Author Archives: Hervé Lebret

Another quick look at data on public tech companies : loss, loss and more loss? (2/2)

Following the initial post introducing the topic of loss (see here), here is the promised of profit/loss of 168 IT companies (software, internet, ecommerce) extracted from the 787 companies mentioned before. You will find at the end of the post the full list of companies with their IPO year, profit at IPO, in 2019, and in 2020. So are these companies losing or making money?

Here are some results, but be careful, they are not statiscally relevent and not a proof of anything, but I hope an interesting illustration: in the 90s, the companies going public seem to be profitable, then the companies seem to be losing money at IPO ine th 21st century, with the exception of the famous outliers that Google, Facebook or Alibaba have become. These were profitable at IPO. The following table gives the average values by year of listing.

More recently, beginning in 2015, the companies are (on average) losing money at IPO but also in 2019 and 2020. Following a comment on LinkedIn that I copied in the comments below, I agree that the averages are misleading if outliers hide the number of profit or loss making companies. So here is the table of the number of profit making companies per IPO year:

Again, if you want to look at the performance of individual companies, check the table below. And as a kind of conclusion, all this reminds me a great article from the New Yorker that you may like: How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism

 

 

Start-up Founded IPO Income at IPO Income 2020 Income 2019
Airbnb Jun-08 Nov-20 -674        -4 584           -674
Accolade Jan-17 Feb-20 -56             -50           -290
Adobe Dec-82 Aug-86 1         5 260         2 951
Adyen Nov-06 Jun-18 71            261            204
Affirm Jun-12 Nov-20 -112           -124           -134
C3.ai Jan-09 Dec-20 -70             -69             -33
Akamai Aug-98 Nov-99 -28            557            478
Anevia Jun-03 Jun-14 0,03               -1
Wallix Group Oct-03 Jun-15 0               -7               -6
Visiativ May-94 Jul-14 0                1                3
AmWell Jun-06 Aug-20 -88           -224             -87
Amazon Jul-94 May-97 -5       21 581       11 388
Ansys Jun-70 Jun-96 -1            433            451
Applovin Jul-11 Mar-21 -125           -125              76
Asana Dec-08 Aug-20 -118           -211           -118
Avalara Aug-99 May-18 -64             -49             -50
Avast Plc Oct-88 Oct-18 -33            240            352
Alibaba Jun-99 Nov-07 40       24 049       23 882
BrightCove Aug-04 Feb-12 -17               -6             -22
Baidu Jan-00 Aug-05 1         3 596            317
BigCommerce Jun-09 Aug-20 -42             -38             -41
BiliBili Jun-09 Mar-18 -28           -482           -206
Bill.com Jun-07 Nov-19 -7             -31               -7
Box Apr-05 Mar-14 -168             -43           -144
Chegg Jul-05 Oct-13 -49               -6               -9
Checkpoint Jul-93 Jun-96 15            846            825
Coinbase Jun-12 Feb-21 322            322             -30
Compass Oct-12 Mar-21 -270           -270           -388
Coursera Oct-11 Mar-21 -66             -66             -46
Coupang May-10 Mar-21 -474           -593           -770
Salesforce.com Feb-99 Jun-04 -9            455            463
Criteo Nov-05 Mar-13 12            106            135
CrowdStrike Aug-11 May-19 -140             -92           -141
Castlight Health Jan-08 Mar-14 -62             -62             -40
Casper Sleep Oct-13 Jan-20 -98             -89             -93
Citrix Apr-89 Dec-96 2            504            681
Cyber-Ark Soft. Apr-99 Jun-14 7               -5              63
DoorDash May-13 Nov-20 -668           -461           -667
Dropbox May-07 Feb-18 -111           -256             -52
Datadog Jun-10 Sep-19 -10             -24             -16
Delivery hero May-11 Jun-17 -202        -1 404           -680
DigitalOcean Dec-11 Feb-21 -43             -43             -40
Docusign Apr-03 Mar-18 -115           -243           -208
Domo Sep-10 Jun-18 -176             -84           -125
Electronic Arts May-82 Aug-89 5            837         1 000
Eventbrite May-03 Sep-18 -38           -224             -68
eBay May-96 Sep-98 -1         2 150         1 786
eGain Corp. Sep-97 Sep-99 -11                7                4
Elastic NV Feb-12 Sep-18 -52           -167           -102
Facebook Jul-04 Feb-12 1 000       32 671       24 932
Funding Circle Aug-10 Sep-18 -38           -154           -120
1-800-Flowers Aug-76 Aug-99 3              58              34
Flywire Jul-09 May-21 -11             -15             -17
Jfrog Ltd Apr-08 Aug-20 -5               -9               -5
Fastly Mar-19 Apr-19 -30           -105             -45
F-secure Dec-88 Nov-99 1              17                5
Farfetch Oct-07 Sep-18 -112        -3 200           -353
Fiverr International Apr-10 Jun-19 -36             -11             -34
Go Daddy Jan-97 Jun-14 -199           -404            218
Globant SA Aug-13 Aug-13 -1              85              74
Google Sep-98 Aug-04 105       48 217       39 725
Groupon Jan-08 Jun-11 -413           -260              10
GrubHub Feb-04 Apr-14 15           -147               -6
Guidewire Sep-01 Jan-12 35               -6              29
HelloFresh Oct-11 Nov-17 -15            405                1
The Honest Co Jul-11 Apr-21 -14             -13             -31
Hubspot Apr-05 Aug-14 -34             -43             -27
JD.com Nov-06 May-14 -50         8 311         2 307
KnowBe4 Aug-10 Mar-21 -2               -1           -124
