Live data from Hacker News

Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

businessinsider.com

11–18 of 18 posts

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#11

In the time since this article was written Chance the Rapper tweeted[0]: Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay. About an hour later SoundCloud tweeted[1]: *airhorn* Spread the word: your music isn’t going anywhere. Neither are we. So it seems things have changed? I don't know much about Chance the Rappers financials but perhaps he is buying SoundCloud or investing in it? It will b…

> About an hour later SoundCloud tweeted

Of course they are going to downplay this news. If they are having money issues and are seeking additional investment, the last thing they want is for a story like this to be in the headlines.

It gives their potential investors even more leverage, because if they don't have a successful funding round they're done.

It also makes it harder to convince investors to fund them, because no one is interested in funding a service which is losing money and doesn't have good growth numbers.

So these tweets mean nothing. It's completely normal for a company to deny reports of financial difficulty because to do anything else would just worsen the situation.

My rule has always been: look at how the company acts, not how they talk. SoundCloud just abruptly cut two major offices and 40% of staff. Does that sound like a healthy, growing company?

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#12

In the time since this article was written Chance the Rapper tweeted[0]: Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay. About an hour later SoundCloud tweeted[1]: *airhorn* Spread the word: your music isn’t going anywhere. Neither are we. So it seems things have changed? I don't know much about Chance the Rappers financials but perhaps he is buying SoundCloud or investing in it? It will b…

> About an hour later SoundCloud tweeted Of course they are going to downplay this news. If they are having money issues and are seeking additional investment, the last thing they want is for a story like this to be in the headlines. It gives their potential investors even more leverage, because if they don't have a successful funding round they're done. It also makes it harder to convince investors to fund them, bec…

None of that has anything to do with a surprise acquisition/funding offer from Chance the Rapper. Why are you downplaying Chance's tweet?

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#13
post #2

Hrmm. "funded until Q4" does not necessarily mean "funded until the beginning of Q4".

Isn't that what "until" means?

Not exactly. I'd argue that "funded until Q4" precisely means "funded until at least some time during Q4". Someone who was being careful to communicate clearly would probably not say "funded until Q4" if they meant anything other than "funded until the beginning of Q4" but that is not what we are dealing with here: We are dealing with a second-hand retelling to TechCrunch by an anonymous source. In fact, further on in the TechCrunch article, it states that when they contacted SoundCloud PR directly, they were told that "[SoundCloud] are fully funded into Q4" (emphasis mine).

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#14

I don't understand why anyone would fund SoundCloud for a day. If someone can share what kind of sales pitch they have used to investors, I'd like to see it! Their income apparatus seems to be "sing up for free". It's hard to charge for extra services, when your core product does almost everything already. Advertising doesn't really work, because their demographic groups are heavily leaned towards adblock usage. Most…

I'm a bit allergic to people doing this, but I'm going to hop into this comment thread because it's too big of a coincidence to not plug a bit here.

I'm building the solution to this, right now. Think a next-gen Soundcloud with Patreon features built-in, powered by a Ethereum-based token that allows fans to instantly and directly support artists from anywhere in the world. There's a number of interesting applications that a "micro-economy" running inside of a music platform can provide: among these are curation/discovery, promotion of music, and preventing infringement and bad actors in the service.

We're currently in the early alpha stage (especially around marketing–the landing page is going up later tonight) and are focusing our time preparing for an ICO–whitepaper coming shortly. If this interests you, join our mailing list (Mailchimp link below)

http://eepurl.com/cWcxEX

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#15
post #3

While I realize the two are entirely different platforms, they need to partner with Spotify. To do what, I don't know, but Spotify seems to have figured it out. I'm an artist (at least on the side); all my friends — artists and fans alike — love SoundCloud. There's no real alternative to it. The problem they're solving is a hard one. Not technically, but the market. Spotify solved the problem with music piracy (at le…

Spotify is still hemorrhaging money. I love Spotify, but I'm worried they won't be able to turn the numbers around in time :(

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#17

In the time since this article was written Chance the Rapper tweeted[0]: Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay. About an hour later SoundCloud tweeted[1]: *airhorn* Spread the word: your music isn’t going anywhere. Neither are we. So it seems things have changed? I don't know much about Chance the Rappers financials but perhaps he is buying SoundCloud or investing in it? It will b…

I love Chance, but I can't imagine that he's got the net worth already himself to buy SoundCloud / make a meaningful investment - maybe he has contacts who do or could help an investment group, but I think it might be a bit fanciful to say that Chance by himself can save SoundCloud.

http://collegecandy.com/2017/06/05/chance-the-rapper-net-wor...

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/03/13/soundcloud-valua...

Re: Even after cutting staff, SoundCloud only has enough money for 50 more days

#18
In another thread posted on Hacker News, someone asked how do you know whether a company is healthy. I said that by definition, if a company is not profitable it isn't healthy.

Of course that message didn't go over too well...

Maybe the software industry will start defining a "successful company" the same way the rest of the world does -- making more money than you spend and have a sustainable business plan.

Post reply on HN