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Etsy Vendors to get option to buy $2,500 of shares before public float
- testingonprod 12y agoIsn't this beautiful?
- choppaface 12y agoSorry for the WSJ-paywalled link; the full story is currently available via Google referrer: https://www.google.com/search?q=Etsy+Vendors+to+Get+a+Piece+of+IPO https://www.google.com/search?q=Etsy+Vendors+to+Get+a+Piece+...
- SunShiranui 12y agoDoesn't work for me :(
- Torn 12y agoTry adding site:wsj.com to the query https://www.google.com/search?q=Etsy+Vendors+to+Get+a+Piece+of+IPO+site:wsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=Etsy+Vendors+to+Get+a+Piece+...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- uberweb 12y agothanks, worked for me.
- snsr 12y agoPlease stop submitting WSJ links.
- ComputerGuru 12y agoHas anything like this been done before? It's a curious concept. It's certainly costing the company ~nothing (legal, financial, broker fees aside) but it's an incredible gesture to the community that made all this possible. Very clever - and touching!
- wodenokoto 12y agoWhy the tilde in front of nothing? And doesn't this dilute the value of the stocks hold by current owners?
- ryanburk 12y agoonly if they issued additional shares to do this, which doesn't come across in the S-1
- recuter 12y agoSelling $2,500 worth of shares to their vendors is exactly the same as selling it bankers who will flip it to the public. They get $2,500 no matter what.
- robin_reala 12y agoIt signifies ‘approximately’.
- ryanburk 12y agoI love this. but it does cost the company in terms of shares available to their underwriters to sell. and when you assume there will be easy first day gains to be had by getting the shares at the offering price that everyone wants a piece of, I'm sure it took a lot of convincing of their investors & bankers to do this.
- antr 12y agoYes, it has been done before. I have worked on several IPOs, and it's common to have a very small tranche for employees, various stakeholders, and "friends". Hence, its not really "news". It's my understanding that this article is just marketing. Etsy wants to come across to sellers as "we care", after a series of quarrels with them.
- jonah 12y agoI was at a creative agency in 2005 which was doing work for FastClick. We had the opportunity to buy "friends and family" shares in their IPO. A number of us did.
- pearjuice 12y agoCan someone add a [paywall] tag to the title? Or provide an URL/mirror which isn't paywalled?
- zaroth 12y agoMore like a [payspeedbump].
- davej 12y agoThis is more than just a nice gesture, it's also a very shrewd long-term business strategy. The majority of the value in the Etsy platform comes from their vendors and community. If they didn't have vendors then the site wouldn't be so successful. Etsy are ensuring that their vendors are invested in the site with them and less likely to jump ship to a competing platform.
- nailer 12y agoAren't most Etsy vendors large factories?
- TorKlingberg 12y agoEtsy sellers are also less likely to try and push out the founders than Wall Street. They probably will not go to the shareholders meetings at all, and if they do they will not be pushing for short term profits that would hurt Etsy in the long run.
- pyvpx 12y agoit's 5% and probably not any voting-class shares. that's a nice thought, though. disclaimer: I did not RTFA
- PMan74 12y ago> This is more than just a nice gesture Of one thing I'd be sure: being nice does not come into this in anyway, it's all about business strategy
- jasonlotito 12y ago> This is more than just a nice gesture No gesture was made though. My wife is an Etsy vendor and never received any notice about this.
- fabulist 12y agoNon-paywall link: https://archive.today/kLrVp https://archive.today/kLrVp For reference, I find archive.today to be the most reliable way to bypass WSJ's paywall. I've never had occasion to bypass any other paywalls.
- mike-cardwell 12y agoIf you're using Firefox you can install an addon named "RefControl" and configure it to send a fake google.com referrer when visiting wsj.com or any of the other popular paywalled sites. This gets around the paywall pretty effectively.
- fabulist 12y agoI use a similar add on, but I've never gotten it to work. I didn't try too hard though, since archive.today is effective and has the nice side benefit of being linkable.
- blumkvist 12y agoHehe, I wonder why I'm sure you are using adblock too. They are litering the Internet with stupid ads and malware!!!! Adblock is my right!!!!! Give us an option to pay for content, stupid publishers! This is why, the Internet will always rely largely on ads.
- coderdude 12y agoThe adblockers are mostly comprised of people who simply don't want to look at ads and aren't seeking to pay out of pocket, either. There is a vocal minority that speaks about privacy and (possibly a separate group) claims that they'd rather pay for content but the majority just plain doesn't want to be bothered with looking at ads. Maybe the next generation is ad blind. I doubt they're concerned with malware given what they'd download from The Pirate Bay. My guess: they just feel entitled or don't feel like their contribution (click/view-wise) impacts the publisher's bottom line. On the whole, not any more annoying than people who disable JavaScript.
