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Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

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Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#91

This $27.8 billion dollar valuation tells me that somewhere along the line, my job and lifestyle have caused me to detach from a significant chunk of society. I've never used Snap or their platform. I don't even really know what the benefit of their service. I am curious if I'm in the minority or if there's lots of developers like me who aren't able to comprehend these valuations.

I can't tell you how much this blows my mind. So no, you're not alone. I consider myself a pretty normal person, one that can have an open mind and get along with people. I can't for the life of me figure out why snapchat is so popular. I also can't figure out how to use the app or what it's use case is over Instagram (an app I use heavily). I'm 27 by the way.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#92
post #76
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah, the 13-21-year-old chunk of society MySpace had that one nailed, and look how that turned out for them. This is exactly the kind of demographic that is susceptible to fads and keeps leaving dead services in its wake.

once it hits the mainstream it isn't cool anymore, take Facebook for example. kids hate it now, because grandma, mom, dad and aunt marie all use it. when it comes to social media of any type, if your grandma is using it, you don't want to be using it, since it must be for old people. according to teenager logic, anyway.

Well to be completely fair, it is quite embarrassing even for me as an adult to have my parents/grandma looking at the stuff I post of facebook, which has caused me to reduce engagement there and post to instagram, which is restricted to close friends.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#93

This $27.8 billion dollar valuation tells me that somewhere along the line, my job and lifestyle have caused me to detach from a significant chunk of society. I've never used Snap or their platform. I don't even really know what the benefit of their service. I am curious if I'm in the minority or if there's lots of developers like me who aren't able to comprehend these valuations.

the fact that you havent used snap doesnt really speak to their valuation. here are some large cap (+$200B) U.S. companies that i have never used: jpmorgan chase, wells fargo, at&t, bank of america, pfizer, verizon.

I think it more speaks to that the parent comment doesn't understand the product and why you should use it (I am with the parent comment I don't understand snapchat).

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#94

This $27.8 billion dollar valuation tells me that somewhere along the line, my job and lifestyle have caused me to detach from a significant chunk of society. I've never used Snap or their platform. I don't even really know what the benefit of their service. I am curious if I'm in the minority or if there's lots of developers like me who aren't able to comprehend these valuations.

the fact that you havent used snap doesnt really speak to their valuation. here are some large cap (+$200B) U.S. companies that i have never used: jpmorgan chase, wells fargo, at&t, bank of america, pfizer, verizon.

You use those companies, you just don't directly use those companies. Snapchat is entirely different.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#95
post #84

The SNAP thesis I like the best is - "Twitter-like growth with FB ARPU". The monetization potential of this company is massive (geofilters, sponsored content, hardware with spectacles, etc.) and there's no direct comp for that. Pokemon Go showed us the bleeding of digital to physical, and Snap has the potential to be the first company to unlock value from it (ex. geofilters). Plus you can view SNAP as a call option o…

>Pokemon Go showed us the bleeding of digital to physical

It also showed how quickly a popular phenomenon can loose cultural relevance.

>when something exciting happens, which app do you open first? One that doesn't automatically delete the photo I took of the exciting thing by default

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have extremely powerful targeting data: geolocation. Afaik, one of snap's biggest revenue sources is geolocked filters.

How is that powerful? Any mobile app has geolocation data. How is that a market differentiator? That's like saying they have mobile OS targeting... So?

Few other apps that I'm aware of provide live advertisements for events happening nearby as part of your natural use of the app in a really noninvasive way, and provide incentive to share those advertisements.

Snapchat geofilters are non-invasive and will be seen in normal app use, but don't really bother you. They can inform you of events happening nearby or, if you're at an event, you can use the geofilter when snapping, which shows your friends that you endorse the event/product/whatever, in a totally transparent, opt-in way. That's super powerful.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#97
post #85

I'm happy for the NYSE that this went well. SNAP has done some pretty large volume so far with no problems. Interestingly enough, well atleast to someone who cares about the cash equity markets, the NYSE actually did a test run last week to try and simulate the chaos that occurs during any hot IPO. So now we know that there is atleast some appetite for shares with no controlling interest and no indication of paying o…

> So now we know that there is atleast some appetite for shares with no controlling interest and no indication of paying out a dividend any time soon. A current market cap of 30 Billion is a pretty darn big accomplishment! This is really disturbing. I don't know if its an indicator of too much money in the market, or just the fact that the market itself has expanded so much. Why would investors be OK with losing powe…

For the same reason 50% of the US didn't vote in the last election. Or employees don't demand to view board decks.

Most investors are buying as a way to make money off of continued success. They don't want to control the business or make decisions, and even if they did, they don't want to invest enough to make a dent in the normal 1-share-1-vote sort of model. They're looking the company and hooking their accounts to its success. In the public markets, most investors aren't in it for the control, they're in it for the returns.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#99

I'm happy for the NYSE that this went well. SNAP has done some pretty large volume so far with no problems. Interestingly enough, well atleast to someone who cares about the cash equity markets, the NYSE actually did a test run last week to try and simulate the chaos that occurs during any hot IPO. So now we know that there is atleast some appetite for shares with no controlling interest and no indication of paying o…

They had a pretty large participating contribution (50M shares as I recall) so that is a bunch of money that paid off some folks who might have been skittish.

I was surprised to see as large a bounce as there was. And it has no doubt realigned the world view of a bunch of Snapchat employees[1].

To your last point I can't imagine they are going to talk earnings in a GAAP context unless they are generating lots of free cash flow as Google does.

[1] If you're an employee and reading this and thinking "I'm rich! Quick go buy a Lamborghini!" I caution you to wait until you've not only exercised the shares and paid tax on them, but you have sold the shares and that sale has 'settled' and you have the money in your brokerage account.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#100
post #85

I'm happy for the NYSE that this went well. SNAP has done some pretty large volume so far with no problems. Interestingly enough, well atleast to someone who cares about the cash equity markets, the NYSE actually did a test run last week to try and simulate the chaos that occurs during any hot IPO. So now we know that there is atleast some appetite for shares with no controlling interest and no indication of paying o…

> So now we know that there is atleast some appetite for shares with no controlling interest and no indication of paying out a dividend any time soon. A current market cap of 30 Billion is a pretty darn big accomplishment! This is really disturbing. I don't know if its an indicator of too much money in the market, or just the fact that the market itself has expanded so much. Why would investors be OK with losing powe…

(Disclaimer: I know nothing.)

One of the things that I personally believe is that when a company IPOs their priorities become heavily skewed towards profit and earnings, often over a short term period, above all else. And I think that hurts them.

I'm not sure that removing the voting rights of stockholders completely eliminates that pressure—it's probably also rooted in having to be on earnings calls, and the price fluctuations of bad earnings calls, etc.—but remove those voting rights might help to eliminate some of the negative, short-term-profit-seeking pressure.

If it does, it seems reasonable for some investors to want to invest in companies that aren't as worried about voting rights takeovers.

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