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Pandora Files To Go Public

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31–40 of 40 posts

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#31
post #11

I don't know much about the market/strategy behind IPOs. Is it a good idea to IPO if you just lost ~$325k? I assume they have intelligent reasons behind the IPO - can someone explain the rationale?

The article states they lost $328k on revenues of $90M for the first 9 months of the year. The $328k loss is not really material (either as a proportion of revenue, or absolutely versus the size of the business) they are essentially breaking even. If you look at the numbers (image in the article) The $328k loss also includes some exceptional charges, they made an operating profit of $1.15M in the period. Their revenu…

care to take a guess on the opening day market cap? i'm thinking 400-500M.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#32
post #9

This company is almost entirely investor owned. Geez. It's been saved from the brink of death so many times, the actual employees and founders really aren't going to get a tremendous windfall for their efforts.

At least they will get something which is better than if they didn't let investors save it. A quick look seemed to reveal they had pretty high salaries though so it's not all bad.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#33
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they spend it on advertising. Their product rocks, i think they just need wider exposure. They also claim exclusive providence to being able to authentically post jobs in the bay area looking for "rock stars" to help out their company ;)

That would be a pretty bad sign. I sure as hell wouldn't invest in a company that's going to turn around and spend the money they raise on ads. They should be building a war chest and their biz dev and legal teams to get some leverage on the labels. Regular radio pays $0 of their revenue to labels, Pandora pays $.50 of every $1.

Radio stations pay annual fees for the license of broadcasting music, which is why stations have to report every song they play (this data is sampled to divvy up royalty payments to labels and artists.)

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#34
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it has a nice station feature, but I've almost completely switched to mog. For about the same price I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want and as many times in a row as I want. Their radio feature is decent as well and for only a few more bucks a month it seems a much better value. Of course pandora has a huge advertising factor that could bring in good revenue for them to make it worth the inve…

I stay with Pandora precisely because I can't listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, as many times in a row as I want. That's a whole lot of deciding and deciding takes time and effort. Pandora knows the music I like and is amazing at finding new music that I will like, without any time or effort on my part. All I have to do is turn it on. I have farmed out my music selection responsibility to them and I couldn'…

I find it sad that you have 10 points when I have 1 point, as if your statement about Pandora proves that Mog can't match up and you have never wanted to have a bit more control over your music (and that what I've said has no value). I'm not a mog salesperson. I'm a music fanatic that used to listen to pandora like crazy until I realized I could have more control and still have a great radio feature with Mog.

I want to see the future of radio be one of full choice with great suggestions, not pandora's restrictions. I think Pandora has built amazing suggestions, but it's not perfect and I want to push for the next generation of music experience.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#35
post #10

I can't get Pandora in Canada (unless I use a proxy), so I don't really know how it works. I was struck when I read: "About 86 percent of Pandora’s revenues ($78 million) comes from advertising, the rest ($12 million) comes from subscriptions." which made me think, wow, Pandora is kind of like a newspaper, magazine, or cable TV network!

Yeah, can't get it here in Europe too. Thus I've thrown something together to get it running over TOR. Luckily only the control interface checks if your IP is from the US. The traffic heavy so streaming doesn't have to go over TOR.

https://github.com/jsz/PanTORa

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#37
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stay with Pandora precisely because I can't listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, as many times in a row as I want. That's a whole lot of deciding and deciding takes time and effort. Pandora knows the music I like and is amazing at finding new music that I will like, without any time or effort on my part. All I have to do is turn it on. I have farmed out my music selection responsibility to them and I couldn'…

I find it sad that you have 10 points when I have 1 point, as if your statement about Pandora proves that Mog can't match up and you have never wanted to have a bit more control over your music (and that what I've said has no value). I'm not a mog salesperson. I'm a music fanatic that used to listen to pandora like crazy until I realized I could have more control and still have a great radio feature with Mog. I want…

That's fair. I think a large part of why you're not getting more upvotes is that Pandora seems to be far more popular than MOG. I hadn't heard of MOG until you mentioned it. I went to their site, and (assuming their suggestion engine and library is about as good as Pandora's or better) it seems to be all of the things I wish Pandora would be.

FWIW, you've caused one rabid Pandora fan to give it a look.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#38
post #23
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still seems weird seeing a company that's not even profitable yet go public. I don't expect the initial demand for their stock will be that high, despite the growth.

Plenty of companies go public before becoming profitable, it's a way to raise capital. Tesla Motors comes to mind for a recent example. Same for Clear.

Tesla was nowhere near profitability when they went public. Pandora just has to wait a few more quarters before getting access to a natural flow of cash. That's what I found strange.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#39
post #38
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of companies go public before becoming profitable, it's a way to raise capital. Tesla Motors comes to mind for a recent example. Same for Clear.

Tesla was nowhere near profitability when they went public. Pandora just has to wait a few more quarters before getting access to a natural flow of cash. That's what I found strange.

Their VCs from 2000, 04 and 05 will all be hungry for an exit.

Re: Pandora Files To Go Public

#40
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stay with Pandora precisely because I can't listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, as many times in a row as I want. That's a whole lot of deciding and deciding takes time and effort. Pandora knows the music I like and is amazing at finding new music that I will like, without any time or effort on my part. All I have to do is turn it on. I have farmed out my music selection responsibility to them and I couldn'…

I find it sad that you have 10 points when I have 1 point, as if your statement about Pandora proves that Mog can't match up and you have never wanted to have a bit more control over your music (and that what I've said has no value). I'm not a mog salesperson. I'm a music fanatic that used to listen to pandora like crazy until I realized I could have more control and still have a great radio feature with Mog. I want…

I also checked out mog after reading your post, and it seems like a great service. My post was not meant as a critique of mog; the main point was that before Pandora, 'managing' my music was a time-consuming and tedious process. Discovering new music involved hours of browsing amazon listening to 30 second clips and trying to make educated bets as to whether I would actually like a CD or not. Making music playlists is another very fidgety exercise, especially when trying to update them with new music. Pandora solved all that for me, and for free! If I decide the ads on Pandora get to be too much, I might consider trying out mog, but for now I have very little motivation to switch.
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