Ahh Qwiki on CNN right now.
Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
51–60 of 91 posts
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#52There has been increasing commentary lately about a "current startup bubble." Aside from Qwiki, people have pointed to the valuation of Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and others. An important question is, do recent valuations indicate a second industry-wide Internet bubble, much like the bubble and subsequent crash in 2000? Or is something else more fundamental going on? A look at the progression of other infrastructural…
As always, incredibly insightful remarks. The bit about developing core infrastructure rings especially true. The emergence and success of these web businesses has a lot to do with the absurdly low barriers to entry for creating software for the web. This is largely thanks to the development and proliferation of open source tools. It's not surprising that so many successes should shake out the other end of the sieve…
Thanks Danilo! I appreciate the kind words.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#53There has been increasing commentary lately about a "current startup bubble." Aside from Qwiki, people have pointed to the valuation of Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and others. An important question is, do recent valuations indicate a second industry-wide Internet bubble, much like the bubble and subsequent crash in 2000? Or is something else more fundamental going on? A look at the progression of other infrastructural…
Your post, while insightful, doesn't really provide much reason as to why there seems to be a huge influx currently of high funding rounds for seemingly basic or non-profitible companies, the likes that I have not seen since the 90s. The companies you mentioned, Pandora, Dropbox, and Facebook are probably the exceptions, and don't release financials to my knowledge. It will be interesting to see what Facebook actuall…
Wonderful comment.
One of the reasons there has been a huge influx of funding is that there was A LOT of sideline cash in 2008. A lot of the fear has since evaporated, and funding and liquidity has increased, albeit, with some pent up back pressure.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your post, while insightful, doesn't really provide much reason as to why there seems to be a huge influx currently of high funding rounds for seemingly basic or non-profitible companies, the likes that I have not seen since the 90s. The companies you mentioned, Pandora, Dropbox, and Facebook are probably the exceptions, and don't release financials to my knowledge. It will be interesting to see what Facebook actuall…
I think the answer is a bit more simple than that. Where else should people put their money if not in high tech? Industrials correlate to GDP, and GDP is projected to be flat. Same goes with consumer products and volatility is too high in media. If you have capital to put to work, Tech appears to have the highest risk/return profile. Phrased differently: if you had $10mil, where would you put it?
"GDP is projected to be flat."
This is utterly absurd and shows a complete misunderstanding of economic growth.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#55There has been increasing commentary lately about a "current startup bubble." Aside from Qwiki, people have pointed to the valuation of Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and others. An important question is, do recent valuations indicate a second industry-wide Internet bubble, much like the bubble and subsequent crash in 2000? Or is something else more fundamental going on? A look at the progression of other infrastructural…
Your post, while insightful, doesn't really provide much reason as to why there seems to be a huge influx currently of high funding rounds for seemingly basic or non-profitible companies, the likes that I have not seen since the 90s. The companies you mentioned, Pandora, Dropbox, and Facebook are probably the exceptions, and don't release financials to my knowledge. It will be interesting to see what Facebook actuall…
Good points. It's hard to say what specific factors are driving the substantial influx in capital. However, I agree with the comment about investment alternatives. Where else can you invest today and expect a significant return? On this point, there might be a bit of resulting froth in the angel and venture capital markets, but I don't think this reflects an industry-wide bubble as what we witnessed in 2000.
Take Facebook as an example. Is Facebook worth $50b, per the recent Goldman Sachs investment? It's possibly worth much more, if we assume that Facebook is the winner-take-all in a network market (social networking). Are there significant uncertainties related to Facebook's revenue model and the company's ability to fend off substitution threats? Yes. But this is consistent with the risk/reward profile that comes with an equity investment in a privately held, high-growth tech company.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#56agreed, all qwiki does is read out loud articles word for word from wikipedia. it also jacks the images.
useless.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#57I kind of felt that the $8m round of funding given to Zivity a few years back was the first indicator that we were in a pretty stupid bubble.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#58you guys are idiots. banksy the lucky stuff is actually a qwiki team member stirring up controversy to propel his startup. any publicity is good publicity.
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the answer is a bit more simple than that. Where else should people put their money if not in high tech? Industrials correlate to GDP, and GDP is projected to be flat. Same goes with consumer products and volatility is too high in media. If you have capital to put to work, Tech appears to have the highest risk/return profile. Phrased differently: if you had $10mil, where would you put it?
Phrased differently: if you had $10mil, where would you put it? 25% stocks, 25% bonds, 25% gold, 25% cash? (That's literally what the "Fail-Safe Investing" book boils down to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-Safe_Investing )
fail-safe meaning you're ready to lose up to 50% of your investments? cause quite a few things on that list are mutually exclusive...
Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble
#60I don't understand the need for bench entrepreneurs to ridicule start ups from the side lines. All this effort to point fingers and make fun of start ups which are actually trying to build businesses might be better spent actually trying to build your own business. All the posts about Qwiki and others recently (Facebook, Zynga, Groupon) all calling for the downfall of all these start ups really make me question the v…
you should learn to take criticism then.