LendingClub Oct-06 Dec-14 7           -187             -30
Lemonade Jun-15 Jun-20 -108           -122           -108
Lyft Inc. Mar-07 Mar-19 -910        -1 764        -2 702
Medallia Jul-00 Jun-19 -82           -138           -114
Mimecast Mar-03 Oct-15 1              34                4
Model N Dec-99 Mar-13 -5               -6             -15
Mogu Feb-11 Nov-18 -81           -110             -92
Momo Nov-11 Nov-14 -8            476            552
Marin Software Mar-06 Mar-13 -26             -16             -17
Microsoft Jan-75 Mar-86 24       56 627       46 374
nCino Dec-11 Jun-20 -27             -40             -28
CloudFare Jul-09 Aug-19 -87           -100           -103
Netflix Aug-97 May-02 -37         4 585         2 688
Nuance Comm Jul-94 Apr-00 -18            103            145
Xing / New Work Aug-03 Dec-06 -1              41              53
Okta Jan-09 Mar-17 -76           -193           -183
Olo Jun-05 Feb-21 3                3               -8
OneMedical Jul-02 Jan-20 -44             -76             -53
ON24 Jan-98 Jan-21 -17              21             -16
OpenDoor Tech. Mar-14 Dec-20 -339           -218           -229
Oracle Jun-77 Mar-86 2              14              14
Oscar Health Oct-12 Feb-21 -405           -402           -259
Overstock.com May-97 Jun-02 -14              49           -134
Procore Jan-02 Feb-20 -83             -95             -82
PagerDuty Feb-09 Mar-19 -38             -62             -49
Pinduoduo Apr-15 Jul-18 -83        -1 040        -1 096
PDF Solutions Nov-92 Jul-01 -9             -16               -7
Phreesia Feb-05 Jun-19 -15             -25             -15
Pinterest Oct-08 Apr-19 -62           -126        -1 358
Anaplan Jun-08 Oct-18 -47           -153           -148
Palantir Jun-03 Aug-20 -579        -1 164           -564
Poshmark, Inc. Jan-11 Dec-20 -49              23             -49
PluralSight Jun-04 Apr-18 -96
Pintec Jul-12 Jul-18 -13           -137           -728
PubMatic Nov-06 Dec-20 7              31                8
Paypal Dec-98 Feb-02 -130         5 274         3 113
Qad Inc Aug-79 Aug-97 1              11               -2
QuinStreet Apr-99 Feb-10 17              19              11
Qutoutiao Jun-16 Sep-18 -14           -171           -324
Coupons.com May-98 Feb-14 -59             -50             -22
Roblox Mar-04 Nov-20 -86           -266             -76
Redfin Oct-02 Jun-17 -22                1             -71
Renren Oct-02 May-11 -62             -95           -141
RealNetworks Feb-94 Nov-97 -4               -5             -19
Deliveroo Aug-12 Mar-21 -312           -323           -453
Rovio Nov-03 Nov-07 10              41              18
Rapid7 Jul-00 May-15 -32             -72             -40
Shopify Sep-04 Nov-15 -22            249           -141
SmartSheet Jun-05 Mar-18 -49           -120           -103
Snap Inc Jul-10 Feb-17 -514           -828        -1 000
SnowFlake Jul-12 Aug-20 -348           -543           -358
Splunk Inc Oct-03 Apr-12 -10           -777           -235
Spotify Dec-06 Feb-18 -1 606           -655             -88
Sprout Social Apr-10 Oct-19 -20             -31             -46
Square Jun-09 Oct-15 -154            272              26
Swissquote Aug-99 May-00 -2              91              44
Squarespace Oct-07 Apr-21 30              32              65
StoneCo Mar-14 Oct-18 -27            279            274
Sumo Logic Mar-10 Aug-20 -92             -78             -91
SurveyMonkey Mar-00 Sep-18 -24             -80             -62
Teladoc Jun-02 Jun-15 -17           -515             -80
ThredUp Jan-09 Mar-21 -47             -46             -36
Atlassian Oct-02 Dec-15 6           -296           -565
Tenable Sep-02 Jul-18 -41             -36             -90
Talend SA Sep-05 Jul-16 -22             -70             -58
TrustPilot Feb-07 Mar-21 6             -15             -29
Tufin Software Jan-05 Mar-19 -4             -33             -27
Tuya Jun-14 Feb-21 -70             -69             -73
Twilio Mar-08 Jun-16 -35           -472           -369
2U Apr-08 Feb-14 -27           -190           -241
Twitter Jun-06 Nov-13 -79            101            528
Unity Software Aug-04 Aug-20 -163           -274           -150
Uber Jul-10 Apr-19 987        -6 488        -7 874
Upland Jul-10 Sep-14 -9            100              90
Upstart Feb-12 Nov-20 -5                6               -1
Upwork Dec-99 Oct-18 -4             -21             -15
VipShop Holding Aug-08 Mar-12 -156         1 134            804
Vroom, Inc. Jan-12 Jun-20 -143           -193           -128
Verisign Apr-95 Feb-98 -19            837            849
Wayfair May-02 Aug-14 -11            351           -929
WorkDay Mar-05 Oct-12 -79           -206           -423
Windeln Oct-10 May-15 -8             -13             -14
Wisekey Feb-99 Mar-16 -33             -27             -21
Wish Jun-10 Nov-20 -129           -631           -144
X financial Mar-14 Sep-18 51        -1 308            774
Yelp Sep-04 Mar-12 -16             -34              35
Yext Nov-06 Mar-17 -26             -93           -120
Yandex Sep-97 May-11 100            554            321
YY Apr-05 Oct-12 -12            102            716
Zillow Dec-04 Jul-11 -6             -14           -207
Zalando Feb-08 Oct-14 -113            377            175
Zendesk Aug-07 May-14 -22           -169           -141
Zhihu Dec-10 Mar-21 -79             -96           -169
ZipRecruiter Jun-10 Apr-21 63              65               -5
Zoom Video Apr-11 Mar-19 7            659              12
Zynga Oct-07 Aug-11 90           -375              64
Zscaler Sep-07 Feb-18 -35           -107             -35
Zuora Sep-06 Mar-18 -46             -73             -85

