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Quora collects $80 million in funding

cnet.com

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Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#91

Post by wankerrific »

pbreit wrote: post #81
fidotron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered along these lines too. There is clearly something else going on in the VC business beyond strictly evaluating company value based on ability to generate it directly. One factor I'll project (since I can't tell where you're based) is that companies with proven engineering staff in the Bay Area get a boost in inherent value just from acquihire potential. Bonus points for famous and connected founders, as…

Not sure how you define value but Quora is creating quite a lot of it.

Yup. By answering the important questions of our day, like:

http://www.quora.com/Interracial-Dating-and-Relationships/Wh...

and

http://www.quora.com/Dating-and-Relationships-1/How-do-Asian...

and

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-worst-experience-youve-had-...

That right there is a whole lotta value.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#92

Post by pbreit »

yalogin wrote: post #11

Can someone explain how there a place for Quora? The only niche I can think of is generic technical advise. Stackoverflow answers all the tech questions but they are overly pedantic to the point of ridiculous when it comes to generic tech questions. Hackernews should have been the correct place for generic tech advise but we don't see questions of that nature here. May be as far as tech advise goes people from startu…

The gates are an important component in how Quora has inexplicably managed to get people like Marc Andreesen and JJ Abrams to participate. I'm not sure why you feel Quora is so tech oriented. I see far more non-tech content like entertainment, politics, society, parenting, etc. Instead of belittling something that boggles your mind [in its success], maybe you should look at it for clues on how to be successful.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#93

Post by fidotron »

pbreit wrote: post #83
hitchhiker999 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm nowhere near the 'bay area' or any US state, nor even in Europe. I'm British, but living abroad, have never known anyone else in the IT industry. HN is my only contact :) When I hear and see the things people in SV say and do - I honestly wonder what the hell is going on out there. It seems people who can put a bit of html + css together are getting paid 10 million these days. -- good luck to them and everything…

That sentiment could not be further from the truth. You could prove it to yourself simply by doing what you describe and seeing how far you get. Breaking through the noise and building a large, attractive user base is incredibly difficult. Sure, just building the web site isn't that hard (actually it is).

I think you're right, but it's definitely the outside perception that something is odd about SV in this respect, and relatively trivial products can get blown out of all proportion there.

For me it was Cover, that Android launcher, that caused the confusion. The value of that is not in being able to develop it, because that aspect of it was trivial, but having the idea to do it, the vision to see it's possible, and the connections to get PR to get visibility for that in SV seems much more valuable than "just" the ability to execute. I think the surprising factor is just how valuable those intangibles can be judged to be. (Not saying they're not valuable, as they clearly are, but it's interesting just how much the VC market thinks they're worth, amplified by the effect if you happen to be in SV).

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#94

Post by return0 »

wmeredith wrote: post #88
return0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who sees none of this "top notch system"? Last time i used it it felt clunky* , now every time i get a search result to them on a random computer, they ask me to login to read the answer, experts-exchange-style. Thanks, but no thanks. PS. I guess the people who find this useful live in San Francisco, and enjoy the "insider" feel. *: Right now, while viewing any question while logged out, the "Contin…

Seriously. They are the new experts exchange to me. I consider their presence in my search results a nuisance.

I believe if it was any other website, google would penalize them for spamming their results. But it's not happening due to silicon valley nepotism.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#95

Post by hitchhiker999 »

sixQuarks wrote: post #55
hitchhiker999 wrote: post #16

I have a q&a site with 4 million visitors a month - an ESL learning site. We have 2 employees, total cost https://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/ they have only a million visitors a month??? - I'm guessing that must be wrong. My question: What in pickled f*s are these people doing with 80 million on a Q&A site? How far out of the reach of reality is this industry?

First, you have a great site! congratulations. Second, there is no way Quora only gets 1.5 million visitors per month. They have an Alexa ranking in the 400s. Yes, the tech audience skews this, but even a tech-heavy audience can't skew it that badly. Getting in the top 500 of Alexa is very, very difficult. My guess is that they get at least 10 million visitors per month.

Thanks!!

re: alexa reference: we had hit 5,000-ish on alexa a while back (then google had some fun with Q&A sites) - at that level we were getting around 180,000 uniques a day. 40k was the difference between 7000 and 5000 on alexa, it's also not as 'exponential' as one might think.

