6 ms·

What we're all here for: 2015 revenue: $41mm net loss: $77mm 2016 revenue: $65mm net loss: $73mm 2017 revenue: $101mm net loss: $87mm

by pulam 9y ago

beamatronic 9y ago
What are the chances of that revenue doubling any time soon?
- brianwawok 9y ago
  I don't see enough suites willing to pay for a 3rd tier database anytime soon.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
koolba 9y ago
How the hell does this company spend $188M a year?! Seriously I'm flabbergasted.
- kilroy123 9y ago
  Sales and marketing?
- camus2 9y ago
  They launched Atlas, a cloud service. It sure ain't cheap to operate.
- meritt 9y ago
  Last year (through Jan '17) spent (very simplified): $29.9M on Cost of Revenue (hosting fees + the people who run things + support/consultants) $78.6M on Sales & Marketing (sales people) $51.7M on Research & Development (programmers) $27.1M on General & Administrative (managers/executives/HR) This was spread across ~820 (as of July) employees. Hosting + Rent + Employees = $188M. Basically they spend $229k per employee which works out to very roughly: ~43% Tech, ~42% Sales, ~15% Management By comparison, Cloudera is quite similar: 42% on Tech, 45% on Sales, 13% on Management. They made $261M last year and spent $448M, losing -$187M across 1,470 employees ($305k per employee)
  - anarazel 9y ago
    820 employees, plus some contractors probably. That's a pretty large headcount for that revenue - ~120k revenue / employee...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - thisisit 9y ago
    A small correction, G&A is everything which cannot be directly tied to per unit of sale. So if they have say employee(s) who work on installing and maintaining an active directory software - used by everyone in the company, those salaries will also be part of G&A.
- nrser 9y ago
  Trying to get big. The conventional wisdom is that it works better to get big with an unsustainable revenue model and convince people you can make it sustainable than to stay small with a sustainable revenue model and convince people you can make it big. Spend whatever you can to capture the land, then charge rent. Sometimes it turns out you can't hold the territory. Sometimes it turns out it's not worth much. But the times it works out are the times that make funds.
  - jv22222 9y ago
    I hate this conventional wisdom idea and it really doesn't need to be that way in many cases. Companies like Mailchimp and 37 Signals prove that the "logical" way to do it works pretty well. (Not a criticism of your comment, just the get big fast idea)
    - bartread 9y ago
      I'm inclined to agree with you. It's not my field but I suspect VC pressure has something to do with it: they need their 10x returns, or their unicorns, to make up for all the losses elsewhere and "get big fast" is the most reliable mechanism for doing that. Not suggesting I'm a fan of it, btw.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        It's a market issue. Databases are a very competitive business with lots of options and competitors. It is also extremely hard to sell.
    - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
      Mailchimp is rather large, but 2017 I have the feeling 37Signals is rather insignificant, e.g. compared to Slack.
      - johnchristopher 9y ago
        FWIW when I was still a student and not in a 9-5 I wondered what if would feel like to use basecamp. Now here I am happily going with flow using slack on the fre eplan. One of my coworkers sometimes asks if we shouldn't go with a subscription to have the whole logs but we rarely have to dive so far in the past at all.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Sales&Marketing. They need to drive Revenue growth to sell a story to investors.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pavlakoos 9y ago
  Brand awareness. Getting exposure at hackathons around the world, etc. costs a lot of money. Been there, done that.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dustingetz 9y ago
Mongo going public for same reason all tech companies go public in 2016+ - they are done growing, they are not going to win it all after all, they're fucked, and now the investors want to liquidate
- pquerna 9y ago
  Huh? What is your bar for "done growing". Because the rest of the normal publicly traded market doesn't grow revenue at 50+ percent a year. The average for the S&P 500 is something more like 3-4 percent revenue growth per year. From data in the MongoDB S-1: 2016 yoy revenue growth: 58% 2017 yoy revenue growth: 55% MongoDB is part of the same thesis as something like Twilio -- they IPO'ed over a year ago with the same belief around differentiating via developer-centric customer acquisition. Twilio is still putting up ~70% yoy growth.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    Tech startups are typically viewed as "growth" companies. They'll need to maintain ~30% YoY post-IPO to keep a steady market price.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Twilio's growth is exciting but it isn't reflected in their stock price. Every few weeks, I find myself going back to look at their share prices. Each time, I'm tempted to pull the trigger and invest a moderate five digit sum. I just can't go through with it. I usually buy and hold, long-term investing, and Twilio is one that I've been monitoring since their IPO. I'd probably pull the trigger if I saw just a bit more fluctuation. It hasn't necessarily got to be just growth, but some fluctuation just to indicate that they are doing something of note. For 70% yoy growth, it doesn't seem to be really impacting the company's valuation. I'd just checked it earlier this week, and just checked again now, and it's pretty much been the same price for a while now.
    - nikcub 9y ago
      Twilio is trading at 10x revenue - which is what an expensive strategic SaaS acquisitions would sell at. The average is 4x[0] - its crazy overpriced even with the growth rate (it's still growing into its valuation) I think the price was driven up to 20x because many thought it would be acquired. It also has a ton of short interest in it - so you really shouldn't be investing in it at this point. Do some more research outside of what the price is doing before doing anything (there are undervalued stocks out there) [0] https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c6817033630aaf74d05421472b34cf99.webp https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c6817033630aaf74d05421...

