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Snap Inc. S-1

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Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#321

Post by blakecallens »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #25

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…

This is the #1 myth of social media startups - that you can be in the red at this phase and easily turn it all around. People forget that Facebook was ~$50m in the black before they even took a series A.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#322

Post by mcintyre1994 »

sagivo wrote: 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.

I don't know though - they have strongly differentiated camera software and you see recognisably Snapchat pictures all over social media. Along the same lines, compare Faceboook's idea of what a camera in their app should be and you'll see a blatant copy.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#323

Post by dbbk »

nojvek wrote: post #237

I use snapchat every single day. I know my friends who've moved off facebook and Instagram use it extensively too. Its the facebook for young people. No one I know who is under 20 uses facebook anymore. Mostly because their parents are on facebook. Snapchatters post a lot more stuff that they won't usually post on public social media. After 24 hours it goes poof. I expect a dip after IPO and then a nice rise like fac…

If you go to university, Facebook is inescapable. Every society, sports team, social event is organised through there.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#324

Post by dbbk »

ben0x539 wrote: post #161
ch0wn wrote: post #121

"The launch of Spectacles, which has not generated significant revenue for us, is a good example. There is no guarantee that investing in new lines of business, new products, and other initiatives will succeed. If we do not successfully develop new approaches to monetization, we may not be able to maintain or grow our revenue as anticipated or recover any associated development costs, and our business could be seriou…

They're probably more of a shot at creating lock-in than a profit center.

They certainly are, you flat out cannot use Spectacles without opening the Snapchat app.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#325

Post by brangalina4eva »

sjg007 wrote: post #154
OrwellianChild wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things scale differently in different markets and products... It might be trivial to spin up extra cloud capacity within Google's system and benefit from all the robustness and redundancy they've already designed out. Meanwhile, Amazon is building their own UPS competitor because their infrastructure needs in the real world are specialized enough to be able to benefit. Each case is different and the details drive the…

I think Amazon is building their own UPS because UPS hasn't scaled for them.

I think they're building their shipping service so they can provide end-to-end drop-shipping & fulfilment. It's their natural evolution. Pick up goods from factories in China, QA them, ship them to their warehouses and then power other stores or for FBA. End-to-end integration.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#326

Post by sanderjd »

nikcub wrote: post #233
fastball wrote: post #180

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.

It works out to be $230k p.a of revenue per employee, which is on par with the better larger SaaS co's like Atlassian and Github . The employee counts of the later don't get a second look on HN, and they aren't growing at 6x revenue (or whatever it is) like Snap is.

If there was an article like this about those companies, I would absolutely expect this exact "what do all those employees do??" comment. This just seems to be a meme on HN in general at the moment.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#327

Post by Dragonai »

thealfreds wrote: post #320
golfer wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Google published cloud revenue numbers? I haven't seen those, please link if so. Thanks

http://fortune.com/2016/10/28/google-cloud-business-2/ states their "other revenue" was $2.543 billion for its third quarter. A chunk of that is from Cloud. So it is definitely the largest share but not sure if it is quite 80%.

Just to clarify, Snap's S-1 says they're committing $2B over the next five years (specifically, $400M per year) - the number you've provided for Google's "other revenue" is $2.543B just in Q3. Ergo, it's nowhere near 80%. :)

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#328

Post by thealfreds »

Dragonai wrote: post #327
thealfreds wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/28/google-cloud-business-2/ states their "other revenue" was $2.543 billion for its third quarter. A chunk of that is from Cloud. So it is definitely the largest share but not sure if it is quite 80%.

Just to clarify, Snap's S-1 says they're committing $2B over the next five years (specifically, $400M per year) - the number you've provided for Google's "other revenue" is $2.543B just in Q3. Ergo, it's nowhere near 80%. :)

Very correct! Got my numbers all switched around when looking for more information and was somehow thinking of 2B a year. Thank you.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#329

Post by spoinkaroo »

charlesdm wrote: post #309
spoinkaroo wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not short the stock? You will likely have to wait until after the IPO and may pay an arm and a leg for the privilege with limited initial float, but it's entirely up to your discretion. Even more appealing if snapchat does well on the first day of trading.

The same reason you don't use margin if it costs you 10% per year: risk vs reward and potential upside.

If you are as confident as you sound you may want to pay the 10 % annualized to short some shares, especially if it pops after the IPO.

I tend to get annoyed when people have extremely overconfident predictions yet don't act on them. Just responding to your parent comment, it's hard to tell how bullish your actually are on SNAP from a brief paragraph. I'm bullish also but won't touch the thing unless it gets into territory similar to GPRO.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#330

Post by clock_tower »

Game_Ender wrote: post #160
clock_tower wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they're honest! Maybe it's the sector I'm in, but I rarely see this kind of candor in my sub-field of technology...

I feel like S1 filings are always brutally honest like this. I believe it's a legal thing, they are afraid of future suits.

I hadn't known this! I definitely need to start reading S-1 filings for companies I'm interested in; I'm still an amateur at a lot of this...
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