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Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

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Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#51

Post by bmc7 »

rblion wrote: post #24

DHH isn't too thrilled about this. > “We want every website, whether it’s e-commerce or anything to be powered by WordPress” is a nasty, monopolistic goal. Listening to Matt muse about 85% marketshare dreams is a real downer. But $300m is a down payment on monopoly dreams. full thread: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1174695189090308096

DHH and Jason Fried like to preach a lot. WordPress/Automattic is an awfully weak target to pick on about a monopoly. I wonder what would happen if Basecamp had 85% market share in the project management tool sector? Would they say "sorry folks we're being too monopolistic. We're going to have to kick some of you off." I don't think so.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#52

Post by losdos »

photomatt wrote: post #37
ttul wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

43% are in engineering, according to LinkedIn.

I would love for that percentage to go up, and we are hiring! High velocity and high scale backend work, tons of React with Calypso and Gutenberg, the most leveraged systems group I've ever seen, a really lovely-to-work-in native apps team, and of course everything coming in with Tumblr.

So you officially love React again? :)

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#53

Post by josefresco »

whalesalad wrote: post #9

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

The "middle ground" you speak of has not been ignored, and in fact has seen an explosion in "visual builders" to compete with the like of Wix.

Example: We use Divi (the theme), which is what we call a theme "framework" (not like Genesis) that allows almost any design & layout. This differs from most themes that typically have 1 or a handful of layouts that you must not stray too far from. While Divi offers pre-baked layouts, you're free as a designer to create something custom and then use the Divi toolset to build. We used to build every WP theme by hand, but Divi allows us to focus on design, and not the intricacies of WP theme development which is not core to our business (client solutions)

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#55

Post by interactivecode »

ttul wrote: post #21
whalesalad wrote: post #9

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

How much of that $300M was a secondary to founders and employees? We may never know.

What does this secondary and primary mean?

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#56

Post by [deleted] »

whalesalad wrote: post #9

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

[deleted]

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#57

Post by unicornfinder »

josefresco wrote: post #53
whalesalad wrote: post #9

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

The "middle ground" you speak of has not been ignored, and in fact has seen an explosion in "visual builders" to compete with the like of Wix. Example: We use Divi (the theme), which is what we call a theme "framework" (not like Genesis) that allows almost any design & layout. This differs from most themes that typically have 1 or a handful of layouts that you must not stray too far from. While Divi offers pre-baked…

Thing is, Divi isn't something that your typical Wix / Squarespace user is going to consider when they look at WordPress.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#58

Post by cooperadymas »

whalesalad wrote: post #9

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

What do you mean by the "middle ground"? The way you described it, there's more middle ground with WordPress than with all other CMS platforms combined.

There are a number of fantastic visual website builders for WordPress that allow you to generally build whatever you want without writing any code.

If you have custom data needs you can use plugins to visually generate and present complex custom data, without writing any code.

If those don't meet your needs, you can write code to generate even more complex custom data structures.

If writing code isn't your thing, there is an absolutely massive market of WordPress developers ranging from pennies on the dollar to expert teams that charge $100+ an hour.

There are hosting platforms ranging from $5/mo to $100/mo to enterprise level. (And free options, but I wouldn't recommend any of them.)

Small businesses can go on just about any freelance or job site and get your site customized or a completely custom site built for hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, or hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get what you pay for, but saying the options aren't there I just don't understand?

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#60

Post by ttul »

interactivecode wrote: post #55
ttul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that $300M was a secondary to founders and employees? We may never know.

What does this secondary and primary mean?

Primary: money from the financing that goes to the company.

Secondary: money from the financing that goes to employees, founders, or other existing shareholders.

Companies often use part of a financing to “take out” existing shareholders. Many larger financings are actually to a large extent a “secondary”.

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