Another quick look at data on public tech companies : loss, loss and more loss? (1/2)

I was motivated a few days ago to look at the work I have been doing for years on public tech. companies, their cap. tables, their overall financial performance. If you do not know what I am talking about, you can have a look at my past analyses on 600, then 700 companies through the tag 600 (former) startups. I’ve now 787 such cap. tables.

It’s been known that there are differences with fields such as biotech. vs. software/internet. About biotech, check Are Biotechnology Startups Different? Regarding software, and more specifically Internet or ecommerce companies, I have not done a similar analysis but I began to notice a while ago that these companies were also money-losing companies at IPO. In the past, you were only going public in IT when you were beginning to be profitable. This was more than 20 years ago! The recent argument for going public while losing money was that these companies would make a profit once they have reached a threshold in size. Amazon was not profitable for many years after its IPO.

But isn’t that argument flawed? Will Uber or AirBnB and similar platform companies ever make a profit? Too early to say and the future is unpredictable. But I thought I would look at the current situation of my 787 companies and have a quick look. So before studying the profit profile of IT companies (this will be in part 2, my next post), here are the basics. There is a total of 435 public companies –  353 companies have been acquired, liquidated (315) and a few are still private (37). My next post should follow soon.

Market Cap # $B
$1T 4 7’253
$100B 17 5’274
$10B 88 3’273
$1B+ 168 623
<$1B 150 55
Total 427 16’478

These numbers again show the power law distribution (and not Gaussian) and here is the long list of names for those interested:

