8 ms·

Might I introduce you to Calendly[1], a $3bn meeting-scheduling app, that employs >500 people. Personally, I see these kinds of things as a failing of the US's

by gen220 4y ago

Might I introduce you to Calendly[1], a $3bn meeting-scheduling app, that employs >500 people. Personally, I see these kinds of things as a failing of the US's macroeconomic policy since 2010 first (ZIRP), and the failing of the board and VCs second, before dicing up the blame amongst c-suite and executives. The incentive structures start from the top. [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/calendly https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/calendly

ketzo 4y ago
Honestly, even Calendly makes more sense to me. Massive addressable market, pretty mediocre state of the art, problem that people already spend real money to solve (poorly). $3B is high, but I can see a world where it’s justified. Employee count seems high but I would imagine a disproportionate number are sales/marketing because, again, addressable market is huge and competition is fierce. Postman… the addressable market is just not that large, especially for the features you actually pay for.
- gen220 4y ago
  Apparently it's 155 engineers (if LI data is to be believed), and about an equal amount of Sales employees [0]. There's definitely value in the space, but I struggle to imagine how the ends (capturing that value) justifies the means (how they're pursuing that value). If you know your way around CalDAV [1], you can build the most valuable 20% of their features in a weekend. A team of 3-4 could build the most valuable 80% in a month or two. In fact, some people have not only done that but kept going, and we have FOSS tools like https://cal.com https://cal.com as a result, that are arguably easier to use. As a board member/founder/executive, one has to in the mirror each night, and feel confident saying "I'm running this company responsibly". Especially if you're working in a purely digital space (which Calendly is), you have to bend really far to justify hiring that many people. IDK, maybe I'm a standard deviation or two away from norms on frugality, but this baffles me. [0]: To contrast, WhatsApp sold in (!) 2014 (!) with 32 engineers (~50 total heacount), servicing 450mm active users. So, Calendly have 10x the headcount, on .2x the valuation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV
9dev 4y ago
Every time I read employee numbers like that for a SaaS business, I can’t help but wonder… what do all those developers actually do all day?
opportune 4y ago
I get sent calendly links all the time by recruiters on LinkedIn, no idea what their economics look like but I can see a $3bn valuation being totally reasonable since they are directly enabling a profit center (for external recruiters) and critical business function for both 3rd and 1st party recruiters. If calendly links improve the top-of-the-funnel size by X% it would be very easy to justify paying them large amounts of money to do so. If I’m employing 50 recruiters why wouldn’t I pay calendly $100k/year or more to make them X% more effective? You could argue for building your own, but it doesn’t make sense for every business to build their own, and I think it’s obviously the type of tool where a prototype would be easy to make but getting enterprise-ready would be challenging.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Its the same flawed analysis people use for many of the tech or story stocks. In practice if calendly gets a large share of the market and really can charge 100k/customer, competitors will pop up quickly and force pricing far lower. For a long while many tech companies had no serious competition as startups stayed in their own lane, but thats no longer true. E.g. people were saying the same things about Zoom and Slack, but now they’re a dime a dozen. Amazon just launched a tiktok clone. Nothing is safe from competition, so dont expect outsized margins to last forever in your forecasts. First movers get a few years of runway before profitability will be pressured
  - opportune 4y ago
    I have no idea what calendly’s financials and growth look like and can’t say whether the valuation is reasonable, I just think they have a solid product that definitely adds value in a way that you can easily attribute to revenue or important hiring metrics. Sure, every company has competitors. That doesn’t mean $3b is an unreasonable valuation.
    - adam_arthur 4y ago
      $3B may definitely be reasonable depending on the numbers. Just commenting on the apparent assumptions made using the analysis above. Zoom is still worth $20B, but there were many who said it was worth far higher because they didn't consider or discount competition at all. However, I also think Zoom is likely to fall quite a bit more from here. Their revenue is flat YoY and still valued at 30 PE.
s1k3 4y ago
Calendly is nearly ubiquitous when scheduling meetings with people outside your office these days. They’re particularly useful in sales and product. Given the space their in and the market cap they have 3b seems in the ballpark. Of course I don’t know what their numbers look like but if they’re doing 300m revenue yearly it would line up…
- detaro 4y ago
  Not seen it that much, so I might be missing something, but to me it also looks to be in the "could be a feature" category. I.e. if Microsoft adds a similar feature that vaguely comes close to Office 365 it'll be a lot harder to justify.
  - giaour 4y ago
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/bookings-overview?view=o365-worldwide https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/boo...
anyfactor 4y ago
Calendly is a good product. But I don't believe it has moat or a unique offering. Identical competitors is popping up easily by offering the exact same service. It is a simple concept and the fact is that the only innovation they can add is adding very simple bells and whistles. The barier to this industry is virtually non existing. Nothing is stopping Google or Microsoft to build their own integrated calendly like app. Considering platform risks, I don't believe any SAAS whose core offering relies on external API to have a sustainable revenue model.
- Macacity 4y ago
  Google already has one
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  Microsoft has built one too (Bookings). I think it sucks and I'm a Microsoft fanboy.
  - anyfactor 4y ago
    > Microsoft fanboy What is your opinion about Microsoft Teams?
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      I think it's fine. Slack seems a little better, for instance I like their threading more. But I like how well Teams is integrated into our Azure Active Directory infrastructure.
      - anyfactor 4y ago
        You truly are a microsoft fan :) I have done couple of gigs for a Azure shops. It is borderline admirable how one client vehemently adhered to the MS teams. Even to the point of using Teams integrated Onenote for software design. Everything that was supposed to be written went to onenote on teams.
lobstersammich 4y ago
I wonder if a large portion of their valuation isn't based on the data rather than the product? (Would allow you to get signal on when [your] employees are interviewing elsewhere, etc. given the name, phone number and/or email address that you provide to Calendly)

by gen220 4y ago

ketzo 4y ago

Honestly, even Calendly makes more sense to me. Massive addressable market, pretty mediocre state of the art, problem that people already spend real money to solve (poorly). $3B is high, but I can see a world where it’s justified. Employee count seems high but I would imagine a disproportionate number are sales/marketing because, again, addressable market is huge and competition is fierce. Postman… the addressable market is just not that large, especially for the features you actually pay for.

