16 ms·

Why the tech press is ignoring Zulily's huge IPO

268 points by jmduke 13y ago

angersock 13y ago
So...people got scooped by CNN? CNN? Wow, goddamn folks.
- mscarborough 13y ago
  A hastily thrown together blog post really doesn't count as a scoop. As much as the author is patting his back over this story that the ESTABLISHMENT TECH PRESS doesn't want you to know.
PeterisP 13y ago
The more practical a startup, the less 'sexy' it is; and vice versa.
- thecollins 13y ago
  Maybe it's that this is really hardly a startup -- it's a solid company that just happens to have a web presence as its main outlet to customers?
  - integraton 13y ago
    Launched with a Series A in 2009, has taken 3 up rounds of funding in the years since, now files for an IPO in 2013, exactly 4 years later. Not only is this a textbook VC-funded startup, it's pretty much a perfect illustration of the ideal trajectory and timeline for a VC-funded startup.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    It's started just a couple years ago, made a new business niche, had explosive growth from zero and is going to IPO - a startup by any definition. Having a web outlet to customers is completely unrelated to that; a niche company selling their stuff to a small handful of large companies and not even having a website can be a perfectly valid startup.
- bglazer 13y ago
  I think there's a clear counter-point to your statement in a company like Uber. Better taxi service? That's the definition of practicality, and I still find the business model, and especially the analytics very intriguing ("sexy").
tootie 13y ago
As a parent and old man, I still have no idea what value SnapChat or Twitter have. Zulily is something I use regularly.
- deletes 13y ago
  If something is not tangible it doesn't mean it can have great value to society. I'm sure you use a mobile phone, this is similar but exists everywhere( where there is internet access ) and enables you to communicate with anyone using that service.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I'm 30, and was explaining what SnapChat is to my 33 year old co-worker while our 22 year old co-worker was listening and chuckling. It was then I realized we were old.
thatthatis 13y ago
I'm shocked this even made it on hacker news. Here's a market selection tip: find a problem not experienced by mid 20s single men in urban centers and your competition drops by about two orders of magnitude.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  "Hmm, procreation... That could get obscure enough to become hip."
  - wonderzombie 13y ago
    I can't tell how sarcastic you're being. :) Trying to chase what's hip (esp in the eyes of white male 20-somethings living in SV) is exactly the problem. When it comes to procreating, how likely do you think that demographic is to think about problems/opportunities re: raising children?
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      If they start selling infant size porkpie hats, you'll know I'm right. Getting the skinny jeans over the diapers is going to be a challenge though.
  - thatthatis 13y ago
    Apparently, not in Japan.
- josefresco 13y ago
  Competition may drop among tech startups, but you quickly enter the world of heavyweight long-standing businesses who have the capital and marketshare to stomp you out. Not many startup 20-something CEO's are worried about competition when launching a new mobile app hatched in a weekend bender but sell something more traditional and essential like kids clothing and you'll spend sleepless nights worrying about Wal-Mart and other established providers who could and (prob) will squash you.
  - 13y ago
danso 13y ago
Being based in Seattle shouldn't particularly hurt it, as Amazon is nearby. But yes, I'll be one of the first to admit that I had never heard of it until this morning when the NYT homepage had a very, very brief item on it. I hope it really is the "old people" thing...those with experience and failures in their past can still continue to reap up money while the young'uns try to fake out the world. It's probably a two-way-street kind of thing, though...perhaps it's not just the press who ignores them because of the lack of Stanford-dropout-angle, but the older entrepreneurs don't seek the press out as much, especially when already making profits.
doctorpangloss 13y ago
Yes, the narrative around Zulily is a lot less theatrical, so it makes worse news. A true story about the Blue Nile team capturing another retail niche is great, but two 24 year olds turning down $3 billion for a thing that takes temporary pictures? Better. Do market fundamentals make good stories? Maybe. A lot of things grow and make a profit. If growth, profit and speed qualified you for coverage, we'd be reading about hedge funds, not retail firms (let alone social media software firms). The Blue Nile team isn't ignored because they're in Seattle or they're old though. Valve is in Seattle and has plenty of old people, and they do exciting things people write about all the time. The difference is maternity clothes versus video games. Flash sales versus sexting. Surely the fundamentals of what the company does can affect its coverage. So forgive people for not finding clothing flash sales terribly exciting. I still want to hear more about the Blue Nile founders' stories. Gilt (which has a similar concept to Zulily) got tons of coverage as much for brand name clothes as for being run by two brilliant women. Maybe they just need to get out there. Or do nothing, because they got their IPO anyway.
- DenisM 13y ago
  It's not the Zulily team who are missing out for lack of coverage, it's the rest of us who are still trying to build profitable businesses.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- phillmv 13y ago
  They also primarily target female women consumers, which I can only imagine is a major reason it doesn't get much press.
  - dublinben 13y ago
    Pinterest primarily targets women as well, but they get lots of press.
minimaxir 13y ago
It's worth noting that the tech press posted about the filing of the IPO, but not the IPO itself. http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-site-for-moms-zulily-files-for-100m-ipo/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-site-for-moms-z... http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-for-moms-site-zulily-files-for-100m-ipo/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-for-moms-site-...
- lopanic 13y ago
  TechCrunch now has a mention of the IPO: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/15/zulily-shares-pop-82-above-ipo-price/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/15/zulily-shares-pop-82-above-...
