$1m for product, $3m for marketing, $37m for curation of a constant stream of chatroullette-esque pornographic images?
Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
61–70 of 185 posts
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#62The link to the Android Market does not go to the app page. With a name like 'Color', it's almost impossible finding it in the market.
Exactly, been searching for a while now. Can anyone who finds it, post a link to a QRcode?
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#63Yes, it's mind boggling, but Sequoia has a problem: they have way too much money under management. So when they find one idea they like, they invest like crazy to push it to the extreme. Add senior VPs to the executive staff because it will help go from a $100M company to a $1B company. That costs a lot of money.
Likelihood of success? Low, but that's ok as long as it works once every 10 years.
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#64The article makes it seem as if Color hasn't launched yet but it actually has (presumably today). I downloaded it and am pretty stunned at how confusing of a UI $41 million can buy you.
Parts of it are downright broken: the swipe-to-delete makes the "delete" button appear in a very awkward position.
I'll level with a lot of their choices for being "different", but they've gone too far in some instances. It feels very un-iOS. Maybe because it's cross-platform?
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#65I'm gonna just go ahead and say this, does anyone else think this is a bit silly? $41m. There's no getting away from the fact this is just an app that shows you photos taken near you, by strangers. I just don't get it. I might be wrong, in 12 months I might be kicking myself, I just cant imagine it.
Absolutely, but that is what makes the speculating fun. You have to ask, what possible story could you spin around what they have that justifies $41M pre-revenue. Even assuming a healthy multiple of 20, and investor exit of $250M you're talking about projected earning of $12.5M with a gross margin of say 60% that's like $21M/yr in revenue. And I'm assuming an ABC round (which is to say the would expect to not do another round prior to some liquidity 'event').
But they clearly have a good story and their investors are happy. So silly or not, its the path they've chosen. It reminded me of this blog posting I ran across:
http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/02/50-questions-why-too-much-...
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#66"But how exactly is Color going to make “wheelbarrows of cash”... the company is still very early on, but it eventually plans to offer businesses a self-serve platform for running deals and ads $41 Million for a photo sharing app and this is the best they came up with? You gotta be kidding me.
I'm guessing when the user takes a picture of yourself near a logo/brand, it automatically offer deals/ads based on the fancy proximity guessing thing. The company seems to be trying to build up eyeballs at this stage.
The high price tag mean they have several patents + trusting investors + solid plan, etc. It's similar to Facebook (Zuckerberg has patents of his own I believe).
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#67All embrace big brother!
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#68Title doesn't do it justice. The photo-sharing part isn't what's novel. They seem to be building a social graph automatically weighted on physical proximity+frequency, using smartphone sensors (the most important one of which happens to be a camera). That's cool, and potentially game-changing. "All of your contacts are presented in a list of thumbnails ordered by how strong your connection is to that user. Whenever C…
How, why and when would I want to do this? I don't understand it from neither a sharer, or a browsers perspective.
From a browser's perspective, I look forward to use it to find "interesting" things - maybe even something that's breaking. Ideally something I would otherwise not have known about. This might be contingent of the demographic of the people who actually bother to snap the photos, though.
Although it might be hard on the battery, getting a push notification whenever I approached a hub of activity would also be very intriguing. (As long as it isn't the shirtless greeter at Abercrombie & Fitch.)
I've lived in the same country all my life, and I still discover new, interesting things in it.
(On another note, people who snap photos in restaurants should be punched in the face.)
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#69I can totally see people using this like Craiglist's missed connections...
Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google
#70I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed. Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst first-run user experience I've ever seen. I wonder if…
Right on, a ton of these new social apps have this same problem. I remember Path 1.0 was a similar experience.