7 ms·

Finally an IPO I want to buy into. Technical fundamentals matter. Edit: I mean that in the software/service way, not the economical way, in case there was any

Finally an IPO I want to buy into. Technical fundamentals matter. Edit: I mean that in the software/service way, not the economical way, in case there was any confusion.

PatrolX 7y ago
Ditto, I'm excited about this one.
buildzr 7y ago
I'm sure it's just in my head, but it feels like the first tech IPO in several years where there actually seems to be a viable business model.
- groundlogic 7y ago
  It's quite refreshing, right?
- Areading314 7y ago
  This is a sure sign that: * You won't get allocated any shares * Trading will start at a ridiculously high valuation, maybe 10x sales or more
  - groundlogic 7y ago
    GOOG and FB also seemed overpriced a week after their respective IPOs.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  Zoom stands out in this category too. Random blog on Medium, but the points all stand: https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/zoom-ipo-s-1-breakdown-119249acadd3 https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/zoom-ipo-s-1-breakdown-1192... Growing >100% YoY, profitable, generating cashflow, NPS above 70, just an all around solid business.
  - thinkloop 7y ago
    Zoom has very little defensible tech, it's more about packaging/marketing. Cloudflare is very difficult to duplicate.
    - ec109685 7y ago
      Zoom has network effects. If a company has deployed zoom in their conference rooms, talking to non-zoom shops stinks.
    - steve19 7y ago
      Not true, Zoom has developed and deployed very sophisticated malware which would be hard to replicate on purpose or through incompetence.
    - sciurus 7y ago
      > Cloudflare is very difficult to duplicate. Unless you're one of their many competitors, like, say, AWS. From the S-1: "Our current and potential future competitors include a number of different types of companies, including: • on-premise hardware network vendors, such as Cisco Systems Inc., F5 Networks, Inc., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., FireEye, Inc., Imperva, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., and Riverbed Technology, Inc.; • point-cloud solution vendors, including cloud security vendors such as Zscaler, Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. through Umbrella (formerly known as OpenDNS), content delivery network vendors such as Akamai Technologies, Inc., Limelight Networks, Inc., Fastly, Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc. through Edgecast, domain name system vendors services such as Oracle Corporation through DYN, NeuStar, Inc., and UltraDNS Corporation, and cloud SD-WAN vendors; and • traditional public cloud vendors, such as Amazon.com, Inc. through Amazon Web Services, Alphabet Inc. through Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Corporation through Azure, and Alibaba Group Holding Limited through Alibaba Cloud. "
      - nezgar 7y ago
        >"on-premise hardware network vendors..." Wow, they grammar goofed "on-premise" 33 times on their filing. (should be on-premises)
- antcas 7y ago
  Zoom and Twilio as well.
  - jmtulloss 7y ago
    Also fastly, which has the same business model
- dsl 7y ago
  > where there actually seems to be a viable business model. It has carried them this far, but the real money will be when they turn to advertising (which investors will eventually figure out and insist on). Remember all the crazy marketing data ISPs wanted to collect, then we pushed everyone to move to TLS? Well Cloudflare unwraps TLS for all their clients and is in a position to collect all the same data.
- jonas21 7y ago
  How about Slack, PagerDuty, Zoom, Crowdstrike, or Pinterest? These were all in the last few months.
  - groundlogic 7y ago
    Exactly - relatively little technical depth.
    - jonas21 7y ago
      I was responding to buildzr who wrote: > I'm sure it's just in my head, but it feels like the first tech IPO in several years where there actually seems to be a viable business model. The companies listed above have what appear to be viable business models. I didn't intend to comment on technical merits, but I think you may be underestimating the technical depth of what some of these companies are doing.
  - adventured 7y ago
    You can also add DocuSign (last year) to that list. They're heading toward a billion in annual sales and they offer a straight-forward and useful service.
dsl 7y ago
> Technical fundamentals matter. Centralization of the entire internet behind a single entity is a _bad_ thing for people who care about technical fundamentals.
- groundlogic 7y ago
  Yeah, from a citizen perspective I agree. C'est la vie. Our governments need to work against this via legislation. It should not be up to Matthew Prince to decide who to block. He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way. How? There have been exactly two cases of "censorship", and that is the Daily Stormer and 8chan. One is an utterly vile peddler of antisemitism (literally named after a Nazi paper) and conspiracy theory, and one was linked to at least three terroristic attacks. If it were not white supremacists but Islamists, it would be closed down in an instant and no one would bat an eye. If anything, Cloudflare seriously lacks (like Facebook and Twitter) policing their customer base.
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      >If it were not white supremacists but Islamists, it would be closed down in an instant and no one would bat an eye. This is ironic since Cloudflare has famously been under fire because Prince specifically decided against removing ISIS websites from Cloudflare and vehemently defended his decision that Cloudflare should not be censoring anyone. Prince himself even agrees with the parent comment, and he goes into pretty good detail in his blog post here [1] about why companies like Cloudflare should not be able to make the decision to remove websites, and that it should be left up to governments. I guess he got overruled on that stance when it came to 8chan, though. 1: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
- 7y ago

Finally an IPO I want to buy into. Technical fundamentals matter. Edit: I mean that in the software/service way, not the economical way, in case there was any confusion.