mildtrepidation 13y ago
While I wouldn't call mainstream reporting a whole lot better than the tech press, their biases are certainly different. Unfortunately, the goals are the same. CNN wants to pull in as many visitors/viewers as possible by reporting skewed and sensationalist versions of all of the horrible, embarrassing, and disastrous things that happen to everyone, everywhere. That this means filtering out a whole lot of interesting but non-controversial things and regurgitating news, lies, and exaggerations constantly really doesn't matter. The tech press wants to pull in as many visitors/viewers as possible by reporting skewed and sensationalist versions of all the hype, rumors, and scandals that happen to anyone under 25 in stereotypical tech hubs. That this means filtering out a whole lot of interesting but non-controversial things and regurgitating news, lies, and exaggerations constantly really doesn't matter. It's easy to make fun of the other guy when you're doing exactly the same thing in a different field. Personally, I find it efficient to largely ignore both of them.
DenisM 13y ago
It's nice to see fellow Seattleites growing a real business here. The more success stories happen in Seattle, the more confident the new founders and investors will be. Giving up is too easy when you think everyone else already did. On that note, I encourage everyone with startup aspirations to hang out in one of the coworking spaces or incubators, like HUB or SURF (which I'm posting from).
phaus 13y ago
Well, maybe they haven't heard of it. I read HN daily and this is the first time I've heard of it. Even if they have, its not exactly in the same league as Twitter and Facebook (speaking solely in terms of popularity and brand recognition.)
- jacalata 13y ago
  Asking 'why doesn't the press cover x' is not really satisfactorily answered by 'maybe they haven't heard of it'. It's their job to hear of things.
  - phaus 13y ago
    Well if we're talking about what journalism's job is, there is a near-infinite number of things that they could be covering that are way more important than anyone's IPO.
eranation 13y ago
My theory on this has been for a while. Not just for coverage, but for the lack of "Older people problems" startups. It's not just they don't get coverage, it is a miracle they are being founded in the first place. I think it's because young people try to solve (most of the times) young people's problems (music, dating, photos, food delivery, code and technology tools, movies, social activity, even taxi riding, most people with kids buy a van and move to the suburbs). Young people also tend to have a slightly bit more free time, and are more likely to share things they use and like. And I don't mean only teens, I also include professional, smart, rich, educated 25 years old who work in a startup, or own a company, or sold one, or had stocks in one and now are millionaires, and even become VCs, mentoring and helping other startups. There are billions of dollars on the table that "Old people" companies are taking. Look at all the boring enterprise Java jobs out there, these people are selling stuff. to other companies you haven't heard of, solving business problems you haven't encountered and perhaps never will if you are a 25 years old hacker, because you will never want to go work for these companies. Older people work there, and even if they have a great idea for a startup they are much less likely to do it. 1) health insurance - prime reason. older people tend to have kids, or in the making. Unless they have some savings, they can't risk losing their health insurance. 2) family, yes, there are successful founders with kids, but it is much easier to start a company when you don't have any. how many people with families move to SF for 3 months for YC and leave their kids and spouse at hime? 3) age bias. VCs look at older people like this - if you had what it takes, why did you get a boring Java job for 10 years till you decided to jump into the water? 4) Enterprise sales is hard. it takes sometimes 2 years of a sales cycle to close a deal. but when you do it can be a 7 figure deal easily. 5) What the article said about young tech writers, I agree
- rexreed 13y ago
  Exactly - Enterprise Software is still a largely untapped area of significant opportunity precisely because it gets little attention from VC, startup folks, and the tech press. That's where the opportunity is.
- rustynails 13y ago
  I'd also call it a "mindset". The younger generation are far more network focused. I developed a product that doesn't work/share online ... To protect privacy. But, I seem to be a lone wolf in that mindset. Most of these popular technologies utilize online capability. I'm not saying this as a statement of frustration, just a recognition. I deplore the facebooks and other data-mining tools so much that I would never develop a system that was engineered to invasively profile you - it reminds me of an anal probe. Most of my over 40 colleagues are like-minded (at least about privacy). This is a big advantage for the younger generation who see and think very differently.
saidajigumi 13y ago
The Seattle dig is just plain lazy. Aside from the obvious established tech names, there are a ton of smaller tech firms, startups, etc.. and even some immensely successful recent IPOs with solid tech-rag coverage. :-P
- thinkalone 13y ago
  To be fair, the dig was on the tech press not focusing on Seattle and being Silicon Valley-focused, not on a lack of tech in Seattle, which is certainly not true :)
thinkalone 13y ago
It's a daily deals / affiliate marketing / e-commerce site... why would that be tech news? Twitter's IPO was newsworthy for being the "second largest in history for a US internet company."[1] [1] http://qz.com/145227/final-tally-twitters-ipo-was-bigger-than-googles-raising-2-1-billion/ http://qz.com/145227/final-tally-twitters-ipo-was-bigger-tha...
- nitinalabur 13y ago
  its not tech news. Its a link bait for techies.
5avage 13y ago
Does "e-commerce" even qualify as "tech" anymore? Seems to me in 2013 there's nothing special about most e-commerce technology; it's more commerce/retail, and I'd opine that's why the tech press ignores it for the most part.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  In that case, does Snapchat qualify in any way whatsoever? There are at least some technologically-interesting challenges in building large scale e-commerce, but there's nothing special about limited-functionality mobile app technology, in 2013 everyone knows how to do that and it's just more about socialization habits than technology.
afterburner 13y ago
