI improvements? Like any other business in the world, their focus is on staying alive.

How do developers focus on "staying alive" if not by making the product better (or leaving)? I'd expect that the architecture issues of growing larger have mostly been solved by now.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#57

Post by rileymat2 »

kidsil wrote: post #15

Youtube is not making any profit either, I suppose streaming based websites are very difficult to make profitable. Must be the constant growing expenses for servers.

I am not sure of the exact details, but "free" video always had a long way to go. I remember one of my favorite sites pre-2000 was adcritic.com, they were essentially only showing ads, and failed.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#60

Post by delgaudm »

hathym wrote: post #3
petercooper wrote: post #2

I hope this is just an alarmist headline. SoundCloud is pretty essential in its space, it's one of the few services that lets you natively get audio on to Twitter, the main place musicians share snapshots of their work and remixes, and a key part of numerous podcasts and ways to embed easily shared audio on the Web. This is one startup I absolutely don't want to see go down the pan.

have you ever paid a cent to soundcloud?

I'm a voice actor, and soundcloud has been vital to me. I've been a paying customer for years.
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