11 ms·
The $3B+ Exit Tumblr Could Have Had
- hayksaakian 13y agoNote: there is a share button for google reader on the page. I thought reader was shut down?
- maxmcd 13y agoJuly 1
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- maxmcd 13y agoAh, my mistake.
- useflyer 13y agoThere are a two major faults with the author's analysis which lead me to believe this post should not be relied on. 1. Advertising rates are far below the author's $10-20 CPM estimate for dashboard advertising; $10-20 is for legitimately premium advertising such as high-end audiences, wrapping a website, etc. Dashboard / banner ads will fetch $0.5-3 CPM the way Tumblr is running them. 2. The "valuation" formula of 10x trailing ("or"?) forward revenue is misplaced. Revenue multiples in acquisitions are often reserved for companies which are mature and predictable, not in early stages of their revenue plan. Corporate acquirers will often times use the expectations of the revenue created for the acquirer, which has little to do with the target in the status quo. Yahoo's expectations of revenue creation could be anything, and they have their own internal formula which we can't glimpse.
- aresant 13y agoThat CPM struck me as crazy high too and tumblr content is much closer to "social" than it is to premium media which would put the CPM a lot closer to $0.50 - 1.00 at scale. Recent break out of CPM by country for FB : http://www.rudibedy.com/blog/facebook-advertising-cpc-cpm-per-country/ http://www.rudibedy.com/blog/facebook-advertising-cpc-cpm-pe...
- dmor 13y agoI should probably point out I am talking about Revenue per Impression, what the publisher earns. The advertiser may pay $.50 - $1 CPM to be shown on the impression, but it is possible for the publisher to show multiple ad units on the same impression. This analysis touches on the actual value of the dashboard today, but is ultimately focused on the expected value and potential revenue opportunity long term. I thought I had caveated/explained that in the post but I can clarify it there too.
- aresant 13y agoFair point but 3 - 5x ad units @ $0.50 - 1 still don't add up to $10 - 20 . . .
- pkmehta 13y agoExactly. What makes it worse is that Tumblr has lots of soft core porn and other unsavory content which brand advertisers don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole. Plus, the P/S of 10x looks pulled out of ye' olde arse. Google's trailing P/S is 5.6x and Yahoo's is similar. AOL is 1.31x. What media company that might be a "comp" trades for 10x.
- dmor 13y agoHuffPo, and I said it was steep not what people should expect to get. Huffington Post, a media company, was purchased by AOL for $315M @ $30M rev. That's 10x. Stop trolling.
- goronbjorn 13y ago> In the end Tumblr won’t see a bigger exit because they didn’t prove they could monetize their massive traffic before time (and money) ran out. Instagram had $0 in revenue when they were acquired for $1 billion in cash/stock. The price paid in that instance was for potential, and it's likely to be the same in the case of Tumblr.
- tuananh 13y agoI think the diffs are Instagram hasn't attempted to monetize so their potential is unknown; while Tumblr already did and it doesn't look very bright.
- hkmurakami 13y agoAlso, mobile-based photosharing was deemed a "major threat" to Facebook's existence and relevance, whereas Tumblr is a much less mobile-centric and is deemed more of an "asset acquisition" and doesn't carry the urgency that Instagram carried for FB.
- onedev 13y agoExactly this. Buying Instagram was a preventive measure, and it seemed to work out really really well for both parties involved. Buying Tumblr though? It's not so much of a preventive measure. It would be more for the integration potential and userbase than anything else and I think most people are saying Tumblr lacks potential as a standalone service. However, if it could help augment the Yahoo brand then it could potentially be worth it for Yahoo. I think there are multiple angles to look at, and we shouldn't focus too much on the price as much as the motivations behind such a deal and what the outcome could potentially be. Perhaps Yahoo could build services around Tumblr? Or maybe they'd elect to integrate Tumblr into Yahoo itself. Or perhaps use it add to their portfolio of companies to strengthen the Yahoo brand. I could also see a Yahoo ecosystem consisting of a tag-team of Flickr, Tumblr, and their News aggregations. So the question remains; what is their strategic motivation for Tumblr?
