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Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

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Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#81

Post by sharkweek »

logicallee wrote: post #54
sharkweek wrote: post #11

You know when you hear about a lot of insane valuations and your jaw sort of drops in disbelief? I feel the opposite when I think about Pinterest. My immediate reaction here is "yeah, makes sense." I guess it must stem from my marketing agency days. I had SO MANY clients begging me to get them into Pinterest ads when they released. I also sit at home and see how much time my wife spends on the site and how dedicated…

but what you've said could be an argument for why it's worth 111B. I wonder why it's so underpriced? 11/111 is only 9.9%... I wonder what makes them so cash-starved that they would firesale this round at nine cents on the dollar compared to what we've seen they're really worth? /s seriously while I appreciate your comment, none of what you've said has anything to do with any financial numbers, even to within an order…

The second line in my comment says... "My immediate reaction here"

Not every comment on HN needs to be an in depth analysis, especially when my comment is, exactly as I said, a gut reaction to a piece of news. Are the points I made anecdotal? Absolutely, but that doesn't make the meta-commentary any less valid.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#82

Post by callmeed »

monsterix wrote: post #73
callmeed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. There's so much purchasing intent on Pinterest. I think it could be a stronger platform than Facebook for advertising non-digital goods. Every bride uses Pinterest (and now most wedding vendors and bloggers). My mother-in-law uses it every day to plan all her home remodeling projects and she's 60-something.

> Every bride uses Pinterest (and now most wedding vendors and bloggers). Any study covering all the brides situation to qualify that comment? I attended three weddings recently. Not one was on Pinterest, all were on email rather.

I'm referring to brides using Pinterest as a planning tool (before the wedding).

I can't believe you just asked me for a study based on that comment (where "every" is clearly hyperbole). Let me Google it for you (EVERYone uses Google).

Look at that ... 70% of women use it for wedding planning BEFORE EVEN GETTING ENGAGED

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/wedding-survey_n_56...

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#83

Post by nl »

monsterix wrote: post #73
callmeed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. There's so much purchasing intent on Pinterest. I think it could be a stronger platform than Facebook for advertising non-digital goods. Every bride uses Pinterest (and now most wedding vendors and bloggers). My mother-in-law uses it every day to plan all her home remodeling projects and she's 60-something.

> Every bride uses Pinterest (and now most wedding vendors and bloggers). Any study covering all the brides situation to qualify that comment? I attended three weddings recently. Not one was on Pinterest, all were on email rather.

I'm not sure you understand what "uses Pinterest" means.

Brides typically use it to decide what they should wear, what their wedding party should wear, and what decor should be used at their reception etc. See for example [1],[2]. Note that [2] has 4 million followers, for that board alone.

If it's studies you want, then something like [3] shows just how much traffic Pinterest drives: much, much more than Twitter, and second only to Facebook in terms of social sources.

It's not typically used as an organization tool in itself.

[1] https://www.pinterest.com/categories/weddings/

[2] https://www.pinterest.com/explore/wedding-ideas/

[3] http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7356-social-media-marketing...

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#84

Post by lostsock »

mwcremer wrote: post #72
lostsock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 employees * lets say $150,000 per employee * 6 years is only $450,000,000. That leaves ~$150m from previous rounds to spend on infrastructure etc before they need to raise more in the latest round.

Conventional wisdom is that an employee costs the company twice their salary (insurance, facilities, etc.) So it's closer to $1 billion.

I expect that they would be paying each of their 500 employees less than $150,000 yearly salary so had inflated that price to include the other expenses involved in hiring someone. Perhaps it is a little on the low side but if you also factor in that Pinterest wouldn't have been employing 500 people since 2009 I'd hazard a guess $450m is on the high side, not the low, of their actual employee expenses.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#85

Post by nl »

kenko wrote: post #69
nl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your point is? 1) Youtube isn't profitable, but it's taking more and more "hours watched" out of the TV market. Google can keep it running at break even for as long as they want, and then adjust the ad prices up very, very slightly and start making profit based on the huge audience. 2) Video watching (usually) has very little commercial intent, especially in terms of some kind of "commercial value p…

> where a very significant amount of usage has almost direct purchase intent. But how do you know that it isn't actually 99% window-shopping and fantasy, until you actually put the theory into action?

You can measure it:

Revenue from Pinterest however was up by 2x over the Thanksgiving weekend and on Black Friday, and up by 3.6x on Cyber Monday (as compared to a 30-day average preceding Thanksgiving). This is very telling about the power of Pinterest in driving e-commerce transactions.[1]

or

How did shoppers, who had pinned an item before purchasing the item in store, originally discover the item?

    10% reported that they discovered it while searching on Pinterest.
    24% discovered the item on a stranger’s Pinterest board or newsfeed.
    19% discovered from a friend’s board.
    7% was from a retailer’s Pinterest board.
This encompasses a total of 60% of people, who had pinned and later purchased an item, originally discovered the items on the Pinterest platform.[2]

[1] http://blog.piqora.com/revenue-from-pinterest-more-than-trip...

[2] http://pinnablebusiness.com/infographic-research-shows-pinte...

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#86

Post by foobarqux »

sharkweek wrote: post #81
logicallee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but what you've said could be an argument for why it's worth 111B. I wonder why it's so underpriced? 11/111 is only 9.9%... I wonder what makes them so cash-starved that they would firesale this round at nine cents on the dollar compared to what we've seen they're really worth? /s seriously while I appreciate your comment, none of what you've said has anything to do with any financial numbers, even to within an order…

The second line in my comment says... "My immediate reaction here" Not every comment on HN needs to be an in depth analysis, especially when my comment is, exactly as I said, a gut reaction to a piece of news. Are the points I made anecdotal? Absolutely, but that doesn't make the meta-commentary any less valid.

When $111 billion and $11 billion both make sense, neither do.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#87

Post by foobarian »

patmcc wrote: post #27

For anyone who thinks this is high: when my wife (and lots of other women in her social group) is in the market for clothes, or wedding ideas, or baby/nursery ideas, she goes to Pinterest first. That is huge potential for monetization from advertising and affiliate sales. Pinterest is where shopping starts for tons of young women (primarily) with money.

It's more than shopping/ideas for shopping directly. Our nanny spends a lot of time on Pinterest to get ideas for crafts/activities with the kid, which are not purchasable items themselves, but still lead to sales indirectly. Another great mode of opportunity given some good analytics.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#88

Post by logicallee »

sharkweek wrote: post #81
logicallee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but what you've said could be an argument for why it's worth 111B. I wonder why it's so underpriced? 11/111 is only 9.9%... I wonder what makes them so cash-starved that they would firesale this round at nine cents on the dollar compared to what we've seen they're really worth? /s seriously while I appreciate your comment, none of what you've said has anything to do with any financial numbers, even to within an order…

The second line in my comment says... "My immediate reaction here" Not every comment on HN needs to be an in depth analysis, especially when my comment is, exactly as I said, a gut reaction to a piece of news. Are the points I made anecdotal? Absolutely, but that doesn't make the meta-commentary any less valid.

I appreciate that, and you did identify it, but when you're talking about valuations, of course it makes the meta-commentary less valid not to mention any numbers at all! you have to talk about numbers, because otherwise what I said applies - i.e. why are they selling stock at 9 cents on the dollar in this round?
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