Posts: 4,481
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2012
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 03:49 PM
The founders of Snapchat (a photo-sharing service) have just turned down an offer of 3 billion dollars from Facebook.
Snapchat is a photo sharing service whcih allows people to share messages or pictures, which then auto-delete a few seconds later. It's often used for sexual messaging.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/...regret-it/
I don't use Facebook. And I have never head of Snapchat. But this strikes me as being mad. How can such a simple service be worth 3 billion dollars?
And why would the people behind Snapchat turn it down?!!
Posts: 9,726
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
239
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 03:56 PM
Hotmail turned down several offers from Microsoft before finally accepting an absurdly massive one.
Either strategic or they honestly believe that they can do better than 3 billion on their own. If you valued your company at worth more than 3 billion long term, would you sell?
I'm the King of Beijing!
Posts: 7,818
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2010
Reputation:
343
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 04:02 PM
The kid Spiegel, family already billionaires.
Posts: 183
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 04:47 PM
Quote: (11-14-2013 04:02 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:
The kid Spiegel, family already billionaires.
That explains it. Otherwise, still a stupid mistake not to take the money. Just like Groupon. There is nothing revolutionary about either. These guys all think they're Facebook or Twitter, both actual new thinking products. Snapchat and Groupon are just incremental improvements and therefore will lose much market share once someone makes a new incremental improvement. Also, why not take the 3 million for Snapchat? Does anyone really want to be known as making a IM app that was a bit better than the rest. Is that a life mission worth sacrificing 3 billion for?
Posts: 9,157
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
92
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 05:03 PM
At some point, for people, it is no longer just money, it is an ego thing. I go the highest value ever per subscriber or some other thing to brag about.
We, or the majority of us, having never been in the world they are playing in, don't understand what drives them.
Fate whispers to the warrior, "You cannot withstand the storm." And the warrior whispers back, "I am the storm."
Women and children can be careless, but not men - Don Corleone
Great RVF Comments |
Where Evil Resides |
How to upload, etc. |
New Members Read This 1 |
New Members Read This 2
Posts: 2,296
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2013
Reputation:
22
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 06:23 PM
I'd take $3billion - once you have a certain amount of money, any extra won't really change your lifestyle right? I mean does a guy with $3billion in the bank have a very different lifestyle to somebody with $20billion?
Even if you're worth only $50 million, you can eat at a 5 star restaurant every day, stay in the most expensive hotel rooms and fly wherever you want to...
Posts: 2,201
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2013
Reputation:
26
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 07:04 PM
He's going to sell it next year for more to FB, this is FB's second offer the guy is gambling that Mark Zuckerberg comes back with a higher price tag.
Posts: 3,176
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2012
Reputation:
170
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 07:06 PM
I'd sell in a second for $3billion.
First order of business:
Buy an island and setup a RVF resort full of every ethnicity of girl. Only RVFers are allowed and ratio would be 30:1 girls.
How do you get on the island?
Give me one rep point.
Hahahahaha the place would implode at some point....
Posts: 3,176
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2012
Reputation:
170
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 07:20 PM
They should call it SNATCHchat since that's all people use it for: nude pics.
Posts: 348
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2012
Reputation:
1
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 07:29 PM
On the face of it, this makes little sense, but, they might be playing hardball, they might think they can develop it into something better and more lucrative on their own, OR, they might be a bit paranoid, or just keen to reach out to the non-facebook using market.
Facebook is better placed to make use of this app, but wouldn't it fly in the face of their openness, (i.e. the recent stuff about anti-bullying) and data-sharing with certain government agencies? Plus, Snapchat is not as family-friendly as Facebook, and you would either have to restrict use or charge for it as an extra, since policing it would be difficult
Maybe the business model that Pax Dickinson has for Glimpse would be better for Snapchat to adopt here?
https://weneedglimpse.com/
"The woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is the first to jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them,"
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Posts: 2,816
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
55
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 09:33 PM
Facebook is desperate to recover the young audience, 18 & below, to make it cool again. Teens aren't using FB like they did years ago. FB is aging and they are desperate to keep the growth going, thus willing to part with a few B's. Look at what happened to Tumblr, its all but irrelevant now after the Yahoo acquisition. This will be a brilliant move if they develop a widely used platform, but as with anything, its a role of the dice.
Posts: 67
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2012
Reputation:
3
Worse business mistake ever?
11-14-2013, 10:25 PM
The Chinese are supposedly offering them over 4 billion. They are a few companies who are looking to buy snapchat. They are just playing the bidding war.
Posts: 1,800
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
36
Worse business mistake ever?
11-15-2013, 03:24 AM
^ I'm sure it's come up before, but I see the RVF evolving into something like the Freemasons in the future.
Once all the major cities have data sheets, you'll most likely have members living there who have spots locked down.
Their own inside jokes, vocab, strategies, connects, etc.
Posts: 6,749
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2011
Reputation:
146
Worse business mistake ever?
11-15-2013, 03:53 AM
Facebook would of scrubbed it and probably would try to integrate it with instagram. It's a toy all tho. It's only prospects to make money isbd you have to watch a 10 sec ad before you open videosnaps or some shit.
Posts: 5,420
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2010
Reputation:
102
Worse business mistake ever?
11-15-2013, 04:00 AM
I think too the top guys at Snapchat enjoy a life of pat each other on the back pseudo-glamour.
Think of all the hot chicks working there that catch a glimpse of one of the guys that will be worth 300 million or more. It's like, or it actually IS, being famous.
Once you sell, you're out, or just an employee, what can you do-- walk around Manhattan with your stockbrokerage statement, saying " I WAS the guy that started Snapchat."
These guys aren't partiers who want to relax on an island in Greece--what will they do all day? --the founders of Google still hang around some office complex in the South Bay. It's not even a pretty place, just a sea of office parks.