Live data from Hacker News

Snap Inc. S-1

sec.gov

181–190 of 337 posts

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#181

Is anyone else seeing these numbers? How are they pushing for such a high valuation with those kind of losses? I suspect that Snap is merely capitalizing on traditional advertising metrics (engagement, CTR) which don't translate over on their app, and the advertisers just haven't caught on yet. People play with filters because they're funny/amusing, but those impressions don't convert into purchases in the same way o…

> To generate excitement for X-Men: Apocalypse, 20th Century Fox ran a Sponsored Lens campaign that let users turn themselves into the iconic characters in the upcoming movie. In one day, people spent a collective 56 years playing with the Sponsored Lenses, which also featured the mutants’ powers. They also incorporated the Sponsored Lens into Snaps they shared with their friends, which yielded over 298 million views for the campaign and greatly amplified awareness and anticipation for the movie. The campaign resulted in a 13 percentage point increase in brand awareness, 7x the mobile norm, as measured by Millward Brown. More importantly, the Sponsored Lens also drove a 25% lift in theater-watch intent, over 3x the mobile norm.

Maybe the X-Men filters didn't get you to watch the film, but it certainly worked on others.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#182
post #16

> Snap Inc. is a camera company interesting statement from a company that just released their first camera (Spectacles) few months ago. i'm not sure if their users see them as a camera company.

Why can't a camera be software? Top 5 cameras on Flickr are iPhones. Software is eating the world, including photography.

The iPhone is not software.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#183
Net loss about 500 million at the end of 2016 which is about 100 million more than the year prior. Yikes. Still they'll likely make the case that they can turn a profit in the not-to-distant future.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#184
post #55

Much greater losses than Twitter's S1. Snap's revenue is 27% higher but 548% greater net losses. Twitter s1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513...

I think their losses can be at least partly explained by their somewhat inexplicable number of employees, which happen to number 1859 at the end of 2016.

Don't understand why a company with a mobile app as their sole product need that many employees. I was expecting that number to be more like 100.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#185

My takeaway was that Snap has 1,859 employees... huh? Why does a company with a single product, which is a mobile app (so what is that these days, three platforms?) need almost two thousand employees - am I missing something? No wonder they lost $514mil in 2016, that's an absurd amount of overhead for a company with a single, not very cumbersome product.

What I'd like to see - is the employee breakdown.

How many are working on the acutal product/engineering?

I work for a startup (that was bootstrapped I believe) and our sales team is almost half the company (we are just under 100 people right now).

Point being, at Snap's scale - I have a feeling they'll have a lot of Business Development Reps trying to bring in contracts for adverts.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Snap Inc. IPOs at their expected 25B value, Spiegel will be valued at nearly 5 billion (21% ownership), so ~1 million in security per year is not too far-fetched.

Why not just kidnapping insurance?

Why not both?

Imagine the insurance premiums on that much wealth, without any security.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#187
If I am the May 2016 investor, I'm thrilled that I got to see how the company grew for a year and a half, while still paying the same price as the Feb 2015 investor. Snap might have provided other incentives to investors early in the Series F round, or they were just happy to get invited to the party.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#188
post #55

Much greater losses than Twitter's S1. Snap's revenue is 27% higher but 548% greater net losses. Twitter s1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513...

I'm wondering where the loss is coming from. I'm skeptical that it's all coming out of the cost of infrastructure and workforce. I know they've had some company acquisitions in the past, so I wonder how that is coming into play.

Well, they do have 1859 employees. If you say on average they're paid $50k each (totally made up estimate, would love for someone to give me a better one), that would be almost $100mil a year in base salary alone.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#189

My takeaway was that Snap has 1,859 employees... huh? Why does a company with a single product, which is a mobile app (so what is that these days, three platforms?) need almost two thousand employees - am I missing something? No wonder they lost $514mil in 2016, that's an absurd amount of overhead for a company with a single, not very cumbersome product.

They just built a hardware product.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#190
> For the year ended December 31, 2016, we incurred a net loss of $514.6 million, as compared to a net loss of $372.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. Some serious progress there. Great. Let's IPO O_o
Post reply on HN