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Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

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Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#321

Post by aninhumer »

dublinben wrote: post #262
henshao wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing is that it's what facebook SHOULD be - a window into the lives of my friends and the people I care about. Facebook now just shows me constant shares of auto-playing videos from various click-bait and viral sites. Every single one of these videos flow up to the top of my newsfeed, but NONE of the people sharing them I would consider a "close friends" or anything like that - their newsfeed algorithm has…

I recommend unfollowing (or even unfriending) those people. You will no longer see their drivel in your newsfeed.

Unfollowing the sources of drivel can also be somewhat effective.

(I was pretty stoked when I saw the "Hide all from Buzzfeed" option on Facebook.)

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#323

Post by adotjdotr »

vonklaus wrote: post #276
adotjdotr wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Snapchat does not have a clear monetization strategy and the content they have is ephemeral. If a snapchat clone came out tomorrow, snapchat wouldn't be as sticky. Snapchat looks like twitter, the poster child for massive high engagement with disposable content and horrible biz fundamentals. In fact, twitter or facebook could clone snapchat probably super easy and enjoy crazy leverage and synergy. The only reason a…

i agree, you make some compelling points. i would be interested to know more about how big a market the adv/data piece is and how yoh use it. i was wrong when i said they don't have a clear moneyization strategy. I should restate what i think now: it is still not clear to me what strategy would support the growth required from an investment of this magnitude demands however, like pg said about whatsapp acq, it was li…

I believe Snapchat will not grow in three years to be a one billion user company (I'm happy to be proven wrong here though). I do believe that once the ad product matures in terms of ad formats, measurement, ROI across both brand and DR metrics there will be some strong revenue figures all at the typical 70-80% gross margin you would expect from a software business. So from a revenue POV I expect it to ramp significantly and faster than we would expect. They have raised enough money to build or buy the tech needed for a biddable solution, measurement capabilities and a platform of true scale. I would not surprised if they add a third party solution a la Video on Demand for Snapchat ads to be served onto to increase scale of the platform off the core Snapchat platform to drive more revenue via advertising. Lets also not discount things like stickers etc which have been extremely profitable for companies in the Far East like WeChat.

I do expect the revenue to ramp significantly for FB, TWTR, IG, Snapchat etc over the next 3-5 years based on client demand. In five years time, all the strongest aspects and best practices will really be established by brands and agencies and the ad dollars will subsequently follow. Much of the overall digital budget is moving quickly downstream to social platforms. This pace will quicken over time as all brands will need to spend on these platforms to fulfill reach capabilities. All big brands need to be able to reach millions of users at scale which comes with significant media investment or revenue for these social platforms. We're only four years in and it will be an area I am betting the next 5-7 years of my career on.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#324

Post by jamiequint »

joslin01 wrote: post #313
jamiequint wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certain that if I knew someone who needed a liver transplant that I would then personally value liver transplant tech over social media, that's completely beside the point though. My feelings in a given scenario don't make work on liver transplants more important than work on social media. What matters is net impact.

Jumping in late, but no. High quality problems solved make a stable future where things like like transplants are just "solved." You cannot say the same for social networks, which are actually much more reflective of the current culture. We will not look back 50 years from now and say "oh man, thank god Snapchat came along" the way we'll be saying "thank god we pioneered that medical tech which continues to save live…

There are compounding effects with economic progress as well that are effectively immeasurable due to complexity. The availability heuristic biases people to think that obviously identifiable benefits are more important than pursuits with less identifiable benefits.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#325

Post by andrepd »

stvswn wrote: post #257
andrepd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a symptom of capitalism. When your sole objective is maximizing profit, all else be damned, there is no such thing as working for the greater good or solving any of the critical problems we need to solve to keep our species moving forward. You get photo-sharing apps.

