To me the biggest question is what, exactly, Square does? Years ago they were the company that made it easy for people to accept credit card payments who otherwise wouldn't want to / be able to (mom & pop stores, farmers' markets, etc). But you don't build a multi-billion dollar company just there, it seems that the margins are too thin and the volume just isn't there to make up for it. Since then, they've done their…
I see their PoS everywhere. It works super well, too.
It's not enough to be ubiquitous and useful in today's market.
To me the biggest question is what, exactly, Square does? Years ago they were the company that made it easy for people to accept credit card payments who otherwise wouldn't want to / be able to (mom & pop stores, farmers' markets, etc). But you don't build a multi-billion dollar company just there, it seems that the margins are too thin and the volume just isn't there to make up for it. Since then, they've done their…
Square as well as Stripe have really changed PoS space. Before they arrived, the devices for PoS were truely ugly, unfriendly, hard to acquire and hard to use. I see tons of small businesses converting their PoS devices to Square/Stripe ALL the time. They are like iPhone for PoS. The potential is massive. They get huge amount of transaction data which alone is probably worth a billion dollars (customer habits, usage pattern, targeting, BI etc). They can easily expand in to integrated inventory, accounting and tax system which is well beyond billion dollar industry by itself. If you visit any super market or traditional retail space, one thing that would immediately catch your eyes is arcane PoS that literally runs on Win2000 based CE code. Even though it is super critical for running business, innovations in this space have been few and far between. if you have ever even tried to use any small business accounting/tax/inventory software you would know how pathetic and 1990-ish these software are. Given small businesses have limited resources, expertise and savvyness, this space is ripe for disruption. If there was easy to use, realtime, scalable, well integrated PoS system with smart customer focused analytics putting great business intelligence on fingertips of moms and pops, it would be worth its weight in gold for businesses owners. Square/Stripe could easily outpace SAP and Oracle in market cap/revenues if they play their game right and target this market with full force. The cut in credit card translations is small and probably irrelevant part of the story.
To me the biggest question is what, exactly, Square does? Years ago they were the company that made it easy for people to accept credit card payments who otherwise wouldn't want to / be able to (mom & pop stores, farmers' markets, etc). But you don't build a multi-billion dollar company just there, it seems that the margins are too thin and the volume just isn't there to make up for it. Since then, they've done their…
In the bay area, a good deal of the restaurants I eat at use square. So do the farmers markets, food trucks, and my coffee shop. I probably personally spend $200 a month through square and $50 through breadcrumb, so there's room to grow.
Key words being 'bay area', which is in no way representative of the market Square needs.
Another challenge for Square is that their core merchants are mom & pop coffee shops or like you said, food trucks - not particularly lucrative segments.
Square's POS can never compete with full-service POS (Aloha, Micros), and even in the quick-service market there is increasing competition (Clover POS, Revel etc). That's why they've moved into payroll, HR, time-tracking, albeit the $5 per employee is ridiculously expensive for SMB's.
To me the biggest question is what, exactly, Square does? Years ago they were the company that made it easy for people to accept credit card payments who otherwise wouldn't want to / be able to (mom & pop stores, farmers' markets, etc). But you don't build a multi-billion dollar company just there, it seems that the margins are too thin and the volume just isn't there to make up for it. Since then, they've done their…
Square as well as Stripe have really changed PoS space. Before they arrived, the devices for PoS were truely ugly, unfriendly, hard to acquire and hard to use. I see tons of small businesses converting their PoS devices to Square/Stripe ALL the time. They are like iPhone for PoS. The potential is massive. They get huge amount of transaction data which alone is probably worth a billion dollars (customer habits, usage…
I think the problem is that though Square really did change things there (I agree w/ you), the space now is very competitive with a lot of different players, and it's not clear what Square can do that their competitors can't. It doesn't seem like there's really much lock-in or network effects that are helping them out.
In the bay area, a good deal of the restaurants I eat at use square. So do the farmers markets, food trucks, and my coffee shop. I probably personally spend $200 a month through square and $50 through breadcrumb, so there's room to grow.
Key words being 'bay area', which is in no way representative of the market Square needs. Another challenge for Square is that their core merchants are mom & pop coffee shops or like you said, food trucks - not particularly lucrative segments. Square's POS can never compete with full-service POS (Aloha, Micros), and even in the quick-service market there is increasing competition (Clover POS, Revel etc). That's why t…
Square will obviously have to grow more, but the reason I think they have a future is they're getting merchants who didn't take cards to take them, easily and cheaply. My family is not on the coast and there's still a lot of places that don't take cards for whom square should be a really good solution. Then they can do the classic microsoft strategy: start with the smallest/cheapest and relentlessly move upmarket. Will they ever be the solution for Safeway with hundreds of stores and a very complex discounting system? Probably not. But there's a lot of smaller businesses. Small to medium restaurants should be a key target customer.
I am not surprised. Majority of tech IPOs in past year are trading below or near IPO prices. The investors in public market have learnt from the past. Most of these companies are coming to public market later when most of the upside has already been squeezed by private investors. Most IPOs come across nothing more than offloading to greater fools. Buying at IPO makes no sense. Wait till prices stabilize after the IPO…
How have private investors "squeezed the upside" of a company before IPO? Dividends? /Not being facetious
Inflate the price, lock in their returns.
If Facebook had few investors and not much equity sold, they would have the option of offering at a cheaper price to the public -- fewer folks to be paid back. The GP comment is also suggesting they might IPO earlier, when more of their value is potential instead of actual, which also makes it cheaper and more profitable (but riskier.)
By having more private equity (or VC) rounds before IPO, more of the risk-to-money conversion happens before random members of the public can participate by buying shares.
If you think there's a tech bubble on because the latest private round came in higher than the IPO, consider what the explanation would be if the IPO valuation was 3x the VC round.
In the bay area, a good deal of the restaurants I eat at use square. So do the farmers markets, food trucks, and my coffee shop. I probably personally spend $200 a month through square and $50 through breadcrumb, so there's room to grow.
Key words being 'bay area', which is in no way representative of the market Square needs. Another challenge for Square is that their core merchants are mom & pop coffee shops or like you said, food trucks - not particularly lucrative segments. Square's POS can never compete with full-service POS (Aloha, Micros), and even in the quick-service market there is increasing competition (Clover POS, Revel etc). That's why t…
Here in Denver I see it all the time. I actually don't really notice it (a problem for them as so many competitors directly cloned them)... until that email receipt arrives.
It's not ubiquitous here, but it's certainly common.