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Backblaze S-1 IPO

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Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#131

Post by KennyBlanken »

gruez wrote: post #47
qeternity wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This caught me by surprise as well because I am pretty sure they have stated before that they were profitable.

Yeah, what gives? I remember they prided themselves on being profitable, self-funded and not beholden to VCs. Sure enough, I was able to confirm that with a quick search: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074289 >Finally, Backblaze is profoundly different than CrashPlan in that we never really raised any bank financing or VC financing. We're 90% employee owned, and there are no deep pockets. CrashPlan raised som…

Ahhh yes, Crashplan, the company that purposefully locked everyone out of their backups when they shut down their personal backup service.

I had a drive fail and I thought I was OK...and then I discovered that my Crashplan backup archives on my own server were unreadable after they shut down Crashplan personal backup services.

I couldn't even install the client, either - they silently updated the client to have a logic time bomb and refuse to install.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#132

Post by KennyBlanken »

m0zg wrote: post #29
tiffanyh wrote: post #20

I love Backblaze. Kind of surprised they aren’t profitable. >” In the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, our revenue was $40.7 million and $53.8 million, respectively, representing growth of 32%. We incurred net losses of $1.0 million and $6.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively”

Sounds to me like prices will pretty much inevitably go up after they're public, and I'll finally have the motivation to set up my own remote backup by exchanging hard drives with a friend of mine on the other end of the country.

Yup. Just like every other cloud company: hook people cheap, get them super dependent, and then go public telling investors they'll make a goldmine when you jack prices.

The extra fun bit is that just exfiltration will cost you.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#133

Post by foobiekr »

antidnan wrote: post #35

Surprised at how small they are, given the scale of most IPOs these days. 90% gross retention is really good, even if 110% NRR is bottom quartile for public SaaS. Wouldn't be surprised if they become profitable soon.

Backblaze is the best AAS I use by far. My only issue with them is that the UI on the site is a bit janky (the other day, for example, I couldn't get the end date for my backup to actually 'stick' - it would refresh and reset).

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#134

Post by KennyBlanken »

bryik wrote: post #70
hatware wrote: post #42

I feel bad for taking advantage of their personal backup plan ($60/yr) now that I see they're struggling to gross a profit. I just can't find a better way to back up 80TB offsite with that value.

According to Backblaze's calculator[0], it would cost $4,800/yr to store 80TB on Backblaze B2 and you're storing it for $60/yr. Cases like these are why unlimited storage plans don't make sense... Also it irks me that the personal backup plan forbids network drives [1]. I can't backup my 4TB NAS but 80TB is fine because it's stored on one machine? 0 - https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html 1 - https:…

It makes perfect sense because just like every other cloud company, they hook you pre-IPO. Post IPO or buyout, with lots of customers dependent upon them, they can raise their prices to a bit above market price because their customers will resist moving.

Think about it: if you have a backups stored with them via their proprietary backup client, you have to stick with them or lose all your backup revisions; there's no way to move revision history.

That's why they charged below their own rates, they knew people would be trapped.

Backblaze backup plan pricing is about to skyrocket.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#135

Post by voiper1 »

hatware wrote: post #42

I feel bad for taking advantage of their personal backup plan ($60/yr) now that I see they're struggling to gross a profit. I just can't find a better way to back up 80TB offsite with that value.

They said somewhere it's also a marketing investment. If they have people saying "Yeah I backed up a TON of data and it's really unlimited" then more people feel comfortable and become paying customers.

I can't find the link.

p.s. "Right now we have computer-wide deduplication, but not farm-wide or account-wide!" 4 year ago http://disq.us/p/1q3efbb

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#136

Post by throwawaysea »

divbzero wrote: post #124
metalliqaz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use rclone.

I use rclone as well and it has worked reliably for years. Keeping the password [1] separate allows me to restore files to a fresh computer as needed. Backblaze B2 is just one of many backend options [2]. [1]: https://rclone.org/crypt/ [2]: https://rclone.org/overview/

How does one use this with something like a Synology NAS? Or is that not really the intended workflow? I’m imagining something like a local backup plus a backup to cloud.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#138

Post by KennyBlanken »

adar wrote: post #49
hatware wrote: post #42

I feel bad for taking advantage of their personal backup plan ($60/yr) now that I see they're struggling to gross a profit. I just can't find a better way to back up 80TB offsite with that value.

I'd feel deeply uncomfortable backing up 80tb of data to a $60/year plan, tbh.

What you should be more uncomfortable with is the fact that there's basically no way to exfiltrate that data in any cost-effective, practical manner and there's zero recourse if a backup storage company goes "oops" and loses all your data or one day decides to just close up shop.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#139

Post by spoonjim »

tgtweak wrote: post #88
tiffanyh wrote: post #20

I love Backblaze. Kind of surprised they aren’t profitable. >” In the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, our revenue was $40.7 million and $53.8 million, respectively, representing growth of 32%. We incurred net losses of $1.0 million and $6.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively”

I think if you consider the increase in assets (total value of the # of servers, racks, network gear etc) from the purchase of hardware to accommodate that growth, in order to satisfy those revenues and future revenues, it makes sense. It is entirely intentional and desirable for any gross margins to go fully back into growth or assets to support growth - especially in the cloud game where infrastructure costs and R&…

They don't even need to keep the hard drive spinning since there are no guarantees of immediate access. They can keep them off and spin them up when you need to download a backup.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#140

Post by dillondoyle »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #132
m0zg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds to me like prices will pretty much inevitably go up after they're public, and I'll finally have the motivation to set up my own remote backup by exchanging hard drives with a friend of mine on the other end of the country.

Yup. Just like every other cloud company: hook people cheap, get them super dependent, and then go public telling investors they'll make a goldmine when you jack prices. The extra fun bit is that just exfiltration will cost you.

Don't even need to go public! Take $1 billion in VC cash to build an app that can't possibly make that much revenue then lock people in with long term contracts.

We use multiple great SaaS tools that in the last two years have removed DIY 'tiers' or 'plans' billing you can do online and forced us to sign yearly contracts, deal with pushy sales reps, and changed to opaque and stupid complicated pricing.

Oracle behavior! we have no choice but to bend over.

They are great tools which is why they can do this ;)

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