Amusingly, searching for "zulily" on Google Finance gets no results. Even when I go directly to "ZU" I can't seem to get a chart. https://www.google.ca/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AZU&ei=RWmGUrC8OqKCsgeY6QE https://www.google.ca/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AZU&ei=RWmGUrC8OqKCs...
- clamprecht 13y ago
  Even more interesting, because Twitter (TWTR) was on Google Finance the night BEFORE the IPO!
mscarborough 13y ago
how is this better "tech press"? only one intrepid reporter was brave enough to create a barely 6 paragraph article long on opinion but short on facts. yes, everyone who didn't throw up a blog post within an hour must believe amazon is in palo alto, have never gone to seattle, and the seattle area does not have a tech scene worth mentioning.
dpcheng2003 13y ago
Snapchat: I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to the tech media with a few snaps and a Colbert Report appearance? Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is shareholder rewarding! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a maternity clothing e-commerce site goes public, or IBM buys a Blue Bell, PA based mobile device management company, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that a two-year old, non-profitable messaging company run by 23 year-olds is going to refuse a $3 billion offer from Facebook, well then everyone loses their minds! [Snapchat hands HackerNews an upvote and points it at himself] Snapchat: Introduce a little disruption. Disrupt the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about disruption? It's fair! http://vimeo.com/69674685 http://vimeo.com/69674685
ig1 13y ago
What do these have in common: Criteo, Cvent, Benefitfocus, and Veeva Systems They're all recent tech IPOs (last few weeks). They don't get a lot of coverage in Techcrunch, etc. because that's not what they cover. If you want more comprehensive coverage try something like VentureWire.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  It's trivial - they're all in B2B. People like to talk and read about B2C stuff that they use (or might use), rather than the B2B stuff that is the underwater part of software iceberg.
- bostonpete 13y ago
  > What do these have in common: Criteo, Cvent, Benefitfocus, and Veeva Systems You didn't give us enough time to answer! I was gonna guess it's that they all look like typos.
jsherry 13y ago
Veeva Systems is another that flew under the radar. B2B Life Sciences software company that raised $4M five years ago from Emergence Capital - a stake which was worth $1.2B at the time of their IPO in October.(1) Good on Dan Primack to shed some light on the "boring" side of VC. (1) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/veeva-ipo-generates-300-fold-return-for-emergence-capital-1-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/veeva-ipo-generates...
shaydoc 13y ago
Is not terribly exciting,or innovative.... It's another incarnation of groupon typed on a niche market. Sorry for being negative, but another shopping site, yeehaa, just what the world needs.... :-(
- ollysb 13y ago
  As opposed to another photo app?!
  - shaydoc 13y ago
    As opposed to something that advances humanity. Not another McMarketing engine. How about innovative in a new way that transcends the current freeze,that solves some serious issues that really need solved. Not willingly signing up to be spammed, not overtly consumerist. Think Eudaimonia! You did ask!
    - ollysb 13y ago
      I'm all for that, it's just that the tech press doesn't really cover companies that fit that description.
  - lmm 13y ago
    I've seen more smiles and laughter from people using snapchat than probably any other piece of tech.
applecore 13y ago
Daily deals were really hot in 2009 and 2010. By late 2011, the business model was considered "dying" and the tech press moved on.
nitinalabur 13y ago
Isn't this just an another Groupon for kid stuff? Tech reporters may not have kids, but they certainly have their fingers burnt after salivating about the Groupon IPO
- nosequel 13y ago
  No, these aren't coupons you use somewhere else. Zulily sells the goods and focuses on stuff for kids and mothers. Also, they seem to pick quality stuff, not just anyone trying offload crap like some other flash sites. My wife uses Zulily all the time and really likes it. Hopefully this IPO will enable them to ship stuff quicker though, that's the only major complaint about Zulily from everyone I know who uses it.
bmac27 13y ago
Maybe writers are staying away because the efficacy of the business model at scale is in question. I think some observers are still (justifiably or not) self-aware of how they think the story ends with these kinds of companies. On Twitter, Primack brought up Fab as an example of this kind of company generating news. But the only news I've heard about Fab lately is bad news.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Interesting, never heard of zulily before. Found their register-to-view website off-putting. Removed the overlay and discovered they have a UK site (no IP/geolocation sniffing?) .. UK site was broken (none of the akamai resources loaded) and appears to be hosted on tumblr (zulilyuk.tumblr.com)??
replicatorblog 13y ago
I'm a tech writer, with a child, and wouldn't write about this. It's a really cool story and a neat company, but it's got a few things working against it: + Small Audience — Most tech writers get paid by the pageview. The realistic market of readers for this kind of story is probably in the hundreds, maybe low thousands. My wife loves the site, but wouldn't give a fig about the financials. There's a market for investors or competitive intelligence, but it's a very different kind of business. + Bad Timing — If this happened in the midst of the Groupon craze you'd be reading all about it. Now that "Daily Deals" have become an elephant's graveyard of broken dreams and wasted billions it's not that interesting in a meta context. + What's the Hook? — It's a big number, but a "boring" business. A company called Wayfair in Boston is in a similar spot. They're a massive ecommerce company dealing in home goods, but you've probably never heard of them. They have nice offices, but not crazy ones. They use a logical, but unexciting tech stack. Which would you rather read: - Seasoned entrepreneurs utilize proven business fundamentals to build niche ecommerce website with steadily growing, but modest profits? or: - 6 Unbelievable Tech Tricks these College Students Used to Get a $4B Buyout Offer from Facebook in 18 months!
- chavesn 13y ago