PatrolX 7y ago

Ditto, I'm excited about this one.

buildzr 7y ago

I'm sure it's just in my head, but it feels like the first tech IPO in several years where there actually seems to be a viable business model.

groundlogic 7y ago
It's quite refreshing, right?
Areading314 7y ago
This is a sure sign that: * You won't get allocated any shares * Trading will start at a ridiculously high valuation, maybe 10x sales or more
- groundlogic 7y ago
  GOOG and FB also seemed overpriced a week after their respective IPOs.
mikeyouse 7y ago
Zoom stands out in this category too. Random blog on Medium, but the points all stand: https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/zoom-ipo-s-1-breakdown-119249acadd3 https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/zoom-ipo-s-1-breakdown-1192... Growing >100% YoY, profitable, generating cashflow, NPS above 70, just an all around solid business.
- thinkloop 7y ago
  Zoom has very little defensible tech, it's more about packaging/marketing. Cloudflare is very difficult to duplicate.
  - ec109685 7y ago
    Zoom has network effects. If a company has deployed zoom in their conference rooms, talking to non-zoom shops stinks.
  - steve19 7y ago
    Not true, Zoom has developed and deployed very sophisticated malware which would be hard to replicate on purpose or through incompetence.
  - sciurus 7y ago
    > Cloudflare is very difficult to duplicate. Unless you're one of their many competitors, like, say, AWS. From the S-1: "Our current and potential future competitors include a number of different types of companies, including: • on-premise hardware network vendors, such as Cisco Systems Inc., F5 Networks, Inc., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., FireEye, Inc., Imperva, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., and Riverbed Technology, Inc.; • point-cloud solution vendors, including cloud security vendors such as Zscaler, Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. through Umbrella (formerly known as OpenDNS), content delivery network vendors such as Akamai Technologies, Inc., Limelight Networks, Inc., Fastly, Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc. through Edgecast, domain name system vendors services such as Oracle Corporation through DYN, NeuStar, Inc., and UltraDNS Corporation, and cloud SD-WAN vendors; and • traditional public cloud vendors, such as Amazon.com, Inc. through Amazon Web Services, Alphabet Inc. through Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Corporation through Azure, and Alibaba Group Holding Limited through Alibaba Cloud. "
    - nezgar 7y ago
      >"on-premise hardware network vendors..." Wow, they grammar goofed "on-premise" 33 times on their filing. (should be on-premises)
antcas 7y ago
Zoom and Twilio as well.
- jmtulloss 7y ago
  Also fastly, which has the same business model
dsl 7y ago
> where there actually seems to be a viable business model. It has carried them this far, but the real money will be when they turn to advertising (which investors will eventually figure out and insist on). Remember all the crazy marketing data ISPs wanted to collect, then we pushed everyone to move to TLS? Well Cloudflare unwraps TLS for all their clients and is in a position to collect all the same data.
jonas21 7y ago
How about Slack, PagerDuty, Zoom, Crowdstrike, or Pinterest? These were all in the last few months.
- groundlogic 7y ago
  Exactly - relatively little technical depth.
  - jonas21 7y ago
    I was responding to buildzr who wrote: > I'm sure it's just in my head, but it feels like the first tech IPO in several years where there actually seems to be a viable business model. The companies listed above have what appear to be viable business models. I didn't intend to comment on technical merits, but I think you may be underestimating the technical depth of what some of these companies are doing.
- adventured 7y ago
  You can also add DocuSign (last year) to that list. They're heading toward a billion in annual sales and they offer a straight-forward and useful service.

dsl 7y ago

> Technical fundamentals matter. Centralization of the entire internet behind a single entity is a _bad_ thing for people who care about technical fundamentals.

groundlogic 7y ago
Yeah, from a citizen perspective I agree. C'est la vie. Our governments need to work against this via legislation. It should not be up to Matthew Prince to decide who to block. He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way. How? There have been exactly two cases of "censorship", and that is the Daily Stormer and 8chan. One is an utterly vile peddler of antisemitism (literally named after a Nazi paper) and conspiracy theory, and one was linked to at least three terroristic attacks. If it were not white supremacists but Islamists, it would be closed down in an instant and no one would bat an eye. If anything, Cloudflare seriously lacks (like Facebook and Twitter) policing their customer base.
  - tidepod12 7y ago
    >If it were not white supremacists but Islamists, it would be closed down in an instant and no one would bat an eye. This is ironic since Cloudflare has famously been under fire because Prince specifically decided against removing ISIS websites from Cloudflare and vehemently defended his decision that Cloudflare should not be censoring anyone. Prince himself even agrees with the parent comment, and he goes into pretty good detail in his blog post here [1] about why companies like Cloudflare should not be able to make the decision to remove websites, and that it should be left up to governments. I guess he got overruled on that stance when it came to 8chan, though. 1: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
7y ago