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Backblaze S-1 IPO

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Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#241

Post by sneak »

wyclif wrote: post #172
cupofjoakim wrote: post #155

A friend in the music industry told me about a very cool backblaze moment. They were out touring with an artist in some remote country, I think it was Kazakhstan, when the artists macbook suffered hard drive failure. Everything was backed up on backblaze, but the internet connections they had available was simply too unreliable to get the backup down. They contacted backblaze and for a price that was high (but not in…

It's amazing how many musicians today are dependent on data storage for live performances.

While the person in this story did have (remote) backups, it always amazes me how many people who rely so heavily on their main laptop for their trade/work/business in realtime (e.g. a touring DJ) don't a) carry around a second identical one that b) has everything (apps, data) preloaded on to it.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#242

Post by pickle-wizard »

Hamuko wrote: post #169
KennyBlanken wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think Backblaze only stores 30 days of revisions anyways, so to migrate you only have to maintain two backup service subscriptions for a month. And you might want to do that anyways since if you have a lot of data, it might be weeks before you get all of your backups on the second service.

They now have options to store 1 year or indefinitely for an extra charge.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#243

Post by ramesh31 »

mbesto wrote: post #204
ramesh31 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They'll likely get a better valuation from the public market than they would privately and the founders who have been waiting 10 years can take some money off of the table. This is really all there is to it. You don't actually have to build a business anymore to get rich. You just put together something that looks like one, pay yourself a handsome salary for 10 years, then cash out and retire to New Zealand. Sweet g…

> Sweet gig if you can get it. Did you also start a business from the ground up and run it to the size that generates $50M in revenue? What exactly about Backblaze is a "sweet gig if you can get it"...achieving this is not trivial...

>..achieving this is not trivial...

Of course it's not. You need to have gone to the right school, made the right friends, be the right ethnicity/gender (white or asian male), and have access to the right VC. But given all that, it's a cakewalk.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#244

Post by petecooper »

p00dles wrote: post #149
petecooper wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://arqbackup.com/ I use the macOS version and it's excellent.

do you mind if I ask where you store the Arq backup? On a separate physical drive, in a cloud service, etc.?

Cloud and local servers.

I use B2 for cloud, and two NAS boxes on my network. I used to use OneDricd thanks to a legacy plan that was generous, but that appears to have stopped working for unknown reasons.

All data is encrypted with a paraphrase I supply, so short of some spectacular amount of brute force I consider it safe.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#245

Post by petecooper »

ronyfadel wrote: post #158
petecooper wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://arqbackup.com/ I use the macOS version and it's excellent.

How much does it cost you to back your data up (and on which cloud provider)?

I use B2 with a single bucket, so I pay the going rate for that. I’m storing a few hundred gigabytes with a few gigabytes ingress per month…a few dollars a quarter on the billing front.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#246

Post by daddylongstroke »

silexia wrote: post #215
cupofjoakim wrote: post #155

A friend in the music industry told me about a very cool backblaze moment. They were out touring with an artist in some remote country, I think it was Kazakhstan, when the artists macbook suffered hard drive failure. Everything was backed up on backblaze, but the internet connections they had available was simply too unreliable to get the backup down. They contacted backblaze and for a price that was high (but not in…

I get that backblaze is a cool business, but why would anyone invest in these companies that just lose massive amounts of money?

Mostly because they believe other investors will invest in these companies and hence their investment will pay off. Seems like 90%+ of tech companies religiously lose money, or maybe its just the 12 that I've worked for in my career? I remember a time when losing a billion/year would result in massive layoffs. Most don't even blink at a mention of a billion lost in a year as far as I can see.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#248

Post by apple4ever »

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&…

Its probably because they don't have great customer service. So they keep losing customers. And as we know, its much more expensive to get a new customer than keep a current customer - even more so with Backblaze where the initial startup charge is large due to them uploading everything.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#249

Post by apple4ever »

PaywallBuster wrote: post #123
Osiris wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the very insightful accounting perspective. I have a hard time understanding all the complexities of modern account and how a "loss" isn't always a loss. On a side note, I'm a very happy Backblaze customer and the same time curse Dropbox for not offering a 100GB $5/mn plan. Backblaze pricing is very customer friendly.

It's still a loss (for the current year). But this is a SaaS, working with recurring revenue. Some metrics to consider are: - Cost of Customer Acquisition - Lifetime Value They could spend 200$ to get an average customer, but they will renew their subscription for an average of 5 years and generate over 2000$ in revenue during that time. As long as you keep track of these metrics you know you're in a good direction o…

Based on my experience, that COCA is high, and the LV is low. They don't work hard to keep current customers.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#250

Post by cameron_b »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #71
Spooky23 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It’s a pure commodity business. They are competing against your iCloud subscription and little USB drives that cost $30. Not sure what the long term strategy is, but I hope going public doesn’t kill them — seems like a nice little business that could just coast for years.

Yes - and the danger for them is as an iPhone user I feel almost forced to use iCloud, and if I do that I might drop backblaze as I can use iCloud for everything. Why am I forced, because if I don't back up my phone using iCloud, then I need to back it up using iTunes, or not at all. That they have made copying photos off the iPhone terrible and iTunes terrible, is a good tactic to make me use iCloud. For now I am ho…

I was very disappointed in that myself. I’m very resistant to increasing my iCloud spend past the free bit.

I ended up setting up Nextcloud for myself and my wife. It isn’t fun to sync everything if your phone is already full, but a fresh install would have a very native feel with some setup and a fast host for your backup ( I currently self host at home, but I wfh so it matters little. )

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