- 13y ago
- uladzislau 13y agoI think the potential Tumblr acquisition offer is based on userbase/audience value rather than any kind of (current) monetization. It seems Yahoo is trying to extend their reach in the active/young people market. Tumblr audience is a perfect fit for this strategy and sure Yahoo is ready to pay premium as there are not many comparable platforms available for acquisition.
- dragondilesh 13y agoThe problem with active/young people market is they are very temperamental to ads, if you don't treat your user base like the tumblr founders have, they would have easily changed to another platform with less ads. Sure if yahoo acquires tumblr they gain direct access to this marketbase but if they tarish what tumblr is now, with a bad ad revenue scheme they will very easily lose that market base to something else.
- pod4369 13y ago"According to Forbes Tumblr is targeting $100M revenue in 2013 but, according to sources I spoke to who are familiar with the company, actual Q1 revenue growth was flat and Tumblr is on track to do only $15M in revenue this year." This is unbelievable. I can't believe they're running out of the $85M so soon after raising it, and have basically nothing to show for it. I'd be pretty outraged if I were an investor.
- mratzloff 13y agoThey have 175 employees, so it's not too surprising they blew through $85 million in 8 months.
- jacquesm 13y ago85000000/175=485714, that's actually quite surprising unless the averge flickr employee grosses more than 50 K per month. $85 million is a lot of cash.
- Alphasite_ 13y agoShouldn't that be /8? So around 6k per month.
- mratzloff 13y agoYou're off by one decimal place.
- inthewoods 13y agoI imagine their infrastructure is quite a bill. Supporting that kind of traffic must be expensive - if you figure $1.5m a month, that's like $18m a year right there.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- josephagoss 13y ago
- orangethirty 13y agoDanielle, What do you reason is Tumblr's intrinsic value?
- troymc 13y agoI find it odd that a freemium model was never considered by Tumblr. It has worked for WordPress.com, which is very similar. http://en.support.wordpress.com/upgrades/ http://en.support.wordpress.com/upgrades/ http://vip.wordpress.com http://vip.wordpress.com
- juletide 13y agoTumblr seems to have toyed with this idea a bit in their paid/premium themes section: http://www.tumblr.com/themes/tagged/premium http://www.tumblr.com/themes/tagged/premium
- coolsunglasses 13y agoWordpress is used by people managing professional identities and business related content, Tumblr is predominantly young people wasting time on the internet.
- ianstallings 13y agoI really don't understand this Internet math.
- comex 13y agoAs a sometime Tumblr user, here's hoping that whether acquired or not, Tumblr manages to find enough revenue to keep itself running well into the future, but does so without unduly alienating its users or making the site feel compromised. That other T*r site has well demonstrated the rockiness of the road from potential to actual profitability.
- mratzloff 13y agoThe only reason Yahoo made an offer is because they were afraid someone else might. Otherwise they'd be content to wait for the layoffs to begin before giving an opening bid of $150 million. Tumblr seems to have followed the SV model in all respects but one. Raise a lot of money, get a lot of users, and staff up way beyond your needs (175 employees)? Check. They missed the last one, though: don't bother to monetize so you don't run the risk of doing it badly and lowering your evaluation. The urgency to get a billion dollar offer on the table as the wheels fall off of the bus is so utterly ridiculous and symptomatic of the problem with SV culture.
- davidm 13y agoI think combining Flickr and Tumblr could be a massive win for Yahoo! They have monetised Flickr successfully and the model they use to do that combined with Tumblr's current model could see them transform revenues on both titles very quickly. I do think Tumblr should grab the offer while it's on the table, however.
- ms-rm 13y agoQuick question: how did Yahoo monetize Flickr?
- davidm 13y agoQuick answer: Freemium +
- dakrisht 13y agoQuick rebuttal: Flickr barely makes any money.
- nikcub 13y agoand the freemium model was in place before Yahoo bought them I was a pro user, cancelled when Yahoo bought Flickr and forced us all to use Yahoo accounts.
- davidm 13y agoI did completely the opposite. I like what Yahoo have done with Flickr.
- davidm 13y agoThere are several sources that suggest Flickr revenues have been in excess of $100M per year for several years, possibly much more.
