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Yammer Raises $5 Million For Workgroup Micro-Messaging

9 points by peter123 18y ago

charlesju 18y ago
Who uses Yammer here? I tried it for less than a day and got too lazy to keep it up to date, the rest of my founders did not try at all.
- dennmart 18y ago
  A few months ago I convinced my team to start to use 37signals' Campfire to be able to communicate with each other, especially when someone was away from the office. It worked great for the first week, then after that people gradually started to 'forget' to log in, until in a few weeks time I was the only one logging in frequently. So I haven't even bothered to mention Yammer to anyone else on the team. I know they won't use it. Yammer is just like any other collaboration tool. If you (or others) don't bother to use it every day, then it's virtually useless. But when used by everyone on a consistent basis, it can become an invaluable tool.
siong1987 18y ago
This shows that idea is not really something that VC pays for. It is always the team behind the idea.
- dmix 18y ago
  Or the hype behind the idea. With $5 million, the investors/founders believe it can be at least a $10 million dollar company in the next 5-7 years. I personally wouldn't have made that bet but at least they are charging money for their app.
  - nickb 18y ago
    There's a VC out there that's happy with a 1x return in 5-7 years?! Your estimates are way, way too low. ;)
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - dmix 18y ago
      Oops, I meant to write $100 million.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    With $5 million, the investors/founders believe it can be at least a $10 million dollar company in the next 5-7 years. The $5 million investment did not buy the entire company, so the valuation might be north of $10 million right now. Did you perhaps mean $10 billion?
    - arockwell 18y ago
      He probably just slipped a digit and meant $100 million. I figure that if you take VC money you believe you can build a company worth $100 million.
      - gravitycop 18y ago
        I figure that if you take VC money you believe you can build a company worth $100 million. Granted VC David Hornik in the following video is referring to revenue potential, I still think that what he says implies that VC's are looking for investments with potential exits far greater than $100 million. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdTQf0ZhPE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdTQf0ZhPE "Billion dollar companies? We like those, but we really prefer $100 billion companies." -David Hornik, August Capital
        arockwell 18y ago
        To clarify I meant that as a lower bound. In other words, don't take VC money unless you believe you can create a company worth at _least_ $100 million.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  If this catches on in the enterprise they could make a killing. The sales cycle is killer, but the margins are usually ridiculous.
- sgupta 18y ago
  Completely agree that the team is very important in getting funded, but so are connections. Yammer is Founders Fund backed. 3 of the 4 partners from the Founders Fund are PayPal cofounders (Peter Thiel is the big name, but there's also Ken Howery and Luke Nosek) - Yammer's CEO David Sacks was the COO at PayPal before its acquisition.
froo 18y ago
I sincerely hope twitter implement private channels (so that you essentially have the same thing) for their messaging platform. Would be great to have a private discussion area for workmates or project teammates as additional tabs to the general tweet stream.
- thwarted 18y ago
  I'm not holding my breath waiting on twitter to implement _anything_. You can do what you describe with a private room on FriendFeed.
- tdavis 18y ago
  IRC? AIM? Gtalk? Chatterous? Campfire? iChat (it has video!!1)? I recently invented a cylindrical device which may be moved by being pushed or rotated via a center axis. It's not a true cylinder; I added some bumps to it so as to make it less efficient, but I have a feeling it's going to become way more popular than these "wheel" things everybody is using now.
  - froo 18y ago
    yeah but the thing is, I think of twitter in the classic sense ("this is what I'm doing right now") Combine that with a work channel - eg "I'm currently putting a coversheet on the TPS reports" - then I believe it could be easier to co-ordinate efforts if you're company requires you to collaborate with others on projects. When you add in the additional functionality of directed chat (via @) and the backwards compatibility of having it work on older phones with SMS then it beats out IRC, Aim, Gtalk, Chatterous etc - especially in countries where internet costs on phones is too high for a staggered conversation to be useful.
diN0bot 18y ago
article worth it for the japan groups link: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/04/twitter-launches-groups-in-japan/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/04/twitter-launches-groups...
sweis 18y ago
Large enterprises may forbid employees from using Yammer for any business-related communication due to security and legal concerns. Yammer may have more luck focusing on small enterprises, non-profits, and universities.

