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Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

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Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#111

Post by korzun »

nemothekid wrote: post #48
noncoml wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to sell ads Why are we so obsessed with the ads model. Why not start charging? This is not a web app, where you have to take out your wallet and enter your CC info; all it takes is the scan of your fingerprint. I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. Sure, the revenue will be capped by the amount per year a user is willing to pay, but maybe the…

1. Snaps core demo likely doesn’t have the discretionary income to pay for a social network. 2. Snaps main competitor would have a far lower barrier to entry - free 3. If all your friends can’t pay for Snap, you will likely move regardless if you are a paying customer. Why would I pay for a network with 80% of my friends when I can use a near clone with 100% of my friends. 4. Facebook nearly $7/user a month with an a…

Doesn't have to be per user. You and your closest friends could split $20 every month. Per circle pricing.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#112

Post by sjg007 »

adventured wrote: post #77
cft wrote: post #36

That means that FB was probably the last "web" or "app" big IPO. Now it's Amazon, Google or Facebook. Even Yelp is withering. Just like it has been impossible to start a new car or airliner manufacturer since the 1920s (except for Tesla), the opportunity for creating new large web companies has been shut by the entrenched trio.

You're radically exaggerating. Yelp? I don't see how that's a particularly good example. Priceline is 27 times their size in market cap. Let's examine that withering though. Yelp sales by year: 2014: $377 million 2015: $549 million 2016: $713 million 2017: likely ~$850 million Is that massive growth what qualifies as withering these days? How about Zillow? Tracking to $1 billion in sales, growing very nicely still. E…

Some of your examples are private companies so saying uber and Airbnb have a 100 billion dollar market cap is misleading. Private valuation is one thing and may be equivalent at IPO but is not a market cap and they don’t disclose revenues.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#113

Post by sjg007 »

iaw wrote: post #60
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #22

I just went long on snap after saying for years it's a shitty facebook and if you like social media or online ads then you should just invest in facebook. The latest conference call was very enlightening in that it showed me how much snapchat was doing wrong and what they can do to fix it. I think there's a real opportunity here. It's one thing if snap just can't outcompete facebook, and a whole other thing if the pr…

There's a third possibility that you should be cognizant of: Snap runs out of money. If they have ~3 more quarters like the last one then they're insolvent. There may be a real opportunity here but not enough time to execute on it (especially given that every early employee can walk away now)

In that event they may recapitalize or go private equity. Too big to fail.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#114

Post by _nedR »

yalph wrote: post #104
rm999 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, that's a feature, not a product. Second, there's no barrier to entry there. Facebook's ~10000 engineers can recreate features with amazing swiftness, do it better than the first movers, then spread the feature quickly through its 1 billion+ user social network. If Facebook wants to beat snapchat at the AR game, they will do it when they feel like it. https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/13/instagram-stories-bigger-t…

You mean like how Google+ replaced FB?

Thats a product, not a feature.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#115

Post by klondike_ »

I think SNAP could benefit from being a content creation hub like YouTube. It's great for spontaneous content creation, even more than Instagram, and a ton of people already use it for that purpose.

Right now the app is mostly messenger focused. People with interesting, creative snap stories aren't advertised at all.

Snapchat could accomplish this with a "discovery" feature that shows snap stories a user might be interested in. It would also get users spending more time in the app and watching more ads.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#116

Post by QML »

anindha wrote: post #95

It took Facebook and Google a while to nail their advertising strategies. FB shares dropped down from an IPO price of $38 to less than $20 at one point. Its a very competitive climate and Snapchat needs to keep innovating, but I wouldn't write Snapchat off too early.

I would say Snapchat is more similar to Twitter than it is to Google or to Facebook. Question is, what is there to incentivize a user to stay on the platform for a couple extra of minutes? I personally have no clue why Snapchat the company is so large — does it really need that many engineers or marketers to maintain an app that is essentially a messenger? The failed Spectacles experiment just seems to scream that this is a company with a lot of money and no clue what to do with it.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#117

Post by [deleted] »

fullshark wrote: post #88
randoman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snap's ARPU is about $1 per quarter. Surely the core demo can afford even a 100% markup on that? My problem with any ad model is it incentivises the maximisation of views/engagement that allow for more/stickier ad impressions which means a proliferation of viral/tabloid/divisive content like youtube/snap/facebook. Once that incentive can be minimised, the incentive to provide quality product that users then feel will…

The second they charge, 75% of users go to Instagram and don’t come back.

[deleted]

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#118

Post by mizzao »

RandomInteger4 wrote: post #62

Snapchat always seemed like a one trick pony that anyone could easily replicate, which Instagram went and did. Not sure how this wasn't obvious to people.

Obvious in the way that Paypal, Square, Instacart, Dropbox and many other companies were obvious. You could have started any of those, right?

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#119

Post by QML »

cft wrote: post #36

That means that FB was probably the last "web" or "app" big IPO. Now it's Amazon, Google or Facebook. Even Yelp is withering. Just like it has been impossible to start a new car or airliner manufacturer since the 1920s (except for Tesla), the opportunity for creating new large web companies has been shut by the entrenched trio.

Contrast that with the fact that the half-life of S&P 500 companies has shortened — I don’t think web monopolies are here to stay.

Only thing holding those trio up is a self sustaining loop of VC money and ad revenue.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#120

Post by QML »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #79
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seems to be a hard boundary with reaching the demographic of users in developed nations and both Snap and Twitter are there I think Twitter and snap are very different. Snap is a messenger app and has the same potential as FB messenger or wechat. Twitter will never be that. The latest news has Tencent making a strategic investment and bringing chinese style monetization to Snapchat. I'm very optimistic about…

Interesting, what is Chinese style monetization?

I think it’s referring to how a lot of Chinese apps have micro transactions / are essentially payment channels with incentives built in or games built on top.
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