gen220 4y ago
Apparently it's 155 engineers (if LI data is to be believed), and about an equal amount of Sales employees [0]. There's definitely value in the space, but I struggle to imagine how the ends (capturing that value) justifies the means (how they're pursuing that value). If you know your way around CalDAV [1], you can build the most valuable 20% of their features in a weekend. A team of 3-4 could build the most valuable 80% in a month or two. In fact, some people have not only done that but kept going, and we have FOSS tools like https://cal.com https://cal.com as a result, that are arguably easier to use. As a board member/founder/executive, one has to in the mirror each night, and feel confident saying "I'm running this company responsibly". Especially if you're working in a purely digital space (which Calendly is), you have to bend really far to justify hiring that many people. IDK, maybe I'm a standard deviation or two away from norms on frugality, but this baffles me. [0]: To contrast, WhatsApp sold in (!) 2014 (!) with 32 engineers (~50 total heacount), servicing 450mm active users. So, Calendly have 10x the headcount, on .2x the valuation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV

9dev 4y ago

Every time I read employee numbers like that for a SaaS business, I can’t help but wonder… what do all those developers actually do all day?

opportune 4y ago

I get sent calendly links all the time by recruiters on LinkedIn, no idea what their economics look like but I can see a $3bn valuation being totally reasonable since they are directly enabling a profit center (for external recruiters) and critical business function for both 3rd and 1st party recruiters. If calendly links improve the top-of-the-funnel size by X% it would be very easy to justify paying them large amounts of money to do so. If I’m employing 50 recruiters why wouldn’t I pay calendly $100k/year or more to make them X% more effective? You could argue for building your own, but it doesn’t make sense for every business to build their own, and I think it’s obviously the type of tool where a prototype would be easy to make but getting enterprise-ready would be challenging.

adam_arthur 4y ago
Its the same flawed analysis people use for many of the tech or story stocks. In practice if calendly gets a large share of the market and really can charge 100k/customer, competitors will pop up quickly and force pricing far lower. For a long while many tech companies had no serious competition as startups stayed in their own lane, but thats no longer true. E.g. people were saying the same things about Zoom and Slack, but now they’re a dime a dozen. Amazon just launched a tiktok clone. Nothing is safe from competition, so dont expect outsized margins to last forever in your forecasts. First movers get a few years of runway before profitability will be pressured
- opportune 4y ago
  I have no idea what calendly’s financials and growth look like and can’t say whether the valuation is reasonable, I just think they have a solid product that definitely adds value in a way that you can easily attribute to revenue or important hiring metrics. Sure, every company has competitors. That doesn’t mean $3b is an unreasonable valuation.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    $3B may definitely be reasonable depending on the numbers. Just commenting on the apparent assumptions made using the analysis above. Zoom is still worth $20B, but there were many who said it was worth far higher because they didn't consider or discount competition at all. However, I also think Zoom is likely to fall quite a bit more from here. Their revenue is flat YoY and still valued at 30 PE.

s1k3 4y ago

Calendly is nearly ubiquitous when scheduling meetings with people outside your office these days. They’re particularly useful in sales and product. Given the space their in and the market cap they have 3b seems in the ballpark. Of course I don’t know what their numbers look like but if they’re doing 300m revenue yearly it would line up…

detaro 4y ago
Not seen it that much, so I might be missing something, but to me it also looks to be in the "could be a feature" category. I.e. if Microsoft adds a similar feature that vaguely comes close to Office 365 it'll be a lot harder to justify.
- giaour 4y ago
  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/bookings-overview?view=o365-worldwide https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/boo...

anyfactor 4y ago

Calendly is a good product. But I don't believe it has moat or a unique offering. Identical competitors is popping up easily by offering the exact same service. It is a simple concept and the fact is that the only innovation they can add is adding very simple bells and whistles. The barier to this industry is virtually non existing. Nothing is stopping Google or Microsoft to build their own integrated calendly like app. Considering platform risks, I don't believe any SAAS whose core offering relies on external API to have a sustainable revenue model.

Macacity 4y ago
Google already has one
JamesBarney 4y ago
Microsoft has built one too (Bookings). I think it sucks and I'm a Microsoft fanboy.
- anyfactor 4y ago
  > Microsoft fanboy What is your opinion about Microsoft Teams?
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    I think it's fine. Slack seems a little better, for instance I like their threading more. But I like how well Teams is integrated into our Azure Active Directory infrastructure.
    - anyfactor 4y ago
      You truly are a microsoft fan :) I have done couple of gigs for a Azure shops. It is borderline admirable how one client vehemently adhered to the MS teams. Even to the point of using Teams integrated Onenote for software design. Everything that was supposed to be written went to onenote on teams.

lobstersammich 4y ago

I wonder if a large portion of their valuation isn't based on the data rather than the product? (Would allow you to get signal on when [your] employees are interviewing elsewhere, etc. given the name, phone number and/or email address that you provide to Calendly)