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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

#361

Post by x0x0 »

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...

this is an interesting set of numbers from Jason Lemkin

https://cloud.substack.com/p/5-interesting-learnings-from-sq...

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

#362

Post by reachableceo »

n_ary wrote: post #238
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 was part of some social computing facilities and burnt my own and friends’ money to offer basic stuff for people to publish basic html pages, small twitter like service, one nextcloud and one invidious instance. Within weeks, nextcloud was filled with pirated content sharing, html pages were hosting fake bank login phishing pages and moderation became horror. Our colo provider sent us some written warnings to sort…

I’m working on this. Would love to collaborate with you. Reachableceo@turnsys.com

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

#363

Post by reachableceo »

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’m working on exactly this. Would love to collaborate. Reachableceo@turnsys.com.

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

#364

Post by randerson »

solatic wrote: post #254
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 invest…

Dell is an outlier because it it was reacquired in part by its founder Michael Dell, who was presumably motivated by pride to not destroy his namesake brand.

I'm interested in hearing other PE success stories where the product isn't ruined as a result.

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

#365

Post by Andrex »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #190
msoad wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most young folks don't understand URLs anymore? "Find us on App Store" or "Find us on Social Media" is the new internet. QR codes that takes you directly into a walled garden is the new web.

I see people using "linktree" to crosslink all their different social media accounts together and it really bums me out in a way I can't describe.

Linktree seems like the natural evolution of About.me.

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

#366

Post by arrosenberg »

mattmaroon wrote: post #312
arrosenberg wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hate on PE for good reason - they often make money by destroying good businesses. They sell off the valuable parts for profit, load the debts on what is left, and declare bankruptcy, leaving employees and customers holding the bag. PE is good business for the raiders, bad business for the raided.

That’s a strange cartoony impression that people here have but not generally what they do, even in the case of LBOs which I assume is what you’re referencing but only a small part of what PE firms do. They generally buy businesses that are managed poorly, manage them well, and fix them. And when they part one out like you are referencing, it’s usually a bad business. While what Eddie Lampert did to Sears/K-Mart was c…

> I have come to the conclusion that people in tech are as largely ignorant of finance as people in finance are of tech.

Well I'm you can certainly speak for yourself, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are, so maybe keep your opinions to yourself. I was responding to the premise that people hate on PE because of negativity bias - there is a negativity bias toward Private Equity, and it is entirely on the fault of the industry for their mendacity and lack of empathy. The fact is, there are more than enough examples of this bad behavior (recently, Chuck E Cheese and Toys'R'Us come to mind). There are also plenty of examples of PE "improving management" by crushing labor, degradation of product quality and screwing customers, so that is is the reputation for the entire industry.

I'm not even specifically criticizing the industry - they have a role to play in the economy. What I am saying is don't go crying about the public perception - if they want the big money, they get to own that reputation and be the bad guy. No one likes a parasite.

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

#367

Post by packetlost »

tomrod wrote: post #287
packetlost wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved my .dev domains under Porkbun right after it was announced that Google Domains was being sold to squarespace, so you don't have to drop the domains. Porkbun is also quite friendly IME.

I don't know porkbun. I was looking at namecheap -- why porkbun?

I've just had a good experience with them. I don't remember where I heard about them before, it's been years.

Namecheap is fine, but I've moved all but one domain off of them.

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

#368

Post by solatic »

randerson wrote: post #364
solatic wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 invest…

Dell is an outlier because it it was reacquired in part by its founder Michael Dell, who was presumably motivated by pride to not destroy his namesake brand. I'm interested in hearing other PE success stories where the product isn't ruined as a result.

Blackstone's acquisition of Hilton Hotels is another well-known success story, all the more inspiring because the LBO debt was issued in 2007, right before the 2008 recession: https://thestrategystory.com/2021/04/10/blackstone-hilton-lb...

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

#369

Post by mtnGoat »

idontwantthis wrote: post #258
packetlost wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I made placeholder accounts on meta and other platforms and in my tagline I told people looking for me how to contact/find me.

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

#370

Post by mtnGoat »

KuriousCat wrote: post #340
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.

How hard is it come up with community run maker spaces supported by the city for putting such things together? Not every thing has to be owned by large private companies.

As someone who works with a non profit who does this… don’t ask the city, they rarely care about thing’s like this. They will talk about support, but it’s talk. Most are too involved with crazy politics, campaigning, etc. Better to seek out other non-profits and community services to work with.
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