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Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

investors.squarespace.com

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Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#251

Post by dehrmann »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #174
armchairhacker wrote: post #127

I hear that PE destroys products and culture to make money at all costs, but i don’t get how that can net them back the >$6 billion they paid for a company with <$300 million yearly revenue and negative profit.

Squarespace spent 40% of revenue and nearly 60% of gross profit on marketing and sales last quarter [1]. You could literally generate over $200mm in free cash flow by cutting marketing in half. This is a forced pivot from growth to sustaining a good business. [1] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001496963/d08174f...

Probably not a good time to be a podcaster.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#252

Post by vessenes »

everybodyknows wrote: post #142
vessenes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers don't tell you that Squarespace is a pig with lipstick. It might be one! But, SAAS economics treat the ability to hit near-zero profitability as a feature of the business model, not a problem. Here's why -- income is taxed, and growth is rewarded, heavily, in the valuation of the company. If every dollar of business you make is worth $6 (Roughly $1.2bn in revenues = $7bn buyout), and every $1 of new bus…

Sales growth for 2023: 17% https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/SQSP?tab=financials

So, we've achieved growth-valuation stasis: $1 in growth = $1 in valuation, give or take, Time to sell the company, or re-trench it for margin. Or both, in this case.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#253

Post by klysm »

cduzz wrote: post #90
klysm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If growth is the goal, you sacrifice margin for revenue

And sometimes you sacrifice solvency as well? Gambling on exponential growth and then having the growth fall short (say, because people moved their personal web sites to facebook instead of squarespace) is a risk in any time you go big or go home. Sometimes (often!) you ... go home.

I would say most of the time you sacrifice solvency

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#254

Post by solatic »

armchairhacker wrote: post #127

I hear that PE destroys products and culture to make money at all costs, but i don’t get how that can net them back the >$6 billion they paid for a company with <$300 million yearly revenue and negative profit.

> PE destroys products and culture to make money at all costs

Not always true. Certainly your impression is based on something real, i.e. people like Carl Icahn and other 1980's corporate raiders. But the fundamental way in which PE can add value is by forcing leadership change and removing the pressure (from public markets) to deliver better numbers every quarter, to instead make deep cultural change and deep investments in the business that will take years to pay off. One of the better examples from recent years was Dell: https://www.crn.com/news/data-center/dell-s-public-journey-f... .

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#255

Post by packetlost »

nicbou wrote: post #77
renegade-otter wrote: post #60

The gold rush is over - private equity is going to squeeze every little drop from the companies that have been built and we will move on to Web 3.0 - which will be just like web 1.0 - self-hosting, link directories, newsletters, and guestbooks.

As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Most people don't have the skills needed to run their own website. A lot of valuable content is created by people without these sorts of skills.

I feel like making it easy to how your own website is something that can be solved with an ingress service (Tailscale funnel?) + DNS management and a small box that someone buys and leaves in their living room. It doesn't have to require any technical expertise, you just need to build a lot of things to make it that way.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#257

Post by iamkonstantin »

johnbellone wrote: post #201
dawnerd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conveniently after taking over all of Google Domains too! I missed transferring a couple of domains before the cutover and now I’m in squarespace hell trying to get them out. They make it so much harder by putting artificial delays on everything.

I was about to go start the transfer process. How bad of a time am I in for?

It took me a total of two weeks to complete the transfer.

I didn’t need to contact support, but the process requires patience … and some downtime as I had no way of knowing exactly when the transfer happens to recreate the DNS records.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#258

Post by idontwantthis »

packetlost wrote: post #255
nicbou wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Most people don't have the skills needed to run their own website. A lot of valuable content is created by people without these sorts of skills.

I feel like making it easy to how your own website is something that can be solved with an ingress service (Tailscale funnel?) + DNS management and a small box that someone buys and leaves in their living room. It doesn't have to require any technical expertise, you just need to build a lot of things to make it that way.

I’ve thought about making my own homepage to replace my instagram/fb and share my life with my friends, but how would anyone find it? I guess I could email everyone and tell them. I’ve wondered if there is a way I could easily get that to the top of Google for my name, but there are a few famous people with my name.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#259

Post by mschuster91 »

NewJazz wrote: post #236
rchaud wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linktree became the go to because social media networks only give you a single link to display on your bio.

And they also don't like it when that single link points to onlyfans.

Who'd guess why, Onlyfans (and related) spammers are the scourge of the Internet these days.

Re: Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

#260

Post by keiferski »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #214
keiferski wrote: post #76

This is a bit disappointing, as I really like Squarespace's website builder. IMO it's far superior to anything WordPress, Shopify, or Wix have put out in the last decade.

When I was choosing between squarespace and Wix, sqspace didn’t have a simple backup/restore function. Maybe they do now? That’s a really big product hole.

I honestly don't remember. I just used it for one site and enjoyed their page builder.
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