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> The company doesn’t disclose revenue and is unprofitable. Valuation to me doesn't mean much until the company is bringing in real money consistently. Becaus
by yeukhon 11y ago
> The company doesn’t disclose revenue and is unprofitable.
Valuation to me doesn't mean much until the company is bringing in real money consistently.
Because soon or later you are going to run out of money and you will just wait for acquisition.
Also, I have never heard of Thumbtack since its debut (over six years)... that's just my opinion.
- tdylan 11y agoTheir revenue is strong, hence the valuation. They could also be profitable if they decided to, but are instead focusing on growth.
- tspike 11y agoThey don't disclose revenue. Where are you getting that information?
- boomzilla 11y agoFor startups this size, evaluations are usually in the range of 10-30 revenues, so it's reasonably safe to assume their revenue is in the range of 40-100M.
- ogezi 11y agoTell your thumbtack employers that we aren't buying it.
- ffumarola 11y agoFWIW, Thumbtack has been all the buzz for the past 18 months or so. I've seen their name frequently in the context of all things local services.
- derefr 11y agoFrom what I understand talking to some other people pursuing similar ventures, the point of services like Thumbtack isn't really whatever they start out as; the point is capturing the talent in a network and then selling that talent infrastructure. Everyone from "startup banks", to payment-processors, to service marketplaces, to coworking spaces, are all running full-tilt toward this goal, and getting a company there first (and achieving a network effect from doing so) is what has the all the investors interested.
- lsc 11y agogive me an example of a 'talent network' that pivoted. I mean, being a middleman, I understand... but most of the middleman networks start out as a thing, and largely stay that thing. I'm not saying you're wrong... just trying to understand what you are saying.
- derefr 11y agoIt's not so much pivoting as conglomeration. The end-goal of all these companies is to be "the point-of-contact a small-business-owner has for everything their business does that's not making their product." (In other words, to act as a PE firm or bigcorp acquirer without needing to do any actual acquiring.) The main method of achieving this goal, from the starting point of having any one "component" of such an offering, is merging with other companies that provide other components, or integrating others' components into your own as a "suite" or "dashboard", or selling a "concierge" service that recommends others' services, etc etc.
- lsc 11y agoAh, I see. Has anyone achieved this? It sounds difficult. as a small business owner myself, I know I'm super suspicious of middlemen, and I think that's one of my major advantages over larger businesses.
- braythwayt 11y ago> Thumbtack has been all the buzz for the past 18 months or so Time to re-read @paulg’s “The Submarine.” http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html