I salute companies which are quick to turn a negative, random event into positive publicity / users. We should all be on the lookout for ways to do this in our own businesses.

This parallels Warren Buffet's strategy of residing in Omaha to completely avoid the influence of Wall Street hive-mind thinking.

There's something to be said for uninterrupted focus, whether its an individual coding solo, or a business focused on steady growth.

Sure... but again, consider their bread and butter client. While the Valley has a large share of government clients (case in point, Palantir), they still have to compete for sophisticated customers (basically, those that can code).

Esri caters to university, state & federal agencies (and military).

This article, while correct in that red paint is "cheap", misses the real reason why barns are painted red.

Iron oxide is a natural fungicide which protects the crops and animals inside the barn.

I'd love for this to be open-source, with attribution back to you all, its awesome

Malone, at the current price of Free, I'd love to sponsor you. Here's to hoping the demand gets you to raise prices soon ;)

It's AUD $5. He meant "Free" as in available.

Well said, I'll make that clearer.

There are a two major faults with the author's analysis which lead me to believe this post should not be relied on.

1. Advertising rates are far below the author's $10-20 CPM estimate for dashboard advertising; $10-20 is for legitimately premium advertising such as high-end audiences, wrapping a website, etc. Dashboard / banner ads will fetch $0.5-3 CPM the way Tumblr is running them.

2. The "valuation" formula of 10x trailing ("or"?) forward revenue is misplaced. Revenue multiples in acquisitions are often reserved for companies which are mature and predictable, not in early stages of their revenue plan. Corporate acquirers will often times use the expectations of the revenue created for the acquirer, which has little to do with the target in the status quo. Yahoo's expectations of revenue creation could be anything, and they have their own internal formula which we can't glimpse.

Exactly. What makes it worse is that Tumblr has lots of soft core porn and other unsavory content which brand advertisers don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

Plus, the P/S of 10x looks pulled out of ye' olde arse. Google's trailing P/S is 5.6x and Yahoo's is similar. AOL is 1.31x. What media company that might be a "comp" trades for 10x.

HuffPo, and I said it was steep not what people should expect to get.

Huffington Post, a media company, was purchased by AOL for $315M @ $30M rev. That's 10x. Stop trolling.

Not a very professional way to respond, Danielle. Especially being the author of the article in question. Stop accusing people as trolls just because you disagree with them.

You could goto Bloomberg.com or Yahoo Finance and get real P/S ratios but you used the uncontested paragon of financial data - HuffPo.

And you said it's high but still used it in your headline cuz you thought would have a higher chance of getting to the top of HN.

I guess pursuit of provocative > properly researched.

Will you both please stop?

Did the flame war algo catch this one? If so, well done.

> 1. Advertising rates are far below the author's $10-20 CPM

I agree with your analysis, but don't confuse CPM with RPM. Publishers can run 1-20 ad units, so the price you pay as an advertiser (CPM) can be an order of magnitude different from what the publisher receives (RPM).

At any rate, I can't fault the author too much. It is an extremely well researched piece that I am glad I read. It would have been slightly better if he started with the $15M revenue run rate, and then backed into the business model.

Danielle Morrill is a she not a he.

That CPM struck me as crazy high too and tumblr content is much closer to "social" than it is to premium media which would put the CPM a lot closer to $0.50 - 1.00 at scale.

Recent break out of CPM by country for FB :

http://www.rudibedy.com/blog/facebook-advertising-cpc-cpm-pe...

I should probably point out I am talking about Revenue per Impression, what the publisher earns. The advertiser may pay $.50 - $1 CPM to be shown on the impression, but it is possible for the publisher to show multiple ad units on the same impression. This analysis touches on the actual value of the dashboard today, but is ultimately focused on the expected value and potential revenue opportunity long term.

I thought I had caveated/explained that in the post but I can clarify it there too.

Fair point but 3 - 5x ad units @ $0.50 - 1 still don't add up to $10 - 20 . . .

As somebody who balances startup life and dating in San Francisco, I'm surprised by the comments on this thread so far.

Like most things at a startup, there are cycles. Sometimes work is 9-6, sometimes its 9-9. Consistency is uncommon, especially at the earlier stages. While you might not have time to date at the moment, you probably will later.

A few points: 1. 9pm is the perfect time to grab a quick bite with friends and head out. There are a ton of great bars / spots which offer a casual environment to be with female / startup / life friends, eat drink and meet guys if you so choose. Ping me for recommendations. 2. The internet (and especially OK Cupid) are great for arranging lots of dates with little effort. 9/10 of the people you meet will be boring or not click, but 1/10 will surprise you. Everyone uses it now, especially as a filler for in between relationships. 3. SF has a great friends-of-friends atmosphere. Go to parties. 4. Learn to love a busy schedule. You can easily cram more into life by going out after work, still getting a good nights sleep, and going back to work the next day. If you're only working M-F, it'll be the most active time of your life.

It's good to hear from someone who is balancing both. I chose to work for a startup so I am aware that somedays I will be putting in a lot of hours and energy but I just haven't actually gone through it yet (like I am now) and am realizing it's easy to get sucked in. I'm interested in finding out where these places you suggest are. I've also heard OKCupid is the site that people in the Bay Area use. That will be a last resort for me because it's so impersonal. I really admire people who can do it all. Thanks for the really good points.

Its absolutely flabbergasting when a company, which has the sole purpose of protecting customer information, allows this to occur. They've raised 4 major institutional rounds (their last $42 million), its discomforting that neither their team nor investors thought to secure their systems better than this.

" That is a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. " - Charlie Munger ( http://ycombinator.com/munger.html )

I worked there as one of their first engineer's, It's surprising to me that they've raised that much $, however the hack isn't. Incompetence is a word I use fairly when describing my time there...

mumble mumble invisible hand mumble

I didn't get it.

I think his point is that in an efficient market (invisible hand - an Adam Smith reference) incompetent companies should loose all of their customers to better companies and die.

Thanks! I didn't know it was an Adam Smith reference. It makes sense now.

It will be interesting to see more ZocDoc-like industry verticals take off.

I was just telling my doctor this morning how ZocDoc has made me substantially more likely to book an appointment because I can do it without a phone, and using an interface that was well designed (instead of what hospitals themselves would probably come up with).

Hit play