9 points by peter123 18y ago

Who uses Yammer here? I tried it for less than a day and got too lazy to keep it up to date, the rest of my founders did not try at all.

dennmart 18y ago
A few months ago I convinced my team to start to use 37signals' Campfire to be able to communicate with each other, especially when someone was away from the office. It worked great for the first week, then after that people gradually started to 'forget' to log in, until in a few weeks time I was the only one logging in frequently. So I haven't even bothered to mention Yammer to anyone else on the team. I know they won't use it. Yammer is just like any other collaboration tool. If you (or others) don't bother to use it every day, then it's virtually useless. But when used by everyone on a consistent basis, it can become an invaluable tool.

siong1987 18y ago

This shows that idea is not really something that VC pays for. It is always the team behind the idea.

dmix 18y ago
Or the hype behind the idea. With $5 million, the investors/founders believe it can be at least a $10 million dollar company in the next 5-7 years. I personally wouldn't have made that bet but at least they are charging money for their app.
- nickb 18y ago
  There's a VC out there that's happy with a 1x return in 5-7 years?! Your estimates are way, way too low. ;)
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - dmix 18y ago
    Oops, I meant to write $100 million.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- gravitycop 18y ago
  With $5 million, the investors/founders believe it can be at least a $10 million dollar company in the next 5-7 years. The $5 million investment did not buy the entire company, so the valuation might be north of $10 million right now. Did you perhaps mean $10 billion?
  - arockwell 18y ago
    He probably just slipped a digit and meant $100 million. I figure that if you take VC money you believe you can build a company worth $100 million.
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      I figure that if you take VC money you believe you can build a company worth $100 million. Granted VC David Hornik in the following video is referring to revenue potential, I still think that what he says implies that VC's are looking for investments with potential exits far greater than $100 million. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdTQf0ZhPE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdTQf0ZhPE "Billion dollar companies? We like those, but we really prefer $100 billion companies." -David Hornik, August Capital
      - arockwell 18y ago
        To clarify I meant that as a lower bound. In other words, don't take VC money unless you believe you can create a company worth at _least_ $100 million.
fallentimes 18y ago
If this catches on in the enterprise they could make a killing. The sales cycle is killer, but the margins are usually ridiculous.
sgupta 18y ago
Completely agree that the team is very important in getting funded, but so are connections. Yammer is Founders Fund backed. 3 of the 4 partners from the Founders Fund are PayPal cofounders (Peter Thiel is the big name, but there's also Ken Howery and Luke Nosek) - Yammer's CEO David Sacks was the COO at PayPal before its acquisition.

froo 18y ago

I sincerely hope twitter implement private channels (so that you essentially have the same thing) for their messaging platform. Would be great to have a private discussion area for workmates or project teammates as additional tabs to the general tweet stream.

thwarted 18y ago
I'm not holding my breath waiting on twitter to implement _anything_. You can do what you describe with a private room on FriendFeed.
tdavis 18y ago
IRC? AIM? Gtalk? Chatterous? Campfire? iChat (it has video!!1)? I recently invented a cylindrical device which may be moved by being pushed or rotated via a center axis. It's not a true cylinder; I added some bumps to it so as to make it less efficient, but I have a feeling it's going to become way more popular than these "wheel" things everybody is using now.
- froo 18y ago
  yeah but the thing is, I think of twitter in the classic sense ("this is what I'm doing right now") Combine that with a work channel - eg "I'm currently putting a coversheet on the TPS reports" - then I believe it could be easier to co-ordinate efforts if you're company requires you to collaborate with others on projects. When you add in the additional functionality of directed chat (via @) and the backwards compatibility of having it work on older phones with SMS then it beats out IRC, Aim, Gtalk, Chatterous etc - especially in countries where internet costs on phones is too high for a staggered conversation to be useful.

diN0bot 18y ago

article worth it for the japan groups link: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/04/twitter-launches-groups-in-japan/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/04/twitter-launches-groups...

sweis 18y ago

Large enterprises may forbid employees from using Yammer for any business-related communication due to security and legal concerns. Yammer may have more luck focusing on small enterprises, non-profits, and universities.