$1,000B+ $100B+ $10B+ $1B+
Amazon Adobe Inc. 10x Genomics, Inc. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc.
Apple Alibaba Group Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. 1Life Healthcare, Inc.
Google Amgen Inc. Adyen N.V. 2U, Inc.
Microsoft Cisco Systems, Inc. Affirm Holdings, Inc. 8×8, Inc.
Facebook, Inc. Airbnb, Inc. 908 Devices Inc.
Intel Corporation Akamai Technologies, Inc. AbCellera Biologics Inc.
JD.com, Inc. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Netflix, Inc. ANSYS, Inc. Acceleron Pharma Inc.
NVIDIA Corporation AppLovin Corporation Accolade, Inc.
Oracle Corporation Arista Networks, Inc. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp
PayPal Holdings, Inc. Atlassian Corporation Plc Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Pinduoduo Inc. Avalara, Inc. Alector, Inc.
salesforce.com, inc. Baidu, Inc. Aligos Therapeutics, Inc.
Shopify Inc. Bilibili Inc. Allogene Therapeutics, Inc.
Square, Inc. Bill.com Holdings, Inc. AlloVir, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. BioNTech SE American Well Corporation
Xiaomi Corporation Check Point Software Amyris, Inc.
Chegg, Inc. Anaplan, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc. Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Cloudflare, Inc. Asana, Inc.
Coinbase Global, Inc. Asetek A/S
Coupang, Inc. Avast Plc
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Axonics, Inc.
CureVac N.V. Beam Therapeutics Inc.
Datadog, Inc. Berkeley Lights, Inc.
Delivery Hero SE Beyond Meat, Inc.
DocuSign, Inc. BigCommerce Holdings, Inc.
DoorDash, Inc. BlackBerry Limited
Dropbox, Inc. Bloom Energy Corporation
eBay Inc. bluebird bio, Inc.
Elastic N.V. Blueprint Medicines Corp
Electronic Arts Inc. Box, Inc.
Enphase Energy, Inc. C3.ai, Inc.
Equinix, Inc. (REIT) C4 Therapeutics, Inc.
F5 Networks, Inc. Ciena Corporation
Farfetch Limited Cimpress plc
Fortinet, Inc. Cirrus Logic, Inc.
Garmin Ltd. Compass, Inc.
GoDaddy Inc. ContextLogic Inc.
HelloFresh SE Corcept Therapeutics
Horizon Therapeutics Coursera, Inc.
HubSpot, Inc. CRISPR Therapeutics AG
Illumina, Inc. Criteo S.A.
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. CyberArk Software Ltd.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc Deliveroo plc
Lam Research Corporation Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Logitech International S.A. Design Therapeutics, Inc.
Lyft, Inc. Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Marvell Technology, Inc. DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc.
Micron Technology, Inc. Domo, Inc.
Moderna, Inc. Eargo, Inc.
NIO Inc. Edgewise Therapeutics, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. Editas Medicine, Inc.
Okta, Inc. Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Palantir Technologies Inc. Eventbrite, Inc.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Exelixis, Inc.
Pinterest, Inc. Extreme Networks, Inc.
Procore Technologies, Inc. Fastly, Inc.
Qorvo, Inc. Fate Therapeutics, Inc.
QuantumScape Corporation FireEye, Inc.
Roblox Corporation Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc.
Seagen Inc. Fiverr International Ltd.
Snap Inc. Flywire Corporation
Snowflake Inc. FormFactor, Inc.
SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. Generation Bio Co.
Splunk Inc. Gevo, Inc.
Spotify Technology S.A. Glaukos Corporation
StoneCo Ltd. Globant S.A.
Synopsys, Inc. GoPro, Inc.
Teladoc Health, Inc. Gracell Biotechnologies Inc.
Tuya Inc. Groupon, Inc.
Twilio Inc. Grubhub Inc.
Twitter, Inc. Guidewire Software, Inc.
Uber Technologies, Inc. Idorsia Ltd
Unity Software Inc. Inari Medical, Inc.
Upstart Holdings, Inc. Infinera Corporation
VeriSign, Inc. InMode Ltd.
Vipshop Holdings Inogen, Inc.
Wayfair Inc. Inphi Corporation
Workday, Inc. Inspire Medical Systems, Inc.
XPeng Inc. Instil Bio, Inc.
Yandex N.V. Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.
Zalando SE iRobot Corporation
Zendesk, Inc. Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Zillow Group, Inc. JFrog Ltd.
Zoom Video JOYY Inc.
Zscaler, Inc. Juniper Networks, Inc.
Zynga Inc. Karuna Therapeutics, Inc.
Keros Therapeutics, Inc.
Kymera Therapeutics, Inc.
Lemonade, Inc.
LendingClub Corporation
MacroGenics, Inc.
MaxLinear, Inc.
Medallia, Inc.
Mimecast Limited
Model N, Inc.
Momo Inc.
NanoString Technologies, Inc.
Natera, Inc.
nCino, Inc.
New Work SE
nLIGHT, Inc.
Nutanix, Inc.
Olo Inc.
ON24, Inc.
Opendoor Technologies Inc.
Oscar Health, Inc.
Overstock.com, Inc.
PagerDuty, Inc.
Phreesia, Inc.
Pluralsight, Inc.
Poshmark, Inc.
Power Integrations, Inc.
Prelude Therapeutics Inc
PTC Therapeutics, Inc.
PubMatic, Inc.
Pulmonx Corporation
Pure Storage, Inc.
QAD Inc.
Qualys, Inc.
Quotient Technology Inc.
Rambus Inc.
Rapid7, Inc.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Redfin Corporation
Revolution Medicines, Inc.
Ribbon Communications Inc.
Rubius Therapeutics, Inc.
Sana Biotechnology, Inc.
Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc.
Schrödinger, Inc.
Seer, Inc.
Silicon Laboratories Inc.
Smartsheet Inc.
Soitec S.A.
Sonos, Inc.
Sprout Social, Inc.
Squarespace, Inc.
Stoke Therapeutics, Inc.
STORE Capital Corporation
Sumo Logic, Inc.
Sunrun Inc.
Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
SVMK Inc.
Swissquote Group Holding Ltd
Synaptics Incorporated
Talend S.A.
Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc.
Tenable Holdings, Inc.
The Honest Company, Inc.
ThredUp Inc.
Trustpilot Group plc
Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc.
Upland Software, Inc.
Upwork Inc.
Vaxcyte, Inc.
Veracyte, Inc.
Viasat, Inc.
Vroom, Inc.
Xencor, Inc.
Xperi Holding Corporation
Yelp Inc.
Yext, Inc.
Zhihu Inc.
ZipRecruiter, Inc.
Zuora, Inc.
Zymergen Inc.