  Your first headline may be dry, but headlines like "6 Unbelievable Techniques Two College Students Used to Get a $4B Buyout Offer from Facebook!" sound like spam to me. Sensationalism will always work to grab eyes but I don't think that particular brand of headline sensationalism is going to work forever. Having a reputation for quality journalism makes a news business sustainable, not headline tricks. "One weird trick to make $4b! See why entrepreneurs hate him!"
  - wonderzombie 13y ago
    Just to amplify your point, I'm actually seeing a lot of faux-content that's exactly like this, and I'm sick of it already. I've never clicked on it and every time I see them my resolve hardens further. They don't sound like traditional ads, as they're maybe one or two shades away from "one weird trick." They're just too on-the-nose. "One thing which makes alzheimer's worse," "what cruise lines do to fill empty cabins," "10 signs of an affair." I feel dirty just typing these.
zobzu 13y ago
"because news are entertainment, not news" news^H^H^H^H entertainment at 11. Thought everyone knew that by now.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Simplistic answer, "They aren't hackers, they are business people." I've noticed a strong inverse correlation between people building businesses with expected business practice, and the "tech" press. What Zulily is doing is not a disruptive technology, it is (potentially a disruptive business practice). It is easy to forget when reading inside the tech 'sphere' that there are lots of things that have to get done everyday by businesses, and those processes can be improved or made more efficient with technology. The closest one I've seen here was 42floors which is trying to disrupt the commercial real estate market, but it isn't a "tech" play, it is a business practices play. Creating a way to share a moment in time, an instant, right now while preserving that feeling of "instantness" that is a tech play. Eventually, perhaps after this second burst of activity, tech will be just as boring and all the cool kids will be doing bio stuff or space or something.
- bostonpete 13y ago
  Agreed. I don't really see a tech angle to this story, other than the fact that it's a website...
  - 001sky 13y ago
    Is groupon a tech company? They seemed to have a "tech ipo".
    - VladRussian2 13y ago
      yes, that's my question as well. Why do i even know about Groupon? It was a lot on HN. And everytime i was wondering why it was here.
    - bostonpete 13y ago
      I guess I'd turn that around and ask if every online retail site should be considered a tech company? Was Groupon widely covered by the tech press? That's not my recollection but I could be mistaken. One could perhaps question whether Groupon deserved the coverage it got as a "tech company", but that doesn't mean other online retailers should necessarily be covered by the tech press.
conductr 13y ago
Ecommerce is not tech, it's retail. So ya, boring. Amazon is a huge retailer who just happens to have very innovative tech offerings. They also compete directly with big tech companies. That's the difference.
codegeek 13y ago
I personally had never heard of zulily (not that it means anything) but i just decided to view their website and Horrors!! .They have this pop-up that wants my email before it will let me view the site. No sir, you cannot kill that pop-up (at least as a everyday non-tech user) WTF. seriously ? Rant aside though, I would consider zulily for my kid because we are always shopping for kids as parents.
larrys 13y ago
"Why the tech press is ignoring Zulily's huge IPO" Separate issue is that one way to get pageviews after (or in this case before) a story is by doing a story on why the press is doing the wrong thing. The story about the story in other words. Happens more often after some big event gets all played out in the media, the milking is done, no more for the talking head on tv, then the media starts to question the coverage of the big event and what was done wrong and why so much attention was paid to it.
speeder 13y ago
This makes me think about my own hard time attracting coverage. My startup make educational games and applications for kids, that are actually fun (instead of just educational and terribly boring, or entertaining but teaches lots of bad stuff). Yet... even when I want to tell a journalist to cover us, I don't find a reason to do so... I mean, what we are doing is not sexy, also we don't have famous VC with us, also we did not went to YC (and won't go, the CEO has wife and very little kids and cannot move away for 3 months), we don't know in person anyone famous, we had no crazy or surprising funding, our product despite being novelty in the sense that everyone else go pure entertainment or pure educational is still not much "disrupting", it is just something we found a demand and no offer and decided to offer. I even met recently the editor of the largest brazillian tech magazine... And I had some small talk with her, but I found no reason whatsoever to give to her to cover us, and it is not that we are unknown, because she uses our products and love them, it is just that... :/
- chromaton 13y ago
  Suggest these for a clickbait headline: "This Company will REVOLUTIONIZE Education Technology... Why Haven't You Heard About Them?" "Meet the CEO Who Says Most Learning Apps are TOTAL CRAP"
- eth 13y ago
  If your product is for kids, you may decide there's no point in trying to get "tech press" coverage anyway. If you want users, go after mom bloggers. They are the ones that will buy your product if it's good.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dsjoerg 13y ago
This is the moment where "ecommerce" stopped being "tech". Just like using electricity, or the telephone is no longer tech. Remember those fancy companies that use the new running-water system? Me neither. That was once tech, but not any more.
iridiumsnow 13y ago
I have seen a few articles about the announcement of the IPO, but no mention of it today. For what it's worth, I think Zulily is a great site and very useful if you have kids. Maybe flash sale sites are just old news and this one isn't breaking any new ground in that respect, so the company isn't as big of a tech news story.
aryastark 13y ago
The tech press is a circus. In Hollywood, there are two films that ever matter. The one that had the lowest budget made by kids. And the one that had the largest budget. Anything else is not a story. Same with Silicon Valley. You have to be a 2.0 change the world company by 20-somethings. It also helps if you have no business plan, lots of eyeballs, and a massive valuation. Slow growth, solving an actual need of a market, with rational actors all around? Boring.
radley 13y ago
It's classic, but boring, PR spin.