What we're all here for: 2015 revenue: $41mm net loss: $77mm 2016 revenue: $65mm net loss: $73mm 2017 revenue: $101mm net loss: $87mm

by pulam 9y ago

What we're all here for: 2015 revenue: $41mm net loss: $77mm 2016 revenue: $65mm net loss: $73mm 2017 revenue: $101mm net loss: $87mm

beamatronic 9y ago

What are the chances of that revenue doubling any time soon?

brianwawok 9y ago
I don't see enough suites willing to pay for a 3rd tier database anytime soon.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

koolba 9y ago

How the hell does this company spend $188M a year?! Seriously I'm flabbergasted.

kilroy123 9y ago
Sales and marketing?
camus2 9y ago
They launched Atlas, a cloud service. It sure ain't cheap to operate.
meritt 9y ago
Last year (through Jan '17) spent (very simplified): $29.9M on Cost of Revenue (hosting fees + the people who run things + support/consultants) $78.6M on Sales & Marketing (sales people) $51.7M on Research & Development (programmers) $27.1M on General & Administrative (managers/executives/HR) This was spread across ~820 (as of July) employees. Hosting + Rent + Employees = $188M. Basically they spend $229k per employee which works out to very roughly: ~43% Tech, ~42% Sales, ~15% Management By comparison, Cloudera is quite similar: 42% on Tech, 45% on Sales, 13% on Management. They made $261M last year and spent $448M, losing -$187M across 1,470 employees ($305k per employee)
- anarazel 9y ago
  820 employees, plus some contractors probably. That's a pretty large headcount for that revenue - ~120k revenue / employee...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- thisisit 9y ago
  A small correction, G&A is everything which cannot be directly tied to per unit of sale. So if they have say employee(s) who work on installing and maintaining an active directory software - used by everyone in the company, those salaries will also be part of G&A.
nrser 9y ago
Trying to get big. The conventional wisdom is that it works better to get big with an unsustainable revenue model and convince people you can make it sustainable than to stay small with a sustainable revenue model and convince people you can make it big. Spend whatever you can to capture the land, then charge rent. Sometimes it turns out you can't hold the territory. Sometimes it turns out it's not worth much. But the times it works out are the times that make funds.
- jv22222 9y ago
  I hate this conventional wisdom idea and it really doesn't need to be that way in many cases. Companies like Mailchimp and 37 Signals prove that the "logical" way to do it works pretty well. (Not a criticism of your comment, just the get big fast idea)
  - bartread 9y ago
    I'm inclined to agree with you. It's not my field but I suspect VC pressure has something to do with it: they need their 10x returns, or their unicorns, to make up for all the losses elsewhere and "get big fast" is the most reliable mechanism for doing that. Not suggesting I'm a fan of it, btw.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      It's a market issue. Databases are a very competitive business with lots of options and competitors. It is also extremely hard to sell.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    Mailchimp is rather large, but 2017 I have the feeling 37Signals is rather insignificant, e.g. compared to Slack.
    - johnchristopher 9y ago
      FWIW when I was still a student and not in a 9-5 I wondered what if would feel like to use basecamp. Now here I am happily going with flow using slack on the fre eplan. One of my coworkers sometimes asks if we shouldn't go with a subscription to have the whole logs but we rarely have to dive so far in the past at all.
hkmurakami 9y ago
Sales&Marketing. They need to drive Revenue growth to sell a story to investors.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pavlakoos 9y ago
Brand awareness. Getting exposure at hackathons around the world, etc. costs a lot of money. Been there, done that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dustingetz 9y ago

Mongo going public for same reason all tech companies go public in 2016+ - they are done growing, they are not going to win it all after all, they're fucked, and now the investors want to liquidate

pquerna 9y ago
Huh? What is your bar for "done growing". Because the rest of the normal publicly traded market doesn't grow revenue at 50+ percent a year. The average for the S&P 500 is something more like 3-4 percent revenue growth per year. From data in the MongoDB S-1: 2016 yoy revenue growth: 58% 2017 yoy revenue growth: 55% MongoDB is part of the same thesis as something like Twilio -- they IPO'ed over a year ago with the same belief around differentiating via developer-centric customer acquisition. Twilio is still putting up ~70% yoy growth.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Tech startups are typically viewed as "growth" companies. They'll need to maintain ~30% YoY post-IPO to keep a steady market price.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Twilio's growth is exciting but it isn't reflected in their stock price. Every few weeks, I find myself going back to look at their share prices. Each time, I'm tempted to pull the trigger and invest a moderate five digit sum. I just can't go through with it. I usually buy and hold, long-term investing, and Twilio is one that I've been monitoring since their IPO. I'd probably pull the trigger if I saw just a bit more fluctuation. It hasn't necessarily got to be just growth, but some fluctuation just to indicate that they are doing something of note. For 70% yoy growth, it doesn't seem to be really impacting the company's valuation. I'd just checked it earlier this week, and just checked again now, and it's pretty much been the same price for a while now.
  - nikcub 9y ago
    Twilio is trading at 10x revenue - which is what an expensive strategic SaaS acquisitions would sell at. The average is 4x[0] - its crazy overpriced even with the growth rate (it's still growing into its valuation) I think the price was driven up to 20x because many thought it would be acquired. It also has a ton of short interest in it - so you really shouldn't be investing in it at this point. Do some more research outside of what the price is doing before doing anything (there are undervalued stocks out there) [0] https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c6817033630aaf74d05421472b34cf99.webp https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c6817033630aaf74d05421...