4 ms·

Amazing to me that a site that is both hard on the eyes and not nearly as usable as its competitors has raised $5.5M. How do investors think they will make the

Amazing to me that a site that is both hard on the eyes and not nearly as usable as its competitors has raised $5.5M. How do investors think they will make their money back? Simply by microtransactions and paid features? Perhaps the investors are that optimistic, and they think this is the future of social networking.

j10t 12y ago
If I were a Vegas bookie, I'd think Ello has perhaps as high as a one in 10 chance of becoming the next major social network, and on the low end a one in 1,000 chance. A $20M valuation would place them at one 10,000th of Facebook. Pretty & usable are easily purchased. Throw an expensive dev team at it. Brand and reputation are more difficult.
enraged_camel 12y ago
>>Amazing to me that a site that is both hard on the eyes and not nearly as usable as its competitors has raised $5.5M. Raising money, at least initially, is about two things: user traction and good PR. I don't know how many users Ello has, but I've personally been hearing about them all over the place, especially from my early-adopter type friends on Facebook. This leads me to believe that the company has a really good PR firm working for them behind the scenes (PG's "submarine" analogy comes to mind). And the thing is, Ello may be hard on the eyes and not be very usable now, but both of those things are relatively easy to improve. If they do have good user traction, that means they have solved the hardest problem, at least in my opinion. Achieve growth and the rest follows rather naturally.
TarpitCarnivore 12y ago
Is there any other network that has tried this yet? I know Path and other messaging services have done sticker packs But as anyone done full blown features? This may be a crude comparison but I feel like they're trying to bring the concept of IAP for games to social networks.
AznHisoka 12y ago
Because AOL or Yahoo will be dumb enough to acquire them obviously :P

j10t 12y ago

If I were a Vegas bookie, I'd think Ello has perhaps as high as a one in 10 chance of becoming the next major social network, and on the low end a one in 1,000 chance. A $20M valuation would place them at one 10,000th of Facebook. Pretty & usable are easily purchased. Throw an expensive dev team at it. Brand and reputation are more difficult.

enraged_camel 12y ago

>>Amazing to me that a site that is both hard on the eyes and not nearly as usable as its competitors has raised $5.5M. Raising money, at least initially, is about two things: user traction and good PR. I don't know how many users Ello has, but I've personally been hearing about them all over the place, especially from my early-adopter type friends on Facebook. This leads me to believe that the company has a really good PR firm working for them behind the scenes (PG's "submarine" analogy comes to mind). And the thing is, Ello may be hard on the eyes and not be very usable now, but both of those things are relatively easy to improve. If they do have good user traction, that means they have solved the hardest problem, at least in my opinion. Achieve growth and the rest follows rather naturally.

TarpitCarnivore 12y ago

Is there any other network that has tried this yet? I know Path and other messaging services have done sticker packs But as anyone done full blown features? This may be a crude comparison but I feel like they're trying to bring the concept of IAP for games to social networks.

AznHisoka 12y ago

Because AOL or Yahoo will be dumb enough to acquire them obviously :P