4 ms·

$500M/yr in raw revenue? How do you grow from there? Lower costs? Grow your revenue? Half a billion is getting close to max adoption. Do you up your prices?

by awda 12y ago

rdtsc 12y ago
I'll stick with just getting $500M/yr. That is more than most start-ups will ever make. Once I get there I can solve other problems as they come up. Would that be a reasonable approach?
- mcintyre1994 12y ago
  Elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned Whatsapp have $58M of funding, so I doubt it - that'd probably be seen as a huge failure..somewhat amusingly. Let's say them investors want their 10X within a few years so you need to pay them over a year's revenue over a few years with no real growth there - you're paying a lot and they'd probably not agree.
wdewind 12y ago
Remember how small Whatsapp is (~50 employees). They don't need to do any of those things to have a fantastic business for a long time to come.
- collyw 12y ago
  What's to stop a free alternative like Telegram taking all the market? Smartphone adoption is still happening here, and I use the rates are much lower in developing countries. Once word gets around maybe everyone will switch.
  - wdewind 12y ago
    Network effect. The key though is that Telegram actually isn't free to consumers when compared to Whatsapp. At $1/year + access to everyone who is already on network vs. $0/year + access to smaller network+need to invite your friends to build that network Whatsapp is actually (significantly) cheaper. If it was more expensive per year I think they'd be giving some room, but no one is even going to notice getting billed.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Possibly upsell to some premium set of services, or branch out into other business lines. E.g., Amazon's not just a bookstore any more. Simple phone messaging, not likely. But where does phone messaging lead to? • Other comms services (voice, voicemail, teleconference, video). There's room for improvement in all of these. Look at the one stand-out from G+: Hangouts. • Sales or transactions. From text messaging to commerce-via-text is a step. Or banking. Both are directly monetized. • Some level of community-based information service with a commercial component. I've long wondered why more of the social networks haven't gone here. Or, of course, "get bought by Facebook".
medell 12y ago
I don't think they're close to adoption. There are 7Bn phones in the world and growing. Granted a chunk are corporate which won't ever need WhatsApp, but most in third world countries still use burners. And although there is likely a slow take up by the elderly, the next generation are all new customers. The 1/5th smartphone ratio can only go up. (This POV is of course assuming WhatsApp wins the messaging war, which is what FB is betting on)

$500M/yr in raw revenue? How do you grow from there? Lower costs? Grow your revenue? Half a billion is getting close to max adoption. Do you up your prices?

by awda 12y ago

$500M/yr in raw revenue? How do you grow from there? Lower costs? Grow your revenue? Half a billion is getting close to max adoption. Do you up your prices?

rdtsc 12y ago

I'll stick with just getting $500M/yr. That is more than most start-ups will ever make. Once I get there I can solve other problems as they come up. Would that be a reasonable approach?

mcintyre1994 12y ago
Elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned Whatsapp have $58M of funding, so I doubt it - that'd probably be seen as a huge failure..somewhat amusingly. Let's say them investors want their 10X within a few years so you need to pay them over a year's revenue over a few years with no real growth there - you're paying a lot and they'd probably not agree.

wdewind 12y ago

Remember how small Whatsapp is (~50 employees). They don't need to do any of those things to have a fantastic business for a long time to come.

collyw 12y ago
What's to stop a free alternative like Telegram taking all the market? Smartphone adoption is still happening here, and I use the rates are much lower in developing countries. Once word gets around maybe everyone will switch.
- wdewind 12y ago
  Network effect. The key though is that Telegram actually isn't free to consumers when compared to Whatsapp. At $1/year + access to everyone who is already on network vs. $0/year + access to smaller network+need to invite your friends to build that network Whatsapp is actually (significantly) cheaper. If it was more expensive per year I think they'd be giving some room, but no one is even going to notice getting billed.

dredmorbius 12y ago

Possibly upsell to some premium set of services, or branch out into other business lines. E.g., Amazon's not just a bookstore any more. Simple phone messaging, not likely. But where does phone messaging lead to? • Other comms services (voice, voicemail, teleconference, video). There's room for improvement in all of these. Look at the one stand-out from G+: Hangouts. • Sales or transactions. From text messaging to commerce-via-text is a step. Or banking. Both are directly monetized. • Some level of community-based information service with a commercial component. I've long wondered why more of the social networks haven't gone here. Or, of course, "get bought by Facebook".

medell 12y ago

I don't think they're close to adoption. There are 7Bn phones in the world and growing. Granted a chunk are corporate which won't ever need WhatsApp, but most in third world countries still use burners. And although there is likely a slow take up by the elderly, the next generation are all new customers. The 1/5th smartphone ratio can only go up. (This POV is of course assuming WhatsApp wins the messaging war, which is what FB is betting on)