Github Raises $100 Million • Hacker News Board

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#171

Post by vulf » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #133

harryh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

regulatory issues

The implication of VC is that you'll have to sell or go public eventually anyway, so you might as well take the pain and go directly to public if your revenues support it. The general rule being 5 years of $100mm/yr.

When you are just starting out and have no real leverage in the deal, sure. But it sounds like the GitHub guys were the ones holding all the cards in this deal, maybe they made sure the terms of the deal excluded that "general rule".

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#172

Post by vulf » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:16 AM UTC

arrowgunz wrote: post #72

Okay, I think now is the time for GitHub to shut up about being Bootstrap and Bullshit. I think it's high time. I absolutely love the service but this is so lame. Bunch of hypocrites.

> Bootstrapping in business means starting a business without external help or capital.

Keyword: "starting". GitHub has long moved out of the "starting" phase, which has always been bootstrapped for them.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#173

Post by vulf » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:18 AM UTC

zashapiro wrote: post #6

I just happened to be on their About page today and I noticed they'd taken down the "VC money raised - $0.00" section. Congrats to the fine folks at GitHub!

That went away some time ago, when the latest redesign of the page was put up.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#174

Post by vulf » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:22 AM UTC

geon wrote: post #135

pnathan wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

enterprise sales are radically different than open source evangelism, b2c sales, and small biz sales. The difference is (literally and metaphorically) there is are suits involved. A few key thoughts which are likely to apply: - Per-customer customizations - $100K+ per sale per customer - 3 month to 3 year sales cycles - Usable on Windows XP and IE6 (most likely). - Certifications/audits (e.g., ISO9001). I can easily…

> - Usable on Windows XP and IE6 (most likely). I'd imagine a company that needs VCS can handle multiple installed browsers or even virtualized OS:s.

When github says "We are disrupting how software is written in the enterprise", the very first thing that comes to my mind is not catering to companies that won't give up IE6.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#175

Post by rdl » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:24 AM UTC

vulf wrote: post #171

rdl wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of VC is that you'll have to sell or go public eventually anyway, so you might as well take the pain and go directly to public if your revenues support it. The general rule being 5 years of $100mm/yr.

When you are just starting out and have no real leverage in the deal, sure. But it sounds like the GitHub guys were the ones holding all the cards in this deal, maybe they made sure the terms of the deal excluded that "general rule".

There is no way a VC would invest if there weren't SOME exit in the future, or at least a convincing story (independent of veracity) told to make it seem that you're open to an exit.

The exit could be M&A (although it would have to be $3-5b to be on-target, and in that range, you need to be able to IPO as a credible alternative when negotiating the M&A).

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#176

Post by xxpor » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 2:42 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #83

JonnieCache wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who figures out how to get movie/music studios and the like to use version control is going to be very, very rich.

Pixar uses Perforce. Over 1000 users, 12 million ops/day, 40 million changelists, 115 million files, >20 TB data, and accessed by 12,000 cpu renderfarm. If you're dealing with large amounts of binary data it's basically a solved problem and Perforce is the answer. An expensive answer but an answer. http://www.perforce.com/sites/default/files/storageforfilmas...

They seriously have 40 MM clns? I find that extremely hard to believe.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#177

Post by curt » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 3:04 AM UTC

They could be moving into "other" markets as well. Version controlling for design? Think that'd be a huge market especially with a simple interface.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#178

Post by msellout » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 3:09 AM UTC

pmarca wrote: post #159

jbarham wrote: post #124

I can't help but think that this investment marks the Pets.com point in this investment cycle. GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. The switching costs to using another DVCS such as Mercurial (which I personally prefer) or another Git hosting provider are minimal. There are no barriers to entry since Git is and always will be free. There are very few network effect benefits to using Git…

None of what you said is true :-).

So he doesn't use GitHub and he's not cautious about using it?

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#179

Post by emperorcezar » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 3:17 AM UTC

jbarham wrote: post #124

I can't help but think that this investment marks the Pets.com point in this investment cycle. GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. The switching costs to using another DVCS such as Mercurial (which I personally prefer) or another Git hosting provider are minimal. There are no barriers to entry since Git is and always will be free. There are very few network effect benefits to using Git…

Go use Bitbucket and tell me it's comparable. It's not. On every level.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#180

Post by jbarham » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 3:44 AM UTC

emperorcezar wrote: post #179

jbarham wrote: post #124

I can't help but think that this investment marks the Pets.com point in this investment cycle. GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. The switching costs to using another DVCS such as Mercurial (which I personally prefer) or another Git hosting provider are minimal. There are no barriers to entry since Git is and always will be free. There are very few network effect benefits to using Git…

Go use Bitbucket and tell me it's comparable. It's not. On every level.

I do use Bitbucket and it does exactly what I need: track changes to my private source code repos and manage issues.

Does GitHub do some things better than Bitbucket? Sure, but I don't believe that those differences justify a valuation approaching a billion dollars.