Ideas of Geniuses (Idées de génies) by Etienne Klein and Gautier Depambour

From time to time, I blog about science and mathematics. Here is a new example. I just discovered a little wonder of popular science, at the same time simple, luminous and demanding. Ideas of geniuses, (Idées de génies) subtitled “33 texts which have shaken up physics”, by Etienne Klein and Gautier Depambour.

Etienne Klein is also the producer on France Culture of the excellent Scientific Conversation. I had already referred to it in connection with a post about Alexandre Grothendieck and another with Gérard Berry.

Through short texts, the authors make us discover ideas of genius like for example that of Galileo who explains and proves why one or even two kilograms of lead will not fall faster than a kilogram of feathers.

“In free and natural fall, the smaller stone does not weigh on the larger.”
When you place a large stone on a scale, not only will it weigh more if you lay another stone on top of it, but adding a wick of tow will increase its weight by the 6 or 10 ounces that the stone will support; but if you freely leave the stone and the wick attached together from a certain height, do you believe that in the movement the wick will weigh on the stone, so that it should accelerate its movement, or do you believe that the wick will slow down the stone, supporting it in part? We feel a weight weighing on our shoulders when we want to oppose its movement; but if we were falling at the rate that that weight would naturally drop, how do you expect it to lean and weigh on us? Can’t you see that that would be the same as wanting to injure someone with a spear who is running in front of you at a speed equal to or greater than the speed you are chasing? Conclude, therefore, that in free and natural fall the smaller stone does not weigh on the larger, and therefore does not increase its weight as it does at rest.

Galilée, Discorsi e Dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due scienze attenenti alla mecanica ed i movimenti locali, 1638.

Bright, isn’t it? It also reminds me of Einstein’s inspiration for his theory of relativity although I have yet to read the sections relating to this other genius. All the chapters I have read are of the same style … A must read!

Food delivery startups – a quick analysis

Yesterday I discovered an Indian startup filed to go public on its national stock exchange. I did not know it, shame on me. Zomato is the latest filing in a small number but extremely visible services in the food delivery sector. Who does not know Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats and others.

I am not sure that twenty years ago I would have pu the sector in technology innovation, but I have to admit innovation has many faces. On Crunchbase, the sector is said to have 616 organizations with $12.5B in funding (see Crunchbase Food Delivery Startups). Traxn gives the largest players here. So thanks to my database of 777 cap. tables, I could have a look at some statistics, with the exception of FoodPanda (acquired by Delivery Hero, funded with $318M including Rocket Internet), iFood (Brazil, owned by Movile, $587M in funding) and Swiggy (India, $2.5B in funding including Accel). Here are the data at time of the IPO filings.

Start-up JustEat GrubHub Zomato Delivery Hero Deliveroo DoorDash Median *
Geography United Kingdom Illinois India Germany United Kingdom Silicon Valley
Founded Aug-01 Feb-04 Jan-10 May-11 Aug-12 May-13 Sep-02
IPO / exit Apr-14 Apr-14 Apr-21 Jun-17 Mar-21 Nov-20 Mar-13
Years to IPO 12,7 10,2 11,3 6,1 8,6 7,5 7,4
VC Amount 88 86 1529 1711 1856 2578 84
1st round 8 1 1 4 4 2 4,4
Sales ($M) 150 137 338 297 1 680 885 23
Income ($M) 10 15 -310 -202 -312 -668 -14
Market Cap. 1 465 1 988 6 782 4 700 10 220 17 384 560
PS 10 15 20 16 6 20 17
PE 147 133 102
Nb of Emp. 886 680 3 469 12 098 2 561 3 279 189

*: the median value is based on 777 startups compiled over years. PS and PE are the ratios of market caps to sales and earnings (profit)

Just Eat has no data on founders as the initial Danish company with 5 founders has been bought and moved/launched in the UK.