Yes, this! Too many entrepreneurs are building things people like to use, instead of things people need . What if there was a committee of experts -- leaders in the field -- who decided what startups got investment? They could truly weigh the cost-benefit analysis. Of course, it would only work if there were some enforcement mechanism. So unauthorized coding would need to be outlawed. At least you couldn't spend any…

I'd say that's a tad overreactionary, but whatever strawman you feel like knocking down, man. I guess actually refuting my point would be too great a strain on you.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#326

Post by nicd »

gjolund wrote: post #232
shostack wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monetization piece is interesting, because unlike FB, Snapchat has been all about privacy and anonymity from day one. Their recent ToS change makes it clear that this might not always be the case, and I'm really curious to see how their users react as they get more and more aggressive on monetization. The core functionality doesn't necessarily require the network effect to be useful, unlike Facebook, so there is…

They store all the photos internally. This was confirmed to me by several snapchat employees while interviewing.

I think you either misinterpreted the employees's comments, or they were mistaken. Our deletion policies are clearly outlined in our privacy policy (Snapchat.com/privacy).

"...we automatically delete the content of your Snaps (the photo and video messages that you send your friends) from our servers after we detect that a Snap has been opened or has expired."

Note that the deletion model is different for non-Snap media:

"Outside of Snaps, the rest of our services may use content for longer periods of time, which means those services may follow different deletion protocols. So, for example, we retain your Story content a bit longer than Snaps so that your friends have more time to view your Story."

Disclaimer: I'm an employee of Snapchat.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#327

Post by the_watcher »

argonaut wrote: post #274
the_watcher wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common misconception: Twitter has actually pretty steadily increased its revenue per user. Their issue is that their user growth has basically plateaued far short of the ubiquitous level they need.

I am aware of that difference. As a company Twitter is not a cash cow.

Sure, but the statement that they were unable to monetize the product is incorrect. They have successfully monetized the product. They (so far) have been unable to keep the user base growing at a rate that a public company generally requires.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#328

Post by the_watcher »

malchow wrote: post #317
argonaut wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware of that difference. As a company Twitter is not a cash cow.

As a few dozen people managing a webapp on AWS from home while eating udon noodles, it'd be a cash cow.

Exactly. Twitter earned nearly $600M last quarter. Claiming that it has not successfully monetized is simply false.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#329

Post by dave2000 »

askldfhjkasfhd wrote: post #122
vonklaus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

look i have crazy theories which I think are sane and correct(they are) so I am willing to give this a shot. Can you please walk me through the next 5 years of how you see this progressing. As I said a lot, I am not a user but I don't find it compelling personally but i honestly would love to be proved wrong. If you could even do it high level, I would be really interested in core growth and monetization strategies.…

Not parent, but here's how I learned to understand snapchat. Think like a younger Millennial (18-25 right now). Their whole social lives have been in public on FB/etc. They're going through a horribly awkward time in their lives, but it's all public. When they act like an immature kid, or aren't sexy, or whatever, that is recorded for all time . So they feel incredible pressure to be sexy/fit/cool/smart/doing interes…

"The pressure to be cool and attractive is intense. With FB, there is no escape."

Can't they just change how the stuff they posted on FB is shared?

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#330

Post by S4M »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #292
nostrademons wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a misunderstanding of where shareholder value comes from. The valuation (market cap) of a company is a reflection of the value of the assets that the company owns . That includes IP, trademarks, brand assets (somewhat perversely, this also includes user habits), business relationships & contracts, any resellable physical goods or cash that the company owns, and all future cash flows that will accrue to the co…

don't you as a shareholder get much more volatility with 'hot shot' companies that can explode on a whim and are easily replaced by a competitive product due to a very low barrier to entry? I'm actually surprised the inctomis and lycos' of the dot com bubble aren't weighing in heavier on the investor decisions these days.

I don't know what was inctomis, but in the case of lycos it was very easy to switch of search engine, while someone who wants to compete with SnapChat will be facing a chicken and egg problem (nobody will want to join SnapChat because nobody will be there at first), so en barrier to compete to SnapChat is not that low, even if the product isn't technically hard to replicate.
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