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Snap falls to IPO price

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Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#161
post #71
post #8

What does $SNAP need to do to deliver on the hype? Is there anything that can make $SNAP a good investment for anyone other than the parties involved in trading the IPO? I tend to be bearish on $SNAP in general, but I'm interested in the discussion. How do they right the ship and boost back up to that $25-30 range? What's their play?

Given the product and strategic path they're on the only thing they can do to create value is restart user growth. Their business model depends on them becoming a powerful brand advertising platform (brand advertising is when companies want to spread general awareness of their brands and influence the public's overall impressions of what a company stands for, even if it is far removed from any actual moment of purcha…

Your comment seems very well thought out. Can you expand a bit on why you think Snap would actually be worse at building a random new product than any other startup or big company?

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#162
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is >$200 per user.

From an investors standpoint, I view Facebook as four companies -Facebook, 2 billion MAU -Messenger, 1.2 billion MAU -WhatsApp, 1.2 billion MAU -Instagram, 700 million MAU Messenger, on its own, is easily a $50 billion company.

Ah, so that's why they split it off from facebook! Nice +25% to valuation.

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#163

I can't understand what are they doing to not make any profits. They are selling ads. Server resources to exchange the pictures are a minor cost, so where is all that ad money going to? If they stopped wasting money on development time making their UX even worse, or stupid stuff like Spectacles, or this: https://www.recode.net/2017/6/17/15824222/snapchat-ferris-wh... - maybe they would actually be making profits righ…

Actually they are contractually obligated to spend billions of dollars with Google's hosted server (... "cloud" ...) business arm.

https://www.recode.net/2017/3/1/14661126/snap-snapchat-ipo-s...

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#164
post #10

$17.00 was the IPO price but only for investors with access. Your average investor with an eTrade account saw a price of $24.00+ when the market opened that morning, and it hit almost $27.00 that day. So those folks have seen a 30%+ drop since IPO. Given that Snap paid out billions in IPO bonuses to executives and other employees, it's turned out to be a pretty big wealth transfer from retail investors to Snap employ…

If the company prices the IPO in a way where there is a sustained increase in the stock price, people complain that the company irresponsibly left money on the table for themselves and their employees.

If the company prices the IPO in a way where the stock drops below its IPO price (FB, SNAP), people complain that retain investors who bought on opening day are now underwater.

Heads I win Tails you lose?

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#165
post #8

What does $SNAP need to do to deliver on the hype? Is there anything that can make $SNAP a good investment for anyone other than the parties involved in trading the IPO? I tend to be bearish on $SNAP in general, but I'm interested in the discussion. How do they right the ship and boost back up to that $25-30 range? What's their play?

They do AR & Marketing amazingly and hardware quite well. I am not sure a social network is their best business model though. Hopefully they can pivot to something else using what they are great at.

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only a handful of people on the planet that could reasonably claim that $1.4 billion doesn't matter that much to them (and none of them are likely to actually hold that belief). It's an absurd premise to claim that 80%-90% of someone's wealth does not matter much to them. Not to mention implying all sorts of horrible things about their character in the process (to claim what you are, is identical to claimin…

I believe the point is more about the marginal utility of wealth and what additional products and services $1.4 billion can buy relative to the $250+MM net worth they have now.

Can't buy a major Hawaiian Island like Larry Ellison quite yet with $250M :P

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#167
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$250 million means I need to fundraise to build my spaceship. With $1.4 billion, I can get started on a Dyson sphere. Depends on your goals.

If you think you can completely encompass a star for quarter the price of an aircraft carrier, damn what's your secret? :)

You just have to build one little robot capable of building another robot out of lunar regolith.

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear what revenue (yet alone profit) Messenger has on its own that can justify a $50Bn price tag.

None revenue, just users. Based off their MAUs, if Messenger was an independent chat app they would fetch such valuation. I peg them at $40/user, which isn't so crazy considering WhatsApp was purchased at $35/user and Instagram at $30/user. When Facebook Messenger gets around to copying WeChat (the whole payments and official accounts ecosystem) I expect them to rake in merchant fees for big profit. WhatsApp presentl…

Speaking of FB Messenger/WhatsApp getting around to copying WeChat, what's taking them so long? Are the US, or non-China, markets simply not ready to embrace a WeChat style all encompassing app?

Full disclosure, I've never used either FB Messenger or WeChat, but I do use WhatsApp, so I'm just basing this on what I hear.

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#169
post #10

$17.00 was the IPO price but only for investors with access. Your average investor with an eTrade account saw a price of $24.00+ when the market opened that morning, and it hit almost $27.00 that day. So those folks have seen a 30%+ drop since IPO. Given that Snap paid out billions in IPO bonuses to executives and other employees, it's turned out to be a pretty big wealth transfer from retail investors to Snap employ…

If the company prices the IPO in a way where there is a sustained increase in the stock price, people complain that the company irresponsibly left money on the table for themselves and their employees. If the company prices the IPO in a way where the stock drops below its IPO price (FB, SNAP), people complain that retain investors who bought on opening day are now underwater. Heads I win Tails you lose?

Nah cause I bought Bitcoin on Snap's IPO instead.

Re: Snap falls to IPO price

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like nick, I'm close to 30 years old too. Snap is big in all my social circles. Mostly people between mid 20s to early 30s. Less popular the older you get, but still significant. Regardless, all have enough buying power. Even if Snap never gets much traction past people in their 30s, that's enough of a market to expand for quite a while. The 18-34 demographic is the most coveted. The pre-teen and teen market isn't so…

Popular does not mean profitable! I feel like the tech industry has confused the two over and over again.

Of course. But getting popular is an important part of being a big social media company. Profits of $100M on under $1B in revenue isn't going to help things much for Snap if that's not growing because they don't have enough users.
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