I previously would assume more than 10 mill a month, but I tend to imagine the guys above me must be 'rolling in traffic'. 10 is probably closest.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#96

Post by majani »

hitchhiker999 wrote: post #16

I have a q&a site with 4 million visitors a month - an ESL learning site. We have 2 employees, total cost https://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/ they have only a million visitors a month??? - I'm guessing that must be wrong. My question: What in pickled f*s are these people doing with 80 million on a Q&A site? How far out of the reach of reality is this industry?

if it were anywhere else in the world, we'd immediately be calling it out for exactly what it is: barefaced corruption amongst the incestuous VCs. But since the Valley has convinced many that it's the meritocratic mecca for formerly maligned nerds, we scratch our heads trying to preserve that image while the truth lies right in front of you.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#97

Post by RivieraKid »

hitchhiker999 wrote: post #16

I have a q&a site with 4 million visitors a month - an ESL learning site. We have 2 employees, total cost https://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/ they have only a million visitors a month??? - I'm guessing that must be wrong. My question: What in pickled f*s are these people doing with 80 million on a Q&A site? How far out of the reach of reality is this industry?

I also don't understand the 80million (perhaps rich people don't know where to put their money?).

But Quora is definitely not just another Q&A site.

First, they have incredibly good technology. I would say that their livenode/webnode2 framework is one of the (or the) most technologically advanced web frameworks in existence. (Although now that React exists, it should be relatively easy to create something even better than what Quora has.) Also, I like their deployment process - they auto-deploy on every commit if tests run flawlessly. And their CEO is pretty smart (http://www.quora.com/Adam-DAngelo-1/What-are-some-good-stori...).

Second, there's lot of very valuable and high quality content. I've learned a lot from Quora.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#98

Post by RivieraKid »

rrrazdan wrote: post #74

My experience with Quora has been pretty bad, but that has mostly to do with my topic selection and network being Indian. Quora got popular in India because of widespread adoption in IIT circles, who by virtue of being influencers spread it across India. So much so that, I saw a statistic which said that most visits on Quora are from India. However for me what that has meant is that a rash of new registrants have app…

That's basically what I'm thinking. The demographic is becoming more and more Indian, which drives away Westerners, who are the people Quora can make money on.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#99

Post by majani »

not_paul_graham wrote: post #40
hitchhiker999 wrote: post #16

I have a q&a site with 4 million visitors a month - an ESL learning site. We have 2 employees, total cost https://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/ they have only a million visitors a month??? - I'm guessing that must be wrong. My question: What in pickled f*s are these people doing with 80 million on a Q&A site? How far out of the reach of reality is this industry?

I know that $140 million sounds like a lot, but when they IPO after rejecting the 2 billion acquisition offer from Google, Goldman Sachs will peddle QUOR to institutional investors, and surely they will be able to recoup the $140 million investment + a 10x return if the stock pops. On a more serious note, Quora users have a better profile for advertisers because they are likely to be in the top brackets for income an…

Quora's largest source of traffic is a third world country, India(source is Gawker, which is blocked on HN)

As harsh as this will sound, that automatically puts it into the garbage pile of advertiser profiles. They are never getting 80mil out this deal.

Re: Quora collects $80 million in funding

#100

Post by davidgerard »

webwright wrote: post #43
hitchhiker999 wrote: post #16

I have a q&a site with 4 million visitors a month - an ESL learning site. We have 2 employees, total cost https://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/ they have only a million visitors a month??? - I'm guessing that must be wrong. My question: What in pickled f*s are these people doing with 80 million on a Q&A site? How far out of the reach of reality is this industry?

First off, Compete.com is a JOKE (I've regularly seen it off by 10-100x). Second, investors care about growth more than traffic-- do we have any data on Quora's growth? Third, Quora's founder/team is pretty bankable-- a failure scenario for them is an $80M acqui-hire. Assuming preferred shares or liquidation prefs by the new investors, that almost entirely de-risks this investment. That coupled with their long term a…

Wikipedia doesn't want your Facebook login before you can read the answer.

Seriously, any talk of Wikipedia around Quora is strictly Quora's wishful thinking. This will never happen.

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