268 points by jmduke 13y ago

angersock 13y ago

So...people got scooped by CNN? CNN? Wow, goddamn folks.

mscarborough 13y ago
A hastily thrown together blog post really doesn't count as a scoop. As much as the author is patting his back over this story that the ESTABLISHMENT TECH PRESS doesn't want you to know.

PeterisP 13y ago

The more practical a startup, the less 'sexy' it is; and vice versa.

thecollins 13y ago
Maybe it's that this is really hardly a startup -- it's a solid company that just happens to have a web presence as its main outlet to customers?
- integraton 13y ago
  Launched with a Series A in 2009, has taken 3 up rounds of funding in the years since, now files for an IPO in 2013, exactly 4 years later. Not only is this a textbook VC-funded startup, it's pretty much a perfect illustration of the ideal trajectory and timeline for a VC-funded startup.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  It's started just a couple years ago, made a new business niche, had explosive growth from zero and is going to IPO - a startup by any definition. Having a web outlet to customers is completely unrelated to that; a niche company selling their stuff to a small handful of large companies and not even having a website can be a perfectly valid startup.
bglazer 13y ago
I think there's a clear counter-point to your statement in a company like Uber. Better taxi service? That's the definition of practicality, and I still find the business model, and especially the analytics very intriguing ("sexy").

tootie 13y ago

As a parent and old man, I still have no idea what value SnapChat or Twitter have. Zulily is something I use regularly.

deletes 13y ago
If something is not tangible it doesn't mean it can have great value to society. I'm sure you use a mobile phone, this is similar but exists everywhere( where there is internet access ) and enables you to communicate with anyone using that service.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
I'm 30, and was explaining what SnapChat is to my 33 year old co-worker while our 22 year old co-worker was listening and chuckling. It was then I realized we were old.

thatthatis 13y ago

I'm shocked this even made it on hacker news. Here's a market selection tip: find a problem not experienced by mid 20s single men in urban centers and your competition drops by about two orders of magnitude.

Zigurd 13y ago
"Hmm, procreation... That could get obscure enough to become hip."
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  I can't tell how sarcastic you're being. :) Trying to chase what's hip (esp in the eyes of white male 20-somethings living in SV) is exactly the problem. When it comes to procreating, how likely do you think that demographic is to think about problems/opportunities re: raising children?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    If they start selling infant size porkpie hats, you'll know I'm right. Getting the skinny jeans over the diapers is going to be a challenge though.
- thatthatis 13y ago
  Apparently, not in Japan.
josefresco 13y ago
Competition may drop among tech startups, but you quickly enter the world of heavyweight long-standing businesses who have the capital and marketshare to stomp you out. Not many startup 20-something CEO's are worried about competition when launching a new mobile app hatched in a weekend bender but sell something more traditional and essential like kids clothing and you'll spend sleepless nights worrying about Wal-Mart and other established providers who could and (prob) will squash you.
- 13y ago

danso 13y ago

Being based in Seattle shouldn't particularly hurt it, as Amazon is nearby. But yes, I'll be one of the first to admit that I had never heard of it until this morning when the NYT homepage had a very, very brief item on it. I hope it really is the "old people" thing...those with experience and failures in their past can still continue to reap up money while the young'uns try to fake out the world. It's probably a two-way-street kind of thing, though...perhaps it's not just the press who ignores them because of the lack of Stanford-dropout-angle, but the older entrepreneurs don't seek the press out as much, especially when already making profits.

doctorpangloss 13y ago

Yes, the narrative around Zulily is a lot less theatrical, so it makes worse news. A true story about the Blue Nile team capturing another retail niche is great, but two 24 year olds turning down $3 billion for a thing that takes temporary pictures? Better. Do market fundamentals make good stories? Maybe. A lot of things grow and make a profit. If growth, profit and speed qualified you for coverage, we'd be reading about hedge funds, not retail firms (let alone social media software firms). The Blue Nile team isn't ignored because they're in Seattle or they're old though. Valve is in Seattle and has plenty of old people, and they do exciting things people write about all the time. The difference is maternity clothes versus video games. Flash sales versus sexting. Surely the fundamentals of what the company does can affect its coverage. So forgive people for not finding clothing flash sales terribly exciting. I still want to hear more about the Blue Nile founders' stories. Gilt (which has a similar concept to Zulily) got tons of coverage as much for brand name clothes as for being run by two brilliant women. Maybe they just need to get out there. Or do nothing, because they got their IPO anyway.

DenisM 13y ago
It's not the Zulily team who are missing out for lack of coverage, it's the rest of us who are still trying to build profitable businesses.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
phillmv 13y ago
They also primarily target female women consumers, which I can only imagine is a major reason it doesn't get much press.
- dublinben 13y ago
  Pinterest primarily targets women as well, but they get lots of press.

minimaxir 13y ago

It's worth noting that the tech press posted about the filing of the IPO, but not the IPO itself. http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-site-for-moms-zulily-files-for-100m-ipo/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-site-for-moms-z... http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-for-moms-site-zulily-files-for-100m-ipo/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/08/flash-sales-for-moms-site-...

lopanic 13y ago
TechCrunch now has a mention of the IPO: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/15/zulily-shares-pop-82-above-ipo-price/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/15/zulily-shares-pop-82-above-...

mildtrepidation 13y ago

While I wouldn't call mainstream reporting a whole lot better than the tech press, their biases are certainly different. Unfortunately, the goals are the same. CNN wants to pull in as many visitors/viewers as possible by reporting skewed and sensationalist versions of all of the horrible, embarrassing, and disastrous things that happen to everyone, everywhere. That this means filtering out a whole lot of interesting but non-controversial things and regurgitating news, lies, and exaggerations constantly really doesn't matter. The tech press wants to pull in as many visitors/viewers as possible by reporting skewed and sensationalist versions of all the hype, rumors, and scandals that happen to anyone under 25 in stereotypical tech hubs. That this means filtering out a whole lot of interesting but non-controversial things and regurgitating news, lies, and exaggerations constantly really doesn't matter. It's easy to make fun of the other guy when you're doing exactly the same thing in a different field. Personally, I find it efficient to largely ignore both of them.

