Barry Diller has a really interesting acquisition history.
Barry Diller is mostly an advisory role at IAC now, Joey Levin handles the day to day M&A for IAC.
Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
11–20 of 129 posts
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#12For a split second, I misread the headline as IAC buying AngelList and my brain went "whoa!", wondering why that crew sold to IAC of all organizations, what this meant for angel investing, what chaos would ensue, etc. Then I blinked and re-read the headline with relief.
Exactly my reaction so you are not alone. I thought "What! AngelList got resold"
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#13For a moment I thought I saw "Angel List" and I thought: IAC? What the...
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#14For a split second, I misread the headline as IAC buying AngelList and my brain went "whoa!", wondering why that crew sold to IAC of all organizations, what this meant for angel investing, what chaos would ensue, etc. Then I blinked and re-read the headline with relief.
Ah, saw your note after making the same exact comment here on HN.
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#15For those interested, here's a "How I Built This" podcast for Angie's list that I found interesting. https://www.angieslist.com/articles/angie-hicks-npr-s-how-i-...
The "How I Built This" is an incredibly well done podcast. I know this is a little off topic but it's likely a podcast many at HN would find interesting as it's about how entrepreneurs built their businesses.
I highly recommend!
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#16I have always been super skeptical how Angie's list stays in business and continues to grow competing against Yelp, Thumbtack, FindAPro, Porch, etc. Turns out I was wrong about Angie's list (sort of). Angie's list earnings have been all over the place missing and beating, and for me was a big fat red flag. 2016 EPS Q1 -0.07 Q2 0.08 Q3 -0.28 Q4 0.15
At least one of the brands you listed was close to buying them in 2015, but then it all fell through. Sounds like IAC was also in the process of making them an offer at that same time as well.
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#17For a moment I thought I saw "Angel List" and I thought: IAC? What the...
Swipe right to invest.
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#18For a moment I thought I saw "Angel List" and I thought: IAC? What the...
+1
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#19Not specifically apropos of the buyout, but my experience with Angie's List has been similar to that of Yelp, that is, businesses that paid to advertise on AL were better able to maintain high rankings. The top-rated companies were not the best from either a quality or price perspective. While it's a great idea to crowd-source referrals for contractors like that, it's unfortunate that that model falls prey to the sam…
I think this is why TripAdvisor is better, in my experience, for restaurants than Yelp. If I'm not mistaken, TripAdvisor makes most of its money off of hotel booking referrals.
Foursquare is my secret weapon whenever I need to impress with restaurant selection.
Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC
#20Is there value in Angie's List? Every time I wind up there from the open Internet, I wind up not knowing what I'm doing and eventually leaving. Is it like a yelp that you have to sign up to get access to?