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Backblaze IPO

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Re: Backblaze IPO

#61
post #15

Fidelity is handling the IPO and if you have been a customer of BackBlaze for a while apparently you will get to buy before public, up to 1,000 shares between $15-17 per share. That is my understanding.

I also see their IPO showing up in Robinhood's IPO Access list (i.e. available for purchase at the IPO price)

Re: Backblaze IPO

#62
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 use it. I store stuff on my Synology NAS and have a backup policy to B2 configured from the NAS. This gives me both local and offsite backups.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#63
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…

CrashPlan essentially bailed on the consumer market a few years back!

I'd agree that customers can be fickle - especially technically inclined customers. It's actually very easy to switch backup systems.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#64
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…

[deleted]

Re: Backblaze IPO

#66
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?

Usually no borrow until 2 days after. You have to wait until shares hit lending pools (basically people saying they are willing to lend out their shares for a fee).

This doesn't happen until trades from the IPO "settle" t+2 (standard time for a trade from a buyer to a seller to be booked, and for a buyer to actually receive ownership of the shares. Ownership in this case meaning you can lend / margin them etc)

Options usually won't be listed for a week or so at the earlier until after the IPO, so whoever mentioned that below is wrong.

Varies deal to deal and if traditional listing / direct but that is the gist.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#67
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.

Shorting it isn't a bet they'll fail. It's actually a bet they'll fail and the market will realize it, and in that time the value wont value the company higher to liquidate your position. See Gamestop for an example!

It's also a bet that they will fail quick enough to make this the best opportunity for your money.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#68
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!

That alone isn't enough of an argument - see Google (pre ads), Uber, Amazon, or anyone else looking to dominate a market.

I'd be interested in what their strategy is and what they want to dominate. Corporate backups? The problem is corporate stuff is mostly in the cloud already. Home use it is handy but it is competing with Apple and Microsoft, and I use them mostly for the "Dropbox Reason" that they make it easiest to backup my drive. I never think about them and forget I am a customer. If they could backup iPhones simply I think that'd help but apple probably has that garden walled off.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Busi…

> They said "yeah, we lose a ton of money on every user like you." Such an interesting statement. It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it. Like ISPs with their "unlimited" plans, they market that stuff and then they get mad if you actually saturate their link 24/7. I actually emailed backblaze about this years ago. I asked them if they…

I think they avoid Linux support to prevent people like me from putting it on my Linux server. They also don't allow Windows Server to run it either. But hey, you can always use something like Goodsync and B2.
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