Here are the data to date (GrubHub has been acquired by Just Eat in 2020):

Market Cap. $B Sales – $B Loss – $M PS Employees
Just Eat 15,4 2,8 -151 5,4 9 000
Delivery Hero 39,4 2,0 -939 19,5 35 528
DoorDash 46,0 2,9 -458 15,9 3 886
Deliveroo 6,3 1,6 -225 3,9 2 060
Zomato 6,8 0,3 -310 20,1 3 469

What is interesting is the difference in dynamics between companies launched before 2010. Something not really new if you follow this blog, in terms of growth dynammics. Here are some more data about shareholders

Start-up JustEat GrubHub Zomato Delivery Hero Deliveroo DoorDash Median *
Found. 5,7% 6,2% 4,5% 7,1% 12,0% 9%
Emp. 9,4% 25,1% 7,0% 17,2% 18,9% 18,5% 21%
Emp. shares 9,3% 12,1% 3,1% 11,7% 9,4% 4,8% 8%
ESOP-granted 0,1% 9,7% 0,6% 5,5% 9,5% 11,8% 8%
ESOP-reserved 3,3% 3,3% 1,9% 5%
Dir. 0,2% 0,06% 0%
CEO 1,0% 3%
VP 0,2% 1,1% 0,2% 0,2% 0,8% 1%
CFO 0,2% 0,3% 0,2% 1%
Investors 66,0% 59,3% 70,2% 59,9% 74,0% 68,7% 51%
IPO 24,6% 9,7% 16,6% 18,4% 0,6% 16%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Nb of Dir. 2 2 2
Dir % 0,1% 0,03% 0,2%
Nb of found. 2 4 3 2 3 2
Found. % 2,9% 1,6% 1,5% 3,6% 4,0% 4,5%
Found. age 27 31 31 33 23 37,6
F1 28 27 31 33 29
F2 26 29 33 21
F3 31 20
F4 38

The founders are young, own little. How teh sector will develop, I do not know. There is already concentration. Barriers to entry look low. Some experts have doubt about long term profitability… tough to say. Deliveroo shows no IPO shares as the initial filing did not include any new shares. It may have changed at the recent IPO which was not a success; and here are the individual cap. tables.

Charles Geschke, co-founder of Adobe, dies at 81

Charles Geschke may not be as famous as many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, but he is really a legend of technology and software. With John Warnock, he cofounded Adobe in 1982 and he is an exception in the group of founders as he was in his early 40s when he left Xerox to create the company which developed Postcript, PDF, Adobe, Photoshop and so many more products. He died on April 16, 2021.

I had read about Geschke (and Warlock) in a good number of books and blogged about him here:
In the company of Giants in November 2008
A success story: Adobe Systems – John Warnock and Charles Geschke in March 2009

I found yesterday this very interesting short video that you should watch (or read the transcipt below).

Here is the transcript: “when John and I started Adobe we had a sort of simple thought in mind in terms of how we wanted to organize the business

we wanted to build a company that we would like to work at and we sort of used that principle in terms of how we defined the management structure, the operational organizational thoughts that we had about how to put the company together and part of that recognition was that we had constituencies that every business has that need to be balanced

we had our shareholders we had our employees we had our customers and of course the communities in which we operated and if you think about running a business all four of those constituencies are mildly in conflict what’s good for one may not be good for the other and to be successful as a business and to retain the kind of quality employees that you want to have it’s extremely important that you continually monitor how those four constituencies are being served and keep them in balance

a couple other principles people would often ask as they worked at Adobe

well what will it take for me to enhance my career and both John and I would tell them well the first thing you have to figure out is how to fire yourself by hiring someone to work for you who can do your job better than you do and there’s no alternative but to get promoted once you do that

and the second piece of philosophy which is frankly the most critical one building particularly a high technology business is to tell every engineer and every manager that your job is to hire people who are smarter than you are as it’s a much larger population from which to choose and those turned out to in fact have been extremely important in building a business

and again I want to comment that without my relationship with John and our partnership it’s hard to imagine that we could have achieved what we did over the past twenty seven years and we’re extremely pleased with this award and the opportunity to have served our industry

thank you very much

the really cool thing about this award is it’s from engineers we’ve gotten entrepreneur awards before but they’re from business guys and getting award for entrepreneurship from engineers is very very cool

Chuck and I when we started the company weren’t on a get-rich-quick scheme we were frustrated at Xerox and our major frustration is we knew we could invent great technology but no one would ever use it and it would never see the marketplace and I think our major motivation in starting Adobe and continuing with Adobe was to make stuff that people would use a lot of people would use and I think inside of every engineer is that basic need to have your stuff used so that was the primary motivation behind what we did

the other thing in the hardest thing about building a business and keeping a business sustained and going on is continuing to innovate and we’ve never figured out how you institutionalize innovation innovation is a very sort of remarkable thing that sometimes happens sometimes doesn’t but the best you can do is build an environment where people are happy they’re doing an adventure they’re trying to create and hopefully in that process great things will happen”

Knowledge, skills and personality of entrepreneurs

A friend (thanks Kevin!) just retweeted the following: What kind of Knowledge, skills and personality traits are common to successful entrepreneurs?