- Duhck 13y agoQuick answer: They didnt, instead they destroyed the product and the founders left (along with the rest of the talent attached to the product) in 2008
- azifali 13y agoThe Pricing that Danielle has quoted - $10-15 RPM is extremely high. First - Tumblr is not a "Premium" Property. NBCNews.com and Business week is. Second - Porn which is plentiful on Tumblr is the opposite of premium. It tends to be cheap and not easily monetizable. Third - A better metric to use would be CPM. Un-targeted ads deliver <$1 CPM Typically. These are the Run off Network kind of campaigns. Targeted ads such as search / display targeting, retargeting typically deliver between $2.5 - $5.00 which represents the best case. Fourth - The ad platforms tend to take a revenue cut + platform fee which easily amounts to 30-40% of that. Fifth - I am assuming that Tumblrs ads are direct buys in which case it is highly unlikely that they can quote CPMs given in my earlier statements. This is because they probably don't have enough technology to deliver those kind of media buys yet. Net net..your numbers are off. The $3b title is a nice bait but the valuation numbers are off.
- jacquesm 13y agoPorn is not just 'not monetizable', it is toxic to regular advertisers. You really don't want that ad for the new car next to grandma in her see-through... bad associations.
- standby 13y agoBut that is not how the advertising works on Tumblr. Read this for a clearer insight/explanation: http://allthingsd.com/20130518/why-yahoo-doesnt-think-tumblr-has-a-porn-problem/ http://allthingsd.com/20130518/why-yahoo-doesnt-think-tumblr...
- dakrisht 13y agoThis is another one of those SV deals that simply DO NOT make sense whatsoever. So Yahoo! wants the young audience (check), but what are they going to do? Throw ads at young teens (who browse porn and nail art on Tumblr)? Have a "bigger" presence in mobile? Integrate Flickr with Tumblr? Don't get this. And how does Yahoo! still have cash? Jesus The acquisition just makes zero sense, Tumblr price (valuation) makes even less sense: - $15M in revenue (down $85M from the projected 2013 of $100M) - 175 employees (for what? 150 of them are probably useless with regard to the company) - Running out of cash (so hey, let's sell for $1B since we'll be worth $100M in 6-months anyway) Why is SV rushing in to buy this company as, like another user said, the wheels are falling off? Where is the value, yet alone $1B value? Just stupid SV math.
- neilc 13y agoAnd how does Yahoo! still have cash? Jesus You realize Yahoo! is a profitable company, right?
- 0majors 13y agoHaving worked in both media and creative agencies I can't agree with the potential revenue analysis in the article. User Generated Content, as many here have pointed out, is not valuable and often is indeed toxic for big brands. The young audience surfing cat pictures is also not valuable. What products will the advertisers sell to them? Games, some fashion, fizzy drinks but then what? Lastly, non targeted audience is also less valuable for obvious reasons. This is why they are looking at ~ $0.75 CPM but LinkedIn campaigns start at $1.50 and go only up from there. Successfully monetizing anonymous teenagers wasting time on the internet is something nobody has managed to do so far. Ask Digg.com
- jpalomaki 13y agoWould it even be feasible to monetize Tumblr by running ads on massive scale? I would assume one reason for its popularity is the lack of ads. This has for example allowed quite relaxed page templates, you can make the site look whatever you want. With mandatory ads things would be more difficult.
- programminggeek 13y agoTo be honest, businesses that are good at making money will always be valued higher (relatively speaking) than businesses that are just good at getting users. Getting someone to use your free product is a different skill than getting advertisers to put their ads on your product or getting people to pay for your product. Making money is a skill and if your company doesn't figure out how to do that successfully, you shouldn't expect to sell for a large amount of money. At the end of the day, businesses are about making money, you know getting customers to pay you. They aren't about getting people to use your free product.
- yesplorer 13y agoI cant figure out a single reason why this comment was downvoted. can anyone help me understand? genuinely curious please.
- willbill 13y agoI'm very curious to know how many consumer focused sites/companies/apps have had 1 billion+ buyouts.
- pasbesoin 13y agoCompletely OT, but I quite like the photograph of early evening San Francisco. I wouldn't mind a link, if it's available somewhere -- for my private enjoyment; not to duplicate the blogger's design.
- presty 13y agoI love how non-tumblers just like to throw out the fact that tumblr is full of porn omgz!!111 and that is really bad for ads etc try using tumblr before making such comments. you only see porn if you subscribe to porn tumblrs or people who like to reblog such things.