DenisM 13y ago

It's nice to see fellow Seattleites growing a real business here. The more success stories happen in Seattle, the more confident the new founders and investors will be. Giving up is too easy when you think everyone else already did. On that note, I encourage everyone with startup aspirations to hang out in one of the coworking spaces or incubators, like HUB or SURF (which I'm posting from).

phaus 13y ago

Well, maybe they haven't heard of it. I read HN daily and this is the first time I've heard of it. Even if they have, its not exactly in the same league as Twitter and Facebook (speaking solely in terms of popularity and brand recognition.)

jacalata 13y ago
Asking 'why doesn't the press cover x' is not really satisfactorily answered by 'maybe they haven't heard of it'. It's their job to hear of things.
- phaus 13y ago
  Well if we're talking about what journalism's job is, there is a near-infinite number of things that they could be covering that are way more important than anyone's IPO.

eranation 13y ago

My theory on this has been for a while. Not just for coverage, but for the lack of "Older people problems" startups. It's not just they don't get coverage, it is a miracle they are being founded in the first place. I think it's because young people try to solve (most of the times) young people's problems (music, dating, photos, food delivery, code and technology tools, movies, social activity, even taxi riding, most people with kids buy a van and move to the suburbs). Young people also tend to have a slightly bit more free time, and are more likely to share things they use and like. And I don't mean only teens, I also include professional, smart, rich, educated 25 years old who work in a startup, or own a company, or sold one, or had stocks in one and now are millionaires, and even become VCs, mentoring and helping other startups. There are billions of dollars on the table that "Old people" companies are taking. Look at all the boring enterprise Java jobs out there, these people are selling stuff. to other companies you haven't heard of, solving business problems you haven't encountered and perhaps never will if you are a 25 years old hacker, because you will never want to go work for these companies. Older people work there, and even if they have a great idea for a startup they are much less likely to do it. 1) health insurance - prime reason. older people tend to have kids, or in the making. Unless they have some savings, they can't risk losing their health insurance. 2) family, yes, there are successful founders with kids, but it is much easier to start a company when you don't have any. how many people with families move to SF for 3 months for YC and leave their kids and spouse at hime? 3) age bias. VCs look at older people like this - if you had what it takes, why did you get a boring Java job for 10 years till you decided to jump into the water? 4) Enterprise sales is hard. it takes sometimes 2 years of a sales cycle to close a deal. but when you do it can be a 7 figure deal easily. 5) What the article said about young tech writers, I agree

rexreed 13y ago
Exactly - Enterprise Software is still a largely untapped area of significant opportunity precisely because it gets little attention from VC, startup folks, and the tech press. That's where the opportunity is.
rustynails 13y ago
I'd also call it a "mindset". The younger generation are far more network focused. I developed a product that doesn't work/share online ... To protect privacy. But, I seem to be a lone wolf in that mindset. Most of these popular technologies utilize online capability. I'm not saying this as a statement of frustration, just a recognition. I deplore the facebooks and other data-mining tools so much that I would never develop a system that was engineered to invasively profile you - it reminds me of an anal probe. Most of my over 40 colleagues are like-minded (at least about privacy). This is a big advantage for the younger generation who see and think very differently.

saidajigumi 13y ago

The Seattle dig is just plain lazy. Aside from the obvious established tech names, there are a ton of smaller tech firms, startups, etc.. and even some immensely successful recent IPOs with solid tech-rag coverage. :-P

thinkalone 13y ago
To be fair, the dig was on the tech press not focusing on Seattle and being Silicon Valley-focused, not on a lack of tech in Seattle, which is certainly not true :)

thinkalone 13y ago

It's a daily deals / affiliate marketing / e-commerce site... why would that be tech news? Twitter's IPO was newsworthy for being the "second largest in history for a US internet company."[1] [1] http://qz.com/145227/final-tally-twitters-ipo-was-bigger-than-googles-raising-2-1-billion/ http://qz.com/145227/final-tally-twitters-ipo-was-bigger-tha...

nitinalabur 13y ago
its not tech news. Its a link bait for techies.

5avage 13y ago

Does "e-commerce" even qualify as "tech" anymore? Seems to me in 2013 there's nothing special about most e-commerce technology; it's more commerce/retail, and I'd opine that's why the tech press ignores it for the most part.

