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SoundCloud's Collapse

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Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#121

Post by bartread »

hboon wrote: post #13
MIKarlsen wrote: post #5

That's the second time this week I see Buzzfeed coming out with something that resembles decent journalism. Coincidence, or have they turned their ship around?

They have been doing this the last few years.

Indeed. I discovered this after a friend mentioned to me that Buzzfeed News was decent and, well, basically I didn't believe her so I went to check it out.

The first story I saw was breaking news of the Tianjin explosions and of course the story was so out there that, because it was Buzzfeed, I didn't believe it until I'd watched some of the footage and seen it reported elsewhere.

Anyway, yes, they are surprisingly decent.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#122

Post by pasta »

Maybe I'm missing something but this article is telling me Soundcloud is dead. But is it?

Yes they are having a hard time but it there no way to continue with a small team?

As a Soundcloud user there is nothing telling me it is dead. Fresh music every day. So it's not like an exodus is happening.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#123

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

sgentle wrote: post #47

Never do a music industry startup unless you have a billion dollars, can raise a billion dollars, or plan to be acquired by a company with a billion dollars to spare. That's the table stakes for going toe-to-toe with the big three. They'll bleed you to death with licensing fees, deputise you into their copyright enforcement police, upload their songs to your platform on one hand while suing you with the other, and al…

I would never consider doing a music industry startup due to BitTorrent.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#124

Post by ryanbrunner »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #86
iagooar wrote: post #14

This shows us, that company valuations are ridiculous and actually mean nothing. Is SoundCloud worth a billion dollars? Well, it might be on paper or in the imaginations of the founders, but what does it really mean? To me, it's worth nothing. The real problem is: these companies start to operate from the perspective of "having" those millions of dollars. This is why they hire too many people for too much money. They…

When I read stories like these, I actually feel good about my bootstrapped, down-to-earth startup. We don't make millions, we don't "disrupt" the industry, yet we solve our customers' problems and delight them. We won't ever run out of money, as we carefully check each and every expenditure, and have growing savings in the bank. When I read stories like these, I actually feel good about my bootstrapped, down-to-earth…

This is pedantics. Their definition of "startup" vs. yours is completely irrelevant to the point they are trying to make.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#125

Post by ryanbrunner »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #119
dkersten wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I personally buy into that definition too, it IS very much a valley centric definition that much of the rest of the world doesn't follow. At least, not to the letter. So be aware that you may be speaking to people outside of your bubble when throwing around black or white definitions like this, because they may have their own differing definitions. Besides, there have been multiple "podcast startups" (by the va…

If podcast hosting is used as a stepping stone into a more general market, that could work. But the GP indicated they were small and moved slowly, so they can't really leverage that. It doesn't matter whether it originated in the valley. It's not like calling an elevator a lift. A startup is a technical term with a precise meaning. You can call your bar a startup if you want, but that doesn't make it true.

That "precise meaning" is not universally accepted (or even really all that popular). Paul Graham proposed it once, some people subscribe to that, but it's not universal, and I'd say YC and the greater VC community have a vested interest in ensuring companies like the one this comment chain is about are not viewed as startups.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#126

Post by dullgiulio »

glogla wrote: post #100
DigitalJack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief, what the heck does Spotify do with 3000+ employees?

Last time I checked, Spotify had 70 million users. That's one employee per 23333 users. Is that too much? How many thousands users should you have per employee? Because if they want to have support at all (unlike, say, Google), they need quite a few employees.

You should really count the Premium (paying) users only. The others don't make the company any money.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#127

Post by demarq »

Bringing up the bieber situation is entirely unfair. SoundCloud did the best any company could have done in that situation. His own label was also confused by the move.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#128

Post by sillysaurus3 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #124
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read stories like these, I actually feel good about my bootstrapped, down-to-earth startup. We don't make millions, we don't "disrupt" the industry, yet we solve our customers' problems and delight them. We won't ever run out of money, as we carefully check each and every expenditure, and have growing savings in the bank. When I read stories like these, I actually feel good about my bootstrapped, down-to-earth…

This is pedantics. Their definition of "startup" vs. yours is completely irrelevant to the point they are trying to make.

Actually, it's central to the conversation. This isn't some semantic quibbling. They were arguing the startup model is broken and then giving an example of an alternative (themselves) without meeting any of the criteria of actually being a startup.

I'm convinced that the startup scene is now filled with posers who call themselves startups for prestige. This probably isn't a new phenomenon, but it's relatively new on HN.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#129

Post by chippy »

pasta wrote: post #122

Maybe I'm missing something but this article is telling me Soundcloud is dead. But is it? Yes they are having a hard time but it there no way to continue with a small team? As a Soundcloud user there is nothing telling me it is dead. Fresh music every day. So it's not like an exodus is happening.

>Maybe I'm missing something

Yeah, this was in the first section of the article:

"In early July, SoundCloud laid off 173 people — some 40% of its workforce"

and the rest of the article outlines the collapse of their business deals and troubles.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#130

Post by sillysaurus3 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #125
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If podcast hosting is used as a stepping stone into a more general market, that could work. But the GP indicated they were small and moved slowly, so they can't really leverage that. It doesn't matter whether it originated in the valley. It's not like calling an elevator a lift. A startup is a technical term with a precise meaning. You can call your bar a startup if you want, but that doesn't make it true.

That "precise meaning" is not universally accepted (or even really all that popular). Paul Graham proposed it once, some people subscribe to that, but it's not universal, and I'd say YC and the greater VC community have a vested interest in ensuring companies like the one this comment chain is about are not viewed as startups.

It's not just quibbling. If you don't use that definition, then the word "startup" loses all meaning. It doesn't matter what other people call themselves.

I think companies that don't follow that definition have an agenda: startups are now prestigious, so they call themselves a startup in order to seem impressive.

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