I tend to agree 100% but I may have an idealized view of my own experience! It also reminded me another quote from the same period (2011 vs. 2010) by Steve Blank: Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development, [Lean Startup], Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science”, and anyone could do it. I’m beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong. It’s not that the tools are wrong. Where I think we have gone wrong is the belief that anyone can use these tools equally well. In the same way that word processing has never replaced a writer, a thoughtful innovation process will not guarantee success.” Blank added that “until we truly understand how to teach creativity, their numbers are limited. Not everyone is an artist, after all. The full interview can be found on archive.org.

and also Komisar: “I think there’s stuff you can’t possibly learn in school and I’m not even sure you can learn that on the job. There’s an entrepreneurial character. Some people have it and some people don’t. Some people may not think they have it, and they may have it. A lot of people they think they have it, and many don’t.”

Coursera files to go public (#750)

After Deliveroo yesterday, here is Coursera’s cap. table. It’s #750 in my long list of startups (see here my most recent analysis – data about 700+ startups).

Coursera and Udacity are probably the most famous MOOCS companies and I could not be surprised if they contributed to create the edtech category. Coursera just filed to go public on Nasdaq so its numbers are available.

Revenues of $293M, with a loss of $66 million in 2020. A lot of venture capital since its foundation in 2011, $464M in total from Kleiner Perkins (and legendary partner John Doerr, and NEA.

Founded by two Stanford professors, specialists of artificial intelligence, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, age 43 and 34 at the time of foundation. They are not managing the company anymore. No information about Koller’s shareholding probably because she owns less than 5% of the company and has no executive role.


Coursera founders Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller are computer science professors at Stanford University

Source : NPR

Deliveroo plans to go public

There was a lot of buzz today about Deliveroo announcing its IPO soon. By the way Coursera, the edtech company just announced it too and I will post about it next. So I had to build its cap. table and thanks to the openness of the British register of companies, I could do it (at least partially) even before the company filed its IPO document.

Interesting data I think about the company growth, its funding and the founders stakeholding. £1.3B invested to cover £1.1B loss, 2’500 employees in 2019 and £1.2B revenues in 2020. Among the best European VCs (Index, Accel) plus Amazon, Fidelity, DST, T.Rowe Price as late stage investors. What else?

PS (March 19): a former colleague mentioned an article saying that early investors would have made “60’000 per cent return” on their investement. At the same time, I discovered about Coupang in South Korea which looked similar to Deliveroo. So I also checked the multiple return for seed investors in Coupang. Here is first its cap. table.

So for Coupang, the initial price per share was $0.02, and I assumed a $35 at IPO, which makes a 1750x multiple.

For Deliveroo, I assume a price per share of £900 with a series A price at £8.36. It is true there were also seed shares at £1,5. This would be a 600x (or 60’000 per cent, not an annuela return though)

So Coupang is even better than Deliveroo…

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

The “Mom Test” is an intelligent book for any student of Steve Blank and his “Customer Development” model: validating hypotheses to launch a startup by exploring the existence of customers and of a market, of course. But how do you concretely approach this delicate phase when you are not a specialist?

Author Rob Fitzpatrick says he has faced this situation multiple times and gives excellent advice including how to conduct initial interviews and learn relevant information from them. This is, I believe, the main and rather rare quality of this book. An absolute must-read when you feel helpless on the subject and even more if you do not think you need advice!

This is a small 122-page book that I really recommend reading. Here are some extracts that I hope will convince you

Every question we ask carries the very real possibility of biasing the person we’re talking to and rendering the whole exercise pointless. (Page 3)

And I add a strong statement from Steve Blank: Talking to customers is hard.

The measure of usefulness of an early customer conversation is whether it gives us concrete facts about our customers’ lives and world views. (Page 12)

The Mom Test:
1. Talk about their life instead of your idea
2. Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future
3. Talk less and listen more.
(Page 13)

Blank talks about “a day in the life of your customer”. You need to understand the actions and the interactions, who does, who decides, who pays.