- 12y ago
- jaksmit 12y agoit's not just limited to Etsy Vendors. there's been a link for anyone to participate in this pre-ipo program in the footer of the Etsy website for weeks now. It's a shame that they didn't go with LOYAL3, as discussed in the article - it's much less forms and paperwork than Morgan Stanley required.
- swamp40 12y agoI don't see it (even logged in). Have you got a link? Thanks.
- curious_george 12y agoIt's no longer available. It appears to have been at: https://etsyipo.morganstanley.com/etsy/index.html#/sps/dspIPOForm/closed https://etsyipo.morganstanley.com/etsy/index.html#/sps/dspIP...
- T3RMINATED 12y agoetsy will go bankrupt in 2 years... etsy insider here. Dont be fooled by their quick rich scheme before the exit.
- netcan 12y agoInteresting tactic. I suppose if you boiled it down, they are selling "5% of planned public offering." So.. costs of selling those shares would be slightly higher. But, they have some presence from people who see the company the roughly same way they do, not as a piece of a portfolio or investment strategy. They get some buzz around the IPO (this article demonstrates that), if vendors are discussing it. It's not like they're giving away the shares. A part of what's interesting is what's underlying it: an environment where so much capital is in the hands of rich people that there's not much point thinking of 'the public' as a source of capital. I think income distribution is a lot easier to measure, comprehend and comment on. But wealth disparities are much larger, and I think the societal effect is different. If someone owns $2m in capital but $1.2m is a house and $1.8 is actively invested to yield an income of $75k per annum, is that person rich or are a middle class investor? There's definitely markets for the middle classes. Apple, Walmart, etc are the biggest companies in the world and their business is selling stuff to us. But if your business is selling financial services or you want to raise capital, the middle class is irrelevant. It's not about risk or sophistication of the investor, it's about them not really having capital. I reckon that's significant. WHo has the capital matters. Money gets even more theoretical when talking about capital. When you earn an income and use it to buy goods as service, the metaphor-made-real of money is relatively straightforward. I work for a company that makes medicines. They may me a salary which I can exchange for stuff other companies make. With capital, the link to physical things is broken. It becomes more of an abstract right^ to things. The right to establish a company. The right to future revenues from some venture. Rent… ^"right" isn't exactly it. It's somewhere in the ability/resource/right realm.
- walterbell 12y ago*> With capital, the link to physical things is broken. It becomes more of an abstract right^ to things ... ^"right" isn't exactly it. Consensual hallucination?
- pmorici 12y agoIn so far as being given the chance to participate in an IPO is typically a lucrative opportunity IPO allocations are treated as rewards to be doled out. Left to their own devices investment companies reward their highest value customers by setting minimum account value in the six figures to participate. Someone with a $1.8 million investment account could probably easily get an IPO allocation if they wanted one. Etsy offering 5% of the shares to their sellers is just putting a different emphasis on who they want to reward. I don't think you can draw a larger conclusion about wealth distribution as a whole from it.
- circa 12y agoRegretsy just popped into my head and I go to find it and it does not exist any more. However this does - http://missingregretsy.tumblr.com/ http://missingregretsy.tumblr.com/
- 3pt14159 12y agoI can't seem to find the IPO link, unless it is this one: https://etsyipo.morganstanley.com https://etsyipo.morganstanley.com Which looks like it is now closed. Too bad, this stock is definitely going to be overbought after IPOing.
- jasonlotito 12y agoMy wife is an Etsy Vendor. This is the first we heard about this, and we were interested in this IPO. Granted, with our experience with Etsy, this is not surprising.
- drewvolpe 12y agoThe Boston Beer Company (which makes Sam Adams) did something similar when they went public in the 90s. They set aside a chunk of their IPO and allowed their customers to buy shares at 25% less than the IPO price: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/24/business/boston-beer-the-sad-fall-of-an-ipo-open-to-all.html http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/24/business/boston-beer-the-s...
- twoodfin 12y agoAnd a $15 share (discounted from $20) from 1996 would today be worth $264. CAGR of 16%, not bad—though most of BBC's growth was in the last few years.
- iblaine 12y agoThis has been done before. VA Linux did this in 1999 for users with sourceforge accounts. Those free shares were worth ~$45k on the day of the IPO.
- danvoell 12y agoLendingClub recently offered this option. At this point shares are down from the IPO.
- oneeasyride 12y agoI just found out about this today, very unfair , Does anyone know what the pre IPO price per share was offered at? Please email me at oneeasyride@aol.com
- oneeasyride 12y agoThey say it closed to us on the 13th , which is very unfair to most of us who found out today