359 karma · joined September 7, 2011
https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/how-much-is-your-saas-compa... https://www.bvp.com/strategy/cloud-computing/index
There is a huge general misunderstanding in the profitability of directing hotel bookings vs flight bookings or other types of travel consumables. Rate parity and high commission rates mean that directing hotel rooms is hugely profitable and Expedia (hotels.com, trivago, expedia) and Priceline (booking.com) operate as a duopoly in most markets. They are both marketing machines that turn brand + paid traffic into highly profitable room nights.
Surely it would take the sheen off what has been a meteoric rise, but the hype cycle will continue to turn. Hopefully they can figure out the multitude of cultural problems if there is a harder reset.
Definitely some nice charts in here though, would be a fun data set to play with.
"Acquisition Protection Terms
Liquidation protection over common stock – 100%
Senior liquidation protection over other series of preferred stock - 19%"
http://www.poplarnetwork.com/sites/default/files/peak-shavin... http://static.squarespace.com/static/545e40d0e4b054a6f8622bc... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nLHRC8dC8wI/S8tjxUq6cxI/AAAAAAAAAD... http://www.northcoastjournal.com/110305/chart.jpg
For emerging product-market fit companies, your power users are your lifeblood. Cultivation super-users early is the make or break for seed companies. These super users are testers, referrals, product-definers, everything. 50M+ user problems are just so limited.
In any case, great talk, but definitely targets growth marketers more than start-up folks. Especially liked the idea of tying 'magic numbers' to logical reasoning, not done enough in the growth world.
Edit: Much better in the tactical section going through marketing tactics.
Not to mention the marginal value of dollars to the hyper rich is substantially lower.
The wealth/income distribution we have now looks very different than it did even 10 years ago, so it is worth discussing as a society what the 'correct' distribution should be. Hedge fund managers now are no better than the managers of 10-20 years ago, the system has evolved to favor them more.
We can argue about whether they 'deserve' said wealth, but research shows that the wealthy need a given dollars less than the impoverished and growth can benefit when the distribution is more equal as well.
And the celeb style guide: http://www.celebritystyleguide.com/
Even though growth hacking has become a silly term, all the points Andy Johns makes about reducing friction is exactly the philosophy that drives faster growth. The point of marketing or growth hacking or advertising or whatever you want to call the space is growing faster and acquiring more users with the product you have.
We can still stop using the term growth hacking though.
All from the most recent 10K: http://investor.visa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=215693&p=irol-SECTe...
If they have a 10% to turn into Tencent tomorrow, at 10% chance there is some value. If we are talking about 5-10 years down the line, a reasonable discount rate like 25% puts the $100B of future value at something like $10-30B. Suddenly a 10% isn't even close to good enough.
This ignores the extremely unlikelihood that consumers in the US monetize the same way as in China to even reach a similar market cap (Tencent has higher top-line than Facebook).
If bitcoin intends to be a cash-like currency, the more apt fee comparison would be swiping ATM cards, which are much closer to 1% (rather than credit card fees of 2.5%+).
Markets are clearly more efficient at the top (and all but the most inclined wont be running their own hedge funds). Buffetts, Paulsons, etc cannot just move into a position on a whim. They thus require more asymmetric information for a trade to make sense.
Inversely, smaller traders avoid the enormous position sizes that can make transacting difficult, and thus can benefit from increased mobility in the markets. This means less lucrative information advantages can be harnessed more easily. Additionally, there are inefficiencies that simply cannot be realized by large funds (see the Norilsk Nickel tender in 2011, "free" money for small investors: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/norilsk-nickel-russian-odd-lot-...).
I'll temper my entire statement by saying I agree with you for 99% of the population, but I do think people too easily punt on efficient market theory. I do believe the small, inclined trader can profit.