Here is a list, according of the author, of good and bad questions:
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Would you buy a product which did X?”
“How much would you pay for X?”
“What would your dream product do?”
“Why do you bother?”
“What are the implications of that?”
“Talk me through the last time that happened.”
“Talk me through your workflow.”
“What else have you tried?”
“Would you pay X for a product which did Y?”
“How are you dealing with it now?”
“Where does the money come from?”
“Who else should I talk to?”
“Is there anything else I should have asked?”

at page 15 and he lets you think about what is bad and good before giving his views.

What you should have in mind is given page 22: “They own the problem, you own the solution.” And this is so true as Henry Ford or Steve Jobs mentioned, customers do not know what they want!

So (page 49), when interviewing, “Start broad and don’t zoom in until you’ve found a strong signal, both with your whole business and with every conversation.

How to begin?

In his original book on Customer Development, 4 Steps to the Epiphany, Steve Blank solves this by recommending 3 separate meetings:
the first about the customer and their problem;
the second about your solution;
and the third to sell a product.
By splitting the meetings, you avoid the premature zoom and biasing them with your ideas. In practice, however, I’ve found it both difficult and inefficient to set them up. The time cost of a 1-hour meeting is more like 4 hours once you factor in the calendar dance, commuting, and reviewing.

If the solution isn’t a 3-meeting series, then what is it? You may have noticed a trend throughout the conversation examples we’ve seen so far: keeping it casual. (Page 56)

Rule of thumb: Learning about a customer and their problems works better as a quick and casual chat than a long, formal meeting.

Advancement

Then you need to deliver (page 62): “When you fail to push for advancement, you end up with zombie leads: potential customers (or investors) who keep taking meetings with you and saying nice things, but who never seem to cut a check.

Rule of thumb: “Customers” who keep being friendly but aren’t ever going to buy are a particularly dangerous source of mixed signals.

Ideally you should find a champion as an early customer. Page 73: “Steve Blank calls them earlyvangelists (early evangelists). In the enterprise software world, they are the people who:
• Have the problem
• Know they have the problem
• Have the budget to solve the problem
• Have already cobbled together their own makeshift solution”

Of course to ask questions, you must organize conversations. This is what chapter 6 is about…

A short extract: “The framing format I like has 5 key elements.
1. You’re an entrepreneur trying to solve horrible problem X, usher in
wonderful vision Y, or fix stagnant industry Z. Don’t mention your idea.
2. Frame expectations by mentioning what stage you’re at and, if it’s true,
that you don’t have anything to sell.
3. Show weakness and give them a chance to help by mentioning your
specific problem that you’re looking for answers on. This will also
clarify that you’re not a time waster.
4. Put them on a pedestal by showing how much they, in particular, can
help.
5. Ask for help.”

Rule of thumb: Keep having conversations until you stop hearing new stuff.

And then you will need to focus by doing customer segmentation and slicing. This is chapter 7.

Rule of thumb: Good customer segments are a who-where pair. If you don’t know where to go to find your customers, keep slicing your segment into smaller pieces until you do.

Process

Avoid creating (or being) the bottleneck. To do that, the customer and learning has to be shared with the entire founding team, promptly and faithfully. That relies on good notes plus a bit of pre- and post-meeting work.

Everyone on the team who is making big decisions (including tech decisions) needs to go to at least some of the meetings.

The tech guys don’t need to go to most of the meetings, but you’ll all learn a ton from hearing customer reactions first-hand occasionally. You’ll also be able to help each other catch and fix your conversation mistakes and biases. (Page 99)

What is the number of people that should face customers? 2 is ideal, 1 is not enough to take notes and avoid bias, more is messy.

Conclusion

I still ask dumb questions all the time. You will too. Don’t beat yourself up over it. In fact, just yesterday I screwed up a particularly important meeting by slipping into pitch mode (this was yesterday at the time of writing… hopefully not again at the time of reading). (Page 112)

with a nice final quote : “Having a process is valuable, but don’t get stuck in it. Sometimes you can just pick up the phone and hack through the knot.” (Page 113)

PS: I think the Mom Test is more convincing than Reis’ Lean Startup, you can read here about the reason of my skepticism.

PS2: thanks to Laurent and Monica for advising me to read this little gem!

Venture capital by Bill Janeway (part II)

In a remarkable new series of videos, Venture Capital in the 21st Century, Bill Janeway describes the value and challenges of technology innovation. I mentioned in my last post the perfomance of venture capital, his third video.

The first video, Investing at the Technological Frontier, describing the radical uncertainty of innovation and how it contributes to economic development.

In the second video, What Venture Capitalists Do, he further develops his thoughts that I summarize through a few screenshots below. (They are self explanatory and you should certainly listen to Janeway if you are curious or intrigued).

The 4th video, The Failure of Market Failure, opens the debate of state intervention and private speculation. This important topic has been largely debated by Mariana Mazzucato and you will find additional posts under tag #mazzucato.