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Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

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Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#91

Post by [deleted] »

jamiequint wrote: post #59
its_so_on wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember where I was five years ago and what Facebook was saying, but if you look at this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_popularity.PNG at 2007, and remember what Facebook is (since day 1), it's pretty easy to see Facebook making the argument that it will be used by pretty much everyone, everywhere. It's pretty obvious that pinterest has no such claim. That is one such basis. Other such base…

You're being pedantic about the 5 year thing, if anything Pinterest's current growth outpaces that of Facebook. At 2 years old they're sitting at somewhere around 30M users, even Facebook didn't grow that quickly (per your own graph). In addition, Pinterest sits much closer to transactions than Facebook does. Facebook currently makes around $5/user/year, just given Pinterest's proximity to the transaction its relativ…

[deleted]

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#92

Post by giltotherescue »

What about all the copyright holders, such as Getty Images, that are circling the water, waiting for Pinterest to start making money so the rights holders can charge licensing fees? Any business model they come up with has to factor in the costs of legally acquiring all the photos they use.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#93

Post by idleloops »

cageface wrote: post #60

I think this really cements the notion that design is king now. Just about all the big startup hits lately are way more about design than any serious engineering. Sure there's some smart people making things like Facebook scale but the new crop of winners are all about UI.

Which is odd, because it's visual design feels uncomfortable for me. On my laptop which is a 15" Thinkpad with a 1280x800 display - I can't even read the text on Pinterest without zooming. It's also too bright for my eyes. The multi-columns I find hideous to try and track (I can't stand Facebook's timeline for the same reason - which shows as two columns on my screen.)

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#94

Post by BlackJack »

kingsidharth wrote: post #58

So by this math, if I buy a company's 0.001% for $1000 its valuation becomes $1B? huh!

Well if you bought a 0.001% stake for $1000, then the valuation would be $100M, not $1B. You probably mean either $10000 or 0.0001%. Regardless, that's the idea, yes. If a company had a million shares, and you bought one for $1000, you're essentially saying that the present value each of those shares is worth $1000, so the company is worth $1B.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#95

Post by ErikHuisman »

cageface wrote: post #60

I think this really cements the notion that design is king now. Just about all the big startup hits lately are way more about design than any serious engineering. Sure there's some smart people making things like Facebook scale but the new crop of winners are all about UI.

Consumer focused products are about user experience as it should be. Serious engineering can only help achieve this goal.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#96

Post by zackzackzack »

joshu wrote: post #31
Alex3917 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Essentially scrapbooking on the Web" A better analogy is probably delicious for women, at least in terms of having a mental framework to estimate the value.

oh, if only.

^ This may be the hardest I have ever laughed at something from Hacker News.

Context: joshu founded Delicious.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#98

Post by antidaily »

cletus wrote: post #5

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this: Pinterest has real value and a clear path to monetization through affiliate and/or advertising revenue. It's really a stupidly simple idea (essentially scrapbooking on the Web) executed incredibly well. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than Instagram for whatever that's worth (not a lot). I gue…

Plus... chicks dig it.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#99

Post by inthewoods »

pitdesi wrote: post #9

If you want some justification, read this http://www.shopify.com/blog/6058268-how-pinterest-drives-eco... TL;DR - Pinterest drives as much ecommerce traffic as twitter with significantly more purchase intent

According to the blog post, consumers are 10% more likely to buy vs. Facebook - well, that's a decent lift stat but it does, as someone else mentioned, depend on the base. Then, later in the article we learn that in Sept 11 they had 75 total orders (across 26,000 shops) via pinterest, then 320 orders in April 2012. Yes, that's more or less 4x the Sept number and does indicate an upward trend - but that's still a very, very small number, and the growth rate is unlikely to continue.

Pinterest is definitely interesting - I'll be trying it out for some eCommerce, but I'm not expecting much at this point.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#100

Post by inthewoods »

mtjl79 wrote: post #2

Normally I am not one to comment on fundraising, and I have stayed out of the whole "bubble" debate. But, honestly, this is really getting a little out of hand now. The whole funding situation is getting really frothy. $1.5b pretty much prices them out of any real acquisition now for the most part. So is Pinterest going to go IPO? Where do they go from here? That's the question of the day.

Get bought by Amazon or Google in my mind - they have stock to do it, and it would benefit either of them (although less for Google). I could see Amazon buying them as, essentially, infrastructure for driving ecommerce sales.
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