PeterisP 13y ago
In that case, does Snapchat qualify in any way whatsoever? There are at least some technologically-interesting challenges in building large scale e-commerce, but there's nothing special about limited-functionality mobile app technology, in 2013 everyone knows how to do that and it's just more about socialization habits than technology.

afterburner 13y ago

Amusingly, searching for "zulily" on Google Finance gets no results. Even when I go directly to "ZU" I can't seem to get a chart. https://www.google.ca/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AZU&ei=RWmGUrC8OqKCsgeY6QE https://www.google.ca/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AZU&ei=RWmGUrC8OqKCs...

clamprecht 13y ago
Even more interesting, because Twitter (TWTR) was on Google Finance the night BEFORE the IPO!

mscarborough 13y ago

how is this better "tech press"? only one intrepid reporter was brave enough to create a barely 6 paragraph article long on opinion but short on facts. yes, everyone who didn't throw up a blog post within an hour must believe amazon is in palo alto, have never gone to seattle, and the seattle area does not have a tech scene worth mentioning.

dpcheng2003 13y ago

Snapchat: I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to the tech media with a few snaps and a Colbert Report appearance? Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is shareholder rewarding! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a maternity clothing e-commerce site goes public, or IBM buys a Blue Bell, PA based mobile device management company, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that a two-year old, non-profitable messaging company run by 23 year-olds is going to refuse a $3 billion offer from Facebook, well then everyone loses their minds! [Snapchat hands HackerNews an upvote and points it at himself] Snapchat: Introduce a little disruption. Disrupt the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about disruption? It's fair! http://vimeo.com/69674685 http://vimeo.com/69674685

ig1 13y ago

What do these have in common: Criteo, Cvent, Benefitfocus, and Veeva Systems They're all recent tech IPOs (last few weeks). They don't get a lot of coverage in Techcrunch, etc. because that's not what they cover. If you want more comprehensive coverage try something like VentureWire.

PeterisP 13y ago
It's trivial - they're all in B2B. People like to talk and read about B2C stuff that they use (or might use), rather than the B2B stuff that is the underwater part of software iceberg.
bostonpete 13y ago
> What do these have in common: Criteo, Cvent, Benefitfocus, and Veeva Systems You didn't give us enough time to answer! I was gonna guess it's that they all look like typos.

jsherry 13y ago

Veeva Systems is another that flew under the radar. B2B Life Sciences software company that raised $4M five years ago from Emergence Capital - a stake which was worth $1.2B at the time of their IPO in October.(1) Good on Dan Primack to shed some light on the "boring" side of VC. (1) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/veeva-ipo-generates-300-fold-return-for-emergence-capital-1-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/veeva-ipo-generates...

shaydoc 13y ago

Is not terribly exciting,or innovative.... It's another incarnation of groupon typed on a niche market. Sorry for being negative, but another shopping site, yeehaa, just what the world needs.... :-(

ollysb 13y ago
As opposed to another photo app?!
- shaydoc 13y ago
  As opposed to something that advances humanity. Not another McMarketing engine. How about innovative in a new way that transcends the current freeze,that solves some serious issues that really need solved. Not willingly signing up to be spammed, not overtly consumerist. Think Eudaimonia! You did ask!
  - ollysb 13y ago
    I'm all for that, it's just that the tech press doesn't really cover companies that fit that description.
- lmm 13y ago
  I've seen more smiles and laughter from people using snapchat than probably any other piece of tech.

applecore 13y ago

Daily deals were really hot in 2009 and 2010. By late 2011, the business model was considered "dying" and the tech press moved on.

nitinalabur 13y ago

Isn't this just an another Groupon for kid stuff? Tech reporters may not have kids, but they certainly have their fingers burnt after salivating about the Groupon IPO

nosequel 13y ago
No, these aren't coupons you use somewhere else. Zulily sells the goods and focuses on stuff for kids and mothers. Also, they seem to pick quality stuff, not just anyone trying offload crap like some other flash sites. My wife uses Zulily all the time and really likes it. Hopefully this IPO will enable them to ship stuff quicker though, that's the only major complaint about Zulily from everyone I know who uses it.

bmac27 13y ago

Maybe writers are staying away because the efficacy of the business model at scale is in question. I think some observers are still (justifiably or not) self-aware of how they think the story ends with these kinds of companies. On Twitter, Primack brought up Fab as an example of this kind of company generating news. But the only news I've heard about Fab lately is bad news.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

Interesting, never heard of zulily before. Found their register-to-view website off-putting. Removed the overlay and discovered they have a UK site (no IP/geolocation sniffing?) .. UK site was broken (none of the akamai resources loaded) and appears to be hosted on tumblr (zulilyuk.tumblr.com)??

replicatorblog 13y ago

I'm a tech writer, with a child, and wouldn't write about this. It's a really cool story and a neat company, but it's got a few things working against it: + Small Audience — Most tech writers get paid by the pageview. The realistic market of readers for this kind of story is probably in the hundreds, maybe low thousands. My wife loves the site, but wouldn't give a fig about the financials. There's a market for investors or competitive intelligence, but it's a very different kind of business. + Bad Timing — If this happened in the midst of the Groupon craze you'd be reading all about it. Now that "Daily Deals" have become an elephant's graveyard of broken dreams and wasted billions it's not that interesting in a meta context. + What's the Hook? — It's a big number, but a "boring" business. A company called Wayfair in Boston is in a similar spot. They're a massive ecommerce company dealing in home goods, but you've probably never heard of them. They have nice offices, but not crazy ones. They use a logical, but unexciting tech stack. Which would you rather read: - Seasoned entrepreneurs utilize proven business fundamentals to build niche ecommerce website with steadily growing, but modest profits? or: - 6 Unbelievable Tech Tricks these College Students Used to Get a $4B Buyout Offer from Facebook in 18 months!

