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Backblaze IPO

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Re: Backblaze IPO

#41
post #25

I have paid for Backblaze for 4 years, after signing up for two 2 year subscriptions a few years apart. I have never got it to backup my files ever. Their settings dialog integrates with macOS preferences and freezes while it scans for files to backup without giving me any status update. It uploads so damn slowly it’s pretty useless. If I was to move/rename things around it would take weeks more to reupload. Every ti…

Not a BB user, but 100% agreed that CCC is fantastic, reliable, fast, etc.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#42
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're confident, short it. Make some money.

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. They also said the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

I guess the fundamentals are solid then.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#44
post #8

> We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. Fundamentals seem solid, gotta get me some of those shares!

If you're confident, short it. Make some money.

Serious question asked from a place of naïveness: how do you short at IPO assuming one doesn't already have stock?

Re: Backblaze IPO

#45
post #38

I find this part interesting - of the ~500,000 customers, 70,000 are B2 customers and 430,000 are "backup" customers ... which are flat-rate "unlimited" users. These flat-rate users are very fickle and price-sensitive. If you peruse subreddits related to cloud storage or online backup, etc., they are filled with very picky users who expect the product to be free - or close to free. It's a fools errand to pursue this…

I think the hope is that 420,000 of those users are Grandmas who installed backblaze because their son told them it's a good idea to make sure she doesn't lose all her important documents, and she's backing up a couple PDFs.

And then the other 10,000 are data hoarders like me with Terabytes of data.

I used to be a Crashplan customer - tried them and Backblaze, and liked Crashplan more. They eventually pivoted to Business only.

I was at AWS Re:invent and came up to their booth and bemoaned the loss of a great service. They said "How much data were you backing up?" I told them. They said "yeah, we lose a ton of money on every user like you."

Fair enough!

Re: Backblaze IPO

#46
post #25

I have paid for Backblaze for 4 years, after signing up for two 2 year subscriptions a few years apart. I have never got it to backup my files ever. Their settings dialog integrates with macOS preferences and freezes while it scans for files to backup without giving me any status update. It uploads so damn slowly it’s pretty useless. If I was to move/rename things around it would take weeks more to reupload. Every ti…

I'm sorry if I missed something, but you twice paid for long subscriptions for a service that did not work for you? What made you choose the two year plan when trying it the second time? Why did you pick the two year option at all the first time before trying it?

Re: Backblaze IPO

#47
post #38

I find this part interesting - of the ~500,000 customers, 70,000 are B2 customers and 430,000 are "backup" customers ... which are flat-rate "unlimited" users. These flat-rate users are very fickle and price-sensitive. If you peruse subreddits related to cloud storage or online backup, etc., they are filled with very picky users who expect the product to be free - or close to free. It's a fools errand to pursue this…

I don't think there's really any "unlimited backup" solutions left outside of backblaze. Back when storage was cheap I could see users switching if you upped the price, the datahoarders that actually use the storage don't really have anywhere to go anymore.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#49
post #8

> We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. Fundamentals seem solid, gotta get me some of those shares!

Anyone who has been following the recent market would only say one thing: Bullish

Re: Backblaze IPO

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're confident, short it. Make some money.

Serious question asked from a place of naïveness: how do you short at IPO assuming one doesn't already have stock?

You cannot short an IPO.

You cannot short post IPO until the stock becomes marginable.

What you can do, if have a lot of $$, is have one of the desks immediately at after the IPO write you a synthetic short position using an over the counter option.

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