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Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

I just can't get my head around this.

1. Why don't they just build it themselves? That would cost probably low single-digit millions and maybe 1 year of time. I don't mean to downplay the work that went into Zenly but it's not like we're talking about self-driving car tech where there's a real technological entry barrier.

2. If, for some strange reason, they can't build it themselves and need to acquire, why do they go for the expensive VC-pumped startup instead of picking one or several of the hundreds of other less expensive options?

Can someone please enlighten me?

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> maybe 1 year of time.

Given that Facebook is absorbing their userbase from every angle, literally, by implementing Stories in practically every app under the Facebook umbrella (WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram), that's a year of not having something differentiating to compete with.

Granted, Facebook can hit back pretty easily since they've got mapping down in Instagram and Facebook itself, but hey, it stands out.

Answer to #2: They both have backing from Benchmark?

This is the right answer. VCs helped Snapchat out, so it's time for Snapchat to help their VCs out and balance their books.

Their website claims they use mysterious "patented algorithms" to do whatever they do with minimal battery hit (though I have not yet found a patent after searching the databases of the US, the EU, and France; that said, I only searched for the current company name, and maybe even failed at that)?

Original name of the company is Alert.us (it's the name of their original app), you may want to look at this name.

> maybe 1 year of time

One year during which your dev. team cannot work on other projects and without being certain that the end product will arrive on time and be any good.

you get the users?

I think it's more about the data than the users. Snapchat already has large user base and while Zenly probably has less than a half million.

They actually have 4M users.

They have 4 millions downloads. That's far from 4M active users.

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