chavesn 13y ago
Your first headline may be dry, but headlines like "6 Unbelievable Techniques Two College Students Used to Get a $4B Buyout Offer from Facebook!" sound like spam to me. Sensationalism will always work to grab eyes but I don't think that particular brand of headline sensationalism is going to work forever. Having a reputation for quality journalism makes a news business sustainable, not headline tricks. "One weird trick to make $4b! See why entrepreneurs hate him!"
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  Just to amplify your point, I'm actually seeing a lot of faux-content that's exactly like this, and I'm sick of it already. I've never clicked on it and every time I see them my resolve hardens further. They don't sound like traditional ads, as they're maybe one or two shades away from "one weird trick." They're just too on-the-nose. "One thing which makes alzheimer's worse," "what cruise lines do to fill empty cabins," "10 signs of an affair." I feel dirty just typing these.

zobzu 13y ago

"because news are entertainment, not news" news^H^H^H^H entertainment at 11. Thought everyone knew that by now.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Simplistic answer, "They aren't hackers, they are business people." I've noticed a strong inverse correlation between people building businesses with expected business practice, and the "tech" press. What Zulily is doing is not a disruptive technology, it is (potentially a disruptive business practice). It is easy to forget when reading inside the tech 'sphere' that there are lots of things that have to get done everyday by businesses, and those processes can be improved or made more efficient with technology. The closest one I've seen here was 42floors which is trying to disrupt the commercial real estate market, but it isn't a "tech" play, it is a business practices play. Creating a way to share a moment in time, an instant, right now while preserving that feeling of "instantness" that is a tech play. Eventually, perhaps after this second burst of activity, tech will be just as boring and all the cool kids will be doing bio stuff or space or something.

bostonpete 13y ago
Agreed. I don't really see a tech angle to this story, other than the fact that it's a website...
- 001sky 13y ago
  Is groupon a tech company? They seemed to have a "tech ipo".
  - VladRussian2 13y ago
    yes, that's my question as well. Why do i even know about Groupon? It was a lot on HN. And everytime i was wondering why it was here.
  - bostonpete 13y ago
    I guess I'd turn that around and ask if every online retail site should be considered a tech company? Was Groupon widely covered by the tech press? That's not my recollection but I could be mistaken. One could perhaps question whether Groupon deserved the coverage it got as a "tech company", but that doesn't mean other online retailers should necessarily be covered by the tech press.

conductr 13y ago

Ecommerce is not tech, it's retail. So ya, boring. Amazon is a huge retailer who just happens to have very innovative tech offerings. They also compete directly with big tech companies. That's the difference.

codegeek 13y ago

I personally had never heard of zulily (not that it means anything) but i just decided to view their website and Horrors!! .They have this pop-up that wants my email before it will let me view the site. No sir, you cannot kill that pop-up (at least as a everyday non-tech user) WTF. seriously ? Rant aside though, I would consider zulily for my kid because we are always shopping for kids as parents.

larrys 13y ago

"Why the tech press is ignoring Zulily's huge IPO" Separate issue is that one way to get pageviews after (or in this case before) a story is by doing a story on why the press is doing the wrong thing. The story about the story in other words. Happens more often after some big event gets all played out in the media, the milking is done, no more for the talking head on tv, then the media starts to question the coverage of the big event and what was done wrong and why so much attention was paid to it.

speeder 13y ago

This makes me think about my own hard time attracting coverage. My startup make educational games and applications for kids, that are actually fun (instead of just educational and terribly boring, or entertaining but teaches lots of bad stuff). Yet... even when I want to tell a journalist to cover us, I don't find a reason to do so... I mean, what we are doing is not sexy, also we don't have famous VC with us, also we did not went to YC (and won't go, the CEO has wife and very little kids and cannot move away for 3 months), we don't know in person anyone famous, we had no crazy or surprising funding, our product despite being novelty in the sense that everyone else go pure entertainment or pure educational is still not much "disrupting", it is just something we found a demand and no offer and decided to offer. I even met recently the editor of the largest brazillian tech magazine... And I had some small talk with her, but I found no reason whatsoever to give to her to cover us, and it is not that we are unknown, because she uses our products and love them, it is just that... :/

chromaton 13y ago
Suggest these for a clickbait headline: "This Company will REVOLUTIONIZE Education Technology... Why Haven't You Heard About Them?" "Meet the CEO Who Says Most Learning Apps are TOTAL CRAP"
eth 13y ago
If your product is for kids, you may decide there's no point in trying to get "tech press" coverage anyway. If you want users, go after mom bloggers. They are the ones that will buy your product if it's good.

deleted 13y ago

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dsjoerg 13y ago

This is the moment where "ecommerce" stopped being "tech". Just like using electricity, or the telephone is no longer tech. Remember those fancy companies that use the new running-water system? Me neither. That was once tech, but not any more.

iridiumsnow 13y ago

I have seen a few articles about the announcement of the IPO, but no mention of it today. For what it's worth, I think Zulily is a great site and very useful if you have kids. Maybe flash sale sites are just old news and this one isn't breaking any new ground in that respect, so the company isn't as big of a tech news story.

aryastark 13y ago

The tech press is a circus. In Hollywood, there are two films that ever matter. The one that had the lowest budget made by kids. And the one that had the largest budget. Anything else is not a story. Same with Silicon Valley. You have to be a 2.0 change the world company by 20-somethings. It also helps if you have no business plan, lots of eyeballs, and a massive valuation. Slow growth, solving an actual need of a market, with rational actors all around? Boring.

radley 13y ago

It's classic, but boring, PR spin.